Ann-Elizabeth--I know you want to see some medical proof that implants can cause neuropathy, and you're just not going to find it. However, populations studies of people with any kind of silicone in their bodies show an excess number of neuropathy patients. If you want to know how this could happen, you might want to go to pubmed and search on "silicone AND immune response". From that I'm sure you'd find a lot of articles which are to the point.

The problem is, all the money was on the side of the manufacturers during the years leading to the litigation; since settlement, there's been no drive to study the products at all.

Monica: My guess is that your doctors will tell you that the silicone in your nose is more solid than that used in implants and that it should be fine. Except that's not a good enough explanation. The silicone degrades, and my guess is the nose implant isn't even in a capsule, so silicone is migrating from the implant into your lymphatic system, stimulating a response which cross reacts with nerves. I hope you can get this removed easily.

Valerie--when you have the implant removed, it's extremely important that it be removed correctly, and that the surgeon work with a radiologist who can check your lymph nodes, to make sure no silicone has leaked there. The one problem with removal is that there is usually leached silicone in the nodes. If you can't see it, that might mean there's very little; if you can, it's a good idea to have those nodes removed. But the sad part is that by the time we get the damn things out because of sickness, there is clearly some leakage or degradation. I highly recommend Dr Feng in Cleveland. I found her worth the trip out there, even alone and sick. Her radiologists scanned every node in my body, and she was able to microscopically remove all leaked silicone while preserving as much tissue as possible, and doing a nice reconstruction. If you look at the silicone support groups, you will see that there are several surgeons in the country who are recommended. I'd stick with the tried and true if I were you.

These two sites will link with most of the support sites. Myrl runs a listserv email group which updates us. Command Trust Network was in this from the start, in the 80s, and I relied on them for health information even before I became ill. After I was ill, I realized what a wonderful group they were, and how much data they had.

This first link is to an implant support group. If you search on "neuropathy", you will find many women there have neuropathy. I've posted and suggested some come here, but I don't know if any have. I was surprised to find that there were many, and that they really didn't have the medical information this site has.

http://www.breastimplantsupport.org/

These are links to two main implant sites which are rich in links.

http://www.webstarmagic.com/wisletter.htm
http://www.myrljeffcoat.com

Last, this group is for women with saline implants.

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/SalineSupport/

It's nice to have more people posting here about this issue. It deserves attention.