What's the warranty for breast implants? [David Levens, MD, Coral Springs]

Dr. Levens (00:00):
Hi, I'm Dr. David J. Levens. I'm a board certified plastic surgeon in Coral Springs, Florida.

Eva Sheie (00:06):
The 10 year thing kind of came from the length of the warranty. Is the warranty still 10 years? And what does the warranty cover?

Dr. Levens (00:13):
I am not sure the wording is specifically 10 years, but it definitely, the three main manufacturers, Allergan, which is now called AbbVie, Mentor, which is made by Johnson & Johnson and Sientra, which is made by Sientra. And they all, what they call lifetime warranties. So the replacement of the implant is covered for a lifetime, so they do replace the implant. And then most of the companies now have additional funds available sometimes for a cost to cover the cost of the, paying the surgeon, paying the facility, and then at least a couple of them will cover, besides a rupture if it fails, also, encapsulation capsular contracture, which is one of the, definitely still one of the bugaboos that we still haven't really been able to prevent totally from happening. But the rate of that encapsulation, which is scar tissue that forms around the implant has definitely decreased in my practice and most people's practice through certain steps that we take to minimize that.

Eva Sheie (01:28):
Let's cover that, but I want to ask you first, do you have a brand preference for implants?

Dr. Levens (01:33):
I've been using Sientra and it's funny, and I think that every doctor has the same experience. It depends on the rep. So I do think that they're very similar. Each company tries to make it seem like they're better than the other. I'd say Mentor and Allergan are the big players in the market, and Sientra is a smaller player. And then you have a rep that is good to you, shows you the new implants, sometimes will, if you have to swap out an implant, will cover that cost for you. And so I had a very good rep from Mentor many years ago, which was the only company I was using, this is 20 years ago. Then he went on to a company called Sientra and I would've switched to that company, but they had some issues because they make their implant not in the United States. Mentor's thing and Allergan's thing is we make in the United States, they didn't make in the United States.

(02:41):
They had some problems, long story. And so I switched to Allergan, which I was using for many years, and then the rep stuck with Sientra and I said, you know what? I'm going to use yours again. And I do like them. It's rare because it's rare for a patient, they do some direct to consumer, all three companies. But it's very rare for a patient to come in and say, I want this manufacturer, I want this tire. So I present all, and I usually say, which one do you like? And I say, this is the one that I like, and yeah.

Eva Sheie (03:17):
I think there's a fair amount of weird information that goes around in the secret Facebook groups that comes up, like it shows up at consult because someone in a group saw more than one person say something that they really know nothing about and then.

Dr. Levens (03:34):
Correct.

Eva Sheie (03:35):
Yeah.

Dr. Levens (03:36):
There's an awful lot of that. That's what I was saying about the vocal minority. And if you Google breast implant associated illness, I mean there's just a whole bunch of information out there, but still, I don't know, the last statistic was maybe 3 million, like it's 3 million year two, I dunno, whatever the number is, that of women that have implants and get them every year, it's a small fraction that have issues. And I think some have issues, I'm not saying it's fake or placebo or whatever, but they have other issues that happen with age and they ascribe them to the cause from their implants when a reality, it may not be.

Eva Sheie (04:17):
So you're in South Florida or pretty close.

Dr. Levens (04:21):
No, I'm in South Florida?

Eva Sheie (04:22):
It's considered South Florida.

Dr. Levens (04:24):
Oh, it's south Florida.

Eva Sheie (04:26):
And it's a little bit nuts down there around cosmetic surgery.

Dr. Levens (04:30):
What do you mean? No, no, no.

Eva Sheie (04:35):
They're lucky to have you as their north star up there in Coral Springs.

Dr. Levens (04:39):
Well, the big markets, as you know for cosmetic surgery are Florida, for sure, Los Angeles, New York, Texas. That's about it.,I mean, the Midwest, it's like no one gets breast. I dunno, whatever it is, just those are big ones. But no, we've had some pretty bad press because of, not necessarily breast implants, but the whole breast, I'm sorry, the whole BBL or the Brazilian butt lift surgery, which definitely has had its share of deaths, bad outcomes. And there's been a lot of litigation and there are laws to try to minimize that, but, and people fly in from all over the country. And so it's gotten its share of that.

Eva Sheie (05:28):
So surely you see a lot of unusual marketing for cosmetic surgery around you. What is the sort of lowest you've seen for breast implants, and what could be dangerous about getting a deal on a breast to augmentation?

Dr. Levens (05:40):
No, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I can't believe what it is. I mean, maybe like 2,999 or even less than 2,999. So the implants cost a thousand. So the surgeons making whatever and anesthesia's, whatever. Maybe they're doing it with local, but then all kinds of financing, nothing down. And it's like, I mean, the larger ones up here in our area in Fort Lauderdale, and a lot of them were shut down, I don't know all the details, but I understand that the proprietors, the owners of business people came from the used car ,car sales business because it's just high volume.

Eva Sheie (06:21):
They actually did?

Dr. Levens (06:23):
Yeah, high volume attract anyone that wants to come in without consideration for their understanding, their expectations, their health. And then with the Brazilian butt lift, I mean, there are, I think they've cut down a lot, places that we're literally doing that's a 2, 3, 4 hour surgery, if you do it properly, they were doing like four to six or more a day. And because what they were doing, what they do, what they've tried to do, and now that the Florida Board of Medicine has restricted it, but there would be one surgeon that's to inject fat. So one surgeon would remove the fat liposuction from the patient, and then another surgeon would do the fat injection. And what the rules they said is that the same surgeon has to do both, because liposuction alone can be dangerous if it's not done properly. And so that limits the amount of procedures you can do in one day, as opposed to having six rooms with 10 surgeries a day or whatever. So yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, it's the Wild West, but it's the wild Southwest, Southeast.

Eva Sheie (07:33):
It's your wild West.

Dr. Levens (07:35):
Yes. And I, believe me, they say Florida, duh for a lot of reasons, Flori-duh. It's a great place to live. I'm happy I'm here. My wife's family's here. We settled here. We have good kids here. But it has it's, there issues. There are issues.

Eva Sheie (07:54):
Where can we find you?

Dr. Levens (07:55):
My office is at 1725 University Drive, suite 300, Coral Springs, Florida 33071. My phone number is (954) 752-1020. And then Dr. levens@drlevens.com is my email. Website is drlevens.com. I do have three Instagram pages, one with at Dr. David J Levens, one is Plastic Surgery Talks and one is Levens Med Spa.

Eva Sheie (08:29):
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