Episode 120: Top Signs Your Breast Implants May Be Making You Sick with Dr. Micah Pittman

Foreign.

Dr. Rob Whitfield, the board certified plastic surgeon specializing in explant surgery Breast implant illness is a topic that is not often talked enough about, especially in medical community.

But is something that affects many women.

In this podcast I'll be discussing the latest research, treatment options and personal stories of women who have undergone explant surgery in an effort to heal breast implant illness. In this podcast, we'll explore the symptoms.

Of breast implant illness and delve into.

The latest surgical techniques for explantation and the recovery process.

Whether you are currently experiencing breast implant.

Illness or are considering explant surgery, this podcast is a valuable resource for anyone.

Looking to take control of their health and wellness.

So let's dive in.

Welcome to the show. This morning I have Dr. Micah Pittman. He is a multi talented individual hailing from San Diego, California. Homeschooled and graduated at the young age of 15. Micah went on to become one of the youngest students at the University of California, San Diego where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience and a Master of Science in Biochemistry. He later obtained his Doctor of Chiropractic degree from the University of Southern California Health Sciences, continuing a family tradition of multigenerational chiropractors. With 21 years of experience in his field, Dr. Pittman has practiced in various locations including San Diego, Abu Dhabi, Seattle and Austin. Alongside his chiropractic career, he has also been involved in the restaurant industry, owning and operating multi farm table restaurants in Seattle for a decade. Dr. Bentman's talents extend beyond his professional life. He has a skilled mixed martial artist and has held the titles of California State national and Pan American Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Champion. Additionally, he is the owner of Elation Wellness, a supplement brand offering pills and powders for overall well being. For 15 years, Dr. Pittman was also a dedicated farmer managing a 342 acre California ranch where he raised cows, sheep, goats, chickens, rabbits and hawks. Welcome to the show Dr. Pittman. Well, I have a special guest today, Dr. Pittman, who we happened to run each other at a South by event this past weekend with his lovely wife Shiloh, who's a patient of mine operated on three years ago. So we had a brief discussion and he has sent me several patients. But the most important patient probably has ever sent me is his wife and so we were to dive in and he's going to describe some of the things she was experiencing where she came to see me.

Perfect.

Yeah.

Okay. So my wife Shiloh, at the time she came to see you, I believe her implants, she got them in her early 20s. So she was about 10 years in with her implants. But somewhere probably around six or seven years, she started noticing seen a lot of health issues. More specifically something like an autoimmune type disorder where she had a lot of joint pain, immunosuppressive type problems, skin issues where her skin was changing. That youthful look she had in her early 20s was dissipating very quickly and just a lot of brain fog and other types of issues. At one point she had like some pretty ridiculous looking discharge from her right breast. And we think probably one of the cause zations of these, this issue started was she was an instructor at hot yoga and they did very hot infrared light. So she was in this super hot room for hours every day. And I think that's what probably almost melted if I'm, I mean I'm not mistaken. I think it's what happened. It probably melted or started to slowly cause changes. Have you seen that at all with any type of usage or anything?

I got in a lot of trouble for saying that on a podcast that I was a guest on because the patient had a very bad toxicity profile on a toxicity test. And I think what we feel like from a, you know, just like if you drink out of a water bottle that's been heated or food that's been heated in plastic, you can get bisphenols and phthalates obviously into the food and microplastics and all those things. So probably more, you know, from the cause and effect standpoint, if something superheated, the chemicals in the shell obviously can come out. Now the products are not lifetime, obviously they're going to degrade over time. And nobody knows the answer to the question obviously the way you're posing it, how much faster that process is if you're in a working environment that is superheated, you know, for hours a day, multiple days a week, multiple months, a year, multiple years, like nobody knows that. Did that potentiate it? And you know, obviously there'll be people who troll me because of that, which is fine. I'm all good with the trolls. It's fine.

You know, she spent seven years, five days a week in a super hot room, you know, infrared. So that's what my understanding I, that's what I thought maybe was the precursor to what happened. So we can leave with that. But what I started noticing was like I said, these autoimmune type changes and then she started having a lot of right sided shoulder pain which from her analysis, from the analysis and you or the explant Surgery that you did, the right one was definitely ruptured and had a lot of particle all in the cavity. And so there was a lot removed. So in the right side was the one that had the discharge from it. And then she had severe back pain on the right side around the third to seventh thoracic, which is kind of right around the chest area. And then it started causing a lot of fascial tightening and shoulder was starting to move anterior and come forward. Then it translated into a lot of headaches and a lot of brain fog and low immune system. So her white blood cell count dropped, and it never went back up until actually she explained it. So one marker that we could see over the years that never moved a mark. And regardless of what supplement she did or what type of therapeutics she did to increase her immune system, nothing changed until she explained it. Then once she explained, within six months, her white blood cell count went back up to normal, but it had always been depressed. So that was major.

Audience, let's say. Let's clarify exactly. So her right side was not a contained rupture. It was leaking into her tissues and had to go get that away from the tissue. So I think maybe for the audience, let's clarify a little. Little something. So if you think seen, that's a material that's woven our scar capsule that forms around an implant. Is that woven collagen, or if you want to think of it like that, that's our scar material. But it's not impervious. It's not shielding us completely from the interaction between the implant and our tissues. And in her instance, the gel was leaking through the scar capsule into her tissue. So her breast tissue was getting interacted with, but it interacts with the tissue through that woven scar capsule as well. So, like you're putting more contacts around it. For the L in there is. I try to take these out intact all the time. That's the goal. But sometimes when I'm operating, you'll simply run into an area where it's ruptured through the scar capsule, and there's this little bubble of gel, and that's a extra capsular rupture, and that's more interaction at the tissue level. So giving her more of what you're describing.

Right. Okay. I think that's why she had so many issues with her health, I think, because it was. It moved out of that, you know, the. The capsule. One thing I've noticed with a lot of patients, and I tried to explain it this way, is if you get a splinter in Your finger, and you don't remove that splinter, your body starts to build this pussy type of capsule around it. And what it's trying to do is remove it from the body. And so when I talk to some patients that come in and they present with, you know, autoimmune dysfunction, which is what they think it is, low thyroid. All the time I see autoimmune type issues, thyroid issues, low thyroid. Everyone thinks they have a thyroid issue and all these issues. If I talk to the patient and try to dig into their history, a lot of this started within about a year, two years after their implants were put in the first time. So about two years post implant, they start to notice these health issues. They're gaining weight, low thyroid function, autoimmune type disorders, joint pain, swelling, etc. And then they start to get blood panels and it starts to show low white blood tissue. So they have some type of issue going on with their system. And these are some of the key things that I recognize on the patients that I have been sending to you. It's a very commonality. And so from my perspective, I draw a correlation between the implants. In somewhere between 18 months to two years, they start noticing health issues, weight gain, autoimmune type disorders, white blood cell dropping. And so the ones that I've. And plus, besides that, just from a physical standpoint, they've got a lot of, like you said, pec minor, pec major, serratus, lat. And then a lot of inflammation where it's actually palpable edema between T3 and T7. And then when you get a lot of edema and start getting physical changes, you start getting pressure on nerves. And specifically in the T5, T6 region where the gastric nerve exits and does a lot of the upper gi. A lot of these women start having really bad upper GI distress. And when I take full spine X rays of them, I can see where the stomach is. They have this huge gas bubble. And it's on every single patient that I've sent to you. It's called the mog and blast, but it's the gas bubble that sits inside the stomach. It's huge on these, on these women's X rays, out of gut dysbiosis. I see.

You know, I was going to ask you, going back for a moment, the, the thing that I find, just like you point out, is thyroid. I feel like the thyroid is by far the most sensitive to the underlying inflammation. And we don't have a biomarker that sends in a sensitive enough to Draw either blood or do a urine specimen or breath test or anything to indicate the level of inflammation that seemingly makes the thyroid go off. Because that to me is just like you pointed out, it's always kind of there in the background.

I've never found one that I've sent to you or talked to that doesn't have a thyroid issue. And like they all start within a couple of years of when they. After they get their implants. It's very. I've like drawn a very good, you know, not analogy corresponds that. That that correlation between this fallen immune system and thyroid issues. All of them have it.

And you pointed out the gut issues. So like 80% of our lymphatic tissue is really housed around the GI tract. So that's a very common something wrong. Whether it's at the absorptive level or if it's a. Like you mentioned swelling. Like there's a host of things that just go wrong. And you know, we can go and use your experience with. And discuss the quality of the food and how that plays a role in all this. I guess we can just go there now because I see this all the time anyway.

Yeah, it seems like a catalyst though, even if they may have a poor diet, et cetera, et cetera. But then they get this thing inside them and it just propels them into this downward spiral much quicker.

Right.

Dives their health.

It's like the gas on the fire. It really makes it. Yeah. Accelerates it. I guess that would be the way to take somebody who's probably going to. In the direction of non celiac gluten sensitivity and really exacerbating the pace at which that happens.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And when they get these capsules inside them or these implants inside them and then the capsule starts to form, it creates more intra cavity pressure and so then they start getting pressure onto the nerve roots of the thoracic spine. And then. Then you see even more of a. Just propel into gut dysbiosis, liver function issues, gallbl bladder. Because all the nerves that come out of that upper thoracic area, you know, or the liver, gallbladder, stomach, upper GI system and then even two lungs where they start feeling a heaviness where they have difficulty breathing. Well, and I think it's just the inflammation that's happening around those implants where that capsule starts to form. It's that thing trying to push it out. Like the splinter analogy, you know, it's just something isn't right in there and the body's responding to it.

Right. That's a great analysis. And I try to let patients know that, you know, the weight itself is a big factor. You know, obviously you may see patients with like a smaller implant, like a 250 or something like that, versus somebody who's got a 600, you know, CC implant, which is absolutely always going to give everybody upper cervical thoracic pain. No matter what that's going to happen. There's too much stress on the. The musculature and the structural components of the spine to not have that happen.

Do you see a lot of lymph congestion in that area of, like, drains the axillary lymph tissue and gets congested and it builds up and they just get more. It's like a catalyst, even more toxicity load.

Yeah. We have a patient in particular who just had surgery who had a lot of difficulty over. That's that right side over the liver. But she had always had to her to her own history said she's had problems with drainage on that side. You know, many people have very asymmetric patterns of lymphatic drainage, which is always confusing to the patients. And I always try to be reassuring and saying, everybody's like this. Like, everybody's different side to side. If you just cut us and mirror us, the halves are different, they look different. And so, you know, obviously when we went and did training in anatomy, they always had these pretty cartoons of everything looking super symmetric. But that's just not reality. That's not how it works. Every time I operate on somebody, each side is its own case. So when I'm doing a bilateral explant, they're really just independent operations on the same person. And, you know, always everybody. Dr. Pittman always wants me to obviously get everything in order as symmetric as possible as even as possible, knowing that we all start uneven and asymmetric. That's, that's the nature of it.

When you go in and do your explants, do you notice any changes into the fascial or muscular tissue? Are there more contractures? Does it seem they're much tighter. Less flexibility.

There can be varying levels of edema or swelling in the. In the muscular tissue, depending on the amount of inflammation that the device is locally generating. And sometimes that's, you know, on a macro level, you'll actually see fluid in the tissue and around the capsular material. So that's an extreme example. And then on the least, you know, macro level, you would see just a very thin capsule with very little, you know, in terms of what you would consider reactivity. But when you send all those things off to pathology and have the pathologist look at it, they'll all show signs of chronic inflammation with histiocyte formation and giant cell formation. For the audience, those are just types of cell types that we see in chronic inflammatory, you know, processes under pathology with or under the microscope. When the pathologist looks at it now.

Are there bacterial growth there? Do you get like, staph or strep and these type of.

Right. So that's the. And Shiloh did not have that. But, you know, when you have a lot of leakage. I published a paper last September that is, I want to say today, it's the largest series of explant specimens tested using PCR testing. So we switched to PCR because biofilm, you know, really, really small amounts are hard to quantify on regular techniques of using like culture swabs and then growing them or using quantitative cultures. So we just went to PCR technique and from the pandemic, every members, you could do an antigen test. If it was equivocal and you had to get a second test, they would do a PCR test because it's more sensitive and specific. So now our testing looks at 150 types of bacteria, fungus, which is mold as a fungus, and then mycobacteria. Now the Internet, as you know, is undefeated. And they say, you know, mold is on all of these things. And that's the reason I wanted to publish the paper and be very, very, very specific about it, is that's not the case. I had a handful of cases have fungus out of a thousand, so that's really not the culprit. It's Staph epidermidis, Cutibacterium acnes, things that are on our skin, which makes sense. And a paper was published by a scientist showing the Staph epidermidis interacts with the oleic acid, which is a fatty acid, in the breast tissue. And that causes an oxidative reaction. For everybody listening, we always want to be in a reduced state or a healing state. Oxidative is a stress state. So when think of, like working out, your cells are working out. They make a lot of molecules from oxidative stress. And this is a oxidative reaction. It goes downstream and affects the macrophages and gives people symptoms like fatigue. So that that bacterial contaminant is more now a cause and effect when you find it. We don't have a biomarker available commercially to measure that in the blood. I. I hope that they can get that done, but that would be something that would be valuable in those subsets of patients who have that comp.

So Shiloh had very high levels of staph and strep just in general in her, in her body when they're tested. And now, I mean, we've done a lot of testing before and afterward. And her levels about a year after the explants, her strep level was substantially lower and so was her staph level in general. So I'm not sure how much of that was propagated from this leakage, but I can see, can definitely see a trend of it trending down, you know, a year, year and a half. After the explant surgery. She also had major muscle contractions in her back and her right side specifically. And I would say about a year and a half was when I really started noticing a texture change from a very ropey type of sensation. So all the muscles and you know, the back, the erectors, et cetera and rhomboids by the back scapula were extremely ropey. Like you could rub your hand and just feel like there was ropes under there. And about a year and a half it just slowly started changing and now it's very smooth. Good muscle tone, not ropey sensation. But those, I think from what I can ascertain, those, the leak that she had completely changed that right sided chest cavity and even into the back and caused severe problems, I mean, shoulder issues every day up into the lower cervical, mid back. I mean, it was pretty bad musculoskeletal symptoms.

I think that's a common problem that we saw both in reconstructive cases and then with these cosmetic cases where people have had these problems with capsular contractures, leaks, and you know, as well as I do in the pec minor, which is the smaller muscle, when that starts to shorten, you get a lot of problems with internal shoulder rotation. And that's a very common, like protective thing when someone has chest surgery and they don't either get guidance on rehab or understand after, you know, the appropriate time of healing, what type of exercise to do to help pec minor stretch out. And you get a lot of biomechanical, you know, issues that get worse, obviously, you know, with time, especially with a capture, contracture or edema in the muscle, swelling in the muscle, because then the muscles even more irritated and inflamed. Yeah.

So I mean, for me, when I see patients and I'm talking to them and they show, you know, show signs of the hypothyroid, the autoimmune Type stuff. A lot of back and shoulder pain. And I'll get 10, 12 adjustments in. And I see no changes because I run a thermal scope down the spine. So I look at heat on the skin from side to side where the nerves exit, which is one of my diagnostic criteria. And then, you know, I run my fingers down a lot and I feel for swelling edema next to the spine as well. And they have no changes. No matter how many times I adjust them, there's no change in the heat or the palpable edema. And their pain level is almost constant. Stays. Go get explants. After they recover, I start adjusting them again. Six weeks, eight weeks, totally gone, never comes back. It's a complete change. So it's like this implant is a constant irritation and does not allow for healing at all. It's a constant threat to their system. Then over to you because they just. I can't get them better. And I keep telling them, it's your implant, it's. You need to remove that and you'll feel better.

Yeah, it makes sense because I know people are coming around to it more obviously, you know this and have been very supportive of your wife, Shiloh. And it's a very difficult decision. Nobody really wants to come see me and discuss this. This is a. Obviously a big issue. And there are reasons why they had augmentation and. Or obviously reconstruction for cancer patients. And so it has a host of underlying events. Trauma, you know, bullying. I've heard a ton of different stories. So I always implore everybody, you know, and maybe when you send somebody, you say the kind of same things, you know, it's important for you, conjunction with what Dr. Whitfield does with the explant to get some, how do we say, self work versus, like therapy or anything like that? Because you have to do those things to get yourself in the right position. The people who do do the best after surgery have really supportive, you know, partners and spouses and families and friends. And then the people have a difficult time, either don't have that support or haven't tried to put in the work. And it's a. It's a more stressful. Yeah, I.

So I can tell you from. So what happened? I'll give you a little story. So one of the ladies that I sent to you, her husband came in and almost assaulted me because I sent her to you and. But what she did was she ended up getting her explants out, and he didn't know she was going to do it. She just left one morning and then came Back implant. So. And then he came to me at my clinic and was causing havoc in my waiting room. And so I finally came out of the waiting room and he was super hot and heavy. And I just told the guy, I said, well, we can step. I mean he got to the point, I said, we can just step outside and solve this problem. I mean it got that heated. And so some of the women though that have since been to you got explanted then come back to me. My wife has been there to talk to them because the first time they take their wraps out, you know, like my wife, the first time she took them off, it was like tears they see themselves. It's like, don't worry. You have give yourself a year and a half or so before you start stressing out. It's a healing process. And I think it's super critical of the husbands to be super supportive because this couple I'm telling you about, that they're no longer together, they literally went through divorce, which is super sad, over augmentation. I mean, it's ridiculous. And I think the pressure on these young women in society, this pressure to get these breast implants is terrible. It's absolutely horrific. And one thing I don't know if I even mentioned to this shoe, but the Maha movement, the Make America Healthy Again movement. So I sit on the board for that movement. And one of the things we're going to try to push is this network of support for women that are having issues coming through surgery and being able to have like a support group within our Maha organization for explants. Because a lot of times the husbands aren't necessarily on the age, feeling low.

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That's right. Have you noticed or have you created any supplementation to help with healing? Anything for the skin and.

Yeah, so the things we've concentrated on mostly. So we have, we heard just having a meeting about this yesterday. So it's. It dovetails nicely. So we have close to 500 genetic profiles on my patients looking at where they have some shortcomings in enzymatic activity. So everybody, each of us has enzymatic activity that helps us detoxify. And then our patients who have the most symptoms have problems with metabolism in the vitamin D pathway, problems with, in the liver with use of glutathione, problems at the antioxidant level, problems with methylation. Like everybody probably, you know, MTHFR has become this thing now in the language of everybody, it's a slang term, obviously. So we supplement according to that and we use liposomal supplements to help with absorption because, you know, you already mentioned a lot of patients have a lot of absorptive problems, a lot of GI trouble. So we use a lot of liposomals for methylated B, glutathione, vitamin C, vitamin D3K2.

Oh, that's great.

Okay. Yeah.

You guys implement any red light therapy after? Yeah, to get red light after their explants. Just daily use?

Yeah, since Shiloh. His wife had surgery over three years ago now. So now my program is far different. So at the office we have a hyperbaric chamber that's vertical, so you see in it. And then we have really great lymphatic devices from New Zealand called flopresso. So they sequentially work on the body from, you know, toes to trunk. They don't hit the chest, they hit the arms, the trunk and the legs and the feet and ankle areas. And then we have a 6 foot tall red light from Joovv that we use. That's great. Yeah, we have that in a nano V combined with our supplementation that we talked about. And we use a lot of additional amino acids and we have a pea protein based protein powder so that no matter what your diet, you can utilize that. So those are the core things. And we're always looking into and trying to add more in the clinic so that everything is part of the process. So the day after surgery, now if Shiloh had surgery, you know, this past week, she would come to the office, she would have a hyperbaric the next day, lymphatic massage and red light therapy and do that as many days as possible, the first week. And then you, because you're local, should be able to do more. And I have people now who come from Asia and Europe and have I had anybody from Australia, so they stay longer. They're like on the two to three to four week plan. And so you can see the more you can do hyperbaric and lymphatic massage and red light therapy and these other modalities, your recovery is more efficient, much faster.

Yeah, we, I mean we did a lot of that stuff at home anyway because it was critical. But yeah, that's great that you implement those, those, those now because that will make a huge change in just their healing and how quickly they heal.

Yeah, the. And for the. We talked about that other vertical fat transfers. I'm more inclined to think that the way to go about this and the patients who have enough additional fat, who want that volume, who've had maybe children or breastfed or something, weight loss, weight gain, and that's an easier ask on them, those modalities help Them recover even faster to make that a much more viable option.

Do you typically try to do the fat transfer on the day of explants or do you have them come back a year, year and a half later?

Yeah, that's a great question now. So I've gotten so, so deep into toxicity testing. I look for mycotoxin levels, environmental toxin levels and heavy metal levels. So if they have an unfavorable toxicity profile, I ask them to wait and try to get them in a, a more optimized state of health. Because you don't. It's already enough to, to do the explant surgery. And I think women are uniquely be. They put a lot on themselves. Right. I think they tolerate a lot and they try to do more and push and this is just not that time. So it's better to be, like you said, in the mindset of get recovered, get in a better position. And then, you know, Shiloh came back now three years later and said, hey, I want to do a fat transfer show. She'd be probably very easy in terms of taking care of for that.

Yeah, she didn't opt to get at the time, but she had a really high toxicity load, if I remember correctly. Yeah, I mean, I'm super surprised based on what I saw from day one and then how everything changed over the, you know, pretty much two years, two and a half years. I would say much hasn't really changed now over the last year, but just the fullness and the scars. Super, super soft. I mean, they're almost non noticeable anymore. So it was remarkable to see. I thought the scars are going to be a lot more tough and just more. They would be easily seen, but they were really smooth. They're almost non existent anymore. More. Yeah. I mean her surgery came out fantastic. I mean her health is drastically improved. Her attitude, you know, I think there was a little bit of this. My breasts, you know, I used to these big breasts, you know, and, and it's an aesthetic that, you know, I think men push more than women push on themselves sometimes. So there's that mental psychological aspect. But like I said, as long as you have a very supportive partner or network that you can have support with, I think that's, that's a really critical part of healing. I don't think they'll heal as well if they don't have that support as well.

Well, absolutely, absolutely. I, I try to have as many folks on. And we'll get Shiloh on the show too. I want them to talk about that part. And I just recently Had a patient who super supportive spouse and it's. You can just see the woman has so like it's less of a burden, right? It's. They're more relaxed and they know it's tough but then they have somebody with them that's going to help. And it's not that just uptight, kind of wound up motion emotional feeling. That vibe you get, you know, after surgery.

I can tell you too when Shiloh has expressed me numerous occasions, quite a few occasions, she feels like she has her body back. Like she always felt like there was something not right and not real with her. And just a few nights ago she gave me a hug and she said, you know, so nice to hug you and actually feel my chest touch you. She said it felt so numb and like it wasn't me. And so that, I mean she feels like she has her body back. Back is what she said. Like it just feels so much more, you know, with herself and not so externally fake I guess that feeling like.

You described and especially the way she had developed those capsular contractures and that would make for like numbness or sensitivity issues. And some people get really bad pain, it gets really hard and you know, for everybody listening, that's not a way to live. It's just, it's just not trying to. If you're doing all the things like whether it's Dr. Pittman or myself, talk about with and leading more of a non toxic lifestyle and, and doing all these things, it's a very hard thing for your body to carry that burden around and you be healthy. Right.

So a question about pre. Before you do Expanse, have you tested any type of dietary changes or done any type of counseling to have the patients lower their overall inflammation status like test their highly sensitive CRP pee before and then have them do like maybe keto or just whole food diet or increase their DHA fish oil consumption or something like that prior to maybe a couple weeks before surgery or just try to get the inflammation status of their system down before surgery? I mean does that play a role in their ability to have a proper better surgery and faster recovery?

Well, what we did, which was interesting is coming out of the pandemic. I would get approached by companies all the time about inflammation tests and there was a startup after the pandemic that had a thromboxane a2 metabolite test and it was a urine test. So they said this will help you understand that patient. They have to be Dr. Pittman, they can't be doing other things. It would be like taking Someone completely naive, sending them the test, get the result, and then you institute the plan. You say, all right, I want you to become gluten free, dairy free, seed oil free, have a really low inflation, inflammatory diet, don't drink out of plastic, only use ceramic and glass and stainless and you know, improve your air quality. All the things to try to get their, their burden lower. And then that would come back. But if somebody had just been trying to do things with like ginger and turmeric and curcumin, it would change the result. It was that sensitive.

That's a sensitive test.

Or if they were taking an inside, you know, like a leap, it would change the test result. Adults. And so I had examples of case studies where somebody who was completely naive about diet and supplements and things of that nature, we'd send them a test, they'd have a very high score, put them on the program. They may take three, six, nine months to get here because of logistics and work and, or children, whatever the combination. And one example sticks out in my mind. I had a teacher from upstate New York. You know, she did not, not really ascribed to any specific diet, wasn't doing any supplementation, and had implants placed when she was 19. And so she'd had them over 10 years and she'd had children and she was not, not doing well. And so we sent her a test, really high score on the test. And because she was a teacher, she couldn't come till the summer. So we got to put her on a program and run the program for her with the right diet and nutraceuticals or supplements and, and she came in and I used to at that point repeat the test the day of surgery because you want to see the run up and see the change. And hers had dropped threefold. And so I knew the program we had worked. It's just really how you measure it because highly sensitive CRP is not getting this. It's not good enough. I hope that we have some biomarkers coming up that from the research being done, either with that oxylipin or there's another fibroblast growth factor 19 that looks promising, seen to follow. So when those come to fruition and we have the right biomarker, then we just need to follow either pre or post and see the correlation because right now we have to, as you know, follow symptoms. And that's very difficult in some patients, obviously to follow. But the, the undeniable part is, is when you change all those upfronts in terms of diet and lifestyle and you check Their toxicity burden. You can definitely help them through the process. And then we run a functional program post op now with a team. And currently we use Cellcore to help with more of a gentle detox. Had to have and change certain people who have atrazine exposure because atrazine is a very difficult chemical to get out of the system. But I think we've helped people understand better what's going on, you know, within them because we all have a group of genes we inherit from our parents. We all have a group of, you know, exposures that we get over time from where we grew up, you know, where we worked, where traveled, the air we breathe, the food we eat and the fluids we take in. So all those things combine to create the profile and trying to help each person meet. I try to meet them where they are and help them and try to give them the right, you know, guidance.

What do you see is the most pushback, obviously, besides like, I guess, a financial cost to people who have implants? I mean, outside of that, what is the most common pushback you see of women not wanting to get explants?

I think it's what she said. It's the mindset that's been instilled to them to have this appearance. And it's not so much necessarily, even errors. But I can tell you, and the people we've interviewed over time, the patients describe, you know, growing up around patients with implants. So it was a peer group accepted by them, seeing moms who had implants, maybe including their mom. I've had people tell me it's from the export of Baywatch to their country where they grew up propaganda, playing with Barbie dolls. Because Barbie's a very thin but large breasted doll. Yeah, Somebody was pressured by an agency when they were a model to have larger breasts. I mean, there's all sorts of things you got occupational influence. You have, you know, basically peer groups. Maybe they were bullied as a young person and, and kids are difficult and teenage years are very difficult, especially for young girls. I have a young daughter and you know, obviously I get asked all the time when I, you know, that's a.

Great point that you brought up about young daughters. So. So my wife, you. So we have three girls at home, young girls, 10, 11, 12 now. But she used her explant experience and her sickness she had from them as a teaching point to our daughters of how she was sick. She got these things, she thought she needed them, and then it got her sick. And then it was a celebration at our house when she got Them removed. And so it was like a celebration for our daughters to witness, witnessed this aesthetic augmentation that caused severe illness. And now that it's out, it was a celebrated thing, like, mom's back. She's healthy. And it was a good teaching point for us to show our daughters so that they don't have that pressure when they're older.

Absolutely. Like, you know, first of all, you're the dad. And now my daughter can get into some, you know, discussions, albeit very loud, with my wife from time to time as a teenager. And I'm like, what is going on here? And I try to just, I guess, you know, my daughter is a Leo like me. And Leos become more stubborn the more they're pressed. So I don't try to be overbearing or know it all. I was like, here's the information that I have seen, experienced, and I'm probably, you know, one of the more knowledgeable people about this in the world. And so these are the factors at play. And it doesn't matter if it's a hip, knee, breast, dental, cardiac implant. Any implant can get infected. Any implant can get biofilm on it. That's just. Just the nature of having something foreign in your body. Like you mentioned, the splinter. The splinter is the best analogy probably going is it gets irritated and it's a constant source of irritation until you get it out. So you're stimulating your immune system. And I call this a chronic inflammatory process of which an implant playing a component. It's not the only component. And the people who have the, you know, euphoric change after surgery are someone like Shiloh who had a bad rupture, someone who had a bad infection, something.

That change in health pretty quickly.

Yeah, those are the. It's like an epiphany after surgery. Wow. You know, I could feel like this, or, you know, I had a patient who had that problem with the leaching of heavy metals. And that could have been shiloh, you know, 10 years before surgery or what have you, when she was doing all that work in the heating environment. So those are kind of your right. After surgery, people changed rapidly. But then a lot of people have to go through a more longer road to recover as their immune system becomes competent again, can take care of themselves. And that has to be an adjustment that's done on multiple levels, starting with how people sleep. I find that people just really try to avoid or screw up their own sleep. You can't shortcut sleep, and if you don't sleep, you got no chance of recovery. It's just impossible.

No, sleep is the most critical thing. I'll give you one story I thought, because I thought this was remarkable because of the age of the patient. So I've had a couple patients in their late 50s that I've actually sent to you, and they thought, well, I don't know, too old for this. Maybe it's going to cause more problems. And then I give them a story. So I have a patient, she's in her early 70s, and this is right around Covid. When Covid started. She thought she had got Covid, but she didn't. And she got really sick and was basically dying. And she went to you and you explanted her. And she's maybe 75 now. I mean, this was. Yeah, five years ago. So. Yeah, so she's even older, late 70s. But she said, she tells me all the time, time he saved my life. I thought I was dying. And it was the X. They were in there for like 40 years. These things in there.

Yeah, I know who you're talking about too. Yeah. Super sweet lady.

A super sweet little lady. But yeah, 40 years. And she just, she's. She's like a spokesperson for you because she tells everyone in here. Because sometimes I'll refer patients that I refer to you. I'll say, hey, I've got a couple people talk to. You can talk to my wife Shiloh. And then this other lady, and she's in her 70s and she got out and she's remarkably much healthier and she's went through the surgery just fine. But I mean, that lady, it was severe. She was on her deathbed. I mean, she thought she was about to die. And medicine, you know, modern medicine, you know, there's allopathic, had no idea what to do. They told her it wasn't her implants. And she came to you and all of a. Somehow, miraculously, six months later, she's a new human being.

Yeah, I think it's a really. I had a patient come in yesterday that makes me think of like someone getting to the. That. That point where now, you know, with all the different biologics, I don't know how many people you have coming in that they're putting on these now because that will block your immune response. Almost like in the old days, people would get put on steroids routinely. But now they're getting put on these biologics like Revoke and O Heza and all these crazy names. I can't remember. They're always on late night tv. I'm like, the lady came yesterday On a slight. And she's on three of these things. And I'm like, look, this is not sustainable. You know, you can't be in your late 30s taking three things to block your immune system when basically it's your body's basically trying to reject what you have. If you've looked at everything else and the medical workup is completely done and the thing you have left is a device, then probably the device, it quacks like a duck.

Probably is a duck back.

And she looked at me and she's like, I'm just, you know. But she had to go arrive at that decision and finally she did and you know, she's like, shiloh had to make peace with it and still going to be a process and everything. And I always get worried, Dr. Pittman, when the spouse is not at the appointment. It bothers me. Some have to work. I totally understand. I always make myself available for a phone call, a zoom call, whatever, because I want to make sure that everybody's in alignment with what's going to happen and how much help is needed. And I always, I wives now.

Tell your husband you're getting this done after that altercation. Make sure.

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, I've really appreciated having you on. I look forward to seeing you and, and Shiloh out and hopefully getting dinner. Tell everybody where they can find you so they can learn more about your practice.

Yeah, so my practice is called Six20 Chiropractic and we're in Lakeway, Texas just on the 620. We're a lot different than the typical chiropractor. I'm old school, I'm generational chiro and we're just a very different approach. The way we assess, it's a very, very data diagnostic driven assessment. It's not a whack em, crack them, tick tock kind of chiropractic. And we have, I think we're the best reviewed in all of Austin. We have more five star reviews than anyone and I mean you can just go on and read the reviews and we're just very honest and we take a holistic whole body approach and try to fix people. If we can't, we send them to someone that can.

It's awesome. Thank you for coming on. I'm glad we ready to each other over the weekend.

Thank you so much. That's what Phil, I appreciate it.

Thanks for joining me today. I hope you found the information and stories shared on this podcast helpful and informative. Remember, taking control of your health and wellness is key to recovery from breast implant illness. If you're looking for additional resources and support, be sure to visit our online store, Dr. Rob's Solutions. At DrRobSolutions myshopify.com you'll find a wide range of wellness products and supplements to support your journey to recovery. From specially formulated detox supplements to personalized skincare products, we have everything you need to aid your recovery.

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