Episode 93: Breast Implant Complications with Jennifer Stano

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 will 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 my show everybody. Today we have Jennifer Stado and I became acquainted with Jennifer by listening to my client's podcast, Lauren Bostic and and I was very enamored with both her story and she has a very special product for patients who've undergone explant or post mastectomy. So welcome to the show Jennifer. And before we like waste all the good stuff we've been talking about offline, let's go ahead and discuss your your journey.

Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. So I was teased in school for being flat chested just to give you like a little background information. And I saved every penny I could to turn 18 and be able to afford a breast implant surgery at the time. And that was in 2004. As soon as I turned 18, I found a doctor in my city and got my first set of implants and it really did give me the confidence that I was looking for.

The story that Jennifer just shared is not an uncommon one. I will say one of the more remarkable things that I heard outside of being bullied or things like that was I had a patient from Germany. Wonderful patients say they thought they should get a breast augmentation or their perception changed when they got introduced to the show Baywatch and I was like, oh my gosh, we exported that to Germany. And now it makes sense because Pamela Anderson, she's been in the news recently again and that whole interpretation. So maybe it certainly was an image.

Totally.

So I know that's hard sometimes for people to conceptualize, but I often get asked or pigeonholed because I have a daughter who's 16 now. Well, what would you tell your daughter, Dr. Whitfield? So for everybody listening, my daughter's a Leo like me and you can't tell a Leo anything. So they're going to do what they want to do and Just like you said, you're going to put together and save, and then if that's what you want to do, that's what you're going to do, right?

And I don't even know why I really wanted that. You know, my mom was kind of small bus, and I know she had always wished that she was a little bit bigger. And both my grandparents were like double Ds. But I remember being so young that I was still going to, like a water park with my grandparents and looking at a woman that was standing there with her child and she had no chest, and I was young. And I remember looking at her and being like, I hope I don't look like that when I get older. And so this was just in me. I don't know if it was from, you know, watching tv, but, like, I'm telling you, young, young. And so sometimes I question, like, is it just in you to want to look or be or perceived a certain way? I. There was no rhyme or reason for me thinking that. And later on, like I said, I got these implants. And it did. It did give me the confidence boost that I was looking for. And, you know, being young and in a vulnerable age in middle school and is when I started to get bullied. And I'm almost 40, and I still to this day can remember when this child came up to me and literally was like, tapped me on the shoulder at lunch and was like, I just want to let you know that you're as flat as an ironing board. And walked away. Like, I was minding my own business with my girlfriends. And I remember just like looking at them and being like, am I really that flat? And like, of course I was. I really was. I never developed. I was so, so skinny my entire life until kids. And, you know, it just. It really stuck with me. And so, yeah, when I. When I turned 18, I got these boobs and I felt amazing and I felt confident. And it wasn't until 2019 or 18 or 19, after having four sets, two of which were reconstructive, I had bottomed out and had the. The lifting in the center, right? And then I had to get reconstructive. Then I went too big to 550. I had to downsize to 500. And I was like, I think I'm just gonna downsize. You know, I'm in 34 and didn't need these big boobs anymore.

I want to just. When you say that. So that's a good thing for everybody listening to understand. So the devices themselves, I Think as I've done thousands of reconstructive cases or explant surgeries for cosmetics and cancer cases. Now, I often hear that people had complications or problems with positioning or bottoming out. That's usually secondary to a larger device that's then pushing down or out because the weakness in the tissues are either at the bottom or on the sides. And your story is indicative of what you're going to tell me next is each time you have a procedure done, you increase the chance that you're going to have a problem from that device. It's a very. I grew up in Vegas. I never gamble. But each time you do that, you increase the odds of having a problem with the device. And all of us who put in devices for cancer or reconstructive purposes, for joints, for all those things know that. So it was always a very, as it should be, serious proposition for me to ever do that for a cancer patient because they have even more risk associated with an exchange or procedure, because if you look at the literature, they by far have a higher complication rate than you're discussing as a purely aesthetic operation because they've had so many other therapies. So let's kind of dig in now. And what happens after all those different procedures and how you start. Things start to change.

Right. So this was over the span of 15 years. I've had four sets. So like I said, the first set bottomed out. I started to lift in the center. I did go under the muscle, and at the time it was saline. So I went back six months later, they increased the size a tiny bit and tried to fix the bottoming out. It didn't really help the center. They sewed down. But again, once it was torn, it just never really healed back up. But so then after that, lived with those for nine years, upgraded again to 550, thought, oh, I want these big Vegas booze, blah, blah, blah. No, my body just didn't want them. They looked tremendous. I started to lift again in the center. And so I then downsized and I lived with the 500cc's adhesive, I think they call them like the gummy bears, but like the gel adhesive.

Yeah.

And then. Yeah. So I was going to downsize, and I remember putting on social media that I was, you know, tired of these big boobs. I'm going to downsize a little bit. And somebody had asked me, have you heard of breast implant illness? And I was like, no, I haven't actually. So of course I went to Google and searched it and. And all of these symptoms that were listed. And mind you, this was 2019, so I'm almost at six years now post explant. But then this was all still kind of new, at least on social media. And I looked at these symptoms, and I'm like, oh, my God. I'm experiencing all of these symptoms. And I didn't even know that, like, this was an issue. I just thought, here I am, 33 or 34, and this must just be what it's like aging. I had constant migraines. I had constant headaches. I. My hands were swollen, my eyes were yellow. I break out on my neck. I had constant UTIs. Like, just nothing made sense. I was on medication for UTIs all the time, and I'm thinking, what is going on with my body? But I. It wasn't debilitating enough in my mind that I thought that there was something wrong. And after I read everything, including the urinary tract infections being associated with breast implant illness, I was like, I'm removing my boob. I literally decided the day I learned about it that I'm removing them. And that's what I did. I did research. I tried to find doctors that were near me that were doing this in Florida or at the time, I was in New York. I had just moved out of California. I was living in New York at the time. And so I was searching who's the best explant doctors. This is, like, something I'd never even heard of. And so I ended up finding Dr. Fang. I was vegan at the time. She had this practice with raw food, and I just loved, like, all of the things that she had going on. And the clients. Crystal Hefner, who's a friend, he had done a few celebrity clients. And I was like, if they're going to her, then she must be one of the best. I want to go to her. And so in 2019, I booked with her and had my explant in January.

Yeah, I think it's funny, in that timeframe. So Everybody listening. In 2016, I took care of a cancer patient, and when I did their explant, it came back that the cancer patient had an underlying infection. Now, that may have just been a little, you know, more of a tap on my shoulder because I had done surgery related to implants for, you know, almost two decades at that point, and never in my career missed a infection that I wasn't suspicious of. And in this patient, I had no suspicion of that, and that was the problem. So that person then put me on a Facebook group Pretty sure. And that's all that started. And I just all of a sudden had patients calling my office saying they wanted explants. And my office was like, Dr. Whitfield, people are calling wanting explants, not implants. And I was like, okay, well, you know, so people started coming in now who not. They weren't cancer patients, they were cosmetic patients who now, like you were experiencing, had problems. They had gotten my name as somebody who would do this. At that point, it was just referred to simply as an en bloc capsulectomy, which is for everybody listening. En bloc is just a pathology term. But more accurately, I just tried to describe it as I'm going to try to take in every situation everything out intact like an undisturbed Easter egg. So having done so many cases with cancer and reconstruction and all the consequences of if there's a tumor in something and the resecting or the operating surgeon who's taking out the cancer breaks that we'll just say barrier and spills it, then the recurrence rate is very high. So of course I understood the concept. It's not a complicated thing. Neither is actually doing it safely, which is another fear mongering tactic people use to scare patients who are desiring this because the ability to do it is one thing. So the actual explant procedures, I think now evolve in terms of is it more accepted amongst surgeons? Yes. And we were talking before the show about some things that we can discuss about the evidence now that supports the problem. So you had this done and you're recovering. So patients, my patients get on Instagram and they post that they're doing really well. And you're on Lauren's show. Lauren. Lauren had leaching of chemicals into her system. So as soon as I did her explain in recovery, she's like, can we take a selfie? She's like wide awake and doing all these things. I was like, okay. Well, most of my patients are usually comfortable, but they're not like vibrantly alert, wanting to take pictures with me. That's usually they'll say, hey, can we take a selfie? And I'm like, sure, of course. But she was quite the opposite. And from that point forward, she's just done exceedingly well. She was a healthy person to begin with. So probably much like you, that was a springboard to gain a lot more vitality and just wellness.

Right? Yeah. Directly out of surgery. I remember the first thing when I was coming to was like I could breathe. And I do know that Dr. Feng had to scrape my rib. I think My surgery took almost six hours. She had to scrape a lot of the scar tissue, I guess, off of my ribs. And so. But I still had, like, a really great recovery. And the first thing I noticed was that I could breathe. And she was explaining that when you have these implants and correct me if I'm wrong, that tissue or the scar tissue will adhere sometimes to your ribs, preventing your ribs to, like, expand and contract. And sometimes that prevents you from really being able to take those deep breaths. So that was the first thing I noticed. But I kid you not, within weeks to a couple of months, my symptoms were gone. Not only did I drop, obviously, this, like, swelling and this weight that I was carrying from inflammation, but I no longer. I have not had a urinary tract infection since I explained I was on medication every month. That's probably the main thing. Besides monthly migraines and daily headaches, those were like the three main things for me that were so crippling. But I didn't realize it was until I no longer had those symptoms and could look back at myself. Also the brain fog, the memory loss, these were things that, like, I just thought was with aging. And here they are, they're gone. And sometimes my wife will joke with me, she's like, I liked you better when you couldn't remember, you know, what we were arguing about a few days ago. Because now I remember everything. So it's just. I mean, it really is incredible. And I always try not to talk badly about plastic surgery or women that want to get implants, because I can relate on that level of just wanting to have boobs and to fit in and feel that, like, confidence. I just wish that all of us and like, my younger self knew that, like, these are the real complications. Like, this is a lifetime commitment. This isn't like a one and done. This is going to be. You might have these symptoms, you might get sick, you may get cancer, you might. You know, these were things that were never told to us. And so it's really refreshing now to see that there's actual evidence and proof that putting these things into your body can cause these sort of ailments, diseases and so on.

Yeah, well, it's definitely. Let's use that as a way to discuss. You know, currently, I just like you highlighted, I have a lot of people come to me with a lot of. Of frustration. And when people come to see me, they're. They're just probably, you know, your mindset was. Was correct, but you probably still had anxiety about getting things done because a lot of People come and they're, nobody wants to sit in front of me and tell me that they've decided to have an explant. That's a really, you know, complicated decision. They may or may not have a supportive loved one with them and they're really concerned about, like, what's this going to be like for themselves, their family, their loved ones, their partners. And I had a patient just the other day, I, I thought she was going to come out of her own skin. I had to like, you talk her down and say, you know, it's all fine here. Like, there's nothing you're going to say that we're going to be critical of. This is a safe spot to talk about, you know, whatever you want to talk about. And I don't decide for any patient that they have to have an explant. Like, just like, you know, you've made that decision when you went, you made that decision. Now you, you definitely are going to have some feelings about it. And we'll try to allay, you know, how bad those get. But in general, I just try to help people make the best informed decisions. So what you're describing is a problem in the decision making process where you and many of the patients now feel like they weren't given the information, they weren't armed with the information to make the decision. And that's absolutely true. But we'll describe now probably how the conversation should go and then it'll make a little bit more sense to everybody listening. So it took me better part of eight years to get this amount of data and experience with this problem. This is a relatively new problem. I mean, I had no idea about this until we had the experience with the patient in 2016. And fast forward now. We recently published a paper, so everybody remembers from the pandemic getting an antigen test or a PCR test. Everybody can remember that. So PCR testing was usually used in a research type environment to look for DNA and you can think of like crime scenes and things like that. So if you have bacterial DNA fragments on the star tissue that can be examined. And so we've been sending those off on our patients since 2019. And we just recently published a paper that shows in our experience of it's about 700 consecutive samples, just a good size, that 29% have bacterial contamination. So I just want everybody to understand it is not mold, it is not fungus, which is like a very TMZ like thing to put on and show people. So it's, I don't like scare tactics, I don't want to. I try to approach it very pragmatically. This is what it is. And it's Hebacterium acne and Staph epidermidis. That's two bacteria that are just found in high concentrations on your skin, especially skin of the breast area, shoulders, face, neck and okay. Those bacteria can group together and form what's called a biofilm. A biofilm is basically like plaque on your teeth. That's the original if you want to think of like example of biofilm. And when that happens, A very, very good paper was published earlier this year by a Dr. Mathun Sina in Indiana University Medical Center. He showed the interaction between the bacterial biofilm and the breast tissue. Specifically a fatty acid in the breast tissue called oleic acid. When it interacts, it oxidizes and creates something called oxylipin tinum. I know that's a lot to kind of get, but interacts with the breast tissue and creates a product. So think of like that interaction is not good. Anytime something oxidizes that's potentially going to be harmful for you if you can't break it down or reduce it. That product creates the symptoms that Jennifer had and many other patients experience. Fatigue, muscle pain, joint pain, dry eyes. And so they, instead of working backwards, that is all from a human model. That's what they found in humans. And then they reproduced it in a animal experiment to show that that reproducible fatigue is there. So now for the first time we know the amount and type of bacteria and then now we know what it can do. So in roughly I say like a third of the cases, we better understand what is going on and that now you can say, okay, Jennifer comes in and she's interested in a breast augmentation. You can say, well, these are the products. But then what Jennifer's highlighting is, can you tell me, like, what are the long term ramifications of having those things in my body?

Right. You know, my question is though, is a lot of women will message me and they hear my story. Like, I love your story, but I've had implants for this amount of time and I feel totally fine. Why does it affect some women and why does it not affect others?

Now I want you all to know I did not ask her to say that to team. I'll explain the rest of it. Now, are you struggling with irregular digestion or restless nights? Introducing Magboost from Dr. Rob Solutions, your go to solution for digestive support and better sleep. This powder delivers 300 milligrams of magnesium per serving, promoting GI regularity and relaxation. When fiber isn't enough, it's easy to mix and adjust to your needs, ensuring you get the right amount. To help you unwind and fall asleep. Ready to transform your wellness routine, visit the link in the show notes or drrobsolutions.com and experience the benefits of Magboost today. So I wrote a book about the rest of it. So everybody as you and everybody listening has probably heard of the MTHFR gene. So that's your methylation, one of the many methylation genes that has now become very famous and it's got a lot of funny acronyms. I'm sure everybody can make them up in their head. But that methylation pathway is, we'll just say, not very efficient in about 40% of the population. So that's one problem that's almost universal in this group who's experiencing these issues.

That's interesting. You test for that?

Yes. So I don't work with patients anymore who don't want to know that part of what's going on. So basically that factor plus three other genetic factors and a hormone metabolism issue make up the worst possible case that I see a patient with symptoms. So just yesterday we had a patient in the office, very young person, otherwise healthy, you would think, who. And I, my female patients, they drive themselves extremely hard. If they feel terrible, they still like, get up and do everything, go to work, go to the gym, do all the stuff, take care of everybody, and they'll feel terrible and they'll sit in front of you and they just look like they feel terrible. And so if you have limitations in vitamin D synthesis, if you have limitations in methylation, if you have limitations in something called glutathione utilization in your liver, and limitations in antioxidant pathways, and everybody knows what vitamin C is, it's an antioxidant. So if those things are pretty limited, your ability to detox what you're faced with every day. And women put a lot of products on their skin and everybody listening should put their products through at least the environmental working groups to know what you're putting on your skin. But that plus a, you know, we'll just say a poor diet, one that has processed foods in it, or a combination of poor fluid intake, it may be a lot of things, sugar or things with other preservatives in it, coupled to probably the one factor that a lot of people miss is air quality. So I think you lived in Florida. I have a lot of patients from Florida have a lot of problems because of the spraying that goes on relative.

To California, which I think is even worse. Yes.

I mean, any place that has agriculture, any place that has golf courses, any place that has bugs, you're going to get faced with a lot more toxins. And then we all get things from a, a food standpoint that we can talk about, like glyphosates for anyway, your body can only deal with so many things. And then when you surpass that ability to genetically detoxify those things, you get symptomatic. Now, the one last thing that every one of my patients has that we need to understand better is how they metabolize their estrogen. So some people are estrogen toxic, I'm sure you've heard of that term. And when you're estrogen toxic, you can have really bad periods, endometriosis, pcos, all these other things. So that person whose estrogen toxic, plus all the other things I just mentioned is the worst possible scenario for what we have called breast implant illness.

Pretty incredible. It's a lot of, a lot of.

Factors, but those are all when they all make sense now. So when you're. Because of course, they're like, well, Dr. Whitfield, if I don't have an infection, which happens, we'll say close to, you know, two thirds of the time, what is it? What. That's what it is. Now, there may be other things identified because the science is going to catch up more and more and more to this and there may be other biomarkers, but I think, you know, just like everybody listening, like if you control your air quality, fluid quality, food quality, and we can get a handle on how you metabolize related to your estrogen, you can change a lot of things in a very positive way without a prescription or without any surgery. And we have a whole program to lower inflammation pre op that my patients and patients take advantage of all around the world now through our books and our programs, so that, you know, not everybody wants to have or can have surgery and can travel to Austin or like you travel to Ohio. And it's a lot, it's a lot emotionally, financially, logistics, with children and supportive people. And I mean, I tell my team all the time, I mean, we have people here for a week typically. And then because I have hyperbaric chamber and lymphatic devices in my office and lymphatic masseuse and red light therapy and peptide therapy and stem cell there, I have all the things. And if you're coming from Europe or Asia, then you're going to stay like A month just for us to be able to handle everything and make it as safe as possible. That's become our routine. So that really parses out who can come and visit and, and take advantage of what we have in, in Austin. So for everybody listening, like I can't go back and figure out what her implants had, but when you've had that many operations, it would be hard pressed for me to believe she didn't have a contaminant. It's almost impossible. Just going through life and you tell me you had multiple UTIs and I mean that scenario, that setup has been said so many times to me and it'd be nice to have that information to share with you so you could better understand it too. But I feel like now we at least have a better handle on what this is, which is a chronic inflammatory process. Because if you just said all your symptoms and took implants away, they would say, oh, Jennifer has chronic inflammation. We just don't know why. Is it Lyme or mold or is it X, whatever that is.

Right. And but literally everything went away. So it's pretty incredible.

So that's the thing though, like for you, you were already super probably aware of your health.

Yes.

So that I feel like, you know, that's the confusion. Right. So some people are like why is so and so doing? Why did Jennifer do so great or why did Lauren do so great? Well, I mean they're taking care of themselves in a very non toxic way. I'll just.

Right, right.

Those are the things you can highlight for the audience and that will help them because when I say them I think I'm a guy saying a lot.

Of things and no, it's true. Prior to, to getting my explant, I really lived such a clean lifestyle. I'm aware of the EWG.org network. I use it when I go to the supermarket. My household cleaners are all nontoxic. The products I use like my skincare is all pretty much non toxic or it was more so then and I'm such a product junkie so I like to experiment and I get sent a lot of things but for the most part then I was very clean. I eat only organic. I'm aware of what I'm putting in my body and so I didn't think anything was really wrong. I have, I don't know and, but for me to then explain everything go away like that was pretty incredible. And I didn't know that I had an an MTHFR gene mutation until only a couple of years ago. When I actually did a test. And so when you say that, that really makes me think, like, wow, like, my body was. This was going to happen. It was almost, like, inevitable, you know? And I get a lot of girls that are like, I feel so sick. I feel this. I think it might be my implants. Like, how do you know? And I'm like, I didn't know. I took a gamble. I loved my boobs. I loved my boobs even more after I had kids. They were great. They didn't give me any problems, right? And I took them out because I had all these symptoms, and I related to them, and I felt like if I could eliminate all of these symptoms, my health is way more important than my aesthetic. And I did it. I removed them, and everything went away. And I was left with nothing. I started with nothing, and I was left with a little bit more than what I started with, which is maybe a double A, and I'm still okay with that. And I think a lot of women and girls who message me are like, I feel like my husband's not going to think I'm sexy or I'm not going to feel sexy. And I worry about wearing this or wearing that. And look, confidence comes from within. You have to be okay with you. And then that's going to portray on the outside this woman, who I am today. If I could go back with the same, like, knowledge and be that girl at the table that the kid tapped on the shoulders and said, you're as flat as an ironing board. I give them the middle finger and be like, who cares? By, you know, instead of running home and crying to my mom and then her patting my bras for years and years until I was finally 18 to get implants. So I think, you know, a question that I would love to ask you, because I know so many of the girls that follow me are going to watch this is, what can they do if they have implants and they're not feeling well and they're suspecting that all of these things that's going on with them is related to breast implant illness? What is a way that they could. Is it a blood test they could do? Is it a marker that they should look for? Like, what would be your advice for girls that think that they might have.

So we've been working with companies to get that. That molecule that we talked about tested for. It's not ready yet. So what I do for patients now is, from a program standpoint, the methodology that we're discussing is looking at your genetics and looking at your toxicity. And toxicity for us is checked through a urine test. So we look for those toxins or heavy metals, like Lauren. I printed off Lauren's test because it had the most heavy metals of any human I've ever taken care of.

Wow, that's incredible.

So I printed it off, which I never do because I respect trees, I don't print things. And I, I gave it to her and I was like, you have to like. And I gave it to, you know, actually I handed it to Michael. I was like, y' all need to like, really? This is bad.

But what do you think that that was caused from? Because she was such like a healthy individual, Was it like something she was eating? Like, what would you think that that would be such high levels come from?

Well, so this is what I told you I got in trouble for on her show. As I said, it's her sauna. And she used to barrel sauna. And Michael said 60 to 90 minutes every day and she'd be hardcore and feel terrible afterward. So the implant was reaching its complete melting point. But when you heat something up, just like if you heat up a water bought, you know, plastic water bottle and phthalates come out of the plastic to the water, that's called leaching. It's a chemical process. So our thought is the extreme sauna that she was doing up to almost 220 degrees caused leaching of the heavy metals in the shell, which would go out into her system. Now they did a study to show that that doesn't sit in the scar capsule, which actually supports what I'm saying. Hers came out through, you know, detox in her urine. And as soon as I talked to her for the very first time, I said, you gotta stop using your sauna. And she did. But I didn't do her surgery for several months. And she still had all that stuff in her urine. So her body was trying to cope with that. So in patients who have an infection, breakdown of chemicals in the shell, or leaching from the shell, and I do their explant procedure, provided I can get everything out intact, they have these kind of big turnarounds, kind of like you're describing. And for everybody listening, I don't know if everybody's old enough to know what crocheting is or knitting is, but when you stretch something that's crocheted or knitted, you can look through it. That's what a scar capsule has around an implant. It is not impervious. I believe everybody thinks this is an impervious shell. It is not. And that is the way that if there's a bacterial contaminant or we'll say texturing, it interacts with your tissues and stimulates a response. So I think we're not trying to be dim here. This is a way that your body is trying to either detoxify itself through the things we already discussed or protect itself to the best of its abilities. So people have these heightened immune responses, and your body is always going to try to protect you at all costs. And, you know, for everybody listening, like this inflammation process. Your body's constantly trying to either repair itself or surveil itself to protect you from viruses, cancers, bacteria, all these things that, you know, are getting introduced to your system all the time. So I think the easiest way right now to lower inflammation is to your point, like, look at everything you put on your skin. Really examine carefully everything you put into your body, either a fluid or a food. And it's very complicated. You know as well as I do, everything magically became organic in the last few years, and we know that's not really the case. So if you're eating stuff out of a package, please stop. If you're drinking fluid out of a plastic bottle, please stop. Those are not going to help any. You know, you're not going to be able to take care of yourself or your family or your. Your loved ones. If you keep doing that, you're going to suffer more and more consequences. So we look at genetics, we look at toxicity. I'm a big proponent of looking at gut health through stool testing, because if your gut is off and. And I have a ton of people who are from California and Texas, and they go to Mexico on vacation, or they go to Costa Rica on vacation. I have people from Florida go to, you know, the Caribbean on vacation, and they end up eating and getting sick. So that usually has to do with the, you know, quantity of a bacteria or a parasite in the water or the food. However we're going to interpret that, you know, they always, like, don't drink the water and all that. But this is a routine problem that happens. People get what's called traveler's diarrhea. They may come home, they may get a prescription, or they may do nothing, but then they'll have problems afterwards. And I can tell you this can result in things like eczema, rashes, cystic acne, bloating, swelling, diarrhea, constipation. All these different things can happen, and it's all from a parasitic overgrowth or a bacterial imbalance in their guts. So we look at those things carefully. Along with sensitivities to food and other things that measure chemical reactions in the bloodstream. They're commonly referred to as metabolomics testing now. But I believe that will become more and more forward facing to the public. And they're all, to your point, things that help me craft a picture for them to explain, like why they're experiencing what they're experiencing. Because there's not a perfect situation to test for this right now. Jennifer, you know, all of this is now finally, you know, reaching a level of evidence where I feel good to, you know, tell you about it and tell everybody about it. And I've made videos for it on my YouTube channel. Because there's no more sticking your head in the sand. There's no more telling patients this is, you know, in their heads or this is not a problem or really trying to deflect or avoid, you know, an issue. Everybody who's ever put in an implant knows they can get infected. That's it doesn't matter. Hip, knee, breast, dental, cardiac, neurologic. I've taken care of every surgeon's problems because I was a plastic surgeon, had to do that. But in this setting, if something stimulates you enough that it creates chronic inflammation, you know, the steps we can take before a, in this case an explant procedure are to do everything we can from a behavior modification standpoint and performance standpoint, like whatever we put in our bodies and on our skin, if we can just to the best of our ability, make it the highest possible quality, that's my way in the beginning to help them lower inflammation now.

Okay, that's great. So what about for someone like me? I'm approaching my six months, explained, I didn't do this big detox thing afterwards. I kind of just healed and went about my day. I obviously still eat clean and use non toxic products, things like that. But is it ever too late to then detox like your body or let's say to use your protocol to like help with post removal symptoms? Because I, although my brain fog is gone, my UTIs are gone, a lot of those symptoms are gone. I still bloat with my stomach, I still have intolerances. I still have things that are kind of unexplained that haven't gotten better over six years. Like what would you suggest for someone in my position?

Yeah, I believe that's why the program works so well, as you would imagine. Say if you are our patient and like you just pointed out, many things got better but then these others did It So we had have some patients in the first, you know, six years that I was doing this, do extremely well and boom, they're gone, no trouble. Then you'd have the other extreme where people be like 16 months out and they feel just as bad.

Yeah.

As when they had surgery. So for everybody listening, that is a consequence of genetics and your, your toxicity burden. And so just because you took out the implant, which removed a component, if you didn't address the underlying root causes of toxicity, you know, if someone had a really high insecticide burden or herbicide burden from glyphosates or dmp, which is a used by spray crops, or if someone had a heavy metal, you would not be able to magically get all that out of your system just by doing surgery. Because surgery is removing the implant and the scar tissue. But if those things are trapped, we'll just stay within your liver. Because your liver detoxifies pretty much everything. You sweat, you poop, you pee. But your liver is what binds things and helps you eliminate them. So what you're describing is what is a common thing in my practice and the reason the program is in place is to take someone like you, who's got unknown, probably toxicity, make it known, and then craft a plan to take care of that. And that can be taken care of through the simple things are like binders. I'm sure you've obviously heard of that. If it's mold, there's going to be different things. Mold is really difficult in some patients to take care of because environmentally they may go back to the same home or the same work and they're constantly getting re exposed to it. And one story was a patient of ours who would drive two to three hours a few times a week for work and she, she spilled a whole container of coffee with milk and everything based on a traffic incident. And it saturated the floorboard, it created mold underneath the mat, unbeknownst to her. And so every time she got in the car, she would get a headache. She had no idea. And her husband thought she was crazy. And, and then she said, and she, they were both there in my office. And the glare that she gave after that, because she said, I kept telling him that I would get a headache every time I drove this car. And you know, if someone's very sensitive to chemical smells, smoke, other kind of odors, they usually have a, you know, a glutathione pathway issue in our experience. So we use a lot of liquid based supplements to really help our patients who are nutrient deficient. So our line is used to lower inflammation, but it's, it's a very specific way. So like you said, you get bloating very easily. I mean, I had a patient say they were drinking water and got bloated, which doesn't make a ton of sense, but it can happen depending on the balance in your gut between bacteria, fungi and parasites. So in those instances, people are super afraid to eat, drink, or take supplement. So for us, we converted as much as we could to liquid and that liquid gets absorbed in the mouth. So I know you're gonna get it, whether it's glutathione, methylated, B complex, vitamin D3, K2, or vitamin C for that matter. So those are all. We'll just say you can develop a lot of nutrient deficiencies with what you're describing.

Yeah.

And for our patients, putting them on that, it alleviates a lot of anxiety because now they don't have to take a pill. Some people just don't do well swallowing pills. Then they also get concerned about an upset stomach from taking a supplement or, or some people come in here saying they're taking like 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 things a day. And I'm like, I don't know what that's doing other than making really expensive poop. The point is you have to, you know, if they're really suffering with gut issues, check their toxicity burden and their gut health to figure out how you can help them. People have HP lower, people have candida overgrowth, people have parasitic overgrowth like we talked about. And you have to listen to them and understand how they detoxify. Many people will tell you exactly what is wrong with them if you just listen to them long enough.

Right, right. And so this is something that, like myself, I'm in Florida. You can do this remotely. You offer kits or, or.

Yeah, all of our programs run remote because the majority of patients are not actually in Texas. They're from all over the country. And we have health coaches who work with our remote clientele. And the way that we found is obviously I can't operate on that many patients. I'm a rate limiting step in this. But our program is what can help the most people. And so the reason I published a book, Sharp, and the reason we created, you know, more programs and just ways to help patients is a lot of people need help they don't have access to. They may have, you know, a lot of logistical situations that they can't overcome in financial situations that put this off. Plus, to your point, not everybody's going to be in the right Mindset to come, you know, get something done, or they may never want anything done. That's fine. But these things are in place to lower inflammation right now. So you can read the book. And the book helps explain just behavioral things you can do, as well as all the genetics and all the toxicity that I'm. I'm discussing. And the programming can be, you know, through webinars we do for free. It can be accessing us and using our detox team remotely. It can be testing remotely using supplementation that we know works for patients experiencing inflammation either through breast implant illness or other chronic inflammatory processes. Those are probably our best avenues for improving the amount of accessibility to everything that used to be closed off, you know, for our surgical patients. Only now we're. We're able to provide more and more, you know, opportunities and access to clients.

That's awesome. I'm really glad that I asked, because I have people daily that ask me about it. Like you said, some are willing to remove it, some aren't supported and are fearful, and some can afford it. So, yeah, everyone has a reason. So it's nice to have something that can maybe help support them while they're still in their situation.

Yeah, a lot of folks, you know, if we just look at how many people could actually come see me, it's really. Obviously, it's very few. And the most that I can do to help somebody, you know, whether they're listening to the show or following, you know, the podcast or YouTube, is understand that the hardest thing for anybody to do is change your behavior. And I always say, like, if you can just make some small changes, cumulatively, they will make impact. So, you know, just like we're discussing with Jennifer, you want to help lower your inflammation. So there's lots of ways to do that. I've given examples of. You can read or listen to our book about Sharp. You could interact, you know, through a webinar about how to. To reduce inflammation through detoxification without retox is what I call it, because you got to be careful. Like, Lauren was detoxing and retoxing at the same time by being in her barrel sauna. That was too aggressive. And I get asked about saunas all the time. I get a lot of trolls about saunas. So, you know, heat is a challenge. That was never part of testing when implants were being trialed. So I just tell everybody to pause. I don't say, go sell your sauna. I don't just, like, just take it easy. Because in my experience, people can have what's called the Herxenheimer reaction, which is you're detoxing too quickly and that makes you feel unwell. So if you, you know, do a sauna session, you don't feel well, that's really not something you want to continue because that's, that's not the, the vibe. Right. You're, you're supposed to feel better, not worse after that.

Totally. Right.

And then obviously through supplementation I get asked a lot about supplements and it's probably between supplements and skin care, I don't know what's more kind of just like you, I get said a lot of things to trial and I would say I hang my hat on. My patients in general, just like you're describing, have absorption issues. So for be listening, like if you get swelling or bloating or you have difficulty with reflux or something like that, we made the liposomals and the liquids just to take that out of the equation. So you know, if you want to make sure you're getting the nutrients, that's why we created the inflammation support bundle that's mostly liquid based because then I know you're getting it right. And I'm sure as you know, anything you have to do more than once or twice a day, although you could do it, the ability of you to do it over time and remain consistent goes down.

So has to be easy.

Yeah. So everything that's easier, you're, you're more likely to do and rinse and repeat. And then what we've tried to do also since you brought it up and I, a lot of times I fail to forget it, is we help train practices who are interested in learning how we help patients with our programs. And then certainly surgeons, we can train them, that's on an individual basis with them submitting their credentials. So I can obviously vet them and, and we're happy to help raise the level of awareness like you have for this problem and provide as much evidence based education and programming as we can.

Right. I love that.

Super important now you have a new product that was just I've had sent to me because everybody was asking me if Lauren had a new boob job, which I, I was like okay, I don't think so. But I hadn't seen her for a period of time and then I was getting photos sent to me and maybe kind of for the audience explain what the product was that Lauren was using that you have.

So from explanting, you know, I had a size D chest that I was loving for 15 years of my life and I went down to a size aa. And although I was totally okay with it, I wanted to have an option that I could put on in case I wanted to go out and look like I had boobs again, which is kind of like what I have on now. This is not me. This is my product. And I couldn't find something that worked for my body because post explant, things are different. Your boobs are not like an abc. I have dents. They're lower. I've also had kids, so now they're wider. There's extra skin. So I was just like, what can I get? So I bought a lot of different inserts that were out on the market, Some for just padding, some that were geared towards mastectomy patients. And I cut them, I glued them, I sewed them together, and then I created this insert that worked for me that gave me this upper. What do they call this area?

Yeah, the upper pole.

The upper pole sort of fullness. Because I have dents. I had my surgery that was underneath the muscle. And so I have what, you know, is those very, very defined dents. And so I created a bra and inserts that give you that upper pole fullness. And nobody would look at me and question that I have fake boobs on or that I didn't, like, look normal. And so through my company original self, it's my way to sort of give back everything that I produce. I use myself, I wear myself, and, you know, I just. There was just nothing else out there, like this product. And this is. This is the inserts that I had created. And you as a doctor would know, like, it's completely flat on one side because I really don't have anything. So I need the most to be able to push me up and then also have this upper pole sort of profile to give me that look like I would have cleavage. And the response, we launched in August, and the response has been incredible for both explant patients, mastectomy patients, and I've even had just women that have had kids and lost that, you know, volume, use the bra without the inserts and have these amazing voluminous, like, boobs again. And it's just so rewarding and fulfilling as, you know, to, like, create something out of passion and, like, have knowing that there's a problem out there and being. Being able to solve that for people. It's so rewarding.

It is. I think, you know, when it was first posed to me, like, I got all these images, and I'm like, I don't know what's going on Here, I don't know. And then more and more came to me and I was like, well, that person, the more people got it sent to me, I'm like, these folks didn't have implants. They're using a product. I just didn't know what the product was. And then your show with Lauren came out and I was able to hear it and so it's been a, a pleasure to have you on. I'm really excited that you added that product with so much care and thought going into it because those are the things from a patient perspective that are probably, you know, plastic surgeons and can't always obviously appreciate all those different aspects of it. I did a lot of cancer care, so I mean, those were the most difficult problems and still remain the most difficult problems after explant to care for in our practice environment. So I really appreciate that you brought that to market and we look forward to being able to share that with our audience and our clients. It's been great to have you on.

Thank you. This is really so fun and I'm so happy I got to ask you some questions too. So this is really great. Thank you so much for having me.

And can you just tell everybody where to find the product again?

Yeah. So it's original self or you can go to my Instagram Jennifer Stano and click the link in my bio and it's linked right there.

Awesome. Thank you for being on the show. I look forward to what you produce next. That's incredible line.

Thank you so much.

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