Why Melissa Gilbert Had Her Breast Implants Removed

— -- Actress and "Little House on the Prairie" star Melissa Gilbert tweeted this week that the surgery to remove her breast implants "went great" and now "the recovery begins."

Gilbert, 50, also took to her blog a week before the surgery to explain the decision to remove the implants.

"This post is all about breasts," she started. "Specifically, this is all about mine because next week I'm having surgery to remove my implants permanently ... A. I am concerned for my health and 2. I don't like the way they look or feel. Frankly, I'd like to be able to take a Zumba class without the fear that I'll end up with two black eyes."

Gilbert was candid and funny while explaining that she spent a "great deal" of her life flat-chested and with "perfect A cups."

"I was a proud, card-carrying member of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee. I had no desire to have a Jessica Rabbitesque figure," she continued.

She has nothing against curves, but revealed that acting added pressure, especially when she was made to wear a padded bra.

"But let's face it ladies, we are pressured and bombarded with messages from the moment we can read for ourselves," she added, citing magazines that focus solely on weight and plastic surgery. "And another thing...what's with all the plastic surgery billboards? ... This is our culture. It has been for a long, long time and I fell right into it."

After her first son was born and she had finished breast-feeding, Gilbert admits that her then-husband made negative comments about her chest, which compelled her to get a new line of padded bras. After the divorce, she decided to have breast implants when she started dating again.

"The surgery went perfectly. I was sore for a while after but nothing too awful and my boobs looked really natural," she said.

After her second child, who was born premature, she made sure to breast-feed again to help her son Michael grow strong and healthy. After the second time, Gilbert writes her breasts were "a tad lower but still a bit perky-ish because the implants were there holding them up."

Then in 2004, she started reading how implants should be replaced every 10 to 15 years. Hers were already 12 years old.

"So I made the decision to replace the implants and do a breast lift," she added. "But, something was nagging at me. I couldn't shake the idea that my implants had a shelf life. They would have to have them replaced every 10-15 years for the rest of my life. It was possible that at 80 years old I might have to get new implants!"

After thinking about it for months, doing research about future surgeries and an accident she called a "wake up" call, Gilbert said, "I had to change."

"After a great deal of thought and research I have found a surgeon here in Michigan who is going remove my implants forever!" she wrote.

She closed by gushing about her supportive husband Timothy Busfield and by saying, "Aging is a gift not a curse. Love yourself. You are perfectly beautiful. You are enough."