A short interview (YouTube #shorts) with Robert Whitfield MD about breast implant illness (BII). Dr. Whitfield frames BII as a chronic inflammatory state that can affect every body system; he lists common symptoms including sound/light sensitivity, headaches, brain fog (notably short-term memory loss), widespread cystic acne, gastrointestinal problems (e.g., SIBO, food intolerance), recurrent bacterial vaginosis and UTIs. The interviewer relays a patient anecdote of implants placed in April 2018 with symptom onset within four months (SIBO and severe food intolerance) and marked clinical improvement after explantation about a year prior to the interview.
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I cannot express how important this conversation is that we are going to have, especially for women in the thyroid community. Yeah. So, you know, question right out of the gate. You are known as the breast implant illness expert. Tell me a little bit how you ended up like, in this niche because obviously you come from a very different formal training in terms of your background. Can you tell me the most common signs or symptoms that you see with patients struggling from BII or breast implant illness?
If you just think of systems, it can affect every system. Every system can have acute and then it becomes chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is what I deal with and it affects every system of the body. So it can be very sensitive to sound, sensitive to light. You can have headaches, you can have brain fog. It's to me more characterized by short term memory loss, like you can't remember where you put your keys, or, you know, very disconcerting things. You can have total body cystic acne. I mean, if you can think of some weird thing, I've, I've, I've had it show up and GI problems, you know, consistent with every thing known to man. Intractable bacterial vaginosis. UTIs. Like, I mean, right.
We've actually had a consult with Dr. Whitfield myself. I had implants put in in in April of 2018 and within four months I got SIBO, complete food intolerance. Anytime I ate, I looked seven or eight months pregnant. Like out of the blue. I was a completely different person. I mean, it just absolutely changed her entire life. But gosh, she got him out and she was a completely different person. It's been close to a year now, I think, and she is just thriving.
It's not. You're not crazy. Someone doesn' understand what you're experiencing. I, I guarantee you there's ten others that do.
Well, thank you so much for this conversation and for all the work that you do to support and empower us women when we feel like we don't have anywhere to turn.
