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When Daniela Ridener, 27, headed to college in 2018, she had size DD breasts. Not two years later they measured in at an H cup, and by 2022, her breasts had jumped eight cup-sizes to a P.
This rapid growth left the 5ft 7in mother-of-two from Lubbock, Texas, in extreme pain and requiring surgery to remove 15kg of skin, which resulted in the loss of her nipples.
She believes it was caused by her IUD she’d had fitted in 2020 when she was 21 years old, after meeting her now husband Jordan Ridener, 31.
‘I feel like it was birth control,’ Daniela, a programme director for intellectual disabilities, says. ‘The doctors were adamant that it wasn’t but I had just got an IUD fitted and they [my breasts] immediately started growing.
‘I gained 50lbs but I didn’t change pant sizes. Nothing changed apart from how big my boobs were getting, this is the only thing that grew.’
By the time Daniela and Jordan were engaged in 2020, she was measuring in at an H cup, but wedding dress shopping became a nightmare because of her ever-increasing breast size.
‘I had picked out a beautiful dress for my wedding, it was so pretty,’ she says. ‘But by the time my wedding came around they had to completely remove the top and I had to get it completely remade [due to my breasts growing].’
By the time the pair said ‘I do’ in January 2022, Daniela’s breasts were a size P and attracted unwanted attention.
‘I didn’t really notice how big they were, but every time I went out in public my mum would get so mad as everyone would stare at me,’ she says.
‘People have mistaken me for having plastic surgery because they were so big. I wasn’t self-conscious around my family, I was more self-conscious going to work and being out in public.’
But it wasn’t just judgemental looks that Daniela struggled with, she was suffering with painful back spasms, too.
‘Every time I would do the dishes or stand up for a long period of time, I would then have to go and lie down because my back would start to spasm and it would hurt so bad,’ she recalls.
Contraception and breast size
Hormonal coils like the Mirena coil can cause tender and painful breasts, as well as weight gain, although an increase in breast size isn’t specifically listed as a side effect by the NHS.
That being said, medically reviewed Healthline advice suggests that hormonal contraception can cause a ‘temporary’ change in breast size due to hormones like oestrogen and progestin, which at increased levels can cause your breasts to grow, although not permanently.
On a contraception review site called The Lowdown, 600 reviews of the Mirena coil saw 24% of women reporting their breasts had grown since having it fitted, although it’s not known if these were related directly to the contraceptive device.
What’s more is while IUDs have often been touted as a localised treatment, compared to the higher dosages included in the pill, a 2021 study showed that this isn’t necessarily true.
The Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology at RWTH Aachen University in Aachen, Germany, found IUDs have side effects on the body similar to those of systemic hormonal medication.
‘When I walked, I was huffing and puffing and wheezing. Even shaving my legs was really hard to do. Picking things up was hard because they would just get in the way.’
Her time of the month only exacerbated the issue. ‘During my period, they would get so heavy and they would hurt, so my husband would pick them up for me to take the weight off.’
The bride had tried desperately to get a breast reduction prior to her wedding day, but was unsuccessful.
And it put a real strain on her body. Daniela developed ‘wounds’ on her chest due to her skin stretching so much.
‘I started getting large wounds because the skin had stretched so far out and it was really paper thin,’ she explains. ‘I kept getting huge wounds and infections.’
So, she sought the help of a doctor in Dallas. ‘She took one look at me and was like, “yeah, you need this done”, and really helped me push for the surgery,’ Daniela says.
‘They told me to do the surgery I would have to have a mastectomy and they had to rebuild everything because they were so heavy, everything had dropped to the bottom.’
Daniela had her coil removed that April and went on the pill instead, before going under the knife in August 2022 to drop a staggering 14 cup sizes down to a B. But there was a small problem.
‘They had to rebuild what I had, and they couldn’t save my nipples as my skin was so stretched,’ Daniella explains. A shocking photo shows the 15kg of skin and tissue removed from Daniela’s body sitting in buckets in the operating room.
But, that didn’t stop her from being elated with the results. ‘I was just shocked at how small they were [post-surgery],’ she adds. ‘I was so happy and they were so light. The recovery was good and super easy.’
Daniela is now able to complete daily tasks with ease after the roughly £3,000 operation.
‘I can’t imagine how big they would have grown [while pregnant] if I hadn’t got the surgery done beforehand,’ she says. She did go back up to a D-cup after giving birth to her children, but it’s still much more manageable than her previous P-cups.
She’s even had a different IUD fitted and her breasts haven’t grown since.
‘I’m losing weight now [as well] and my boobs are getting smaller,’ Daniela says. ‘People don’t stare at me now.
‘I can go to the store now and buy clothes now and I don’t have to buy them all online.’
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