The Toxic Truth About Golf with Ashley Kurtz

Testing 1, 2, 3. Testing 1, 2, 3. Live. Bring this up. Welcome everyone, I want everybody to log on. It's, uh, 7, should be streaming all across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Substack, Rumble, and inside Dr. Rob's circle. We have a special live stream tonight. Hi everyone! Hi Leah, thank you so much, Leah, really appreciate you. All right, do a sound check if everybody can, uh, make sure they can hear me. Just Give us a wave, thumbs up. Perfect. Thank you, Leah. All right, we're gonna let everybody hop on here. This is part 1 of our golf and toxicity series, so we're going to stream live tonight at 7 PM Central, tomorrow at 2 PM Central, and then again on Thursday night at 2 PM Central. So we'll let everybody hop on. Appreciate everybody taking time out to, to spend time tonight to learn about this. Um, you know, we're, we're constantly trying to, uh, share information and educate patients, and this is a story from, um, a patient of ours Ashley Kurtz, who we'll talk to later tonight in the circle, that really made me think we should discuss this in greater detail. Please encourage everybody, if you know somebody who golfs, you know, golfers, share the stream. We're just gonna wait and let everybody get on. Hey Brooklyn. We have folks on in the circle outside of Leah. If you're on live in the circle, just hit the chat. Let me know you're there. And then on Instagram, let us know. My best friend growing up and to this day is live in Las Vegas. He's a big golfer, Christopher J. Murray. He is sitting there live on YouTube. Good evening, sir. All right. Got to share this with your golfing friends. Do you know anybody who golfs? This is going to be of interest. All right. We're going to get going here. It's 5 after. I respect everybody's time. So let's get into it. Good evening everybody, I'm Dr. Whitfield MD. Tonight is the beginning of our 3-part series, Golf and Toxicity. Tonight, um, we want to start with a topic that I think most people don't understand completely. We want to talk about golf and toxicity. Now when you think of golf, I'm sure you think of a relatively, um, like a healthy sport. You go think of fresh air, you think of the beautiful manicured grass, the big sunshine. You picture yourself walking, um, maybe on a great beautiful Saturday morning. And, um, although golf should be a stress reducer, many times, as my best friend Chris and I have enjoyed together, it's— it can be very stressful. It should improve your cardiovascular health. Walking's great for that. And that is the frame we are all sold. That is the picture that the industry paints. But I don't look at the world through the lens of marketing. I think everybody at this point knows how, uh, kind of, uh, to the point I am specifically. And as a surgeon who looks at underlying physiology of my patients and toxicity, I see something entirely different. It's a highly engineered environment with, in fact, a lot of chemicals, and those actually have biologic consequences. And certainly the more time you spend there, week over week, month over month, year over year in that environment, the more toxicity can build up. So tonight is part 1 of our series. We are calling it The Hidden Toxic Burden. We are going to look at exactly what is on the golf course and more importantly, what is ending up potentially in your body. So once again, I've, I've said I've had patients who lived on golf courses And then recently, a patient of ours who played golf their entire life and worked on golf courses brought this more to my attention. So tomorrow in part 2, we'll cover how this chemical exposure directly affects surgical outcomes from the fairway to the operating room. And on Thursday in part 3, I will walk you through the Sharp Method, our specific approach to recovery engineering for patients with toxicity burdens. But tonight we have to establish a baseline. We have to look at the data. We have to break it down to really break down the illusion of golf and its relationship, if you will, um, to maybe what's bringing toxicity to us. So let's talk about the grass. To keep a golf course looking like a perfect green carpet, essentially, it requires an immense amount of chemical intervention. Nature does not create just a perfectly manicured grass. It puts up a fight. To win that fight, the course, the superintendents of the course, the, the staff of the course have a whole arsenal of compounds they use. Two chemicals in particular dominate the landscape when it comes to maintaining golf courses. The first is chlorpyrifos. Say it with me, chlorpyrifos. It is a broad-spectrum insecticide. It is so toxic to the human nervous system, so damaging to neural development, that it has been banned from use on food crops. You cannot legally spray it on an apple. You cannot spray it on corn. You cannot use it on tomatoes, but it is still legally applied in massive quantities to golf courses across the United States. So once again, you can't spray that on food. It's been banned. The second chemical— I'm sorry, second chemical is chlorothalonil. Chlorothalonil. It is a heavy-duty fungicide used to prevent mold and other turf diseases. In Europe, it is completely banned. The European regulators looked at the data and classified it as a known carcinogen. Here in America, that compound is the number one most applied chemical on our golf courses. So these aren't fringe chemicals used by a few Golf Courses. These are the standard operating procedures for golf course turf maintenance, and the general assumption is that because you aren't eating the grass, you're perfectly safe. So once again, it takes those chemicals in massive amounts to protect the turf, the grass that you play on. And the assumption is basically false. It is a dangerous misunderstanding of human physiology. Now here's where the intrigue actually lies. How does it actually get into you? So if you're just looking at it and walking on it, is it something that you're inhaling? You might think you're just breathing in the spray when the wind blows, but the data tells us a much more direct story. A landmark study by Putnam and colleagues published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry looked exactly at the mechanism of exposure. It's very interesting what they found. They found that 60% of the golfers that they were studying absorbed that chlorpyrifos through skin contact. Once again, 60%. Think about the mechanics of the game. You touch the grass when you place your tee, you pick your golf ball up, you clean clubs, you inadvertently will be touching, whether it's your hands and face, the cart, the clubs, all of those things come in contact contact with the turf at one time or another. You may eat a snack at the turn or something. All these things are just different exposures or opportunities for exposure. The chemical transfers from the turf to the ball or to your hands and absorbs through the dermis. So our skin is not impregnable— impenetrable, as, as we all know. It's a highly porous organ, and the systemic effects of this constant low-dose exposure are not theoretical. They are measurable, and they can be quite devastating. So last year, in 2025, a very large study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and it was, uh, by a group, Krasanowski and team. And they didn't just look at golfers. They looked at populations living near golf courses. And the findings were pretty staggering. After adjusting for patient demographics and neighborhood characteristics, living within 1 mile of a golf course was associated with 126% increased odds of developing Parkinson's disease compared with individuals living more than 6 miles away from a golf course. Now let that sink in. 126% increased odds in severe neurodegenerative disease. And that's linked directly to basically where you're living in proximity to the golf course, which comes from potential, uh, interaction from the chemicals and, uh, as it potentially, potentially gets into the water supply. And the dose is, is what makes a difference. And on the golf course, the exposure is constant. So what happens when the chemicals actually enter your system? It get into your body. What's going on? Now, the body is highly intelligent, and all those things get filtered. And then ultimately what we do after it's filtered into the liver, and then our body's like, oh, we have to get rid of this. The carcinogens enter your bloodstream, you know, your, your body wants to get rid of it, so it protects your brain your heart. And then once it's passed out, it wants to sequester it, and that's often in fat. So the storage of toxins in fat has been known for a long period of time. Fat is— it's a preferred storage facility for toxins. And this brings us to a critical physiological concept, uh, that we deal with every day in my clinic and it's called the weight loss paradox. I have a lot of people who are potentially trying to lose weight, but they have a difficult time. Or when they actually do lose weight, burn fat, and, and that's their goal, but when they burn the fat, they release toxins, and sometimes they don't feel well as a result because these are released back in their bloodstream and elevate levels. So the clinical data shows a 15 to 25% increase in your blood toxin level for every 10 kilos of fat loss. Now, 10 kilos is a fair amount, but you understand the picture. So increasing your fat loss releases those things into your system. So think about the irony of that. You're trying to get healthier, you're dieting, you're exercising more, you're losing weight, but you're simultaneously creating a, like, an internal tox event, uh, maybe overwhelming your system with more of like a Herxheimer-type reaction. You're flooding your system with the very chemicals your body tried to actually protect you from. Now, as a plastic surgeon, um, we are looking at tox tests all the time. We probably have the largest toxicity burden tests on patients in the literature. Um, now the thing about liposuction is very disruptive to fat, and it breaks it apart and releases those things. So many times I won't do cases on patients with high level of toxicity without upfront treatment. So we're physically moving and disrupting this fat from the storage, uh, or being where, where it is being stored. Now if a patient has a high toxic burden from years of environmental exposure, like we've been talking about, like playing golf twice a week for many, many years, that can be a highly inflammatory fatty layer. So when we operate, we may mobilize this and cause more toxicity. So once again, many of the times that we are looking and reviewing our patients' preoperative toxicity tests, and I'll just take a moment here to dive a little bit deeper. I have told patients I will not do their fat transfers based on their toxic So, now, many people listening might not understand that and many patients might be frustrated by that because other surgeons would. And I don't feel that, that's the best way to serve the patient. So, we want to help them reduce their toxic burden because we feel strongly that preparation will enhance their postoperative recovery. So, patients who experience more severe or prolonged inflammation or brain fog or chronic fatigue afterwards, that would make sense because you're releasing more toxins. So, and I'm not sharing this to scare or fearmonger or anything like that. I'm sharing this because we make treatment plans based on a patient's data. We customize it to each patient. We make decisions based on it. It's about understanding, you know, what's going on in each and every patient. I don't think you can engineer a proper recovery if you do not try to look at these factors and discuss them with the patient and try to come to an informed decision about what to do for them to help them. You have to know what's in the tissues before you operate. I think this is the foundation of everything we, we try to do in our clinic, in my practice. And now understanding the science obviously is a component. Reading the JAMA studies is important. Um, but seeing it in my patients, um, that's where like all this theory becomes reality. And tonight, um, I'm not just going to give you data. I'm going to share with you a real clinical story from a patient of ours. And in just a few minutes, in our live, uh, Dr. Rob Circle community, we're going to interview Ashley Kurtz Patient of mine, Ashley, has spent her entire life mostly on the golf course. I just talked to her a few minutes ago and she reminded me, in addition to playing golf her whole life and going to college and playing golf, she worked as an attendant at a golf course for 6 years. So she has more than enough experience with exposure, and certainly her toxicity test is one of the more impressive ones you'll ever see. So we're gonna walk through her exposures, her symptoms. Um, we'll let her discuss what she wants to about her surgical, uh, situation and recovery. And we're not broadcasting the interview live, uh, on, uh, all these other platforms. This will only be in Dr. Rob's circle. So everybody, I will give you time to hop off the other platforms. Um, this is the prize, if you will, for those who are serious about understanding their health, their environment, the recovery. Um, the interview with Ashley is going to be happening shortly in Dr. Rob's Circle. So for everybody listening, you can go to drrobscircle.com to join. It's free. Um, if you can't, um, get to that, you can go to my main website, drrobertwhitfield.com, and then click the join there. So, um, we'll be, uh, in there shortly. I'll give everybody time to hop in there. I'll get her loaded into, um, the StreamYard that we're using to stream, and then we'll have a chat with her. Just gonna get her on. Be there in just a second, Ashley. I'm just, uh, taking the rest of the feeds down and we'll get started in just a moment. All right, we should just be live in the circle. Can everybody still see me live in the circle? All right. All right. I have Miss Ashley. Can you hear me, Ashley?

Yes.

All right, perfect. Let me just double-check and make sure everything's good. My manager, Jen, has her hand up. When you get into the circle, you have to unmute. Can everyone hear us in the circle? Let's see here. Hopefully I didn't kill the stream. Looks fine. Let's see, we'll give everybody a few minutes to hop in here. Sometimes there's a little bit of a delay. Okay, it's perfect. Okay, cool. All right, perfect. So I have Ashley Kurtz with me, and Ashley was kind enough to join us. Um, Ashley, can you kind of give everybody your background just as it relates to golf? I know you started when you were young, obviously, but give us a concept of like how you started and all those years you spent golfing.

Sure, yeah, I started when I was 12. I'm just playing with my dad. I had played all kinds of sports my whole life and never really been that great at anything, just kind of mediocre. My dad wanted boys and he got girls instead. So we tried everything and, uh, started playing when I was 12 and just really could hit the ball really well. And it was like, oh gosh, this might be my sport, you know. So, um, just played a little bit junior golf. And then once I got into freshman year of high school, I was from a small town and I knew that just some, you know, being around other golfers that women's golf, you could go to college and play women's golf and get a scholarship. And it was a, you know, great ticket out of a small town. So I started working really hard and that was my goal to play Division I women's golf and ended up doing that for 4 years. And then, you know, I love sports anyway, but I wanted to work in the industry. So I got a sports management degree and then began working for PGA and then on to the USGA after that for several years. But just played, you know, college golf is tons and tons of golf. I mean, you play every day in college and for practice. And then you, in a tournament, you typically play 36 holes the first day of a tournament and then 18 the second day. So you're out there all day long, like you said in your talk, you know, you're eating snacks while you're cleaning your golf ball. I mean, you're just, you know, you're on the course nonstop all day, so you never get a chance to wash your hands or do anything while you're eating a snack or taking a break. So, um, obviously all the research from the toxins, it makes total sense, you know, how they get in your body because you're out there so much, right?

And it's one of those things, you know, once again, this to, you know, put into perspective, like, there's all sorts of different things you get faced with in different sports. Like, there's a big deal with goalkeepers in soccer because of turf and the rubber that is in the turf, because the other one's going on the ground all the time. And many of them have had lung issues from the turf, and it's, it's that rubber that's being broken up to make the fill. And then, you know, what your— when I got your TOCS test and we looked at it, um, it was just before your surgery and everything. And, you know, I'm sure at some point, um, as we get more data audited and everything, we'll have more perspective on this, but Ashley has an entire page full of, um, toxins that are in the 95th percentile. And so for everybody listening, um, common things that we would see would be like mold toxins. That's a common thing we see. But in Ashley's test, she has a lot of different chemicals that come from the things we were talking about and particularly organophosphates and something called atrazine, which was used on golf courses for a very long period of time that I didn't talk about, but it's also very damaging to the nervous system. So I think, you know, we wanted to bring it up because we've had other patients who lived on golf courses for a long period of time, and then after their kids went to school, they just kind of were empty nesters and left. And, um, that was my first exposure to somebody who lived near a golf course, or they lived on the golf course, who had atrocity. But because Ashley's a golfer, she has so many more, um, like, over the, the course of that time you spent on courses, so many more opportunities for exposure throughout, through, throughout those times. And, um, You were telling me some of your stories about, like you said, you don't have time to like go do stuff. They don't have like necessarily soap in the bathrooms or, um, the, the things that you take for granted, like just touching stuff. You're constantly gonna get more exposures that way. And then, you know, that study I quoted said that you get exposed on your legs a lot. I'm sure you— did you wear shorts a lot or a skirt a lot?

Absolutely. We were mostly in shorts. And then, you know, I was thinking about it today, you know, you don't have caddies in college golf, so— or junior golf, you know. So you, you lay all of your clubs down. Like, if you're going to putt, you have a chipping wedge or something with you, you lay it on the course, obviously. While you're using your other club. And then, you know, all of this stuff is all over your grip. And like I said, then you're eating a snack while you're walking to the next hole. You know, I mean, you just never, you know, you're using the restroom and the in-between holes, there's never any soap or anything to wipe your hands with. I mean, it's just, you're out there like for the day, you know? And so, but you don't think about it. You know, I was thinking about it today too. Like golf is such a beautiful sport. You know, we just had the Masters. It's just such a great thing. It's a lifelong sport, you know. And I've, you know, been healthy my whole life, thankfully. You know, when people say, oh, you can— you're out, you're outside, you're in nature, you're walking, you know, you should be in a place where you're gonna stay healthy, you know. But it's just like you said, every sport has its toxic exposure, but it's just, you know, now that I'm older and I've had these issues and to see it all on paper and to go, wow, that really did get into my body. It's pretty shocking, you know?

Yeah. And the levels are very high across the board for many of these things that are used to treat the turf. And I'm, I'm looking at it right now, and we're going to bring up a couple of them just so we talk about it, because many of the things are pesticides, which of course they're going to use as well as the insecticides and herbicides and all those things. So, um, the— and what you, you don't see is like the actual substance that I named in the, um, talk, uh, chlorpyrifos or chlorothalonil. You, you see different organophosphates, you see the breakdown products basically. So the different chemical metabolites are there, and there's many of them that are just— they're called, um organophosphates, and they're normally from pesticides or insecticides. And I'm trying to find your specific one that we found the other day that kind of all kind of linked back. It's like, oh, well, this is definitely, you know, from the golf course. The other thing I wanted to ask you was, 'cause you told me, and I'm sure if you, after you've thought about it more, there's probably many more exposures you probably didn't think about before that, or opportunities to do that. Like you said, just laying the clubs down and then picking them back up. And you always have, uh, were you somebody who took their glove off to putt?

Yes, always. And, and to chip. So, you know, you're putting your glove off and on, and you know, you're, like I said, you're out there, your ball's dirty, half the time you're like licking your finger to clean clean your golf ball because you don't have a towel with you and trying to putt, so you're cleaning your golf ball. I mean, all of the things, and you're like, I've had this all over my hands, it was on my legs from, you know, just playing golf. Especially we'd start early in the morning and the grass was still wet, it'd be all over your legs, and then, you know, you're, it, it, you're touching your face. I mean, it's just, there was no way that you weren't going to ingest it or get it on your skin. And you know, it's funny, like you think about— I do, I did with kids— like if somebody's coming to spray pesticides on your yard, you don't want to let your dog or your kids out in your yard right after they've sprayed. But I can remember being out early mornings and they were still doing golf course maintenance, you know, out there getting the holes ready or whatever on holes that we weren't ready right then playing. And so you're literally following them after they've done the maintenance for the day to get the course ready, sprayed it, whatever, and you're out there playing on it, you know. I mean, you just, you just didn't think about it, honestly.

Yeah, the, um, the amount of effort it, it takes to make those courses look the way they look— if you just think about effort it would take to make somebody's lawn look like a course, like, yeah, makes sense.

Total sense.

Yeah, um, so, you know, we, we talked and, and Ashley had a, you know, difficult test. We delayed her fat transfer because her test was so, um, um, you know, overwhelming really when I saw it. And we, we don't ever want to, as we discussed the talk, intentionally do things you're going to make possibly more problems. So doing work, and, um, I don't know if you want to share kind of how your surgery was, but that was kind of another, another problem we found during surgery, made a new set of circumstances that we had to then think about, you know, afterwards. So I can, if you want to share that, I, I won't, you know, go into that if you don't want to share.

No, yeah, I mean You know, I, like I said, I've— and I think what you said to me on surgery day or the day before was like, a person with your tox level should be in bed, you know, you should not feel well. And for the most part, I mean, really, it's kind of just been the last 2 years. And honestly, probably if I knew I had a right rupture on my implant, if I knew kind of when that happened, That's probably kind of when I probably started going downhill. You know, I would say my body just was so overloaded. And then with that leaking, I think my immune response was just too much for me to handle, you know, but I mean, I've always been active and healthy and tried to drink clean water and eat clean and all of that, obviously after my college golf career. But, um, you know, I just think that stuff has been in my body probably for a really long time. And you obviously just get to a point where your bucket is full. You know, and I think the implant rupturing and my body just not being able to handle the tox load anymore.

Yeah, um, I want to do something for like shock value. I'm going to see if I can do this. I haven't— I have to see if I can just share this. When I look at your, your, uh your screen. It is, um, let me just see if I can share it. Okay, I'm gonna be able to do it. So I'm gonna just put up Ashley's test so everybody gets an idea of what we're talking about. Can y'all see her test now? I have it on a different screen. Is it visible? Can you see it, Ashley?

No, we can't see it in the circle.

Well, shoot. It allowed me to present. Why can't I do that? Oh my goodness. Why is it not letting me do that? Ugh. Oh, I have to add it to the— never mind. It's my fault. I didn't do it correctly. I'll do it right. I have to add it to the stage. Okay, now we have it. That is one hell of a test. Uh, I've seen a lot of toxicity tests, and, uh, the only person that has a whole page of red like this in the history of my practice is Lauren Bostic, but hers was all heavy metals. So yours, um, these are all the top offenders in terms of atrazine and, uh, these like breakdown products. They're all literally like pesticides. Um, and then BPAs comes, you know, out of like cosmetics and plastics and all this stuff. These are all other organophosphates that come from pesticides. And then there's a phthalate breakdown product, another plasticizer. This comes from styrene. And, um, then you have a couple heavy metals. Uh, beryllium is usually reserved for uh, nuclear reactors. So I don't know how you got beryllium. Um, lead is a groundwater contaminant. And then these are all mold toxins. So because Ashley played for such a long time on courses— courses are notorious for having problems with fungus. That's why we talked about the fungicide, or thallionil, which is used in high amounts on golf courses. In fact, they tore up the entire Austin Country Club because of mold.

Uh, yeah, they can't get rid of it, especially on the greens.

Yeah, I mean, it's— if you're constantly watering things, and it just— that's what fungus wants. It's a warm, moist environment. So, um, it's not surprising to see all these. What is surprising is how otherwise healthy you are, which it goes to your resiliency and your— I think, um, as you stated, you've always been a really otherwise healthy person. If you didn't have a fair amount of reserve, this is the kind of thing, like I said to you when we talked about it, that would put you in bed and make it very hard for you to get out of bed. So as Ashley works through this, we have a pretty strong program as it relates to taking these out of the equation. And then now that her implant that's been ruptured for— we don't know how long— is out, that will take a burden away from her immune system so that as things come back online or reset or, or however we interpret that, her body will have more of an opportunity to go ahead and remove these you know, substances. Um, but this is a high, high amount of burden for anybody. And then as you roll to the second page, it continues with a couple other mycotoxins that are still very high. And then you still have all of these, and, um, these are more, uh, pesticide components, breakdown components. And then there are— think of, uh, you had lead, but here you have some thallium, cesium, cadmium. Those are all shell components of an implant shell. So there are more than enough things to really, um, not just make you feel bad or make you feel tired, but like really affect you. So it's, I think it highlights why we approach everything, you know, in a very like specific way. The overall strategy is to get the person as healthy as possible by identifying like, is it a genetic problem? They just don't detox well. Is their tox test, you know, mild, moderate, or really complicated? Is their gut health, you know, a big component? Maybe they traveled a lot, maybe they got exposed to parasites, maybe they had, you know, a bunch of acne treatment as a kid with antibiotics or anything to like slow down the progression of, of acne, or maybe they had a bunch of ear infections or sinusitis or whatever the thing is. They just got you know, basically leaky gut out of that. Um, maybe they developed, or unfortunately didn't know they were gluten intolerant, developed a bunch of problems with gluten or wheat or other food sensitivities. And, um, they now, when they eat, a lot of, a lot of what they eat triggers them, but they don't really understand why that's happening. Um, certainly the things that get sprayed on food are not good. So you have to be careful about that. And also, maybe, maybe this is something that for your colleagues that reached out to you today, many of those substances disrupt your hormones. So, um, there are a lot of reasons to get looked at when you're— I guess as, as much time as you put in on a course, it would be a very beneficial, you know, to-do list item to get a tox test, you know, and just have a peek.

Right.

If, if your friends have any kind of exposure list like you do, that needs to be— they need some help. So it's pretty impressive.

I was thinking about it today. Like, you know, we still— I still golf, my son golfs. And I mean, what would— like, just for the normal person that, like you said, is playing golf 2 or 3 times a week for fun, a hobby, or, you know, do you take glutathione? Like, what do you take to try to like keep some of this exposure down? You know, what is that? What's a preventative for it?

Well, they said 60% get exposed through the skin, so then I would just do one of those dry fit shirts that's long sleeve, and pants basically, you know, have, uh, I know a lot of people like to wear short socks, so do I, but with, you know, light pair of socks so that much of the area that you would get exposed is actually not open. And then it really becomes the hand thing, like you said, like, how are you going to manage your hands and whether or not it's a, you know, wipe or something that's not got a bunch of— so you also had triclosan on your test. Triclosan is an antibacterial found in like wet wipes. Yeah, so it's more about, like you said, like, how do you— hand washing is still the number one, one way to prevent, you know, a contaminant, um, especially one like this, if we've covered the areas. And, you know, that's how I'd always like start with it. And then, like you said, glutathione is a great tool in terms of an antioxidant that helps with our glucuronidation pathway. So I think that's a good adjunct. Making sure that, like you said, when you go to eat or drink something, that it's really the same thing. You're not just introducing more into your system by how you're doing it, how you're taking the cap off or what you're doing with, you know, your It's all the stuff you do with your hands, basically.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's, that's how I think about it. It's like when I, I do things, uh, constantly at work, like, I'm always, um, using gloves and going through lots of sets of gloves, uh, because the number one thing is always hand contamination. So you're hand washing all the time and you're using gloves all the time and And that's always still, you know, probably the easiest, shortest solution to that is being, you know, a little bit more clothed. They have such good dry fit stuff now that breathes. You don't have to, you know, wear shorts or wear short sleeves. And everybody's usually pretty good about, you know, hats and all this, you know, other stuff for their, um, you know, covering their face and and doing all that. But then it just becomes how you're going to manage your, your hands. So having a way to, to manage that, that would be like the top stuff.

Yeah, well, and you know, back to the Tox Test and the surgery, I mean, that's when we were looking at this and I was looking to explant. I mean, there's other surgeons that will explant, obviously, but there are not a lot of surgeons— I didn't find another one that knows as much about toxins as you do and has the team, the Sharp team, ready to detox. And I mean, obviously I had done a prior tox test and I knew I had problems, you know, and a lot of doctors see this tox test and they know it's bad, but they don't know where this stuff comes from, you know. So I mean, that's why I chose you is that I knew obviously, you know, that know how to explant and fat transfer, but then you know how to detox a person. And obviously I needed that. So that's why we're here.

I think, yeah, you're probably, you know, the one of the main reasons we run things the way we do. And we can talk about it ad nauseam, but I don't think, you know, when you're developing plans, you, you can't just look at it and go, Well, we can do that and kind of see how it works out. It would be better to, obviously in your case, you just had a rupture as well, get that taken care of and relieve that burden from the body and start working on these others and try to get these, you know, as reduced as possible out of your system. I know we've had a tough time with Atrazine, but we do have a protocol that works with atrozyne. Like, we, we discussed that, you know, also because of my other patient who lived on the golf course. But so I, I think, um, the most, uh, we can offer certainly is the evaluation with the method, uh, the SART method, and then the workup and the, the detox and the continued work by the patients with our team, that's really going to get the most out of the program for the patients. I mean, I just want the patients to do as well as they can, you know. I think anybody can, like you said, do the— a lot of the surgical steps. I mean, many of them are pretty just straightforward, but programmatically, I think what we have is still remains very unique in the country and around the world. So we have a great team in place, many of which are obviously our patients who've had the experience and understand it really, really well. So you can lean on them, um, and that's super helpful.

Yeah, it's been very helpful because I think I told you, you know, I'd had this Tox Test run prior and I had been working on detox. I mean, I had been doing the ozone IV blood therapy and high-dose vitamin C and the binders and all the things. And I think my body was just at a place like not able to detox, you know. I mean, I just— we had to get the implants out to move forward. And, you know, obviously we'll see what happens, but I have a great feeling that my body will respond, you know. Now that that main burden is out, I think I'll be able to detox just fine, you know.

And that was the thing too when you brought that up, like This is the, I feel like, and our, our, our lead practitioner, both the lead practitioners, um, in the group, really Chelsea and Gina have the same story as they tried forever to do detox and were very aggressive with it with their implants in place, but couldn't really solve that problem. And so I don't know if it's just the inability of the, the tool to, to solve it, or I, I more think of at the tissue level what's going on is far more difficult for the body to cope with than we really can appreciate. And the paper published in Denmark that showed that patients are having really, really aggressive immune-type reactions at the tissue level is it adds a lot to that argument. Like, you are spending time, effort, resources trying to do, like you said, ozone therapy and, um, high-dose vitamin C therapy and binders and all the different modalities that, you know, the, the providers and practitioners can help you with. But in reality, this is basically a surgical problem, right?

And, you know, honestly, your body is in fight or flight. It's trying to keep you alive. And as much detox as I have, you know, to do, it was probably my best interest to not try to— I mean, I just don't think the body was going to release it before the ruptured implant was taken care of. I mean, it's just, you know, prior order priority, right? I mean, your body knows what you can handle. So I just think—

and that reason you were, you were doing as well as you were doing is because you were doing all those other things. Yeah, just trying to—

yeah, just trying to keep up with life, right? And thankfully I knew how to do all that. I mean, right, but you, you just get to a certain point and you're like, I should I still feel better than this. You know, there's something wrong, right?

So, right. And, and we should give Ashley a ton of credit because that test is, without all the other things she was doing, a very, very, uh, a common recipe to be like laid up in bed, not, not, not, not wanting to do something, but just not having the energy to do anything. So had you not been doing all those other things to help stem it, it would have been very, very, um, I think that would have been a very challenging time for you.

Yeah. Well, like I said, I mean, I had definitely slowed down the last year and just become like, you know, with hormones changing, I think with menopause and my body was just like, okay, something's got to give here. I mean, you just can't keep going at the pace you go with all of this stuff in your body. I mean, I just felt different. I didn't have the energy to work out. I didn't have my normal get up and go, you know? So it just was time. And I'm so grateful that I came and we found what we found. And you know, that we can— I'm ready to start the detox, had my post-op call today and ready to start the first phase. And work on getting some of the stuff out of my body, you know.

Yeah, I, I want to see how, um, and do you notice— so let's, let's take it in stages. So like, when I talk about this, if I take out an infected implant, or if I take out a ruptured implant, or if I take out one where we're really suspicious of like this gel bleed or slow leak, or, or like a degradatory type you know, process. I feel like those patients get a little bit more of a bump after surgery. Have you noticed an improvement already? How do you feel already?

I definitely feel just a brighter— like, I'm not, you know, I was waking up after sleeping a normal amount, 7 to 8 hours, and just like, oh my gosh, when's bedtime? You know, that's how I was feeling in the morning. And now I don't feel like You know, now I get my 7 to 8 hours and, you know, it's a bright— I just call it like brighter. Like you, you feel hopeful, you feel brighter, like, okay, my body can handle this now. You know, I mean, you just, because I think just the, that huge burden is out and gosh, I'm still recovering, but I just feel way better than I did going in. So I'm so grateful for that.

Right. Yeah. I, I think it's really hard to appreciate The, um, the best way— we just don't have the tool to measure the effects of what infection around an implant that I find, or a rupture around an implant I find, or a, like, a slow leaking of the implant out. Like, I don't have a tool to measure that. If I did, I would feel a lot better and could, you know, provide more context to patients so they felt even more comfortable with like, this is going to really help. And it's just like, not if, it's just when is it going to get, you know, better and better and better.

Yeah.

I think like you said, a lot of people come in really amped up fight or flight, like even more anxious and reliving a lot of bad things, a lot of, uh, uh, you know, surgery that, you know, and they have other surgeries that didn't go well. Like it's just like a whole litany of things that, you know, come back all of a sudden. Like today I operated on somebody and, and they've had so many negative experiences. Our goal is always to try to get everybody prepared extremely well and explain everything extremely well. And my team goes into, um, you know, really good detail, I think, and provides a lot of opportunity for communication so that those things are— as much as we can put them to bed, we, we, you know, we try, but it's not always the case.

Yeah, well, everybody brings their own personal experience in, right? But no, you guys did a great job. I mean, set the expectation. If we had questions, I mean, it was as clear, I thought, as any surgery like this could be. And, you know, obviously grateful that we didn't do the fat transfer because since just 2 weeks ago, I mean, I've heard horror stories about people having a fat transfer and then it not taking and all of these things happening and having to have another surgery. And so, you know, gosh, that's the best decision because like you said, we store our fat— our store our toxins in our fat. So goodness, I wouldn't want to transfer my fat right now. There's no telling what would happen.

Yeah, not without some work up front. I think if we have more runway to do things in cases we can, you know, have a bit more opportunity. Yours is one of the cases where I clearly think it's much, much better to give you, you know, 6 months, 9 months, whatever the timeframe. So it's, it's a better situation for you for sure.

Yeah, it'll, it'll be good. I just, I'm eager to see how long it takes to detox at this point. Point. You know, I have high hopes, so we'll see. But yeah, yeah, I agree.

That's, you know, for you, I would, um, I would like to see what kind of time frame it would require to do that.

Um, that'd be a good benchmark for you to say, yeah, I had a really toxic patient and it took this long.

So yeah, that is, uh, there's definitely one that I'm anxious to see how long, um, and, and certainly, you know, the test will probably lag behind how you feel.

Yeah, for sure.

And some tests get a little bit worse before they get better. I had a patient, um, and she got doing detox, was feeling a lot better And they repeated her test and she had more things, but that was a function of her, her liver getting better. And then she was able to remove more, more of those things out of her system. But, you know, I think we can do our, you know, best work by, you know, identification up front and trying to be, you know, make a good treatment plan for everybody and help them. Um, and if, uh, that means delay something, that's fine. Um, yeah, just for sure, get them in a better position. So yeah. Oh, with that, it's, it's 8. Um, do you have any, you know, comments you'd like to share before we hop off?

I mean, I just would reiterate again, you and your team know what you're doing as far as you know, obviously explant fat transfer, you've been doing that for years, but the toxic load that a lot of people have, obviously not my level, but just general, most general people have something they need to work on, you know? So I just think it's beneficial to run the testing and have some sort of plan in place for the inflammation part of it. And then also the detox, because I think it, You know, I've heard so many stories of women that do explant and they're like, oh, it must not have been my implants because I don't feel any better. But they've never been tested. They've never done a tox test. They've never done anything to look at their gut, their hormones, anything, you know. So I mean, and it's really hard to even get your hormones balanced with this, all of this going on in your body. So I just think Even if they're not, you know, going to come do surgery with you, I think it's really just a heat— a warning to like look at your toxicity because it does matter. You're only— you're not going to feel great unless you really know what you're dealing with, you know.

Yeah, I think the underappreciated aspect of the programming, um, a lot of people want me to do their surgery, which is, is You know, wonderful. Yes. Um, the work before and after is definitely the, the secret sauce. And I think that will, you know, be the most impactful if, you know, we have a pretty streamlined process in, in preparation and operating room and post-op, as you know. But, um, the true work lies as you're going to find out in these next several months, trying to get all these different things out of your body and helping, you know, your body heal and, and you get feeling as hopefully as good as possible, right?

And, you know, I just think of the word thrive, like you want to thrive. I mean, you want to feel your best. You don't want to still feel ill even though you've had the surgery, you know. So I think it's—

Ashley's got a junior in high school. I have a senior who's finishing, so she's got to be primed and ready to roll for that because next year is going to be all sorts of trouble.

Yeah. And I have a daughter who's going to be a sophomore. He's not driving yet, so we're still just running the roads. So it's just a busy, busy, exciting time, but you just want to be your best. You want to feel your best, you know?

Yeah.

So it's all worth it in the end. I just appreciate you and your team. Appreciate you having me on.

Oh yeah, I think it'll be, uh, and you know, we'll put this up in the, um, circle so the replay will be available. So if you have friends or colleagues, or if anybody listening has friends or colleagues, encourage them to come. They can watch the replay. All they have to do currently, obviously there's no barrier to entry, you just have to literally fill out username and password where we haven't done anything to block anybody or do anything to make it complicated to get in here. I understand there was a password reset problem tonight, so I'll look into that and get that corrected. But otherwise, you know, invite folks, they can come in and talk to us. And I really appreciate Ashley coming on and sharing tonight. It gave me a lot of— it piqued my interest last week when we were talking And I thought, well, this would be a really good topic to discuss. Um, I think, uh, your test, and I'm sure a lot of your friends and colleagues will have similar tests, you know.

Yeah, for sure. So yeah, well, thank you so much. I've enjoyed it.

All right, have a great night. Thank you.

Thanks, you too. Bye-bye.

Bye.