The Dangers Of Loose Silicone Injections: My Own Personal Horror Story

By Meghan Chavalier

February 3, 2009

I don't usually speak openly about silicone injections because honestly I never thought it was anyone's business what I may have or not have had done to my body to physically transform myself to who I am today. But, after hearing of yet another young transgender woman who died recently from loose silicone injections I thought it best to speak about it openly to let others in the transgender community know just how dangerous this can be.

As a young transgender woman, in the early 1990's I decided to get loose silicone injections in my breasts and hips and buttocks area. I had no idea what I was getting myself into at the time, opting to try and achieve the look I was going for, without having to spend the money it would normally take to get there through the proper medical paths.

I went to my first "pumping party" in a run down house in New Orleans with two other transgender women. I laid on a dirty bed, took off my clothes and proceeded to let someone I had met only twice take liquid from a bowl, put it into a large needle, and stick it in my chest and in my lower regions. At the time, I thought the results were fantastic. I couldn't have been more thrilled, but what would happen later to me as a result, would forever change my mind on loose silicone injections. I had nine "treatments" of loose silicone put into my breast area and buttocks. Nine times I actually laid on a bed, without a medical doctor, and let someone who wasn't trained stick needles in me and pump me full of a liquid that I personally had no idea where it was coming from. Think about that for a moment. I wanted to become feminine so badly I took a drastic measure like this to do it.

Hindsight is 20/20.

Four years would pass before I started to experience the horrible effects of what I had done to myself. I started to get awful chest pains at first. I thought quite a few times that I was having a heart attack. It was after I started experiencing pain in my arms and bad stomach aches that I finally consulted a doctor.

Through the course or MRI's, ultrasounds, x-rays and other medical formalities I finally discovered what was causing these horrible pains and sicknesses. Loose silicone. Oddly enough, I was living in Los Angeles at the time and decided to travel back to the city where I had done this to my body in the first place to have the "treatments" reversed by having silicone scraping done.

The first operation I had done took 9 hours to complete. The plastic surgeons had to go in and open me up and scrape the silicone from my chest walls. I was left in alot of pain and bruised for about 7 weeks after the FIRST surgery to remove the silicone. The silicone had travelled from my breast area and was heading into the major organs of my body below my rib cage. If I hadn't done the surgery the first time, the doctors told me eventually I could have died. I have since had two more silicone scrapings in my chest wall which amounted to another 18 hours of surgery.

I have had three breast augmentations done the right way since my silicone scrapings, by a medical doctor in a medical facility, but each time I had them done they still found traces of loose silicone from the injections.

As far as the hip and buttock region, the doctors were unable to find the loose silicone, and have told me that they believe it travelled into my legs, which would explain why I get horrible legs cramps all the time but there is nothing that can be done about it.

I speak firsthand about the dangers of loose silicone injections. I ended up paying much more to become more feminine than I ever thought I would by opting to have loose silicone injections. I almost paid with my life. The best advice I could give any transgender woman is to save your money and have everything done the right way. There is no level of beauty that is worth risking your life over. If I had known then what I know now, I would've never ever put loose silicone into my body.

Find a good doctor, and decide what you can afford. You don't have to do everything at once. Take the time to transform into the woman you want to become slowly and do it the right way. Don't listen to people when they say you should just have silicone injections, because it can cause major harm to your body and can kill you.

I know many transgender women who have had silicone injections and say they have never had problems, but honestly, you have no idea what this is doing to your body. Sometimes, you don't know what it's doing to your body before it's too late. That in itself, is a risk that isn't worth taking.

I had the doctors show me what the silicone looked like after they scraped it from my body, and trust me, if you could have seen what I did sitting in that medical waste bucket, you would never even consider having loose silicone injected into your body. It is indescribable to look at.

I was lucky to have survived my nightmare, but others haven't been so lucky. Learn from their stories and mine.