It is amazing what people will do--and what might happen due to what they do--because of this one little word.

I'm don't mean this flippantly--there are serious concerns with self-image for many people. But (especially as a proponent of rational-emotive psychotherapies), I think it's safer--and far more long-lasting--to change the self-image psychologically.

As I wrote before, I can certainly see situations in which an implant (of any sort) might be necessitated to bring back some aspect of vital functioning. But with most of them being done for aesthetics rather than vital function . . .

Think we need to free ourselves from the tyranny of measuing up to whatever unreasonable physical standrard we have in our heads first. I imagine THAT may all by itself slow down the rate of medical spending.

THANK YOU Ladies!

It may be easy to change self image for some people but not all. When you are raised to believe you don't measure up from your own parents then that is something very hard to reverse if not impossible. I've been through years of therapy and I must say that it did more harm than good.

I also think that the media plays a huge role in this. We all open a magazine or turn on the TV and see what the 'perfect' woman should look like and those images are not very realistic.

Once that changes, if it ever does, then I suspect that we will see less and less women getting implants and cosmetic surgery.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/fa...IN.html?ref=us

The article concentrates more on the inconvenience of maintenance than illness-producing outcomes of implantation surgery, but the implication is certainly there.

Most of the articles I've read only concentrate on the inconvenience and very few even mention saline implants. If they do, they say that if saline implants rupture, it is just sterile saline and will flush out of your body. So untrue about it being sterile as I know that these implants grow all kinds of bacteria and mold inside their shells.