longer spells of heavy rain with gale force winds if not stronger to ta ke gale force winds if not stronger to take us into the evening rush hour. temperatures fairly academic. we could see winds of 60, 70, may be 80 miles an hour. wet and windy weather spreading. we will keep you updated on bbc news this morning. this is bbc news. the headlines... hello, this is bbc news with martine croxall. the headlines... urgent talks between the queen and prince harry and meghan will be held tomorrow over the royal couple's future. all chant. iranian protests after the military finally admits to shooting down a passengerjet as the arrested british ambassador denies being a part of any demonstrations in tehran. after weeks of criticism, australia's prime minister, scott morrison, proposes an inquiry to look into the bushfire emergency. recognising and remembering the contribution of lgbt personnel to the armed forces.

now on bbc news, newsbeat looks into what's known as "breast implant illness" and speaks to some women who say they've been affected. let's be honest — it's a part of the body society is obsessed with. and if you don't like yours it can hit your self—confidence hard. i hate them. i've lost loads of weight, so it's all gone off my boobs. i would definitely get a boob job. more symmetry to them. not really the size, just a bit more symmetry because they are just, one is bigger than the other. i lost weight quite rapidly so i would get a breast lift. make them bigger — obviously. so much so that around 8,000 of us get breast implants every year. but while most women love them at first... what size were they? iwasa32 g. wow. ..having the boobs they always

wanted can turn into a nightmare. physical pain, extreme fatigue and allergies. it can even lead to mental health problems. just so much pain. the fatigue isjust... they call it breast implant illness. i thought... i'm dying, like, i'm really dying. there is something... and it's really horrible, but nobody, like, would listen to me. but it's still a mystery. no—one can agree on what's causing it. some women are convinced it's their implants. but ask most surgeons... there is no proven breast implant illness. i have to say, it's in your head, it's not in your breasts. breast implant illness has turned into a row that is dividing medical professionals around the world. what more proof do we need? and many say the uk is lagging massively behind other countries, leaving some women taking huge risks just to try and feel normal again. i'm really nervous, to be honest. the stakes are a lot higher this time.

a bit emotional. this was obviously before you had your surgery. it doesn't look like you had much to worry about, really. no. i think, obviously, what you are not seeing is probably the toilet tissue underneath, stuffing the bra. we've come to meet beth, who had breast implants put in when she was 23. i was never bothered, particularly, about the size. i was kind of a b cup. but the shape of them i just always felt was weird. the underneath, it seemed to fall away too soon. and without a bra or anything they would literally kind of point to the floor. yeah. i said to my mum, since probably about the age of 16 or 17, "i don't feel normal, i want breast implants." everyone had these perfectly round sort of breasts, and mine didn't resemble anything like it. a few years later, beth got engaged, but she was so self—conscious

she never even that her fiancee see her naked. he was offended at that point as well. he was like, "how can you not trust me?" so i guess that caused a few problems, intimately? it was kind of self—loathing, i suppose. i was just not comfortable with him seeing them as they were, and ijust really felt, like, deficient in being a woman. and it was in the build—up to their wedding that she decided to take the plunge. i knew that having the breast implants would make me feel a bit differently about things. millions of women around the world never experience any problems with breast implants, which are still the most popular choice when it comes to cosmetic surgery. women have been getting them since the early ‘60s, and they can set you back up to £8,000. after her surgery, beth felt great. she had new boobs and a new husband.

but it wasn't long before she started having problems. 18 months on, and she was getting unexplained pains, followed by fatigue, muscle spasms, numbness and anxiety. my knees hurt, my hip hurt, my lower back hurt. and they were all things which had never been a problem for me previously. and i thought i'm quite a stoic person in general anyway, so it actually takes a lot for me to actually instigate going to the doctors in the first place. with, you know, just over—the—counter medicines i couldn't control my pain any more. beth has been going back and forth to the doctors for nearly a decade, but they still can't agree on what is causing her symptoms. there was one mri of my spine which came back and it described my spine as pristine. and at that point i guess you should be grateful, but i was really sort of incensed by it because i thought, it's not, i can feel there is a pain, and i know there's

something going on. but it began to make me feel like i was a bit crazy. and it knocks your confidence a little as well. she's been prescribed everything from painkillers to antidepressants. but after doing her own research online, she's convinced her symptoms are being caused by her implants. yeah, there are times when i do have a cry about it. there are times where i'm just... i feel so let down by my body. my family probably see the worst sides of me, and that upsets me. my beautiful girls just deserve better than that, really. and, you know, it's not for want of trying that i'm not able to deliver on that, really. so how is it that something like a breast implant, in theory, can put someone in the same position as beth? well, we've come to body worlds in london to come to dr dan marsh, who is a plastic surgeon.

you've very kindly come out of surgery for us today, to bring along some implants and show us about them. just tell me exactly what they are. an implant is basically made of silicon, so you've got a silicon shell, inside this you've got a sticky silicon gel — it's fairly gooey. so if you were to cut the implant in half, all the gel would sit where it stays. a breast implant is usually placed through an incision under the breast. the implant can go either in front of the muscle or behind the pec muscle. people often think the implant goes into the breast — it actually goes behind the breast, so all of your breast tissue sits in front of the implant. so how is it that something like that could potentially cause breast implant illness? i think the honest answer to that is we don't really know what causes it. the jury is still out on whether breast implant illness is a thing, it exists. we think that it's the body's reaction to the silicon. but silicon is present in lots of medical devices — cardiac pacemakers, hip joints, kneejoints. there aren't people walking around with hipjoint associated illness, knee joint associated illness.

so we don't really know exactly what it is that is associated with breast implants that can cause the illness. as for beth, she is now in so much pain she's not sure how much longer she deal with it. just checking in and reporting a tricky day. just so much pain. oh, my god... ijust wanted to curl up in a ball. i still want to curl up in a ball, and i'm going to in a minute. burning sensation in my hip and back, and... general fatigue and joints aching and a cracking, stonking headache as well. so i'm hoping today is going to be... today? tomorrow is going to be a better one. we'll see. we'll see — hope so. i don't think i can take too many more like this. anyway, i'm going to sign off now. nighty night, bye—bye. something beth's considering is having her implants taken out.

but could that help her? we are here to meet melina. she's already had her breast implants removed — or explanted, as it's also known. we're going to find out how she's getting on. hello! hi! explanting is a risk. it involves going back in for more surgery. your boobs will obviously get smaller again, and there is no guarantee it will get rid of your symptoms. so let's go back to the beginning — where did this all start? why did you have your implants in the first place? i was modelling at the time, and for me it was a, you know, my boobs don't look good enough for this type ofjob. i wanted to get them done. i already had quite large breasts anyway. they were big. let's see some of the photographs, then, from when you were in your modelling days. what size where they when you had them done? iwasa32 g. wow.

i was having a great time with them. i was working, i was getting a lot of work. i got pregnant, had my first baby. that's when the symptoms really started. everything i came in contact with, i had a reaction. body wash, my creams, and i could literally have a piece of bread and i would be coming out in a rash up my arms, my shoulders. in the end ijust stopped, like, eating. like, i wasjust so afraid to put something in my mouth without having to feel sick. but i never, ever, ever would have thought it was my implants. you just don't put that together. you know, you think the worst — like, i have breast cancer, like, i'm dying, there is something wrong with me. and i kept telling my doctors, i said, there is something wrong with me, there really is, i know. i can't get out of bed in the morning. it was a struggle just to get up and take my daughter to school. and then the brain fog — i mean, i couldn't concentrate,

i couldn't work, i had to read the same sentence overand overagain. just about managed to put her to school, come back, and then literallyjust sleep. i just slept all day long. and at this point i thought, like... i'm dying, i'm really dying, there's something... and it's really horrible but nobody would listen to me, and it wasn't until a girl on instagram — this is the power of social media — she told me about this and this group on facebook, and it was like, oh, my god! i have breast implant illness! it's my implants! there was no doubt in my mind that this is it. melina says she had to sell herjewelry to pay to get her implants removed, and she thinks the difference was instant. that brain fog that was sitting on top of my eyes had gone. and the rashes were literally disappearing in front of my eyes, they were just gone. so, for me, it was not like, "oh,

we'll see what happens," it literally happened right after i had them out. so melina's story is proof that her implants were the problem. or is it? if you feel better, i'll believe you. but i have to say, it's in your head, it's not in your breasts. we do not have a scientific link which proves that these are caused by implants. there is no proven breast implant illness. it's a description which people use to describe a number of various symptoms. there is a publication recently where two women had very similar symptoms — one had had cosmetic implants, the other had had implants for reconstruction. the patient who had had cosmetic implants had them removed and claimed that she felt better. the other woman decided she didn't want to have them removed, and she also felt better.

the key question here is, are those symptoms related to breast implants? it is the biggest question we have in our practice, and that is where we lack any evidence. you hear patients who say, "ah, you know, i've got breast implant illness, i'm having my implant out tomorrow." they are then interviewed, sometimes on television, and they go, i've had my implant out and i feel great. but any scientist would tell you that if the illness is related to a problem with the silicon, it doesn't switch off the moment that the silicon implant is removed. and so that makes you very suspicious that we don't know enough about what is going on. this is something globally which needs more research. it is such a nebulous group of symptoms that it's really difficult to come up with a good way of running some scientific research. is there a true link?

and what is the best treatment or management for these patients? and how do we diagnose them? we know that there are women who have breast implants who feel unwell with them. what is unknown is whether it is cause and effect or whether there are other things that are going on in their lives as well. and if it does affect you, make sure that you get good advice and, i think, really get psychological support before you rush into having your implants out. look at the whole picture. we are doctors, we are supposed to look at the whole patient, notjust the small breasts. but despite what the surgeons say, melina has got no regrets. 0bviously, all those years ago, you loved having bigger boobs, and they gave

you so much confidence. but now you haven't got them, are you still as confident as you are? you still as confident as you were? yes. a lot more, actually, yeah. i mean, look at this — this is what i used to have to buy, something massive... but i mean, yeah... it looks like a parachute, you know? it's just... and there's not a lot of options, then, is there? no. i love my boobs as they are now. ijust love the feeling of being natural. yeah. and i have scars. i have anchor scar from here to here. and i've got a scar there, and i've got a scar around my nipple. so i'm filled with scars but i have never felt more sexy and more confident as i am now. so i know a lot of girls are probably scared to take them out because of how they are going to look and feel, but i wouldn't be scared of the feeling after because the minute you start feeling better, you start feeling more confident anyway. i don't even care what size they are because i'm healthy, you know? and i think, ultimately,

that's what all the women want. oh, wow! amazing! how do you feel in it? i feel great. i mean, this is a halterneck, so normally that would hurt like hell. and you feel great in it, you feel confident? yeah, i feel good. i mean, i'm in the shop, but... love it. it only takes a quick search on social media to find breast implant illness groups with tens of thousands of women in. they are frustrated with being told it might all be in their mind when they are convinced the problem is there breast implants. they feel like they are being ignored. the uk has been accused by some experts of not taking breast implant illness seriously enough. research into it is being made a priority in countries like australia, the usa and some parts of europe.

so we have flown to holland, one of the places where surgeons have to warn their patients about it. hello. nice to meet you. please come in. jan is a scientist and is one of the main voices speaking up in support of breast implant illness. he has spent over 25 years researching it. we've spoken to surgeons in the uk who say they do believe that women have got the symptoms they are describing, but they're not certain it's related to breast implant illness. what do you make of that? i think that we have sufficient evidence to show that breast implant illness is caused by the breast implants. the immune system tries to remove foreign bodies, and that is of course what you have the immune system for. this is not to say that you get an autoimmune disease because you have silicon breast implants — it is you have the genetics to develop an autoimmune disease like rheumatoid arthritis or multiple sclerosis, and then in combination with certain environmentalfactors —

and silicon breast implants is one of those environmental factors — you have an increased risk to develop that disease at an earlier age and more severe. you can see that the immune system is activated, you can demonstrate it in biopsies, you can demonstrate it in the blood by doing lab tests. what more proof do we need before we say that this breast implant illness is due to the silicon implantation? in some countries then, the surgeons — holland, for one example — they are asked to tell patients, warn patients of these possible breast implant illness symptoms when they go in for their initial consultations. that's not something that they do in the uk. no, that's wrong. the uk is wrong for that. so now also in the united states there is a black box warning for plastic surgeons to inform patients that breast implant illness could be induced

by breast implant surgery. and that should be done in every country. are we lagging behind a little bit then, in the way that we deal with it? i think so, yes. women have the right to know what they are going to do. so the information is crucial. we've come back to see beth, who has decided to take the risk and get her implants removed. she is getting ready to head to the hospital. so we are due to arrive there at about 7:30. a perfect outcome would be that i gain my health back and also she is able to leave my breasts in a form where i'm contented, reasonably. i don't really care how big they are, but ijust want to feel that they are... ..that word again — normal. i'm really nervous, to be honest. i didn't think i would be, i'm quite...

you know, before they were actually put in i had a few butterflies, but not anything like this. but, of course, the stakes are a lot higher this time. i've got two children. yeah... a bit emotional. for you, afterwards, as a husband, what about you? well, in the short term i'll be doing the cooking, housework — no different, then! no, sorry — i'll answer that properly. it'll be amazing. ican't rememberwhen you weren't in pain. i don't know even what that looks like. i'm so proud of the way that you've got on with it, really. because a lot of people would have fallen off a cliff by now, do you know what i mean, and dropped off and not been able to function?

so to do the things you do makes me proud of you. and i'm just so hopeful that this is the solution. to be fair, even the surgeon today was still very, like,... very guarded. there are no, there is no proof about this, but we are kind of... she did acknowledge that that's the case, yet... there could be issues further down the line, and we don't know these things yet. but there was an element of, we are doing this for your peace of mind, not for your physical health. so, beth, you've been in surgery for a few hours, and a little bit of recovery time — how are you feeling now? yeah, relatively good. i'm on quite a lot of pain relief, but i guess that was to be expected. and do you feel any different?

you are on painkillers at the moment, but at the moment do you feel any different? i feel quite clear—headed considering the level of drugs that i'm on. and i think some of that is probably excitement. and you don't have any, sort of, sad feelings that they are now gone? not at this stage. i guess i haven't had that... i haven't been confronted with their appearance yet. but the two ladies who were looking after me post surgery said what a lovely result had been achieved already, so i think i've probably got a little more breast tissue then i anticipated. so, yeah, i'm looking forward to seeing them at some point. notjust yet! but, yeah, i'm just so happy i'm kind of through to the healing phase. yeah. and i can hopefully get my life back on track a bit. while most women live happily

with implants and will never have to face what beth has gone through, should the government be doing more to support others like her? we asked the department of health — they didn't reply. but in the build—up to the december 2019 election, we met the then shadow health minister, sharon hodgson. at the moment, when a woman signs the consent form to have a breast implant operation, they don't have to be given all of this information. and i believe that's wrong. i think on that consent form it should go into details of breast implant illness, what it means, the percentage, the worst case scenario. surely a woman deserves that. the least they should be given is the full details of what may happen, so then they can make an informed choice and then, if they are one of the percentages where it does go wrong, they will know straightaway, they will be looking out for it. they won't be going back and forward to the doctors and going on this

merry—go—round that so many women that you've spoken to have been on. that is just wrong. one of the surgeons we spoke to said he can't possibly warn women about these symptoms because he doesn't know for sure that it exists. this is real. all of these women, their symptoms disappear when they have the implants taken out. that proves what is causing their symptoms. surgeons need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask themselves why they believe it doesn't exist. because they should be telling them before they sign on that dotted line. it has been a few weeks now since we last saw beth, and she has asked us to come and meet in the gym, which i'm guessing is good thing.

so we are in the gym now, it's something you could have only dreamed of doing when you were in a lot of pain with your implants. how does it feel now? brilliant, it is just freedom, absolute freedom. in terms of the joint pain, i still have a bit, but i've come off my main nerve agent tablets, and i'm just on paracetamol. so i couldn't have functioned before. and do you think it has all happened as quickly as you hoped? yeah, ithink, realistically, i had those implants in for 12 or 13 years, so i can't expect everything to go overnight. and things are complicated. my key to happiness in life is your health. i will never take that for granted again. so for those people out there that think breast implant illness is not real, what would you say to them now?

i think when you think about it, it is totally common sense to think it could cause your system some disruption. so i think the people who are coming up against breast implant illness are the ones with a interest, often it is surgeons when it is their bread—and—butter, and the medical device industry in general has a lot to lose. it is just scary. scary, what was set in my body for that long! for beth, her life is getting back on track. at the moment there is no way of knowing exactly how many women are living with near permanent pain like she was just a few months ago. if social media is anything to go by, though, it could be hundreds of thousands. acknowledgements of breast implant illness and further research into it is starting to happen, but unless the professionals can agree whether it truly exists or not, it is hard to see how there can be any real change.

good morning. it has been a showery day so far, but it is an improving day so far, but it is an improving day for many. a lot more sunshine to come. if you are planning to get a walk in, give it some longer and it should be perfect. heavy rain working through parts of england, the east midlands, towards lincolnshire, east anglia. lively showers across scotland, northern ireland, they are clearing. you can see for many the showers will ease through the afternoon. still one or two. if you are going out for a walk, take a water proof. the showers for the north—east of scotland, wintry over higher ground. a chilly day for many northern areas, the tempter dropping in the south as we see this sky is clear, and that will lead us into a cold evening and cold night. temperatures dipping initially, a batch of showers working through the middle of the night, but dropping later on.

frost around on monday morning. some eyes ca n not frost around on monday morning. some eyes cannot be ruled out either. showers for the northern half of scotland. on monday, all eyes on this chart, storm brendan, the deepening air of low pressure. even if your day starts with sunshine, your morning journey in, you will not finish that way, some more persistent rain coming into more than —— northern ireland from einstein words, pushing into the west of scotland, the north of england, south—west and through the western parts of wales. strengthening winds to go with it, coming from the south, temperatures academic once the winds pick up, it could be disruption as we finish the afternoon heading towards the evening rush hour. the rain spreading eastwards, that could cause some puddles and minor flooding. the wind is the biggest feature, 50, 60, 70 miles per pyrgos, possibly up to 85 across some western parts of scotland. there will be some ferry disruptions, disruptions to the bridges and possible damage. keep a

close eye on the forecast tomorrow, the rain spreads towards the south—east during the evening rush hour, it could lingerfor a while before clearing. trying for a time for monday night, but into tuesday the next weather system is on its way. sunshine and showers to begin on scotland. brighter elsewhere, rain spreading northwards and eastwards, again, causing an impact. winds up to 50 or 60 mph across the south, this is where the strongest winds will be, further north remaining chilly. 0verall, for the beginning of next week, some potentially stormy and destructive weather around with strong winds and heavy rain. thing is quieting down later in the week. for the latest weather warnings, check out our website. see you soon.

this is bbc news. the headlines 11:00am. urgent talks between the queen and prince harry and meghan will be held tomorrow over the royal couple's future. iranians protests after the military finally admits to shooting down a passengerjet — as the arrested british ambassador denies being a part of any demonstrations in tehran. after weeks of criticism australia's prime minister scott morrison proposes an inquiry to look into the bushfire emergency. recognising and remembering the contribution of lgbt personnel to the armed forces. and the dateline london panel discuss iran and harry and meghan. that's in half an hour, here on bbc news.