Robert Whitfield MD explains his holistic approach to patients seeking explantation for breast implant illness or lifestyle reasons. He distinguishes two patient mindsets (symptom-driven chronic inflammation vs. desire for a holistic lifestyle), describes a more rigorous preoperative program that now includes assessing genetics and toxicity burden, and emphasizes optimizing diet and supplements to improve surgical outcomes beyond the operative procedure alone.
Chapters
And now I have people coming with really two mindsets. Can you just describe your approach to someone who comes to you wanting explantation for whatever the reason? Sure, yeah. Most of the folks who initially would come to me were more purely suffering from a lot of symptoms related to breast implant illness and, or as we think of it now, chronic inflammation. And now I have people coming with really two mindsets. They just want to lead a more holistic lifestyle. They don't want to have implants anymore. And they found that much to what you just described. Our program's a little different. We try to look at everybody and we have a pretty rigorous preoperative program where when you and I trained, it would have been you check somebody's blood count, you look at their electrolytes, you look at their chest X ray and an EKG if they're of that age, age. And then they're either fit or unfit for surgery, needed to see a heart doctor or not heart, whatever. And now, although we, we obviously take all that into consideration, I'm more interested in the genetics and toxicity burden someone has to start off with. And then how can we modify their diet and level up their supplementation so we can help them get into a better position for surgery? Because I can obviously do the cases and take care of everybody, but that's just one component of how that's really going to be effective.
