Woman believes yoga popped her breast implant
By Angelica Oung
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, Mar 12, 2007, Page 1
“It was like a leaking tire at that point … By the time she woke up the next morning, she was no longer symmetrical.”
Chen Huan-tang, a plastic surgeon
A 30-year-old Taipei woman ruptured a saline breast implant during an intense yoga session, her plastic surgeon said.
“She said she felt a pop,” said Dr. Chen Huan-tang (陳煥棠), who performed the surgery to remove the deflated implant from the woman’s right breast.
The woman had been taking yoga classes at least three times a week for four months when she felt the implant rupture during a yoga pose.
“It was like a leaking tire at that point,” Lin said. “By the time she woke up the next morning, she was no longer symmetrical.”
Chen said he had been doubtful that the leak was really caused by intense yoga practice.
“The manufacturers impact-test these implants to withstand 500 to 600 pounds [227kg to 272kg] of pressure, so at first I was skeptical,” he said.
“But then again the tests subject the implants to almost instantaneous impact while yoga poses are sustained and repeated over time. Perhaps the repetitive stress wore out the material,” he said.
The woman is adamant that yoga caused the rupture, he said.
“She told me that she felt tremendous pressure on her implants during several poses, but carried on nevertheless. She’s a perfectionist when it comes to her figure,” he said.
The woman had surgery to increase her cup size from A to C two years ago, he said.
Although he did not perform the augmentation, Chen said that he saw no signs that the original doctor made any mistakes that might have hastened the failure of the implant.
According to Johnny Lin (林錦輝), a fitness trainer at the Being Sport gym, any exercise where the chest muscles are highly extended or compressed might exert extra pressure on implants.
“A challenging yoga pose may stretch the chest muscle until it is as tight as a taut rubber band, so might weight-bearing exercises where the arms are opened up beyond 180 degrees,” he said.
“As long as care is taken to stay within the safe range of motion, the risks are low” he said. “Furthermore, strong chest muscles play an important supportive role for women with implants.”
“I’ve more or less mentioned it to her,” Chen said when asked if he had his patient’s permission before going public with her story. “In any case, I don’t think she’ll be too upset since you can’t see her face in the pictures.”
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