Weird Breast Implant Facts

Since the start of the 21st century, breast augmentation has been the most common type of cosmetic surgery chosen by women. Breast augmentation is so popular, in fact, that in 2010 alone, consumers paid over $2 billion on breast implants. It’s estimated that nearly 5 percent of all American women have breast implants. With those statistics, it’s pretty much guaranteed that you know someone who’s had their breasts enhanced.

With breast augmentation becoming such a prevalent procedure, it’s easy to find all the information you want about the surgery and the implants themselves. Unfortunately, all of that humdrum data can get pretty boring. What about the bizarre and riveting? We have researched some weird breast implant facts that are sure to fascinate!

First Things First

Timmie Jean Lindsey, the first woman to ever receive silicone, gel-filled breast implants, never intended to have breast augmentation at all. The factory worker originally visited a charity clinic in Houston, Texas to remove a pair of rose tattoos from her breasts. After removing the tattoos, Dr. Gerow and Dr. Cronin encouraged Timmie to join a study to try out their new invention, a silicone, gel-filled breast implant. How did the doctors convince her to undergo such an endeavor? Timmie Jean Lindsey was self-conscious about her ears, so the doctors agreed to pin back her ears during her surgery.

Trial and Error

Women have been trying to increase their bust size for centuries. However, modern silicone and saline breast implants weren’t invented until the 1960s. For decades prior, surgeons had to be much more creative with their choice of breast implants. The first known breast implant was used in 1895 when a German surgeon named Vincenz Czerny implanted a benign, fatty tumor into one of his patient’s breasts. If you’re wondering where the tumor came from, don’t worry. He used a tumor from his patient’s own back.

Unfortunately, most surgeons back in the day didn’t have extra tumors to pluck from their patients and use as breast implants. From the 1900s to the 1960s, surgeons experimented with everything they could think of: paraffin wax, vaseline, vegetable oil, beeswax, goat milk, ivory balls, glass balls, silk, rubber, ox cartilage, latex, sponge, and industrial-grade silicone (think caulk). Ouch.

Try It On For Size

Getting breast implants is a momentous decision for many women. There are so many questions to answer before having such a body-altering procedure. What size implants should I get? What will bigger breasts feel like? Is it worth it? To help women answer these questions, plastic surgeons can only offer recommendations, computer imaging, and bra inserts. Except for Dr. Norman Rowe in New York City, who was one of the first doctors to offer his patients InstaBreast, a treatment that gives women 24-hour breast “implants.”

The InstaBreast treatment gives patients the luxury of temporary breast implants (bit of an oxymoron, right?). The procedure consists of injecting saline above the pectoral muscle in order to enhance the breast volume. The saline is slowly absorbed by the body and eventually removed during a bathroom visit. Since the “implant” only lasts a day, there isn’t enough time to permanently stretch the skin. It’s like being Cinderella, but with your boobs and a chunk of money disappearing by day’s end.

TUBA… But Not the Instrument

Breast implants are typically inserted underneath the breast, around the nipple, or in the armpit. Unfortunately, these techniques can leave visible scars. That’s where Transumbilical Breast Augmentation, or TUBA, comes into play. TUBA is a procedure in which breast implants are inserted through the belly button. Yes, the belly button. Once inserted through the belly button, the implants are maneuvered up to the chest.

The TUBA procedure can only be used for empty breast implants that are later filled with saline. There’s no way gel-filled breast implants are fitting through one’s belly button. TUBA is recommended as safe, effective, and even less painful than other augmentation techniques. However, TUBA is rarely performed due to the lack of surgeons experienced with the procedure.

You’re Never Too Old

Maria Kolstad proves that age is just a number when it comes to doing what makes you happy. The great-grandmother became the oldest woman in the world to undergo breast augmentation when she elected for the surgery at eighty-three years old. Maria wanted breast implants in order to feel and look younger. She also wanted breast implants in order to better compete with the other single ladies in California. No word on whether her new ta-tas helped her snag a lucky fellow or not.

Tax Break

If you’re a stripper, waitress, or porn star, you may have some good news come tax time. Women can actually write off their breast implants as business expenses. Bigger is better in some cases, after all. Thank you, Uncle Sam.

Don’t rush off to the plastic surgeon just yet, though. The IRS is still pretty picky when it comes to writing off your breast implants. A stripper known as Chesty Love came to know this first-hand when she had to go to tax court in 1988 to defend her $2,000 deduction. She won her case when it became apparent that there was no other reason, other than business, for her to get her 56N breast implants.

How Big Is Too Big?

The largest breast implants in the world currently belong to Marya Hills, aka Beshine. The blonde, twenty-seven-year-old model hails from Hamburg, Germany and has a chest that measures 202ZZZ. Each of her breasts weighs in at a whopping 42 lbs. But don’t hold your breath with those numbers. Beshine admits herself that she’s not done enlarging her torso.

As you can imagine, life with gigantic breast implants has its difficulties. Beshine’s clothes have to be custom made, she can’t hold anything in front of her, and she must exercise regularly in order to maintain her stamina and back strength. Despite the difficulties, constant gawking, and occasional internet hate, Beshine enjoys the attention her breasts have given her. She has her own website and blog, but beware. Both are definitely NSFW.

A Bet’s a Bet

Brian Zembic, a fifty-five-year-old Canadian, has achieved fame and an extra income from a pair of C-cup breast implants. The magician and high-stakes gambler decided to get breast implants in 1997 as part of a $100,000 bet. Not only did he win the bet, but he happily adapted to his new-found cleavage. Brian and his breast implants have been featured in the book The Man with $100,000 Breasts and on TV shows such as Ripley’s Believe It or Not! and the E! series Botched. To date, Brian has kept his implants in, citing that he’s “grown too attached to them.”

She’s Crushing It

Susan Sykes, aka Busty Heart, has a unique talent. She can use her 34M breasts to crush soda cans, watermelons, wood pieces, and even bricks. Busty Heart has gained tremendous wealth from her breast implants and even has them insured. In 2011, she obtained the Guinness World Record for most drinking cans (34) crushed by one breast in one minute. Just a gut feeling, but that record may stand uncontested as a weird breast implant fact for some time.

Busty Heart has used her one-of-a-kind skill to appear on countless TV shows all over the world. She’s been featured on America’s Got Talent, Comedy Central’s The Man Show, France’s Got Talent, UK’s Rude Tube, and Germany’s Das Supertalent, to name just a few. Busty Heart can also be seen in Sacha Baron Cohen’s movie The Dictator, where she plays a bodyguard with dangerous breasts.

Glowing in the Dark

Looking for a cool party trick? One way to implement weird breast implant facts as a form of entertainment is to light up a dark room with your implants. Breast implants, especially those filled with saline, glow in the dark when a flashlight is shone near them. A woman on the TLC show My Strange Addiction gave viewers a treat when she performed the trick in 2014. A Thailand model also demonstrated the phenomenon on YouTube in 2016. Her video attracted more than 5 million views within one week.

Buxom Cowgirl

In 2007, a Canadian tattoo artist had an interesting idea for using breast implants in his business. Lane Jensen, co-owner of Dragon FX Tattoo, felt that one of his many tattoos, a busty cowgirl located on his calf, could use a bit of augmentation. So in 2007, a micro-dermal surgeon implanted custom-shaped silicone under the tattoo. The resulting 3D tattoo was pretty intriguing. Unfortunately, Lane Jensen’s body rejected the breast implants and his cowgirl’s boobs had to be removed within a month.

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

Ever wonder what happens to breast implants when a body is cremated? Probably not… it’s a pretty morbid weird breast implant fact, after all. But some curious folks have asked that very question. Luckily, Caitlin Doughty, a mortician who hosts the YouTube channel Ask a Mortician, has given us the answer. When a body is cremated, everything pretty much disappears except for the bones and implants. Most implants are metal and can be picked up by the crematory workers pretty easily. Unfortunately, breast implants aren’t so easy. As Caitlin Doughty puts it, breast implants leave a “goo” on the machinery that must be scraped off by some unlucky worker. So there you have it. Another reason to be thankful you don’t work at a crematorium.