Breast Implants and No-Cut Facelifts - the Surgeon with Answers

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Good night. I was 42 and in the waiting room of a plastic surgeon for a consultation about breast implants. Across the hall, ironically, the office where I'd gone to have regular OB-GYN checks, prenatal care, and confirm that I was indeed pregnant. That irony, however, was lost on me because we weren't talking about today's topic at all then. But I think that if you have breast implants, you're thinking about it, or you wonder if you might be suffering from breast implant illness, you will get a lot out of this episode.

I'm Debra Atkinson, and you're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness and menopause and beyond before you know to ask them. The goal to help accelerate your results with the science and the practical application of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman. It's not just you, but it's the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert, an international speaker, to founder of the first and the only exclusively made-for-menopause-and-beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week I interview experts behind the science of optimal hormone-balancing fitness and longevity and share answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy you want, need, and deserve.

I was uncomfortable sitting there in that waiting room. I couldn't put my finger on it except this: I thought about all the women I know who had undergone the knife, including my sister-in-law, due to breast or other type of cancer. And before they called my name for that appointment, I knew I would not voluntarily cut and alter my body like that without a good health reason to do so. I am grateful for the decision that I made and for dismissing any reluctance about not taking that leap. It was just a firm no for me personally. And I don't care for Victoria's Secret padded bras either, by the way, and no judgment for those of you who did say yes and at one point for whom that was the right decision. But I hope this episode provides some insight for you. Do you have breast implants? Have you thought about getting them too, or do you know others, daughters, friends with them? The conversation about breast implant impact on health is a real one for a lot of women right now. If you have breast implants, you may or may not have symptoms that can be linked to the implants. In this episode with Dr. Rob Whitfield, America's breast implant expert, we get all into the cases. You do have implants, you feel fine. You do have implants, you're feeling symptoms that maybe you've just chalked up to menopause. Whether for yourself or as a resource to share with a friend or a daughter. This one doesn't end with breast implants, however, it only starts there. My guess may be your next best friend because frankly, who hasn't thought about a facelift? The little droop, the dramatic shift in eyelids or jowls. And by the way, who invented that ugly word? They have had me contemplate it. But again, it took me about 5 minutes to learn what happens. The recovery process, and I was out. But this sounds brilliant. Stay all the way to the end for the no-cut facelift details. My guest today, Dr. Robert Whitfield. He is America's breast implant illness expert. He's been a plastic surgeon for over 25 years and board certified for over 16. He specializes in breast implant illness, breast implant removal surgery, and advanced cosmetic procedures such as his no-cut facelift. In addition to his exceptional work as a surgeon, Dr. Rob is a sought-after provider for his strategic holistic accelerated recovery program, or SHARP. The protocols of SHARP help to reduce symptomatic inflammation and assist patients who are both preparing or recovering from surgical procedures. Dr. Rob's skills dovetail into a perfect balance of art and science and provide hope to scores of women looking to age gracefully or restore their health after breast implant illness. Dr. Whitfield received his medical degree from the University of Las Vegas School of Medicine. He then completed 6 years of surgical training and plastic surgery residency at Indiana University Medical. He returned to Nevada for a microsurgery fellowship before settling down to practice and teach at the Medical College of Wisconsin for years. In 2012, Dr. Whitfield came to Austin and became renowned for his breast cancer expertise. He entered private practice in 2017, and in 2019, he was chosen to speak at the FDA hearings on breast implants and their safety. In 2024, he published his first book, SHARP—Strategic Holistic Accelerated Recovery Program—to share his protocol and expertise in holistic surgical preparation and Recovery. The same year, he published his first scientific paper on microbial communities and associated biofilm in breast augmentation failure. Cannot wait to dive into this episode, and I think you're going to get a lot out of it. I will so hope that you share this one with a friend or friends who may either regret making a decision not to, or who have, and wonder if signs and symptoms are related to breast implants or don't have any idea yet but might now have an answer for mysterious symptoms not otherwise explained. Dr. Rob, thanks so much for being here. Thank you for having me on.

I really appreciate it.

Well, and this is a topic— actually stacked topic— so we're going to make everybody stay to the end for the really, really juicy stuff. Although, although So if you've got breast implants and you haven't put these things together yet, this is all very juicy for you. And inevitably, one of us here listening knows somebody in our life who may need this information. So please be sure to share it. So first of all, let's dive in. Let's start with the basics. What is breast implant illness?

Sure. Um, for the audience listening, I think of breast implant illness as chronic inflammation And so, we see throughout our practices and our experiences in life friends and family members who have problems with chronic inflammation. They may have pain in their hands, they may have swelling or a swollen or bloated stomach after they eat. They may have problems remembering your name, your kids' names that we commonly refer to that as brain fog. They may have lots of energy issues where they just don't want to get out and maybe you all used to go to the gym together or go for a walk together or whatever, and they just don't feel like doing that anymore. So, it affects almost every system of your body. And then, in my patient population as a plastic surgeon, both for breast cancer patients who I've taken care of for a number of decades and for cosmetic patients, they have a breast implant in place. And so, breast implants themselves are foreign bodies, of course, a hip, a knee, a breast implant, a dental implant, any kind of neurologic implants, things for OB-GYN that are implanted, anything that's foreign, your body immediately reacts to and wants to rid itself of. So you create an immune response, and commonly the immune response that I see and deal with, with breast implants, is a scar tissue formation around the implant. Plant. And so patients now have this device, their body's tried to get it away by forming a scar around it, and throughout the course of the, the time they have that device, things can happen. And what we found is about 29% develop a bacterial contaminant over time. And so that's a really high number, but not super surprising. Now, that is, is something that interacts with your breast tissue and then it causes an oxidative response in the tissues that leads to something called oxylipentinome that was discovered and published in 2024 by a scientist, Dr. Mathun Sina, who's been on my show.. And that molecule, which can be tested for in blood, and he's gonna help get that out to the marketplace. If found, that can be really insightful to the patients and the doctors because that's a more cause and effect relationship. So I think everybody would be more comfortable with that versus they just have these symptoms, they have implants, they don't know what's going on. So to me, It's very simple. If someone showed up with a red swollen breast, nobody would have confusion about what was going on. That would be an infection. And then they would be operated on and things would be taken care of. Because this is an indolent problem or subclinical problem, one that doesn't have visual signs and symptoms, and they may seem kind of vague when you go through their list of problems or they mimic other problems like mold and Lyme and autoimmune disorder, or maybe they already have one. So it becomes very confusing to themselves, their providers, their families. They— it's, it's a very difficult, you know, problem.

Yeah. And I would imagine that until a certain point that many women who may have breast implants pass this off as, well, this is just menopause. Like, because it's such a black hole.

Dollar for every time I heard that. It's crazy. I mean, that is— I had a girl tell me, uh, and I say girl, it's terrible. She's in her 30s. She said, I feel like I'm— I was told I was going through menopause. I'm like, you are not going through menopause in your 30s. Oh my gosh. That's ridiculous.

So not only are patients coming to you kind of who have attributed to that, but they're hearing that from medical professionals. 100%.

I mean, oh my gosh, it's a very confusing problem. And I think if, um, you know, we published that paper last year to highlight the cause of what I feel that the problem is in about a third of the patients. So it's bacteria, not mold. For everybody listening, is not mold. I did the study to look at samples tested with what's called polymerase chain reaction. If everybody remembers from the pandemic, you could get a PCR test that amplifies the DNA of whatever the organism is. In this case, it's bacteria. And so there's no question in my mind what it is. It's a bacteria. It's typically Cutibacterium acnes or Staph epidermidis. Those are the two most common. It's not fungus, and mold is a fungus, of course. So when I see these things on the internet or on, on the social platforms highlighting it's mold, I think it's disingenuous. It's, it's very problematic because then patients reach out and I say, okay, well, I, we published our experience to show that this is a function of bacterial contamination. And not a fungal contaminant. And just yesterday I got shown a blood test of somebody and they had mycotoxins in their blood. And I don't know about you, but it's not normal to have a bunch of mycotoxins in your blood that can be measured. I mean, that's not good in general. Mycotoxins come from fungus. And when I see high levels, I get seriously worried about, you know, where that person lives, what food they eat. You know, what are their environmental exposures? And then that's bad for your immune system in general, for your, your immune system, your neurologic system. I mean, everything can get affected. Your gut microbiome, all that gets affected by that.

Okay, I have two clarifying questions I need to ask you for me, and I'm assuming I'm gonna be asking for my audience. So I want to go backpedaling to the test. So if I understand correctly, the test that hopefully will soon be available in the marketplace What that will do is confirm that these signs and symptoms are directly connected and caused by the breast implant.

Is that right? So if the correlation can be made between the bacteria that we've found on implants, you know, post-explant, and what the scientists showed as the biomarker oxylipentinone, and he's done other profiling of other oxylipins then you have your best, you know, cause and effect relationship. Now, now you have to take that to, you know, basically the public because this is a— this is my research plus his research that we're talking about now. And that is not ready for primetime. You can't go to Quest or LabCorp and get that drawn. So that's the future of providing, I think, clarity, you know, around the problem for those who have that particular issue. And that's— we'll just say roughly about a third of the cases are that. And then, you know, the other two-thirds I find in my patient population, they have a lot of problems with genetic predisposition to poor detox. Okay. And that coupled to a lot of exposures through their food, their air, their fluid intake. Okay.

And I think that partially answered my next question. So, which is Does anybody who has breast implants right now who's within ear range and they're listening to this— is it a matter of time, or is this specific to the material in the specific implant somebody has, or is it a combination of the implant, the material, and the individual and their, their life exposure that will determine whether someone gets this or not?

Yeah, I'm going to try to exclude the material question because I've taken out every kind of vendor from all over the world. So I don't have an insight that could say, oh, don't get this one and you'll be fine. Okay. So I don't, I think it's, I'm going to say for now it's vendor agnostic. So regardless of the type, size, shape, filler, surface, we'll just say, we'll put that aside. Got it. And we'll come back to something very specific later. When you look at the genetic profiling, it's 100% how you picked your parents.

Great.

So, yeah, you know, my daughter specifically doesn't detox well and she's also more likely to have estrogen toxicity. So that's a very poor combination in the world we live in today where the food sources, the products you use and your audience uses on your skin may be mimic estrogen. There can be all sorts of, you know, herbicides, pesticides that get into the food you're eating, even if you're trying to be careful. I had some buddy tell me, like, you can try to avoid all those things, you know, Dr. Rob, but it's very difficult. And, and that's really the problem, right? If you, if someone comes to see you or I and they have unexplained weight gain and they have fatigue and they have all these problems. I am obviously very focused on what I do. So that person coming to see me has chronic inflammatory symptoms. They may have problems with genetics. They may have a severe toxicity burden, really poor gut health with SIBO or Candida overgrowth or C. difficile overgrowth. Or I live in Texas. Everybody goes on vacation in Mexico. So a parasitic problem is very common. In Texas and probably California for that matter. And then we look at triggers in their diet, we look at their metabolomics, and we look at their hormone balance because inevitably I'll have someone like that one I told you showed up in their 30s and say they're going through menopause, which of course is crazy. And we'll look at their hormones and they have like ultra-suppressed levels of everything. Like, like almost undetectable testosterone in their 30s. And so for women listening, you know, you, you need a small amount of testosterone yourself. And when you don't have any, and your estrogen and your, uh, you know, everything is lower, like, I just don't understand like exactly what's going on with them. But I think from the chronic inflammatory process that's going on and potentially molecules like oxylipentinum interacting with your immune system, your, your endocrine system is affected. We certainly see a ton of thyroid dysfunction in our patients.

What is— for somebody who's got implants, what is the first step? I mean, where do they go? Say they that live in the middle of the Midwest? I mean, where do they go first for support or to find out, is this what's going on with me?

Yeah, I think if this message resonates, you know, I've done over 100 shows and I think the best thing is just to sit down and listen to some, you know, content that's long form. I've been on a bunch of shows. My patients have delivered, on shows as well. And, you know, things will, will start to resonate. They may remember a time where they, you know, traveled, or a place they lived, or it happens with, uh, people when they go to college and they live in the dorms. There's a lot of mold in those older buildings. Yeah. And exposures. And then they may or may not have already had implants, and then they go on to get implants. And so It's almost, Debra, like stacking the deck, right? You're adding all these complex situations into what your parents gave you, which is a pair of genes. And, I dealt my daughter a poor blow, right? We gave her genes and she doesn't detoxify well. And, I'm a non-celiac gluten-sensitive person. So, I didn't know this for years and I would eat gluten not really understanding what that was, but I did understand how I did not feel well afterwards. And then, I don't really drink anymore and I'll have mocktails and stuff, but I used to drink beer when I was younger like a lot of people. It was cheap and you were drinking beer. And then, I would not feel well and your friends would make fun of you like you can't even drink a beer. That's the problem because barley and hops and all those things have gluten in them. So, once you're armed with enough information to make decisions, it's all about making informed decisions. So, I tell my daughter just like I would tell the audience things in your diet to be careful of. You have to be ultra aware of processed anything. It's not really food if it has a label that's describing what's in it because real food doesn't have a label, right? That's something we eat, it's grown. Our meat is weighed and they put a weight on it. They don't tell you what's in the meat because it's— So, trying to be, you know, starting with your diet. I really concentrate on sleep because I think the sleep deficit created by people, like, I get up super early and I work a lot, but I go to bed early. So, I'm constantly aware of that so that my circadian rhythm. And I'm out of town at a meeting, so I got up at the sunrise at 7:20 today, and I tried to go and get a few minutes to try to, you know, not start the day with caffeine, but go out and start the day with grounding and some light, and then wait and let my adenosine receptors reset. And then I can— I like caffeine, trust me.

I like a lot of— I like you. I like you a lot. Yeah. And there we go. Just proof of concept, everybody. That's all that was. So good. Okay, I hate to ask this, but I think I've got to. For some of the people you mentioned, you know, this is a cosmetic thing caused by something they, they didn't want or intend in their lives. For others, it is cosmetic. What about breast implant extraction? Is that covered by insurance?

Yeah, so it's a, it's a great question. And so I'll take it in, in two parts. Predominantly who I'm seeing now is cosmetic patients with a small number of cancer patients. I don't take any insurance and haven't since 2019. The, the cancer issue is a complex one because those patients underwent a procedure for a malignancy and their care is covered under the Women's Health Rights Act. Hopefully that stays intact. They're— if they're experiencing these problems, I think they're going to have to go advocate aggressively for themselves to try to get either a therapy that may seem aggressive, but I used to perform it all the time called the DIEP free flap breast reconstruction, which uses your own tissue. So I used to convert implant-based reconstruction. So reconstruction that used a breast implant to your own tissue, which is the tissue discarded in a tummy tuck routinely for problems after radiation treatment, problems with scarring, problems with pain, problems with infection, problems with— probably before I even knew what it was, was mast cell activation where people would get a big histamine release on their chest. And they called it like various things. But going back in the Rolodex of things that I've taken care of in my career now, as we get a little bit further along, a lot of the things that I used to see that I couldn't explain make sense now. Because if you have a foreign body and your body is constantly reacting to it locally, you'll get redness. It's just histamine release. So And sometimes when I do an explant, for instance, in the operating room, if someone has that, it will go away as I remove the device and the scar capsule. Hmm. Well, probably also why people wake up and they like to photograph their eyes and their eyes, their sclera, the white part is more clear because there's probably a lot less. And I'll just use histamine. I don't— there might be other things involved, of course, but we always, you know, think of histamine release with with redness. So, things that create redness or when I think back at them now, I'm like, "Oh, this was more of a reactive situation." Because our body's very clever about when you insert something into it that's foreign, it will react aggressively.

And, some people, it reacts more aggressively. Interesting. So here's a question. Somebody has breast implants and they are experiencing symptoms. What happens if they don't have them explanted? Do you have a question for a podcast?

A question you would love to ask, or maybe a story you want to tell? Did you know we have a special group just for podcast question roundups and the answers? My community coaches and I provide answers daily inside of this group. But it's also where I go when I occasionally say, okay, open call for podcast questions or tell your story. Would you like to be a guest? So if you're looking for a community of women who are also interested in optimizing their health, strengthening their mindset, and looking forward to every new year, join the Flipping 50 Insiders group. That's Flipping 50 Insiders on Facebook.

Well, I think I've, I've gotten this great experience over, uh, the last almost 9 years now because I was just telling somebody, I'm like, nobody ever wants to come see Rob Whitfield in Austin for surgery, right? Not for this surgery.

We'll talk about something later. Yes, this is true.

Um, but for this surgery, nobody wants to come have it, right? Because they got breast implants, we'll say, in the cosmetic situation, because they didn't feel developed enough. Whatever the, I mean, there's a whole litany of reasons that somebody gets these and that's not, you know, now it's going to dredge up all the reasons they got them, all the trauma if they were bullied or the, you know, psychological aspects of of their body image, and it's all serious, you know, business. So I offer a lot of simultaneous breast augmentation with fat. So I will remove the implant and scar tissue after our workup using the Sharp Method. So we were talking about earlier, but I'm very aggressive with testing and retesting and detox before surgery with my team, and detox after surgery because just, just removal of a device and scar tissue is not going to eliminate years of living in an environment with phthalates and BPAs and MEPs and glyphosates and mycotoxins and heavy metals. You know, groundwater can have a host of heavy metals in it that can affect you. I've had people have super high levels of of heavy metals, of arsenic, of mercury. I mean, none of that is really, you know, from a neurologic standpoint, you can have tons of symptoms. So it's, it's, it's more comprehensive. It's not just about explanting and seeing what happens.

Yeah, yeah, I love that. And such a great example and analogy to almost anything else that you're going to do, even I know somebody who's doing bioidentical hormones. You know, the goal is to have everything functioning as well as possible before you do those so that they do their job better. They're not supposed to take you 90 yards. You get there by doing the homework, and then this takes you the last 10%. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so let's go to the fun stuff. Okay, but I am so like I can see this from two different ways, although you've, you've just pointed that, you know, we think maybe doing some cosmetic surgery is superficial. And yet, you know, if we know we can't separate psychological health from physical health, you know, that is very tied together. And some, it's someone's self-esteem, someone's confidence, you know, in how they function in life. You know, this could have been a big part of it. And so, so too can this. And I can see how these could be sisters in that. But you have this no-cut facelift. How did that evolve, you know, in someone who's also over here doing breast implant illness treatments? Where did this come from? And we love you so much for doing it.

I, I think the The thing that struck me, and it was before the— it was before the pandemic, people were coming to see me as a second opinion, you know, trying to get an option that didn't require having another facelift. So they'd had a facelift. And for everybody listening, facelifts don't last forever unless you're frozen in time immediately after that is healed, because you're going to age. And now you have a scar. And so the scar is going to stay there, but your tissue is still going to age. So if you're very, very careful and look at your friends who've had surgery around the face, you'll notice that their cheek and around their jawline, their mouth in particular, is usually not well treated because it's very difficult to treat that area and get an effect. And then you'll have some friends who look like the Joker. They have a big hook in their mouth and it's pulled towards their ear. So that's more of a windswept appearance. And, you know, I don't know about you, but neither of those is very appealing.

I was going to say that doesn't sound attractive at all.

And I'm a pretty— I have a very kind of specific thing about aging and appearance and aesthetics. And when people would come and want breast implants, if I didn't feel what they were asking for fit their frame or fit a specific aesthetic, I just would tell them no. So I don't like making— actually, I don't like seeing any more funny people than that already exist because people look odd already because they're doing too many things. And facial appearances with weird lips really bother me. And filler— filler has been abused really badly in our country. And, um, to the point where, you know, we have pretty strict limitations even in our practice. I don't inject anybody anymore, honestly, um, because the, the expectations are unrealistic. Like, I don't know what they're seeing in terms of, you know, what they want, but in reality, what we want to do is have a natural, beautiful aging process that doesn't involve any visible scarring.

Amen, amen. So I'll have to tell a story on myself for all of our listeners. Very recently, you probably are listening, this is you, shout out to you, I, um, switched doctors. So I was getting some fillers and that doc wasn't available, I had an event and I went to someone else, and he was so excited to be on this journey with me. He said, I like this is just like a one-stop thing. I need you to— while I— this— but he had other ideas, and he did my lips, and I walked out and I was like, this is not what I wanted. I did not want this. I don't want anyone to ever be the one to say, oh, you had your lips done, they look great. Never ever do I want that. And, and I'm like, it's totally okay if you do. But that's not what I was after. I was just after— I'd like to look like I spent the weekend away at a resort and I look rested. That's it. And sure enough, a week later, someone asked in my DMs, have you had your lips done? They look great. And I was like, yes, damn. And that is exactly what I didn't want. I'm going right back to this guy. But I was like, I knew better and I didn't even stand up for myself in the moment. I let him go.

Yeah, that's a real problem. Like, either, you know, the providers always should have the brakes to tap because patients sometimes get either concerned with saying something or maybe the appearance change in the moment is not enough and they want more. Like, it's always easier to come back and get more. Yeah. And not feel the pressure to do too much at one time. Yeah. So that the, uh, so everybody listening, anytime you get a hyaluronic acid injection anywhere, there's going to be swelling. So the, the, the point Debra's making is if you do it in a, you know, moderate amount, you're going to get swelling, but it won't be so dramatic that someone notices it. But if you get more because in the moment it doesn't seem like it changed enough, then by the time the next day or the day after roll around, it's going to have changed quite a bit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we won't be doing that again, by the way. But talk to me a little bit about— so what's involved in the no-cut facelift? Because I can tell you that I've gone down this path. Like, I looked it up, like, oh no, there's this, there's that. Like, yeah, this really starting to bother me. So I looked it up, and, uh, the— I was like, oh hell no, that cured me, I'm not ever doing that. But it didn't stop me from wanting like a little refresh. So tell me what's involved and what's different about it. It's— if I gather correctly, this actually helps potentially improve over time my own ability to produce collagen.

We're looking at ways, like I said, to not leave any scars. So that's first and foremost. We don't want visible scarring, right? So number one thing that bothers people are their eyes because they look tired and their necks because they're on Zoom or whatever and they don't like their neck.

So, and whoever made up the word jowls, that is like an ugly word. Yeah, I— yeah, yes.

Um, but those are the two most common things I am asked about. And so the traditional neck lift was done with a facelift. So that's a more involved procedure, requires, you know, surgery, requires, you know, you know, scissors and cutting and all the things. So prior to, um, the pandemic, there's a minimally invasive series of products that were put forth, and through refinement and use of fiber optics, we can now do a minimally invasive neck lift just through 2mm openings. And it does involve placement of a suture. It's the same small suture I'd use to repair a tendon in your finger if you cut it, like, you know, uh, carving up something. So, that can all be done under local in the office for the neck in about an hour. So, I did tons of those when we resumed operation after the pandemic when we were closed for a period of time. And then, people of course wanted me to do more facial treatments at the same time. And, we already used the device called FaceTite. So, for your audience, FaceTite has got a 1-millimeter in diameter probe that goes beneath the skin. And, what happens is above the skin, there's another probe and below the skin, there's a probe. And so, you can tighten the tissues. Kind of think of like electrified eyebrow tweezers. So, like a forcep action.. And that helps tighten the tissue. So now we've tightened the neck deeply, and now we've tightened the, you know, skin and underlying subcutaneous fat of both the cheeks and the neck. And so the final answer then becomes, well, that all is really nice, but what are you doing to the outside? Because if everybody's listening, we haven't done anything to the outside yet. And so, you know, I've got people with sun damage, I've got people with fine lines, I've got people with deep lines, and they all want all those lines to go away. Well, for everybody listening, I'm not Harry Potter. I am Dr. Whitfield. And, you know, we can't go back and resolve all those lines. Nobody can. The point is, Can we, you know, minimize visibility of a line? Can we decrease the depth of a line? Can we decrease the skin?

And sorry to interrupt, but isn't the bigger idea— and maybe this is just wishful thinking, but this is— I don't mind looking like myself, like wearing the smile lines where I had the smiles, but it's the— where things started to turn downward. That, that bothers me. Like, so, you know, resting bitch face. Like, you look mad when you're not mad, right?

Well, that's all, you know, the, the point now is like a lot of people are conditioned to, to see, like you mentioned, the jowl area and the cheek area pulled back, and they think that's really the antidote for aging, which of course We don't age sideways, right? We age down. Things go from north to south. They don't go sideways. That's not how it works. So in, in, in our world, like, what can I do as a maneuver then to help get you tightening, help improve the lines? So now we're on the outside. We've done all the inside tightening. Yeah. Now people want this change. How much of a change can I get? And we used to perform exclusively radiofrequency microneedling, and we used a product called Morpheus8. So Morpheus8 could deliver energy and heat, and it was done in this same type of bipolar radiofrequency, which would concentrate the energy and you would get good treatment effect. So when you combined all of those, you got a nice set of results. You got a neck result, you got a cheek tissue and neck tissue result, and then you got a skin result because you had done the microneedling. Well, of course, all my clients, you know, who are happy, we just want the next thing that I have, you know, coming to fruition. And so the next thing was released, and basically it's a micro-coring technology. So instead of microneedling where you're just poking a little hole, a needle stick, Microcoring means you're actually removing a little piece of skin. So as soon as that came to fruition and was released by the FDA, we were able to get a device, and that really rounded out what you referred to as a no-cut facelift, because now you can take skin out and have no visible scarring, whereas before we were just doing microneedling and it was more like poking holes so collagen could form, etc. But now we're actually removing skin. And if you do the math, you can remove about a square inch of skin when you do a full face neck treatment on someone. So the treatment works. The, the way I like to and we'll go back to what we talked about before, everything works better if in fact the patient is optimized to have that treatment. Yeah. So you can't get into my clinic to get that procedure done or any procedure done without engaging in and taking care of yourself to improve your overall health status because I'm not the problem in this equation. I'm very experienced and I know what I'm actually doing. So I'm not gonna, to, you know, do something that's not going to help you. The, the things that we run into are, you know, the diet and lifestyle and hormone problems and gut problems and toxicity burden issues that really limit someone's ability to heal. So we want to set everybody up for success with the right testing and supplementation and detox if necessary. That's why I have a whole team running that. And now I'm just very selective about doing the actual, you know, treatments. J.J. Virgin's a client of mine. I did her face. And, you know, I feel like the folks in the media and big personalities like J.J., they know what I'm about, obviously, and they're showing their face all the time. So you have to be able to do something. Yeah. And, you know, J.J.'s like, all my clients, they want to know what is the next thing. I just saw her recently and she's like, well, what, what's, what are you going to have now? And there's new iterations of the microcoring device because every, you know, you have to understand, like, there's very little that's going to change with surgery, right? It's surgery, surgery, excisional or tissue removal. You can only do so much stuff. Like, the real the blue water or the big place to develop. What we can do is in our own use of our stem cells, our own materials. I'm not a big, huge fan of anything allogeneic, meaning I'm not, like I said earlier, a big fan of fillers. I would prefer to use, you know, fat whenever I can. So that's what I use for the breast and buttocks augmentation. I will caution your audience, be extremely careful and go to an experienced person if you're going to get fat put in your face. Because fat, when it goes in your face, will live almost 100% of the time. So number one, it's very, very small amounts that go a very long way. And don't put them in areas that are going to be super visible. I was at a meeting recently and somebody's like, can I get fat under my eye? I'm like, no, That's not— that's the thinnest skin on your entire body is your eyelid skin. And you see how people look puffy and all this stuff, it becomes very visible. So that's a different type of problem that doesn't— that's not the solution for that problem. So like you have to be one aware of like what's going on and then what are the options for it so that you can make a good decision and have a nice result and not have a new problem to deal with.

So good. So many questions I could continue to ask you, but the, the one before we wrap up, I want to make sure everybody knows. I know you have a robust YouTube channel, a podcast. Where is the best place for our audience members to find and follow Dr. Robert Whitfield?

Yeah, for all of the information regarding whether it's the breast or no cut, if you go to Dr. Robert Whitfield, if you go to that, you can then go to all the other media outlets that we've been on or that we have. And that just is a consolidation of all of our content so that you can pick and choose.

Sweet. Beautiful. Okay, so in 30 seconds or less, I'm going to ask this last question. So I know you said you know, in about an hour or less you can do this. But the question that I have is, what about me? What's the downtime for me in terms of inability to do my normal activities of daily life? How much downtime for the no, no-cut facelift?

Yeah, I think for that you're looking at 1 to 2 weeks. Okay. You can't flip a camera on— it's a really aggressive treatment. I don't I don't want to undersell that at all. I mean, you're going to look like a mess for a couple of weeks. So anybody who tells you any different is lying to you.

So I love an honest answer. Thank you so much for your time for being here.

Thanks for having me on.

I appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening. To listen and access a decade of episodes and the show notes, visit flipping50.com, where you'll be able to find all of our prior episodes. And I made it easy for you to make the most of your listening time by selecting 5 specific areas most commonly high priorities for our community and giving you top 10 lists if you let me know you'd love them. If you know a midlife woman or a soon-to-be one who who wants to optimize her midlife energy and time with the right exercise and lifestyle changes and a mindset shift about just what is possible, share this podcast with her and I thank you. There is no more powerful health influencer in the world than you, midlife woman.