Fourteen years of breast implant misery

Nienke, who divides her weeks between Alkmaar and Grootebroek, experienced complaints quite quickly after the implants were placed on her. “Depression, fatigue and I felt very down all the time,” she explains. “Actually, those implants cost me 14 years of my life.”

The number of women who attribute unexplained complaints to breast implants is increasing. It cannot yet be said with any certainty that there is a direct link between these complaints and breast implants. But that also doesn’t mean it isn’t. There are currently three major studies on breast prostheses.

Period of uncertainty

Only after fourteen years did Nienke realize that all these complaints could be related to her implants. At that point she was already at her wits’ end, but an episode of the consumer program Radar about complaints about breast implants offered a solution. “From that moment on I wanted them out,” she recalls. “I wanted my life back.”

Listen to Nienke’s song here. Text continues below the video.

In this period of uncertainty she wrote the song, Nobody has nothing, with which she participates in the Region Song Contest. Writing the song was part of her coping process. “And actually it was like that on paper,” she explains. As if it had been in her for fourteen years.

Taboo

By sharing something so intimate during the Regio Songfestival, Nienke hopes to inspire others. “I especially want to make it negotiable and bring it to the attention,” she explains. “So that others might not have to wait so long.”

And that works. Two women from her environment also had their implants removed because of complaints after hearing Nienke’s number. “And another friend decides not to have a breast augmentation,” she adds.

Nowadays Nienke feels much better. “That’s where I get mine power she says. With this song she hopes to break the taboo on implants during the Regional Song Contest. “Because femininity is much more than just breasts.”