The Truth About Breast Implant Illness & Safe Recovery with Dr. Robert Whitfield
In this interview on the Well Beyond 40 podcast, host JJ Virgin talks with Dr. Robert Whitfield, a reconstructive microsurgeon who has become a leading voice on Breast Implant Illness (BII) and safe explant procedures. Dr. Whitfield defines BII as a chronic inflammatory response to breast implants that can be compounded by genetics, environmental exposures, and biofilm‑forming bacteria. He recounts how a post‑cancer patient’s unexplained fatigue was traced to an undetected E. coli infection, which sparked his deeper investigation into implant‑related infections. He explains three routes by which implants become contaminated—operator handling, staff handling, and hematogenous spread from distant infections—emphasizing that the first two are exceedingly rare. Traditional culture methods often miss low‑grade infections; his partnership with MicrogenDX enabled PCR testing of 150 microbial targets on 700 explant specimens, revealing a 29 % bacterial contamination rate, most commonly Cutibacterium acnes and Staphylococcus epidermidis, which form biofilms that interact with breast tissue oleic acid and trigger immune dysregulation. To address the multifactorial nature of BII, Dr. Whitfield developed the SHARP protocol (genetic screening, detox support, methylation optimization, and glutathione supplementation), noting that about 83 % of his patients have SNPs affecting these pathways. He advocates for autologous fat transfer over device exchange, and outlines peri‑operative precautions such as targeted IV antibiotics before dental work, colonoscopies, or minor procedures, as well as lifestyle measures (air filtration, diet, avoiding ultra‑processed foods). The conversation also covers symptom clusters (fatigue, brain fog, joint pain), the lack of a definitive biomarker (with emerging oxylipin research), and supportive therapies like hyperbaric oxygen, lymphatic massage, and plasma‑based “Human Regenerator.” Dr. Whitfield points listeners to his YouTube channel, podcast, the SHARP book, and upcoming breast‑implant‑illness book for further education, emphasizing informed, personalized decision‑making rather than fear‑mongering.
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Dr. Rob Whitfield, welcome to Well Beyond 40.
Thank you so much for having me.
Long time overdue and a subject that is getting more and more and more attention. I think one of the reasons is you are out there bravely, courageously talking about this, and that is breast implant illness and then how to explant safely. And, you know, the obvious question, since most plastic surgeons are known for putting breast implants in in, and now you're getting known for taking them out. What got you interested in this? What kind of alerted you that there might be a problem?
Well, first of all, thank you for having me, and I appreciate this opportunity to share this with your audience. So first of all, I try to define breast implant illness as a chronic inflammatory process of which a medical device, in this case a breast implant, is playing a role. It's not the only thing going on, as we all know. We're a collection of experiences. Some of those are inherited that we got from our parents, environmental, the food we eat, the air we breathe, the fluids we take into our body, the things we apply to our skin, those all affect, you know, how we deal with and, and handle inflammation. So in 2016, after a very long period of time just doing reconstructive microsurgery for cancer patients with jaw cancer and breast cancer and sarcomas, and, you know, people who unfortunately in terrible accidents and needed reconstructive surgery, thought I had a breast cancer patient seek me out to go flat. And although that wasn't, quote unquote, that common in my training, it's become more and more a movement of going flat, which is absolutely the patient's right. And I respected, you know, her decision to have her reconstruction removed and go flat. And I did it in a setting because of a medical condition in a hospital. And each time I would take out an implant, if I was removing it and that was going to be it for the device, we would take all the scar tissue out and send that scar tissue and any other scarring to look for residual cancer, of course, in a cancer case. And then two, look for any contamination, any bacteria, fungus, mycobacterium, something like that that could cause the patient any kind of ongoing problem from an infection. Or inflammation. And so I just did that in every case. That's how I was taught in terms of my oncology training. And that patient, when the pathology came back, she had no evidence of residual cancer, which is first and foremost the important thing. And then secondly, when her microbiology, which looks at bacteria and fungus and microbiology exams, came back, she had an E. coli infection. And so you can, you know, you know my sister's history. My sister recently passed away of breast cancer after a very, very long period of time dealing with that someone missed an infection on my sister who had a breast reconstruction with an implant, I would have been pretty frustrated by that. But I did, as I do, all the patients' physical exams and consultations, and we review all their laboratory analysis and any diagnostic studies. She didn't have any indicator that she had the infection. And I went back through everything because I was like, whoa, how did I miss this? This is not good. So she did have fatigue, and many patients, as you know, JJ, who go through chemotherapy or other adjunct therapies get bone marrow suppression, they have a lot of fatigue. The, the scoring system for that is, is well known. That's very, very routine. But she had an E. coli infection, and when she got that explant done, and then I treated her for the E. coli infection with antibiotic therapy, all of her fatigue went away.
Mm.
So this lady unfortunately had been living with an infection for a period of time, unbeknownst to any of the providers. And so everybody then, you know, will, you know, send me a message on Instagram, DM me like, why did that happen? How was that missed? And so for everybody listening so that we're all on the same page, infections as it relates to a device, hip, knee, breast, dental implant usually occur one of three ways. And we'll, we'll talk about each of them. So an implant is given to a surgeon in the operator. The staff who gives the implant to the surgeon can contaminate the implant.
How common is that?
Super low. Like, okay, far, far, far less than 1% of the time. The surgeon can contaminate it after getting it by touching it inappropriately to the skin or somehow having a break-in technique. Okay.
And so I assume that's super low as well.
Those first two things are super low, all less than— far less than 1% of the time.
And we're talking any implant now?
Yeah, hip, knee, breast, dental. All the precautions taken on the front end are to avoid that, like the immediate infection of a device. So then the third most common way, and the way this was, uh, like hammered home to me as a med student ages ago— I'm getting old now— is They're like, uh, Rob, you need to come listen to Mr. Smith's chest. He has a mechanical heart valve. And this is why I did med school. And people had had mechanical heart valves in, and they were taking Coumadin, which is a blood thinner, because to have a, you know, mechanical heart valve, you have to have this. And you'd listen and you hear it go ping, ping, ping, make this metallic noises before they started using pig valves. And, uh, you're like, oh, okay. And then they would teach you about something called endocarditis. And they would say, Rob, you know, if you don't give this patient a dose of IV antibiotics before colonoscopy, or they don't get a prescription before teeth cleaning, or if they get a urinary tract infection, or they would get a pneumonia— if you don't treat them aggressively, they can get an infection of their mechanical heart valve and develop endocarditis, which they call it vegetations. It's bacterial overgrowth on the valve, and it'll embolize cause strokes, all your organs, basically. And obviously, that's— talk about morbidity, uh, of a problem. So anyway, I always think of those examples because I'm old enough to know those examples. And if we get a urinary tract infection or a lung infection or a skin infection, all of that bacteria from that can get into our bloodstream, and that can attach to any device. A cardiac device, a neurologic device, you know, a neurostim for a problem with your back, a breast implant, a hip implant, a knee implant. These all have devastating consequences to those who perform those procedures, whether it's orthopedic, neurosurgery. I was, you know, always asked to help with those if somebody got an infection in a device, because in reconstructive cases for oncology that'll cause a great amount of disability if you lose your knee prosthesis after they did a cancer surgery, or if you lose it, um, uh, conversely with anything neurologic, you know, if they're putting in deep brain stimulators or anything like that. So that's how those things develop, were a function of exposures over time. So for everybody listening, when I did cancer cases or cosmetic cases, my patients always had a little standing prescription at the office if they went and got teeth cleaning because the mouth, it's the beginning of the GI tract.
But isn't that because, you know, you know, I've got knee— I'm bionic with my knees and hips. But, um, we had to have— when I went and got teeth, my teeth cleaned initially, I had to take antibiotics. And then you only have to do that for 6 months. That doesn't sound right based on what you're telling me.
No, it can happen anytime. I mean, overall You know, if you have a device in place, there's nothing at 6 months after that device that says you can't get a problem, right? So those things, you know, this is where I think we have to be a little bit more careful about how we talk about devices, because devices are inherently— they have a risk profile. They're not your genetic material. That's why when we take out old implants now and I put in, you know, fat, I try to do that in lieu of an exchange with a device. Because if I exchange with your own genetic material, your own fat, then it has the ability to heal. And if it's healed and, you know, throughout the process of your life, you can maintain, we'll just say, a modicum of health, then that's going to stick with you and it's not going to need an antibiotic therapy later on or anything like that, typically. But any device like hip, knee, breast, dental, like all these folks I have on my show about biologic dentistry, they just describe all these really horrendous things they find on these dental implants they remove.
Yeah, well, Dr. Sande Moldovan found a cavitation of mine because from a root canal gone— Right. Yeah, wisdom tooth pulling out gone bad.
I just think we have to be careful about it. I don't overemphasize antibiotic therapy, but if you have a device and there's a reason you got the device, you got to be cognizant of that. Many of the, to your point, hips and knees, it's— I don't know that they're more resilient than the others, but seemingly, and I've taken care of folks who've had, unfortunately, had to have a knee removed and a cement spacer and basically have to peg leg it around for 6 weeks of IV antibiotics and then get a new knee implant placed. So it's more about, you know, Can you use the precautionary principle in this case? I mean, obviously in those I'm a little more, as you know, conservative about those types of things. I don't overemphasize antibiotics in my practice, but I'm careful and selective about, you know, use of those.
Yeah. Wow. Okay. So this first case, what led you to kind of go deeper into all of this then?
Yeah, so that gal, after I did it and found out she had E. coli infection, we, we couldn't figure out like why that happened, uh, in terms of her history and then how we didn't identify it. And then I believe she just put me on a Facebook group that said I did explant surgery. Then I had people start coming to me and calling, you know, the office where I worked at that point, and they'd say, hey, heard Dr. Whitfield does explant surgery, can, you know, have consult. And so the staff were a little taken back. They're like, I know he did this for a cancer patient, but this was a cosmetic patient who called the next time, and, and so on and so forth. And it was 2018, I was taking care of a nurse whose sister lived in Austin, and I did her explant surgery. At that point, I was using drains I had done the explant, taken out the scar tissue, went on the back table and looked at it, and the thing was really kind of— we call it slimy. Like, it just seemed like it was infected. The implant itself seemed to be intact. You can have gel bleed, which is kind of the silicone leaking through the shell, and that's a different kind of characteristic feel. This was like a gross kind of slimy infected feel. And I went out and told her husband, I'm like, you know what, I think she just has an infection. We'll wait and get the cultures back. And so for everybody listening, standard cultures in this country have been done with basically like a Q-tip swab that you put in a little container and you send to the lab. The technician at the lab would take the Q-tip swab, wipe it on what's called an agar plate, little plate full of a medium to incubate it, put it in the incubator, it grows. Then if something grows, you can get an antibiotic resistance profile to it and then you can treat. That's been done since the '50s, basically. And it's JJ, it came back to me and said no growth, nothing there. And I was like, that's bullshit. There's no way.
Well, thank God you questioned this.
There's just no way. I was just like, okay, we have to do better than this. And that was 2018. And, uh, for those listening, textured implants are associated with a cancer called breast implant associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma. And some of the preliminary work looking at PCR analysis of explant specimens on those patients was done at MicrogenDX, which is a lab in Lubbock, Texas. So I got connected with the lab and I said, hey, I want to have an agreement in place so I can send samples there and get them looked at. And they gave me a profile that they would run for me that looks at 150 types of bacteria, fungi, and mycobacterium. So Although nothing's perfect, that's a more comprehensive way to look at it. And so from February 14th, 2019 to date, that's all we do is run PCR testing on all these. And last September, we published a series of 700 consecutive explant specimens, the scar tissue, not the implant surface. And it showed that 29% have bacterial contamination. And so what does that really mean? In our series, it was Cutibacterium acnes. In other series, it's been Staph epidermidis, which in, in my series was number 2. Doesn't really matter. Both of those readily produce biofilm. And for everybody listening, biofilm is like— it's plaque on your teeth. Think of that. That's what biofilm is. It builds up on there, and that's bacterial, uh, growth in almost like a little village of bacteria. But that bacteria can interact with your breast tissue, specifically the fatty acid in the breast tissue called oleic acid. And that's what starts the problem with your immune system. Ultimately downstream, it affects our macrophages, which are a part of our immune system, and that's what can stimulate more symptoms in patients that I take care of— joint pain, fatigue, all sorts of, of problems. And so when I take those out and I send those off and I get those results back, JJ, It gives those patients peace of mind that that was really the impetus for what they were experiencing. Now, in other cases, our program, you know, we developed the Sharp Method basically to help answer the rest of those questions. So we look at someone's genetics, so your detox capability, things like your vitamin D pathway, your antioxidant pathway, how you methylate, how you metabolize and use glutathione to help with chemicals you're exposed to. Fundamentally, we all have these pathways. Some of them work better than others, of course. And in my client population, about 83% have SNPs or problems in each of those pathways. Whereas if you just looked at the individual incidence, it's basically the same as the global population. But cumulatively, if I told you 83% of the people I take care of have that problem, you'd be like, oh my gosh, that makes sense. Because they just don't detox well.
So, so it sounds like if someone was considering getting breast implants and they couldn't use their own fat, that it would be wise to check this ahead of time. And if you are in that 83 or 84%, am I hearing right, that this— you wouldn't be a candidate?
I think it would give you pause. And just like anything, you're an N of 1. And I think what is important now is the more we understand and use they're not cliché, like precision medicine or being more intentional about what we're doing is important. I don't feel like implants are ever going away. I would not say that.
And do you think that, like, there is a percentage of the population that can be fine with them?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. I know you've gotten a lot of flak, and I also know that from talking to you, you never said, oh, no one can have these. You just said they're creating problems in some people. So you finally validated which this situation that women knew was happening, you know, but—
I think the women have been very intuitive. They know when something's not right. And I give credit to the patients for not listening to folks telling them that there's nothing wrong.
Yeah. Well, we've been told that in so many different ways in our lives for so long. Right. You know, I think they're all—
I mean, now, you know, that's—
We're all being loud now. In everything.
So that's a hugely important topic, and we want to at least write an open letter to address the genetic problem, because in our audit it's obvious to us. So we want to start the conversation about genetics because you can't stick your head in the sand and say this doesn't exist, it's not a problem. And then the other thing that is interesting now on the influencer circuit is toxicity, right? Everybody talks about toxicity.
Yeah, let's do a juice cleanse and fix it.
Right. And, you know, I'm just like, really?
Like, oh no.
Yeah. I'm like, I, you know how I am. I want to test things and I want to have a metric so that, you know, my patients know where they start so that we can refer back to it. So we look at a toxicity test and the things we find in terms of, we'll just say biotoxins, like mycotoxins come from fungus, environmental toxins, which are, are big now. Like we hear about all the things in food and herbicides and pesticides. Those are getting a lot of attention now. And then of course I get asked about heavy metals all the time. Are the implants causing, you know, heavy metal toxicity? And the short answer is we don't see that. And then people are like, oh, you just don't know.
Like, well, that one's pretty easy to see though. Of all the tests that you can look at, heavy metals are one of the ones, unless your body's holding on to them, but you can do things to provoke it.
Well, yeah, you went on Lauren Bostic's show, and Lauren Bostic is the all-time record holder in my practice of heavy metals in a test.
Wow. That's not something you want to win.
No, but she's the gold medalist, if you will.
Although my son was also a gold medalist on it. Yeah, I was like, uh-oh.
Well, right, those things. But like having tan or any of those things in you at high levels causes cognitive issues. Mitochondrial problem, all sorts of things. Like, tin can literally make you crazy if you have too much of it in your system. And she— people ask me, you know, like Lauren, as soon as I did her surgery, after surgery, she wanted to do like Instagram posts and all these things. And I thought she was a little bit, you know, comfortable on medication, so to speak. And every day after, she was kind of getting more energetic and feeling better. So it had been really affecting her. That was the point.
Yeah.
And when we repeated her tox test, all of the heavy metals were out and she had done no therapy, no chelation therapy, no additional binder therapy or anything that would affect those levels other than surgery.
If someone, first of all, are there, you know, are there different breast implants? Like, are some breast implants more susceptible to this than others?
Yeah, that's a great question. I, I, you know, I would say that when you looked at our, uh, study, there was no difference on the, um, incidence of bacterial contamination on surface. You would think intuitively it would be higher on texturing, but I think it goes back to technical considerations on placement. So then it becomes a secondary question of what is more stimulating and obviously the textured are more stimulating because they can lead to a lymphoma. So the interaction in the immune system, and that's still— there's tons of work being done on that. And the issues that come from that, to me, I see them in the operating room. You can see really dense scar tissue, very difficult to remove. And then when those patients are seen, uh, day over day in the office after surgery, because we do, as you know, in my office we have lymphatic massage and we have hyperbaric therapy.
You have the best playground ever. Having, having done some facial things over at your office, it's like I could just move in there very happily between the—
and we added something static. And yeah, and we added something called the Human Regenerator, which is— uses cold plasma technology. So it's like a huge bed you lay on— and it, it, uh, I'm sorry, increases electron transport. So anyway, those folks who have those textures and they get them out, and then day over day in the office, they're the ones who are more energetic. Um, those, uh, those to me, they're the most stimulating to your immune system. The smooths, um, I don't think as much. And then anything that comes forward And I'm not gonna speak about a specific vendor. I mean, it's still a foreign object. No matter how you slice it, when you put it in, your body's gonna react to it. And then everybody, as we already described, is gonna behave a bit differently.
Everyone's gonna what, what?
Behave a bit differently.
And someone suspecting, like, I'd love to hear just what the most common symptoms are of breast implant illness or a joint, you know, a foreign object illness. If someone suspects this, Is there a way to evaluate it without, before going in and, you know, taking out a knee replacement or a breast implant or whatever?
Well, we'll take those individually. Like, so I was fortunate enough to work with orthopedic oncology groups at my initial post after training, and they were hyper-aggressive. Like, if they felt that your knee, for instance, in your case, was infected, they would go to great lengths to ensure that it wasn't. Like, they would numb it and they would aspirate it. If that was questionable, they would take it to the operating room and either do it under sedation or be more aggressive. Like, they had to confirm or deny that that was, you know, the issue for a knee. It's obviously a little bit different in a breast implant because a breast implant can be damaged by a needle trying to aspirate around it. So if you did an ultrasound or had a diagnostic study that showed fluid around an implant, you automatically assume it's either infected or in a textured case, you'd have to prove that that's not a cancer. So it's different in that setting. If you look at a knee on ultrasound or you examine it and they're just swollen, then you got to prove it's not an infection. You know, if, if you just banged your knee and it got swollen, you're like, ah, it's fine. But if that's chronic, and tender or warm and you don't feel well. Those are all the prodromal signs of an infection. And that's very, you know, in a, uh, in a routine hip or knee, very problematic. In a cancer patient who had that done, worse, because they're typically even either on immunosuppressives or having received immunosuppressive therapy. So it may be even like you're not seeing exactly what's going on and it's markedly worse. So all of those things— I, and I, I always say the same thing to our patients. I'm like, if you had a big red swollen breast, everybody would know exactly what's going on, and there wouldn't be all this rigmarole, your hand-wringing, you know. It just would be taken care of. I used to get called, JJ, on a Friday, hey, Susie Smith has redness of her breast reconstruction, and we're admitting her to the hospital. So you have 24 hours in that case for that to resolve, or basically you have to take that patient to the operating room because they're in the midst of getting chemotherapy or whatever and take it out because they're going to get sick. So you, you just have a limited window, but it's obvious in those cases, right? They're immunosuppressed versus a breast implant illness patient who's not. They're completely immunocompetent. But they may have these, I don't feel well. Mm-hmm. I mean, I have brain fog, I have fatigue, I have muscle and joint pain.
I have, I mean, all the things that could be perimenopause. Yeah. It could be, you know, that's the challenge.
It's super confusing. Like, I don't, I don't envy anybody sitting across from a patient trying to explain this. It's not that simple.
And it's not like you could do like some toxic burden test and look at, right.
I think this is the point where I should say, like, the person who's done the best work on this is Dr. Mathun Sina. He's at Indiana University Medical Center, and he published a paper about oxylipentinome, which is that molecule that's formed by the interaction between biofilm and the oleic acid in the breast. Now, if that became a biomarker you could measure in a blood spot analysis or in the bloodstream, that would be good for those people suffering from that specific interaction between Staph epi which is the bacteria and the oleic acid, because to date that's the only association he's been able to find. And it's got different, uh, oxylipin molecules. But so that's the first, like, real biomarker. So, but that represents only a fraction of the people, but that could help, you know, identify in those cases, you know, or a provider could say, hey, let's just try this, let's see if this is potentially the problem. That would help them because you can't be the primary doctor trying to figure this out and you're like, I don't know, uh, I'll send you to the GI doctor, or I'll send you to the rheumatologist, I'll send you to the endocrinologist because you're— you got Hashimoto's, whatever though.
Yeah, I'm just playing like I'm listening to this going, okay, so here's a woman, she's got breast implants, she's got low-grade fatigue, She's got, you know, some low-grade inflammation. She's not recovering well from workouts, some brain fog, but she's also going through perimenopause. Now she's like, which is it? And, you know, are there things she can start doing to see if it's breast implant illness, or is the only real way for her to figure that out is to go in and explant?
No, I think the first step is why we created Sharpe and published the book. Basically, I know by virtue of patients who take a year or two to get to me that if you run the program before, you can lower inflammation. Just like, you know, how to lower inflammation. There's a bunch of ways to do it. And if your genetics are not favorable, the way we devise the supplementation to lower inflammation prior to surgery, you can do and try, and that'll upgrade your methylation pathway or ability to methylate, your ability to handle vitamin D. Your ability to bind with chemicals. So glutathione, as, as we talk about, is a master antioxidant, and it's really difficult in those patients who have limited ability to handle their exposures. And, um, I guess if you want to think of it, here's a good way for everybody to do this. We'll do what I do in the office. If you can get some liposomal glutathione And it doesn't have to be mine, pick your vendor. And you take it— needs to be unflavored, JJ, because if it's flavored, it will just— it will, it will distinguish— it will not distinguish it well enough. So if you have a lot of chemical exposures or mold, it will feel like you're, you're, uh, chewing up on like some salt. But if you don't have that problem it'll be quote unquote normal. It may be a citrus flavor or like a plain flavor.
So if you do regular old like liposomal glutathione that hasn't been flavored and it tastes horrible to you, that shows that you have a problem.
You have too many chemicals in your system. And that to me just tips off, like, I always think of like, I'm in Texas, I get a lot of people from the Gulf Coast, I get a lot of people from the left coast. Not so much from the right, but I do. And I worry about mold in all of them. Those folks who can't handle mold are sensitive to odors, chemicals, fragrances, all those things. And then when you give them glutathione, it tastes rancid. It's universal, typically, because you have so much genetic capability, and then once you exceed it, you get symptomatic. So when they put that in their mouth, they're just detoxing. Their body wants that. Wants to bind it and get rid of it. And you know as well as I do, they have to bind it, eliminate it to get rid of it. And then they have problems like we all have, all these folks with problems with GI, constipation, and it's just, it's like rampant in society.
But that's interesting. I've never heard that before. I knew about, you know, like all the sensitivities.
Yeah, it was something that we started because I had a big mold exposure, and I used all sorts— I did all sorts of things, honestly, to get rid of it. The biggest thing was we moved. That made it easier. And now, you know, you know my wife, we essentially like went to an Airbnb this past weekend. I took an air filter with me. That's what— that's just what I do now. So you got to control your environment. Like, yeah, my office, there's air filter, and I take glutathione every day. And if you don't you know, if you think I'm crazy, that's fine.
You're, you're selling me on the glutathione, literally, because we just, I was speaking at an event in Asheville, North Carolina, and this hotel, I always think I'm not very sensitive. Oh my goodness. It was, I was like, my eyes felt like they were getting stabbed. I could, I was exhausted. I'm like, I, oh boy.
Yeah.
It was brutal. Brutal. Brutal. I came home and immediately like, basically walked into the sauna and sat down. I was taking binders. I was like, this is terrible.
Well, your body can only do so much.
So it sounds like, you know, listening to this, I can't really think of a time, especially if you have any kind of implants, breast implants on down, when you wouldn't want to be looking at this. I'm glad you're giving away the PDF of the book. When you wouldn't want to be going through this because you need to give that support to your body because it can't It sounds like it would be very easy to overload it. It's already got, right? It's already got a little issue or weakness in there, 1 or 2 or 3, depending on how many implants you have in there. And the last thing you want to do is make it more susceptible. Is it, when you have these implants now with like breast implants or whichever implants, should you be taking antibiotics every time you're getting dental work now? Is that a thing or not a thing?
I think if we use the precautionary principle based on what I see, I would be more inclined to do that, like a dose. And when we do, say, a fat transfer in the office under local, or what's considered to be, you know, a simple procedure like that, I still give a dose of IV antibiotics. I don't keep anybody on oral therapy. So if you're going to get a colonoscopy and they have an IV in place, you can say, hey, you know, I'm JJ Virgin, I've had a knee replacement, I'd like to get a dose so that I'm covered for this procedure in case you need to do a biopsy and expose me, you know, potentially to bacteremia, which is what we're trying to avoid. Same with teeth cleaning. Now that would typically be an oral because you're not going to have an IV in place for a teeth cleaning. I think you just got to be more and more cognizant of it. And I think, you know, I try to get everybody to understand it. Like all these exposures are happening all the time. And so I'm not trying to be like a overly oppressive about it, but like, we can all do better with like the water we drink, you know, filter water out of stainless and ceramic and glass and not plastic, of course. And then don't reheat stuff in plastic. Definitely don't eat things that are not ultra-processed. And, um, you know, we just try to encourage people to make better choices. I had a poor lady come to me 5 kids, husband's in the military, deployed a bunch. Each kid has a problem with attention deficit disorder. And, and I said, what do y'all eat? She's like, well, we, we eat a lot of, uh, not great stuff, and the kids like candy. And, you know, of course kids like candy, but she said Monster likes and C4 and Red Bull and all this stuff. And I'm like, and how old are the kids? Oh, the youngest is 7. And I'm like, you can't give them that. And I said, here's what you can do. You can't be my patient, but if you make these decisions now and change, you can be my patient. So instead of Skittles, you can have some human chocolate because they, they at least have a reasonable set of ingredients. And instead of like C4, Red Bull, Monster, you can have some Zevia, which is not great, but it's a better choice. And instead of like Takis, you can have siete or masa chips or something. You just have to make better choices.
I will do a shout out that I was just at this in the Asheville conference. Our buddy Dr. Elisa Song just did was showing the gut microbiome and walking through this with our kids' health and literally went through and showed switch the Taki chips for the Siete chips, shit, switch this for, and I was like, it's so useful.
Yeah. And it totally helped her family and she just didn't know because nobody had helped her because she's listening to advertising and yeah, but those are big, huge things and she's much more energetic now and her kids are doing better and No kid needs or should have caffeine at 7.
Can you imagine? I, I think back, like, you know, because we didn't have Starbucks. I think Starbucks has just— yeah, you know, and, and they're having these coffee milkshakes. It's like, who had— none of us had that stuff when we were kids. The first time I had a cup of coffee was when I went to London in my teens, and, you know, I was jet-lagged. I was like, that was it. The light bulb came on, and I was— I've been on coffee ever since. But—
And we're lucky we have The Well here in Austin, which is a gluten-free, dairy-free, seed oil-free restaurant.
I love that restaurant so much. So what I'm hearing is really what we wanna do is support our detox pathways as much as possible, eliminate anything that could be toxic to our body as much as possible. I always like to say our body is a history book, so we gotta just not create more of a toxic burden, get rid of as much toxic burden as possible, see if your symptoms resolve as you're waiting for an explant, if that's not something you can do right away, and perhaps they will, or, you know, then you can go and do that. But either way, you'd want to do these things pre-explant.
I think working backwards, over all of our experience with thousands of patients, we find that to be the most impactful thing. Like, running the program helps the most people. Not everybody, you know, is going to be able to take the time and come see us in Austin. And I, I think of it like, if we can invert the pyramid, so to speak, and help the broader group of patients by helping them with the program. We also have a group program to help run if they need detoxification help, because anybody can participate, right? You can just listen to the show that JJ and I are doing now. You can get the book, you can listen to the podcast, you can get supplementation and do testing if you'd like. And if you're, you know, of the mindset that you're going to make that decision to expat, that's absolutely fine. I don't tell anybody to expat, JJ, ever. They come having made that decision. I don't decide that for them.
Well, and I like the way that you present it because I think early on I never aired the interview. Someone came on and told me that 100% of women that had breast implants had breast implant illness, and I, like, pulled the plug right there. I go, that is the most— there's never— nothing's ever 100%, you know.
The absolute certainty is absolutely stupid.
Yeah. So I was like, all right, that's ridiculous. I'm never going to be in the business of, of, you know, fearmongering anybody. I just think we should have the information so we can make informed decisions, which is why I love that you're doing— you have an amazing YouTube channel and a podcast. Let's talk about where everybody can get more information. We're going to put your book and we'll put all of this as well at JJVirgin.com/explantrecovery. But let's— what are the different ways that they can learn more from you?
Yeah, I think the best way, the easiest way for educational purposes is go to YouTube and type in Dr. Robert Whitfield. That'll bring up our show that talks about explant, breast implant illness, fat transfers, and then the podcast. Similarly, it talks about explant and breast implant illness and recovery. So those are the two main educational ways. And then the book Sharp is available on all the platforms, and our new book about breast implant illness is coming out this year. It'll be available as well. And, you know, I really appreciate you having me on. I try to share— I don't want anybody to be scared about the process. It's scary enough to engage and think about, but this will help patients meet them, you know, where they are. And if we ever have the opportunity to talk to them in person, we look forward to that.
Excellent. Well, I can tell you that having done some procedures with you, and probably more to come, it has been just a great experience. And I especially love the, the post-surgical recovery experiences that you have set up because the healing process is so much easier with all of the fun things you have at the office. So I appreciate all of that too. It's really cool to see someone who takes such an integrated, innovative approach to all of this. So I appreciate you so much.
Thank you for having me on, JJ.
