But only six weeks after her surgery the scar under her breast opened up. She went straight to the emergency department of her local hospital, and after examination she was told to go back to her surgeon, who took the implants out, disinfected them and put them back in.
“It was soon after that that my health seemed to deteriorate, although I didn’t relate the two at the time,” she said.
“I didn’t feel myself. My hair started to fall out and I was tired and ill. It wasn’t until I started getting burning pain in my breasts and all along one side of my body that I realised it might have something to do with the implants. But my doctor just said my blood sugar levels were low and I went away thinking that this must be normal.”
When PIP closed down in 2010 and regulators issued a warning that its implants had been made from industrial-grade silicone, Miss Polhill had a gut feeling she was among the 40,000 women in Britain to have been given them.
She waited anxiously for a phone call, but it never came. In the end it took a visit to the hospital, and some direct questions to staff, to confirm her fears.
“It makes me wonder how many women in the UK have them but aren’t aware,” she said. “I felt so let down at the time, I had been left in the dark. Everyone was interested in advising me before my implants, but I was left completely alone after the surgery.”
Because scans could not pick up any obvious rupture in the implants, she would told she would have to pay if she wanted them removed. She decided to go ahead for peace of mind, and had the PIP implants replaced with others from a trusted brand in 2010.
Following the operation she was told by Taimur Shoaib, her surgeon, that the industrial-grade silicone had bled throught the shell of the PIP implants, causing her symptoms.
After her experiences, Miss Polhill disagrees with the Government’s decision, announced on Friday, that there is not enough evidence to justify the routine removal of PIP implants, and that it should be left to individual clinics to decide whether to charge patients to have them taken out.
“I want to see [Health Secretary] Andrew Lansley push clinics to remove the implants for free and give women one of the quality they paid for,” she said. “That’s the least the deserve.”