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Vice Blog

NETHERLANDS - BIGGER BREASTS FROM GUMMI BEARS

The latest and greatest in breast enlargement technology is a kind of gummi bear you place inside your boobs to make them automatically expand. According to Michael Kircheisen, the man who invented the Osmotic Self-Inflating Tissue Expanders, they will cause an actual revolution in plastic surgery. We recently squeezed him for information.

Vice: What exactly are these Osmotic Tissue Expander thingies?
Michael Kircheisen: It is a material made of hydrogel. It's a very small device that can be put in the body. Once under the skin it absorbs your body's own fluids and can then grow to 40 times its original size. It feels a bit like fat tissue and can be used in almost all parts of the body: breasts, buttocks, calves, chin, vagina, labia, etc.

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That sounds great! Can you enlarge a penis with it?
Very likely. However, anatomically seen, it would not be a bright idea. The penis will then remain in a stiff state constantly, and you would have to pee on the ceiling. Moreover, it's not allowed to pressure or burden the area for the first few weeks, which is impossible  for a penis.

Bummer.
Indeed, I could have helped many people with it. But I am doing that now already, actually. For instance, we help AIDS-patients with hollow cheeks. We fill those areas up with our material to make them look healthier and fleshier. We also help old women with drooping vaginas. Also those can be filled up, to tighten up the package again.

This man lost an ear. Thanks to the hydrogel, he could grow a spare one on his lower arm, which was then sown to his head. Now he can wear sunglasses again! (This might be something for Michael as well.

It sounds painful. What has to be cut open for that?
Almost nothing! You inject little thin pins in the vagina with a big needle, and stitch it up. It will grow automatically. You can even bear children with it.

And what if it becomes uncontrollably big? So big, that the vagina grows shut?
That is impossible. We first swell the material in the factory in a physiological solution. After the material dries, it will have accumulated a "memory," and will never grow larger than it was in the factory.

Let's move on to the breasts. You can do something with those too?
Yes, we can. We make an incision in the breast and then put the material in. In theory, you can grow from cup A to E in one week. The breasts will also be lifted at the same time. Also the touch will be firmer and softer. It works much better than traditional implants because our product is applied in small parts and is spread over the entire breast. In that way you don't have to stuff a big sack in your body. It is also much easier to remove. Moreover, our material in its grown state exists for 97.5% of your body's own tissue. By the way, when you push on traditional implants, they sometimes make a blub-sound.

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This 22-year-old girl had a boob reconstruction.

How is it possible that nobody has ever thought of this before?
The idea is extracted from another product. That one works through the same principles and is already in use for ten years. It is used to stretch skin for the reconstruction of certrain areas. It was, for instance, often used after mastectomy with breast-cancer patients, or to remove scars. The difference between these products is that the old product only grew to ten times its own size and had the same consistency and touch of a gummi bear. We have altered the material in such a way that it now can grow forty times its own size, with a much better and softer feel.

It must have exploded at least once.
No, it is very safe. Of course, every surgery brings its risks, like chance of infection. It also should be applied in the correct way. If not, it can migrate to other places under the skin. The patient too should be careful, as you should not mess with it too much in the first few weeks. Anyway, you can remove it fairly easily when the effect is not ideal, so it can never be a huge disaster.

This four year old girl was suffering from Alopecia areata, or local baldness. Doctors implanted hydrogel under the skin on top of her head to stretch it. After removal of the gel, the excess skin was used to cover the hairless parts of her head. Now she's not bald anymore.

No words, but deeds! I want it in my boobs, bum, and genitals!
That is not possible at this moment. It is officially still in its testing phase. However, it already has been used three years ago in Germany. It will be available for commercial use in one or two years. The breast augmentation will take longer though, as it still needs to go through certain special procedures. According to the American law, it has to be tested on pigs first. But also here it has already been used before. It was in China, in an official clinical test.

How do you see the future?
I don't think that everyone should use it, but only the people who are extremely unhappy with their situation. I want to help those people. I think that the vagina-narrowing will be the most popular procedure, as I see the most demand there. If I can survive until then, I think I will become a very rich man.

MARY WANG
(portrait by Joshua Bakarbessy)

(medical images courtesy of Michael Kircheisen)