This is the Art Beauty podcast, where we are
always reaching for truth in beauty.
Remember, the people and the brands on the show are not paying to be here.
So we get to ask them those tough questions.
We know you want answered because you deserve to be informed
so you can make the best choices for yourself.
With that said, I'm Amber Milt and.
today my fabulous co-host is Dr.
Robert Whitfield.
He is a board certified plastic surgeon who specializes in explant surgery.
We're going to be talking to him today.
You know, we like to have a lot of fun on this podcast,
but we're going to be talking to him today about breast implant illness
and sort of maybe the process of what an explant is like.
We will be getting all into that.
And before we do, I want to say thank you so much for being here.
Dr. Whitfield, Welcome to the show.
Well, thanks for having me.
I appreciate you having me on.
You know,
I said before, like, you know, normally we keep things very lighthearted here.
But one of the reasons that I started this podcast was because I want people
to have access to information where they don't feel like
it's being sold to them or
pressured.
So breast implant illness and let's just get right into this
for people who aren't aware of this, can you describe what this is?
Sure.
I think how I'd characterize it to my clients
and I just came out of a consultation with one.
It's a chronic inflammatory process where a breast
implant or a medical device is only one component.
So I think a lot of people understand inflammation now and everybody's
trying to work on it through diet and exercise and lifestyle modifications.
But in the face of a medical device, whether it's a hip knee or breast implant,
dental implant, neurologic implant, whatever it is that was there for it.
And the moment one is placed into someone's
body, your body reacts to it and tries to expel it.
And that's natural. Your body build scar around it.
That's why when people have plans, we talk about taking the scar around it
out of the capsule
so your body can interact with that.
And we know from research that textured implants
are more stimulating to the immune system and those lead in some instances
to breast implant associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma.
So in my experience of over 2000 explants, I've had patients
have that lymphoma and I've had patients have breast cancer.
And I think, you know, for all intents and purposes, when you have
chronic inflammation, it affects almost every system in your body.
And that's why the symptom list, if you just Google breast
implant illness, will have what is like a laundry list.
Yeah. Then. So that's the problem with this.
And it's a little unfair for the clients who suffer from it.
It's a little unfair for the practitioner who is trying to help them with
it, because
on both sides there's a lot of confusion,
if that makes sense, because it doesn't really fit a pattern
and then people get, you know, plugged into different specialists
to look at their gut health or to look at their joint pain
or their sinus problems or their headache or whatever it is.
And it doesn't really fit a pattern that you're
traditionally taught in medical school.
And I think, you know, for us,
I've been super curious ever since college about genetics.
And most of this boils down to
you can't pick your parents and you can't outrun a bad diet.
Right? Okay. You can't write about it.
All right.
So I'm there are so many things that I want
to pick your brain about, first of all, starting with the fact that
when you when you just started answering this before,
you mentioned many different devices that can be implanted.
I feel like this idea of breast implant illness
has gotten so much coverage lately in the media,
especially with so many celebrities who are opting to get plans.
However, I think that it also can be
very scary for somebody who's considering getting breast implants.
And I do want to say, you know, in 2022, breast implants were the second
most popular plastic surgery of the one and a half million done.
I think it was just under 300,000.
Breast implants were done in 2022 alone.
That's according to the American Academy of Plastic Surgery.
So this is a very popular procedure.
And I myself, when I went in, I had a breast lift.
My doctor
put in a small implant and I have to give him credit.
I had never even heard of breast implant illness.
And he made it very clear, hey, this is something to be aware of
and give me at least research and literature to do stuff on.
And but I have to admit, I was like a little bit scared.
So could this technically happen with any device that's put into the body,
or is it really more specific to breast implants?
You mentioned before a knee implant,
or are they finding other things or do you or do
they think that breast implant are more
or causing more issues or is that something we can even tell?
So it's all the still it down.
So when you're looking at breast
implant or hip implant or knee implant, you put them in someone,
there is opportunity is for those who get infected. At.
Time of placement.
So if someone handed a surgeon
an implant hip knee
brace doesn't matter and somehow contaminated it in the process
of taking it out of the packaging or how it was
delivered to the staff,
then the surgeon would put it in and they would not know it was contaminated.
Right.
The second method would be if the surgeon somehow, upon taking a sterile device,
then contaminate contaminated it upon placement.
But those two are extremely uncommon, obviously,
with technique and precautions, those should be the least common,
the most common is a blood borne infection somehow contaminates it.
And so you get a skin infection, a lung infection, a kidney infection,
a bowel infection, lung infection, a cold.
And if it's say, you know, I just had a patient in here, had sinusitis a lot.
And so a bacterial sinusitis,
say, for instance, you clear your ears upon landing at a plane flight,
but you have a low grade
ear infection, You're going to seed that into your sinuses.
You're going to potentially make that blood borne.
And then
your body has
this wonderful surveillance system of complexity and will take care of you,
except for it can't take care of a foreign body because it's not you.
Right.
Does it matter if it's a hip knee or breast implant that can contaminate
the surface and then form a colony and that forms what's called a biofilm?
I guess what I'm asking and I'm sorry, but isn't clear, are breast implants
more likely than any other device that you might
put into your body to cause
illness like we're seeing with this breast implant illness?
I don't have that data. Okay.
They're totally fair.
You know, So going back to, you know, we mentioned that there
there are a laundry list of symptoms that are associated.
And I'm so glad that you're coming on and making this work, because I have to say,
I think that in general, we make a big generalization here.
Women suffer from
from a number of different things.
Fibromyalgia, Lupus is one of these that are sort of these all over
body disorders that have sort of gone under the radar
and talked about
when you have something like breast
implant illness, it is not as maybe easy to pinpoint
how how how can we begin to identify that that is what we have.
Like if a patient comes to you, how do we know that it's something related
to the breast implants and not something some other systemic issue?
Yeah, I'll I'll explain how people get to me now.
Yeah.
They've seen a lot of different doctors.
Right.
And many people have abandoned traditional doctors
because they don't find an answer and they've went to
integrative care, functional medicine,
chiropractic care, acupuncture,
any holistic provider
who's willing to offer them a solution right.
And most of these folks,
I think, are really trying to do the best they can to help.
What is just what I said at the beginning, a chronic inflammatory process.
But many
of them never ask the patients if they have an implant.
Right?
So many women don't want to share that they have it.
Many providers are afraid to ask about it,
and I think it should be The number one thing you check.
Right, is is.
Do you have a device?
Because it doesn't matter if if a male came into an office
and had all the chronic inflammatory
symptoms and went and saw the orthopedic surgeon,
even though that knee looked okay and felt okay, they would still check
X-rays, all these things to make sure that that thing is not,
in fact, that they may aspirate fluid from it.
They will go to great lengths to make sure that
that knee is not the source of that problem.
And once they're satisfied, then they'll move on.
Now, you take a plastic surgeon and there are ways to characterize it.
You can get an MRI to see if it's ruptured or leaking.
You can get a high definition ultrasound to look at it,
see if there's fluid around it.
Any implant that has fluid around it, basically from the work done by Dr.
Thabet, he would consider it to be infected.
And that's one of the most famous people.
Rest of soul is in plastic surgery about devices.
So, you know, just this week I took a pair
implants out and one of them had a lot of fluid around it.
I was like, okay, well,
I don't go out and always tell people like, I think this is in fact
because I've done several thousand of these and I do a polymerase
chain reaction or a PCR test on every single one of them
takes about two weeks to get back.
And that gives you the true, you know, quote unquote forensic
diagnosis of a bacterial or fungal infection.
And on the Internet, it's written,
you know, all over the place that molds a huge problem breast implant on us.
It's not
implants are not riddled with mold.
I don't care what the I don't care what anybody shows you.
I have done over, you know, probably 1200 of those
with PCR testing and my study that's going to be published.
Hopefully this in Q1.
I hope
I've done over 900 in the in the consecutive fashion
since February 14th of 2019.
All of my patients have had PCR testing, all of them get PCR testing.
So the incidence in my personal case
study is basically 30%
give or take a few percentage points.
So roughly we'll just say a third of them have biofilm, which is a low level
microorganism in the incidence that we're going to discuss.
It's a bacteria called Kutty Kudi bacteria.
Agnes But it's the bacteria.
It's not staph, it's not strep, it's not Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter,
all these weird things. It's definitely not a fungus.
But I'm sorry, is this in the fluid or we're talking about the mold.
This is this or capsule your tissue.
Okay, So, you know,
I'm so sorry dumbing this down a little bit
when we're talking about breast implant illness
that is going to be something that,
you know, I guess I just want to be careful, Right.
Because
I don't want people
when as a doctor, do you say to your patient,
hey, maybe it's not the breast implant, maybe it's stress.
Right.
You know, I just want to make sure that when people are hearing this,
I want them to take this very seriously.
I want them to know when they should come and see you.
But I also do want somebody to say, I haven't been able to sleep for a week.
Is it my implants?
Yeah, I have a whole program built around examining this topic.
So everybody asked to have one test that can tell you
whether or not you have this problem.
And so the short answer is nobody has a test.
Not not me, not anybody.
But I look at your genetics, which I think are foundational.
We look at a toxicity test so everybody has a certain amount of t ability.
I think everybody understands that now.
And your your exposures or what contribute a lot of this.
So mold is a common exposure environmentally.
It may be your home where you work.
I live in Austin, Texas.
The air quality here has gone down every year.
I've lived here
and it has a very high amount of mold and cedar, other things
that I'm very sensitive to.
So we look at all those things as well as heavy metals.
And for your listeners, you've probably discussed things like parabens,
like, yeah, BPA is everything, so your products have to be paraben free.
And if you have a question, go to the Environmental Working Group
and type in your product to figure out what is in it.
The more important, more subtle thing is
the food you eat is severely compromised.
Do they states so it's sprayed with folic acid.
So for anybody listening, you can't do anything with folic acid.
You're not designed to do anything with it.
It's a fortifying material in all white
products, white flour, white rice,
those things.
If you don't methyl well and you know, for your audience,
you may have been told you have the MTA of our gene.
You may understand you don't mouth away.
Well so if you add a bunch of folic acid into a diet
of somebody who does a methyl eight, well,
they'll get crazy.
They all must have like A.D.D.. Okay.
So that is a problem that exists in about 40
to 50% of the population in general.
But if you look at my patients who have and suffer from breast
implant illness, that's virtually all of them.
Got it.
So they don't methyl eight Well, so once again, you can't pick your parents, right?
And you can't outrun a bad diet.
So don't eat fructose sucrose, don't eat processed
foods, don't eat gluten, don't eat dairy.
I'll tell you, not to drink wine from this country because it's terrible, right?
You're not to drink beer because it's got gluten in it.
So I'm not your friend when it comes to having habits
because I'm about lowering your inflammation.
So, one, you'll do better live longer.
But as I operate on you, I need you to recover.
So my whole program and my short program is strategic.
Holistic Excel, A recovery program is based on genetics,
toxicity, gut health, food sensitivity and warm ballots.
So when people want to know what they can do about this problem and they're not,
not everybody, you know, is interested in or wants to see me for surgery.
So that program exists to help those patients get the answers
they're trying to find through other providers and practitioners
and I feel like everybody's trying to help them.
I just see this is my practice.
So I see these patients every single day of the week.
So, you know,
are you well, let's say we have a listener out there
who who's having
what kind of symptoms, what are some of the things we're seeing?
Inflammation, you know, we know can cause a host of things.
But what are some of the most common music phrases?
What are some of the most common symptoms
you're seeing directly related to breast implant illness?
Sure.
From from like standard things I get told every day
I actually was having bone broth at my local place, the well in Austin.
And one of my patients who's coming in today saw me there
and came up and said, I'm seeing you tomorrow.
I want to talk to you. I have all these symptoms.
So her symptoms are a laundry list of spot, her neurologic symptoms
are sound sensitivity, light sensitivity.
She has dry eyes.
She has a lot of sinus type congestion.
She has a little tickle in our throat that sometimes makes it
so that she has difficulty taking even her supplements.
They'll kind of catch in her her throat, in her chest.
She gets tightness, she gets chest pain.
Sometimes she feels like she has her heart racing or palpitations.
She even gets shortness of breath sometimes in her arms and legs.
She sometimes will get nerve pain,
which can be burning or tingling or pins and needles.
She gets joint pain, she may get muscle pain and it kind of moves around.
So it's a very like, you know, moving target.
And now where you can get to the part
that's really problematic is a woman's gut health.
And so there's lots of things that are problems there.
This patient in particular has trouble with absorption
and has been told she has leaky gut and it's been proven on her GI map.
So when you got a gut microbiome,
you know, if you don't have the proper amount of food for your microbiome,
which are your own bacteria, your own bacteria start feeding on you.
So you have intact what's called a brush border to absorb things.
But if someone's been given prolonged bouts or prolonged
runs of antibiotic therapy for like sinuses or UTI, I
you're basically affect your microbiome to the point where you'll develop
leaky gut so the tight junctions will become loose,
You won't absorb well, you'll have you may have constipation, diarrhea,
you may have bloating, swelling, pain like it's just a mess.
So basically our supplementation is designed to avoid that.
So I use a lot of liquids and I lose I use less than those capsules
because people have so much trouble in absorption
and you want to be like avoiding things like soy, which are in a lot of capsules.
I guess.
So, you know, and I don't want to be treating somebody very close in
my life has serious digestive stuff.
The laundry list that you just mentioned has never had breast implants.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is,
do we need to look at
this as something like,
I don't want
put words in your mouth, but is it sort of like
when when it comes to breast implant illness,
it really needs to be approached from a holistic point of view.
It's not as cause and effect.
As I fell down the stairs, I broke my leg.
Right. It's not okay. Got it. Okay.
Because these things can and that's why you have this program
that takes a really holistic view of that.
So do you ever find people who think
they have breast implant illness, they have the breast
implants removed and the problems are still there?
Yeah.
And that's so if you go back to the biofilm,
so that's a bacterial contaminant.
So about a third of the patients in my practice have that.
Okay, do their case, and that's the principle driver.
All right.
So it's just the bacteria that's driving their immune system.
When you do that case, then you'll have the people in that first week
and you've seen some of these folks, they have this kind of miraculous
turnaround.
So that's more of an infective type
recovery process because if you take out an infected device,
then you turn off the signal to the immune system
and they'll get better more quickly.
Now, that used to happen a fair amount in my practice, but now I've been around
doing this for over seven years, a couple of thousand cases.
So I don't see those patients anymore.
I see more complicated cases now.
So they've seen the famous people around the country.
They've been put on their programs and they're still having, to your point,
problems. Yeah.
So it's not for lack of trying by practitioners
or the patients they're trying, right.
But the problem is a little bit more complicated.
And if you have a great integrative or functional practitioner
understands inflammation,
they're going to do their best to lower your inflammation, right?
They're going to
plateau because you still have a breast implant
or another device in that device may be the you know, the
the thing that is the crux of the problem, if you will.
Got it.
So it's not like if you are having these issues
and remove the breast, it's not a guaranteed immediate recovery
because that could be just one part of the problem.
You know, as a plastic surgeon, I.
Have you ever done breast implants?
Yeah.
So for your audience, my background is in oncology.
So I did head neck cancer reconstruction, breast cancer reconstruction,
where my niche was not to put into implants,
but I was doing something called a deep flap
reconstruction, where I use the tissue of the abdomen
and we would reconstruct using your own tissue.
Because of my focus on that and microsurgery,
I didn't do a lot of implant based reconstruction, but even back
then I was asked to take care
of patients who had developed problems with their implant based reconstruction.
Typically, they were referred to me because I worked at a tertiary center.
And so I would say, okay, you came to me, you had a breast implant
reconstruction for cancer and you were having capture
contracture or pain or rashes or whatever, and you're just like, Dr.
Whitfield, can you do anything?
And I said, Well,
all right, if it's a foreign body reaction
by removal, you will remove the stimulus to your immune system
with your own tissue, which is your own genetic material, provided everything went
well with the surgery, which we had a very high success rate above 95%.
That would go away.
If that was the problem, that would just go away.
And then it's not like I would wash my hands of it.
But back then I knew that I had done
what I knew how to do at that point, to take care of that problem.
Now, fast forward to the group I have now where I know if I just do that
part, there's still a lot of work to do in many of these cases.
So genetic testing, toxicity testing, microbiome testing,
foods, it's to be tested and hormone testing help
fill in the rest of the picture so that you do have a holistic approach
to taking care of that person so that you're not leaving them
trying to find answers to problems you didn't identify at the time.
So the program exists
to fill in all of those things to the best of our ability around it.
And I'm always learning and trying to
I remain curious about the problem because I think it's a very complicated,
you know, problem and I just you mentioned fibromyalgia,
Like if I have someone come sit in front of me who has breast implants,
who's got fibro and can't even sit still, like
they're just crawling out of their own skin.
I have a hyperbaric chamber in my office.
I will put them in that complementary and try to get their autonomic nervous
system calmed down because the more oxygen deficit you have, the more hypoxia
you create, the more muscle tension you have, the more pain you grab. Wow.
I mean, you know, it's clear to me
just from listening to you just up one, how complicated the human body is
and that something like breast implant illness,
you know, I think it makes me so sad because I read these stories about women.
I've heard your own podcast where lives have been changed by this.
And it's just, you know,
I guess I was kind of hoping that it was a little bit more clear.
Like if you're noticing X, Y, and Z,
but probably you should have your ear, your implants explanted.
But it seems like there's so many factors.
It's no wonder it's so frustrating probably to so many women out there.
It is I and I don't you know, people are like, you just take out implants.
I'm like, well, you know, if it was that easy,
that would be great.
Yeah, but it's not.
It's a little bit more complicated from head to toe than just that.
So, yeah.
So can you quickly or not quick, but can you walk us through
what is that process?
You know, if somebody were to come and see you, they've identified, hey, you know,
an excellent might be right for me.
What is that process like there?
I mean, I was I just hopped on after a consult
so the patient came in and they've gone through
I mean, most people show up with a notebook now for me to go through.
And so that's fine.
Like I said, everybody's trying to fill in pieces the way they can.
And then when they tell me the story, I think I've worked
really hard to understand genetics and working backwards from that.
It makes it much easier to understand why they behave the way they behave.
And once you understand their exposures
like this, this person said they had a home with mold.
It it like, yeah, you just
kind of wait till the end to ask them like, okay, why don't you tell me
if you've ever been exposed to or had mold in a home, a work vacation rental?
A Just tell me like, how did you feel?
What?
I'm allergic to mold or I'm really sensitive to it.
I'm like, Well, mold causes a lot of bad things anxiety,
depression, gut health problems, mitochondrial dysfunction.
So, like, it becomes a really easy thing for me at this point.
After probably almost 5000 consults of this
and 2000 Explants to sit there, hear the story, go, okay,
well, she doesn't
not like well, she she has probably antioxidant problems.
She has a glutathione problem.
She has this problem.
She has estrogen toxicity.
And that leads to all these other effects.
So if you get someone who comes in and has all these laundry list
and they tell me they have extremely bad
periods, pain, debilitating,
you know, cycle and they've been diagnosed with PCOS
and endometriosis and those are those are functions of estrogen toxicity.
So if you have all the genetic detox problems, plus you have estrogen toxicity,
plus you have a poor diet, plus you have mold exposure plus whatever.
I mean, you're going to have this as an issue
and they're going to try to help you, whatever provider is.
They're going to try to help you the best ability.
But if you have an implant place is super hard for them
because that's just such a big driver of inflammation.
So I end up framing it this way.
I don't I don't have to tell anybody to have surgery.
They come to me and they they've resided themselves to
this fact are ours is to try to help them through the process
and make sure we fill out, you know, the best of the ability.
I have a detox program, so I'm detox practitioners
who use cell core to help them with detox and we have surgical follow up and
supplements of support, lower inflammation through the course of the year.
I follow them.
So we try to make sure that we're covering the bases.
We have a psychologist now to help with the cycle.
The psychological aspect of this, which is very difficult and socially,
you know, we have more support advocates and health coaching.
It's a complicated problem that needs a multidisciplinary approach.
So, you know,
you said before about one third of your patients
you remove the X plan, they feel better very fast.
Is that correct?
They can be seen,
you know, does that mean that two thirds
what percentage of those
never get better?
And and maybe I would hate to say, like, did the implant
maybe not have as much of an effect as
they thought?
Well, that's where the rest of it comes into place.
So I feel like we've closed the gap on that now.
So if everybody thinks of a bell shaped curve where you have people who, you know,
get well right away after surgery and then people who take forever,
you're trying to close those ends into the bell, right?
So the program is meant to make everybody recover in a timely fashion.
And, you know, I hope to learn more to close that gap even more.
But the program exists so that I take the variability out of the recovery process.
There's still going to be somebody somewhere who undoes me.
And it's typically their liver doesn't do you know what we want it to do?
Or, you know, there's a another environmental factor that is escaping us.
So there's, there's something I'm not into.
That. Complicated.
Anybody is, is, is is complicated.
So but you know, can you quickly I just want be mindful of time
what is that ex plant process like So they come in
is it one day surgery, Is it an hour surgery?
Do they walk out? What is that recovery like?
Can you walk us through sort of high level what that is?
Sure.
If you're in the
continental United States, about 90% of my patients are from out of state.
And then I increased the number out of the country.
So if you're here from out of state, I expect you to be in Austin about a week.
Okay.
And then basically during that week, you're in a
come to my place after surgery every day, basically barring,
you know, specific weekend limitations for hyperbaric
oxygen therapy, lymphatic massage and red light therapy.
So we have hands on lots of touchpoints in the office
to make sure everybody is getting taken care of.
And then when I have people from out of the country, it's a little bit
more complicated because long haul flights have other stipulations.
So I have them here for a couple of weeks doing the same thing.
We just extend it.
Now. We have a very strong partnership with a
a company here in town for food.
So the well in Westlake and the well downtown in Austin
serve gluten free dairy free and seed free foods.
We provide
complimentary gift cards to our patients for that
because it all starts with how you eat.
If you don't eat properly at or around the time of surgery.
Despite me telling you that's a behavioral problem, I can't change behavior.
I can tell you what to do. I can show you what to do.
And the patient that I'm referring to today
met me there last night or found me there because I was having some bone broth.
But if you go to our Instagram feed or my patients
that are going to talk about eating there, so the way you want to eat to recover,
but it's the way you should want to eat, to live a more healthy life.
Sure.
So with that, how long is the surgery and then what is that recovery like?
Yeah, surgery is anywhere from 2 to 4 hours.
The and you're under.
Correct. So you're going to go under general anesthesia.
Yeah.
I have a lot of people who come who want to explain the fat transfer
so I can re volume wise and rejuvenate the breasts at the same time.
So those are more involved.
They take a little bit longer.
The recovery process is really dictated by your muscle,
the chest muscle and how it heals above the muscles.
A very quick recovery behind the muscle, which is the majority of cases I do,
takes longer.
And the muscle itself is kind of a rate limiting step in terms of what
you would call recovery or return to your quote unquote activities.
So that can take a few weeks.
It could take a few months.
The thing is, I don't I didn't do the first case,
so I don't know how that's going to play out.
But, you know, walking the day after surgery,
you know, washing your hair, using your arms,
the thing you don't want to do is like bodies and yoga and kettlebells
and, you know, pushups and pull ups and stuff like that,
because that's going to hurt the muscle recovery or healing.
I mean, when I had my lift done with an implant
under the muscle, I couldn't sit up by myself for the first three days.
My husband literally had to help me.
I had no idea that it was going to be that bad.
So I'm just, you know, I and I because you would think, well, it's up here.
Why is my stomach being affected?
But all those muscles together,
like I literally couldn't sit myself up from a lying down position.
I needed help. Yeah.
And we use a very specific protocol in the operating room
and the night before to limit pain, nausea, inflammation.
We really work to diminish swelling.
And I really I use a combination of long acting,
short acting anesthetic to help with pain control.
So I avoid narcotic usage to the best of our abilities.
We know it works extremely well.
So people are, you know, nobody's pain free.
But I've had people take very little if no narcotic
and just use anti-inflammatory and do extremely well.
I mean, for the most part, my patients
are extremely motivated to recover and they don't want to use a product.
So but but, you know, you make a good point.
Your patients have already been through the implant phase of this.
Is that what is that may be you know and I guess everybody listening
if you're thinking about getting an excellent I mean, you got an implant,
should you base your recovery from the implant. No.
To sort of how your excellent will be or do you think it's easier?
No, more difficult.
It's more complex because of the scar tissue.
So and then if I'm adding fat back, there's more areas of treatment.
So that adds a level to it as well.
I think, you know,
people ask,
why don't people in your position do more fat transfers for augmentation?
The short answer is if you're younger, which most of the clients get implants
when they're younger.
I didn't do that because I was taking care of cancer patients for the most part.
So cancers, you know, will say in an older patient population.
So my patients have always been a bit older,
but when you're 18 or 20 or 22 or whatever,
and they've, you know, saved and wanted to do this
because of how they perceived themselves or what they saw,
you know, growing up, or maybe they were bullied
for having a small chest, whatever it may be, you're not going to stop that person
from getting it.
Also, they're probably not a candidate
for a fat transfer because they didn't have a lot of fat.
They were lean to begin with.
And that's part of the problem. Obviously.
So when they're older, can you do it instead of a lift
like you had or a lift and an implant?
And the answer is yes.
But if your perception or as Amanda Savage Brown says,
your breast play book is that implant appearance,
then you're not going to want what a fat transfer shows you
because a fat transfer shows you a larger natural breast, not an augmented breast,
if that makes sense.
So the upper pole or the fullness in the upper chest
is not what a fat transfer will do.
It should never be
depicted that way because that's not possible. So.
Well, you have clearly dedicated her life to improving the lives of others.
I want to thank you.
I feel like one of the things
that is so clear from talking to you is that this is not
a very simple process to understand, but it's great to know
that professionals like yourself out there are really listening to women
who are, you know, I think probably
tired of recently have been kind of at a loss
for this and for what to do and where to go.
If people want to see whether they're in the Austin area or not,
what's the best way to get in touch with you?
Well, we think education's the best.
So my podcast Breast Implant Illness is the one where I drop
as much educational information at no charge to anybody, so I can learn
that way or shows I've been on like Dave Asprey or Lauren Bostic.
And then you can obviously go to our you URLs Doctor Robert Whitfield dot
com and breast implant illness expert dot com.
Amazing.
I want to thank you so much
for being on good luck with your patients who are coming in today
and of course you listening at home if you have questions that you want me
to pass on to Dr.
Whitfield or his team, I'm always happy to do so.
You can email us at hello@artbeautypodcast.com.
You can find us on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube @ArtBeautypodcast.
I want to thank you so much for being with us today.
Dr. Whitfield Thanks for having me.
And as always, we will see you next Tuesday. I
write.