Elixir’s Natural Body Care - Your Blueprint To Beauty

Silicone has been used in the body since WW11, when women began having injections to enlarge their breasts. The silicone used was the very same stuff to make industrial furniture polish and transformer fluid. Not surprisingly, complications like cysts, sores and painful hardening of the breasts arose and in some severe cases, mastectomies needed to be performed. Breast injections ceased in the 1960’s. In the 1950’s Dr. Norman Orentreich, a dermatologist in New York City, pioneered the use of small amounts of silicone to fill facial wrinkles. Three women died when silicone obstructed their blood vessels and lungs.

The risky treatment returned to favour in 1977 when the Food and Drug Administration approved a purified form of liquid silicone called Silikon 1000 to be used for correcting detached retinas. Because an ingredient is approved for a particular medical purpose it can also be legally used off-label  for another, so a number of dermatologists picked up the silicone syringe again.

Over the last two years, three women with bizarre skin complaints have sought help from Dr. Michael A. C. Kane, a plastic surgeon in New York City. One had bumps the size of capers bulging from her lips, another had severe inflammation on her forehead and yet a third had ridges that looked to Dr. Kane like worms nestled below her eye sockets.

Doctors say they like silicone because it is less expensive and side effects occur in less than 1 percent of patients. Their top reason for liking silicone is that it is permanent.

But that means that the side effects are permanent too. The lumps and ridges can be surgically removed, but doing so can leave scars that look worse than the original protusions, Dr. Michael Kane said.

The small percentage of people who have reactions look so bad that it makes using silicone not worth the risk, he said. If, God forbid, silicone becomes widespread and every doctor starts injecting it, it will become a disaster.

Silicone is a time bomb, reports Dr. Marvin J. Rapaport, a dermatologist in Beverly Hills, California, who has collected case reports on 80 patients who have had side effects to silicone injections since 1974. One of these patients had 50 inflammed nodules at injection sites on her face. She needed injections of steroids, several times a year to reduce the swelling,  he said.

Delayed reactions to silicone can happen one to 25 years after treatment, he says. You can’t predict who is going to react and when.

Nourish, nurture and care for your most prized possession and it will reward you with glowing health for the rest of your life.