Silicone Injection Removal: What You Need to Know

Liquid silicone is a permanent, synthetic substance that is sometimes injected as a dermal filler into the face, lips, breasts, and buttocks, to add volume. Over time, silicone injections often lead to serious complications. The only way to resolve or avoid these issues is to remove the silicone with surgical excision—cutting out the silicone itself, along with the scar tissue, hard nodules, and tumours called granulomas that can develop around it.

What are the pros and cons of silicone injection removal?

Pros

1. Removing silicone will reduce or eliminate the harmful and uncomfortable side effects associated with these injections, including pain, itching, redness, hardness, inflammation, and even cancer. If silicone migrates to other areas of the body, it can cause embolism, stroke, and infection—so removal surgery can prevent these life-threatening conditions.

2. Once you've healed, the area can be re-contoured with fat transfer, so it looks and feels more natural.

Cons

1. Downtime during recovery can belong. Depending on the area, you could be out of commission for two weeks and not back to 100% for several more.

2. It can also be uncomfortable. You’ll have stitches, pain, bruising, and swelling. You may have to wear compression garments, to reduce swelling and fluid retention.

3. Drains will be inserted to remove fluid from the surgical area as you heal.

4. Removal surgery is not without its risks, including fat embolism (when fat gets stuck in a blood vessel and stops blood flow), numbness, and fat necrosis (death of fat cells). However, all of these risks are present from the silicone itself. Talk with an experienced provider about whether removal is safer than living with it.

5. Removal can cause dents, scarring, and other deformities, so you may need reconstructive plastic surgery (usually fat transfer) to correct them.

6. Sometimes surgeons are unable to remove all the silicone. While symptoms you previously had will likely be improved, you may have lingering problems that need to be addressed with future surgeries.

How much does silicon injection removal cost?

Your cost will depend on how many body areas are involved, your plastic surgeon’s technique and level of experience, and their practice location. If you have documented medical symptoms, a portion of your removal surgery (and possibly the MRI) may be covered by insurance. Talk with your insurance provider and surgeon about whether you will qualify for coverage.

How does silicone injection removal work?

Removing silicone is extremely challenging, even for a skilled plastic surgeon. Once the silicone has spread and complications have developed, it needs to be surgically removed. Some surgeons recommend liposuction to remove large accumulations of silicone. Others caution that lipo can cause the substance to spread further, so they recommend excision surgery. Your surgeon may have an MRI done before the surgery to pinpoint the exact location of the silicone and to see if it has migrated to other areas. This will help them develop your treatment plan. Removal surgery requires either general anaesthesia or local anaesthesia with twilight sedation, and downtime is significant.

Most biopolymer removal in Texas who’ve had the procedure are glad they did it, but they acknowledge that it was a long and uncomfortable recovery, and they were left with dented areas where the silicone was removed.