A conversational YouTube video (hosted/created by Robert Whitfield MD) discussing breast implant illness (BII). Speakers describe patient variability—some have no problems, others report BII symptoms—and emphasize that experiences exist on a spectrum rather than a binary. Robert Whitfield MD references testifying at FDA hearings in 2019, limited published studies (~100 explants) that report symptom improvement after explantation, and his own clinical experience (claims ~1,500 explants). The discussion highlights lack of general awareness about potential downsides of implants, the roles of genetics and environment in symptom expression, and patients using individualized troubleshooting (e.g., supplements) to improve symptoms.
Questions this video answers
2019.
About 100 explants.
About 1,500.
Chapters
The problem is people are either, I love implants, implants are great. Mine have not done anything, or I have breast implant illness. For me, I feel like I am sort of in the gray. There were things that weren't adding up that were not making me feel good, but it wasn't one camp or the other. When I started to recognize those signs over and over, like little breadcrumbs, I wanted to do something about it. But I don't think that it has to be, like, so black and white, because not everyone is not the same. We're all different. We're all, like you said, different genetic makeups. There's such a, like, fight over this, and it's not. I feel like there would be more easy conversation if people could just have a normal conversation about it, like we're doing right now, as opposed to, like, so. So fighty.
I look at it pretty simply. There's. I think a lot of people just aren't aware of the potential downsides to getting an implant. You only, you know, people don't talk, could have these, like. I mean, I've known Lauren a long time. There was never conversations of, hey, you could experience inflammation, or you could experience rashes, or you could experience. I don't think people correlate the two. And so this is, you know, more and more people are talking about this, and I think it's a fight because many have not had the experience of a poor experience, and others are like, whoa, I've solved everything that was going on in my system. Yeah.
In 2019, they had a series of hearings that I testified at the FDA in Bethesda. This is about implants and breast implant illness. And so this is, you know, mainstream with the fda, it's mainstream with providers. What it's not clear about because the data was pretty limited, and the pandemic made that worse. We got funding as a. When I was president of the Aesthetic Society's research foundation to explore breast implant illness. And so the studies that have been done show that there's symptom improvement. Some of the things I think could be expanded, certainly, because it's a very limited. They looked at basically 100 explants. Well, I've done 1500. So I have 15 times the information they have, plus I know all the genetics behind them. So the long story, short story is what you eat, what you drink, where you live, where you work, the air you breathe. Your genetics dictate much of this. And you can't pick your parents. You can do better with your environment and what you eat if you can do that, and then you can actually change how your genes are being expressed. So someone like Candace, on her own, troubleshooted, trialed and errored it and basically figured out how to make herself feel better with supplements. So we did all that already.
