12/01/2026
Ladies with breast implants please read...
Breast implant calcification is one of those slow-burn, cellular soap operas where your immune system plays both detective and demolition crew. It is not the implant “turning to stone.” It is your body quietly wallpapering it with minerals.
When any foreign object is placed in the body, including silicone or saline implants, the immune system immediately builds a fibrous capsule around it. Think of this as biological shrink-wrap made of collagen and fibroblasts. That capsule is alive, vascularized, and constantly remodeled.
Over years, especially decades, that capsule can undergo chronic low-grade inflammation. Macrophages keep bumping into the implant surface. Fibroblasts keep laying down collagen. Tiny areas of cell death appear in the capsule. And wherever dead or stressed tissue exists, calcium loves to show up.
That process is called dystrophic calcification.
It is the same thing that makes old scars, damaged heart valves, atherosclerotic plaques, or long-healed TB lesions turn chalky. The blood calcium level is normal. The tissue is what is abnormal.
The implant itself does not calcify. The scar capsule around it does.
Three main forces drive this.
#1 Time.
Calcification is rare in the first decade and increasingly common after 15 to 30 years. Many studies find visible calcium in more than half of implants over 20 years old.
#2 Mechanical irritation.
Implants move with every breath, every arm swing, every workout. That constant micro-friction irritates the capsule. Textured implants, in particular, create more micro-trauma and inflammation than smooth ones.
#3 Leakage and biofilm.
Even “intact” silicone implants slowly bleed microscopic silicone molecules. This is called gel bleed. The immune system reacts to it. Bacteria can also form thin biofilms on implant surfaces that never cause infection but keep the immune system switched on.
Chronic inflammation plus dying cells plus calcium in blood equals mineral deposition.
The calcium deposits start as dust. Over years they become gritty, then chalky, then sometimes rigid plates. On mammograms they can look like cancer, which is why very old implants complicate breast imaging.
Importantly, this is not rare, not mysterious, and not dangerous by itself. It is simply the biology of foreign materials living inside mammals for decades.