Dr. Robert Whitfield explains how to talk to your doctor about breast implant illness by framing implants as foreign bodies that trigger chronic inflammation in some people. He uses kidney transplants as an analogy: the immune system attacks unfamiliar tissue, just as it can react to implants in the breast, joints, teeth, or heart. Tell your clinician you suspect chronic inflammation from a foreign body.
All right, let's get into it. How do I discuss breast implant illness with my doctor? So I think I've actually found a good way both to explain this to my patients and to other practitioners. And so the last person who was a surgeon who won the Nobel Prize was Joseph Murray. Dr. Murray transplanted a kidney from one Siamese twin to another. And there were three things he had to do in order to get this done. From a technical standpoint, in the operating room, once the patient's been prepared, obviously, removing the kidney from one and placing it to another without causing harm to either. But basically, to hook up a kidney, you have to hook up an artery, a vein, and the ureter, which is the tube that actually empties the urine from the kidney into the bladder. And so he executed these steps, but he was able to execute the steps because it was from a Siamese twin or an identical twin. So their immune systems basically don't recognize each other's organs or tissues as foreign because they have the exact same genetic material. So this, this ushers in the question, well, what happens if that kidney is now a cadaver kidney? Well, of course, you would like to have the best match. And there's. There's ways to do that with both tissue typing and blood typing. So going beyond that, once you find the correct cadaver donor kidney, then it's a function of how are we going to protect that kidney from your immune system, because you're not a Siamese twin. And so we do that with medication. The medication will be first one with cyclosporine A, and then we'll just say steroids. So you give those two medications in enough amount, and it blocks or blunts the immune response. It doesn't completely eliminate it, but it allows the kidney to heal, start to function. And as long as you monitor it and keep their immune system suppressed, that kidney will work. That patient will not need dialysis for all intents and purposes, and they can go on with their life. So now let's fast forward and discuss, you know, how to discuss this with your doctor and where you feel like you have chronic inflammation, you may not know how to verbalize it, but I'm going to tell you, you have chronic inflammation. The breast implant is a component of that. If, in fact, they cannot understand why that's a component, then please use my example of kidney transplant. Because a breast implant, hip implant, knee implant, cardiac implant, neural implant, dental implant, it doesn't matter what type of implant it is. It's a foreign body. As soon as it's placed in your body. Doesn't matter what it is, your body tries to get rid of it. It forms a scar capsule around it. In some instances, the body's inflammatory response does not shut down or gets worse. I see this in particular in all sorts of situations where someone's ability to detoxify genetically is then challenged over time by their environment, their food, their water, their air. And ultimately, there may be something that tips them over, upsets the. The balance they have. And they may have been tolerating all this inflammation, but they had something happen. A big mold exposure, a death in the family, a chronic issue that gets worsened some other way. They deliver. They have a pregnancy. I see people get very, very symptomatic after a pregnancy. So that being said, I would explain it as, look, you know, this is a foreign body. My body doesn't like it anymore. It's not really a question of whether you think it's a thing or not. I know it's a thing that's affecting me. And you can use my show, you can use my examples as ways to help you clarify that or codify that explanation to that doctor.
