Why Your Genes Are Behind Your Chronic Inflammation (And What To Do About It) | Natalie Lefevre

I definitely had like glyphosate, which can cause cancer if it's been inside of you too long. And how do we detox that? How do we even know that we have it? And I got endotoxins, basically environmental toxins. And the whole mountain on that side got sick. And I went after all these labs and all these conferences, and, uh, that's where I found my mold, my heavy metals. I was a pescatarian for 5 years. Also found my genetic variant, you know, HL-4, that I just can't I have detox as great as someone else. I have MTHFR, I have G6PD. And I remember it was very overwhelming because you're like, where do I start? Now I've realized like, it's okay. You go down one road, then you go down the other road. So I found my genetic variant and I have it under control now. And I feel like now I am in charge.

Everybody, Natalie has been in my office all day while I've been back here working, so she's got to see all the toys that I have in the office.

And, and he's got some incredible toys.

Yeah, she's, uh, she now knows why there's a little bit of a— well, it's our oasis from patience. She's from the islands, but it's my little oasis in Austin, so We did not have her go in our hyperbaric chamber, but we have a very specific one for our patients which is vertical, so our patients don't have to sit, use their arms to get down into it, because we do breast surgery and I repair a lot of muscles after explant surgery, so we don't want them putting stress through their shoulders. So we have one that you just sit in, and if you want to relax, meditate watch a movie, whatever. Doesn't matter what you want to do. You can do it in there. It's fine. And then Natalie got to spend time, which I'm sure she appreciated, in the Human Regenerator.

I love the Human. I was pretty impressed that you got that. You got the Rolls-Royce here for cells and the great Flopresso. And yeah, I guess I just didn't really know how deep you go into all this. I thought you were, you know, just an MD with deep focus on plastic surgery and toxins and inflammation, how one really does breast surgery on a higher, higher level. But wow, seeing all your devices, your machines, everything for the skin, and I've gotten to really know you a lot deeper today and understand all your facets and how you think.

A little bit different than how she met me. You met me at dinner at Daidui here in Austin. Or actually, you met me at Xenergy in Utah or Colorado. That's right.

That's right. That's right.

Harry's from Utah.

Yeah.

Xenergy was his meeting in Colorado.

Xenergy. And then dinner with Dave and Anne and all them. And yeah. And you always kind of like said what you do, but you didn't really explain the deep. I feel like I'm just meeting the iceberg that goes very deep.

Well, she asked me why we do what we do. So we had this big curiosity. One of our children was really, from a diet perspective, having trouble. And it just led to doing more and more genetic work, which was always of interest to mine going through college. And then I went to medical school from 92 to 96. So that was before the Genome Project was complete.

Oh, wow.

So everything you have now wasn't even a thing when I was in medical training. And we still went to the library and read books. And for those folks who remember what a CD-ROM was, you'd have to load up information that was on a CD-ROM, and that's how you would access what you now do on the internet.

Yeah.

Because there was no internet.

Yeah.

Um, and then when the Genome Project was complete and you had all these commercially available testing, which, you know, started with things like 23andMe, and you could take the raw data of the SNPs and then plug them into like Pure Encapsulation Program or something and get some information out of— that was a time that was, um, when we were just transitioning into my own solo practice and working with like functional medicine doctors and nutritionists and trying to get a better understanding of what was going on with our family. And then that just overlapped into patient care.

Amazing. So you already had a knack for understanding to go deeper into each unique person's blueprint And I mean, I talk about this, labs are out of date. Classic traditional way of doing allopathic medicine is so out of date. So you were one of the forerunners back then looking at the genes to see why things are dysregulated or how we find imbalances to counterbalance.

Yeah, I think if you understand someone's genetics, you have a lot more insight.

Yeah.

And certainly You know, we talked about different places you live and foods you eat, and a big thing for me is air quality and fluid quality. So we have some nice hydrogen water here.

Yeah.

But I don't think most people really— it's a lot for them to take in. It's a lot of information. People get overwhelmed very easily. So I don't try to— when I, when I have a patient come in, I tried to do the simple things. Like, I wrote a book, The Sharp Method, which is really what you're going through in the office, but it's rooted in genetics and nutrition and understanding just basic things that you should know about yourself. And so each individual can then responsibly just take care of themselves better. So, like, sleeping better, better fluid quality, food quality, air quality, air quality, food, all those things. It makes a big difference.

Huge. And we underestimate what it's really doing and wreaks havoc. Like, you know, air, my sister always checks like the air quality in Houston when we're in Munich. And you can see when it's a red zone, like if you actually go in there and look, there's some toxic air. Miami, before this law passed now that they're not allowed to spray the chemtrails and it was a big lawsuit. And like we literally a year ago, us locals felt like, wow, it's really gray. And it's been gray for a couple weeks right before Christmas. And it's a thing and people just aren't awake yet. So, I mean, they're waking up, but, and then glyphosate, I definitely had glyphosate, which can cause cancer if it's been inside of you too long. And how do we detox that? How do we even know that we have it? Labs to check for that. Like I've been that girl that found all these toxins and my leukocytes, my hematocrit, my hemoglobin was elevated. I have something called a genetic variant called JAK2 or PCV. So because of all those toxins, I think that genetic variant turned on and I had a serious pneumonia, ended up in the hospital misdiagnosed. The first 4 antibiotics didn't work. It was a very, very scary time. Trauma as well, my nervous system. And I was in the hospital for like 5 weeks. I was—

Was that here or in Germany?

Germany.

In Germany.

And I went to the best doctor. I had caught it in the Seychelles 'cause of a building because they were building and it went into the water septic tanks and I got endotoxins, basically environmental toxins. And it was probably feces from the builders and they didn't have the proper irrigation. And the whole mountain on that side got sick. And I went to Germany and, So anyways, I got very sick, very scared, started reading, learning. And then with time, my doctor was— I started seeing this elevated leukocytes and everything. He's like, don't worry, just relax. You're worried too much. And this and that. He's the best doctor in Germany. I still like, I adore him. And he's just human. He just learned what he learned from his books and his training. So I became the CEO of my life and had to find out stuff on my, I got to find out stuff on my own. And I went after all these labs and all these conferences globally, as you are also a global explorer, a seeker. And that's where I found my mold, my heavy metals. I was a pescatarian for 5 years. That was a big mistake, or now in hindsight, it's the reason I'm here. And then figuring out how we detox and also found my genetic variant, HL-4, that I just can't detox as great as someone else. I have MTHFR, I have G6PD. And once you get it, and I remember it was very overwhelming because you're like, where do I start? Where do I go? And it's almost like now I've realized like, it's okay. You go down one road, then you go down the other road. But yeah, so I found my genetic variant and I have it under control now. And I feel like now I am in charge of more stuff.

And so Natalie is telling you exactly the blueprint for how somebody gets chronic inflammation.

Yeah.

She gets a bunch of different environmental exposures either through air or food. Or, you know, uh, travels, toxin gets into the system. And then now we've had discussions, uh, whether it's at a meeting or a dinner. And, you know, I take care of patients with breast implant illness, and I, I lay it out this way: like, breast implant illness is a chronic inflammatory process of which an implant medical device is just playing a role. It's not the only thing. Yeah, because what you're describing is multiple layers, a whole just setup for that.

Yeah.

So if someone of your genetic background and other stressors in your life were to also have had surgery and a device placement, possibly fatal, you could have had a much more difficult time Yeah. And so I try to explain this to people all the time. It's not the device that's causing the problem solely. Yeah, it's your setup, right? Every— yeah, there's— I've had patients come to me. Only one patient, Natalie, has ever came to me with zero toxins of worry in their system. Just one. And I asked them, like, what What have you done? What did you— where did they live?

I want to know.

Well, so they're, they're around Austin.

Wow.

And so I asked, I interviewed him on my show. It's a patient of ours, Alexi, and, and she wanted to start a family, so she got very motivated to lead a very non-toxic lifestyle. But this was like 15 years ago. Yeah, this is a very different—

times were different—

mindset. To start out. So she started, like, flipping around labels and getting rid of products in her home that were concerning. And she's the only person whose toxicity test I've ever looked at that had absolutely nothing of concern, which is the test I use from Vibrant Wellness.

Looks at total toxins.

Yeah. So it's in the 95th. She's—

I think that's one of the best tests.

She's the only person to never have anything in the 95th percentile in my practice.

Wow. And I'd like to say to that, that's the crazy part. We all have so many toxins and we don't even know, right?

Because, I mean, it's just, yeah, you, you miss 100% of the things you never look for. So I'm always using that test, and it's not a perfect test. I don't, you know, I'm not here.

I think it's one of the best because it has— we have so many different types of variety of toxins, and it consolidates many different—

that's why we use it. It really helps us.

I love that.

A really broad picture. And then we use a gut test. We use their Gut Zoomer now. I've used GI Map and I've used Biome, and I know you know Dr. Hazan. I've used ProgenoBiome myself. I, I've looked at every test you can find. Yeah, and done them.

So have I.

So the, the—

which one do you love? What are your top two?

We are using the Gut Zoomer.

Okay.

And then the Tox Test, and then we use the genetic test from Envision Labs. That looks at drug metabolism in addition to just other SNPs.

Oh, interesting. So you're looking at how each person can manage the drugs that they're taking because of all the certain, that's really, really smart.

So we try to be as intentional about it as possible. It's not, you know, there's no like perfect system. We're constantly trying to find things that work better. And we look at food sensitivities and hormone balance. A lot of my patients have really suppressed testosterone levels or elevated estrogen levels from estrogen, Metabolism problems, cortisol, all of them have that. Yeah, all of them have that. And then I give them more because I operate. Yeah, so I raise— that's why we have the Regenerator. So everybody should look up the Human Regenerator. It's a wonderful, uh, tool for us to help lower, um, you know, the sympathetic activation that we cause through surgery and try to get everybody in a— the parasympathetic set. State. And, you know, I try to get everybody— there's a priority, right? I prioritize sleep above all else. If, in fact, today I had a patient, she woke up at 3 AM, and I'm like, you can't wake up at 3 AM. That's, that's your cortisol waking you up. So you have to do and take steps. And, you know, along with proper nutrition, hydration, all the things have to happen, not individually, but in in a collection to have a great outcome, because I don't use drains on patients. We don't use other antibiotics or the weird stuff. So the patient has to have a lot of accountability in how they're doing from a nutritional standpoint and really a behavioral standpoint when it comes to rest. If they don't, then the wheels kind of come off the truck, and then the next day they feel terrible and they're tired and they're cranky. Because if your body doesn't get enough quality and quantity and depth of sleep, it's I can't do anything for you. Yeah, it's just going to become miserable day over day or day after day. Um, and then we prioritize protein. Most women have a tough time getting a lot of protein into their diets for a number of reasons, but then they meet me and I'm like, well, you got to get 100 grams a day. And they're like, oh my gosh, how am I going to do that? I can't eat all that.

And so I love that you have a very holistic approach, and it's kind of one of the signs out there, right? I also think that you tapped on the subject of cortisol, which obviously helps regulate the nervous system. And there's also that Hormone Zoomer from Vibrant Labs. I actually did my cortisol. I do it with my doctor, and then I did that Hormone Zoomer, and holy moly. So that test checks 5 times a day, different periods of the day, your cortisol levels. And my 11:00 AM, which is after one coffee and one matcha, and that day I was getting on a flight, was through the roof.

Oh, okay.

And it was great because I got to see this other side of how my body is acting on a day of a little bit of stress and travel and preparing and what that caffeine did. And then another genetic test said, I'm not great with caffeine, so I should have decaf.

Yeah.

And then I'm like, well, how come all those other cortisol tests that I've done over the years were fine? But gotta think about it. It's just that this little spot in the body in that little moment of time, that's not totally accurate. You need 5 times of the whole day to see your whole 24-hour experience. And that was honestly quite shocking for me to see. And I'm sure you have that tons with your patients because cortisol is also a longevity hack. Keeping that cortisol down long term.

I think the, the thing with cortisol for us, that we feel like certainly it's going to be elevated. You know, people get really anxious coming here because it's surgery.

Yeah.

So, and then they, you know, they meet me and they're very worried that I get enough sleep the night before and all the things. And, you know, I'm— I've operated since 19 95 in some way, shape, or form, either through school, training, residencies, fellowships, all the, you know, practice and everything else. So like, I was born to be a surgeon. There's nothing that I would have gone back and done differently. You hear people who are unhappy with their choices, especially in medicine. That was never the case for me. So I'm always beautiful, super comfortable with taking care of patients. My problem is the behavior that patients have after I take care of them. So I can micromanage a lot, and I'm—

to prep them.

You've, you've seen some and, and have a little taste of what we do, but it's like, if you can't stack good habits together and make good decisions and do that day over day and week over week and month over month, real change or getting your nervous system regulated or recovery or all the things we want them to do, they kind of stall out or they get stuck and then they can't get through them because they're in their own way.

Yeah.

And so it's whether you go and do Dave's 40 Years of Zen.

I've done it.

Or something to get unstuck. Like, I tell people all the time, you have to do self-work. I just say it that way so it doesn't seem like I'm saying something I don't want anybody to get triggered by it. Like, you have to make an effort. Yeah, we don't have and don't provide, you know, Dave's 40 Years of Zen here. I've had patients go do it afterwards and they rave about it.

You know, they're moving to Austin. It's opening in February. Yeah, he closed it in Seattle. It's coming to Austin.

Oh, well, we'll have to chat with him after we get done. Yeah, but that would be a great tool Yes. For patients that then— because they just don't do a good job of taking care of themselves. So the reason we have everybody come here and spend about a week is so they will just slow down and take care of themselves. But then they get stressed out because the people they bring with them stress them out, or the situation they left stresses them out. There's just a lot of stress. And then it—

Anxiety.

Yeah, it just wears on them. You can see it. Like, it's like, oh God, when can I go back? And when can I— well, in some respects, I think like, well, impatience, control. You're in this situation because of that.

Yeah, you chose this.

So when you come here and we try to unravel some of it, there's really no place like mine that exists.

Yeah, I agree. I'm impressed. I'm like, wow. This is a super biohacking facility. I was not expecting.

All right. Well, for surgery, like, you know, surgery requires a lot of basic elements that you already talk about on your show and, and appearances you made. You need oxygen. So we have hyperbaric oxygen.

Yeah.

You need better nervous system regulation. So we have a human regenerator. You need better lymphatic drainage. So we have a flow pressor from New Zealand. You need—

well, you also have this amazing lady that I'm going to meet with tomorrow. You're Carol. Yeah, you're like Reiki stuff, like what's the stomach therapy thing that she's gonna do on me?

Her lymphatic massage.

Yeah, lymphatic.

And then she's gonna—

that's it.

Yeah, so like, and those are all super valuable tools. Like the biggest thing that people don't get is for surgery or a therapist or acupuncturist, it's the, the operator. It's their experience and how well they can take care of you. It doesn't matter if it's energy therapy or surgery or massage or whatever. Like, if people tell me they're going to go get a lymphatic massage, I'm like, okay, you need to understand what a lymphatic massage is. It's super light touch. If you feel pressure, they're not doing it right. You should just tell them to stop and leave because they do not know what they're doing. I had a patient get harmed from somebody who claimed, oh no, they could do lymphatic massage and they hurt the patient.

Yikes.

Because they pressed on an area where we had operated and caused trauma to the area and bruising. And so, you know, we have someone like Carol who you met, and she's super experienced, great therapist. So if I have somebody who has a drainage problem on one side, you know, who's here local to us, then we just obviously refer them over here to Carol, who helps really treat them properly and take care of them. And then I have— if I have my patient, it goes, you know, back to, you know, Miami or Seattle or wherever. Um, if they have a problem, I say, okay, here's, here's what I would do if you were here. You would just go see my therapist Carol in my office. So this is what I need you to find. A certified lymphatic massage therapist. And if you can't find that, then you get on a plane and come back here, and then we'll see you in person and help you take care of it. Because I can't trust everybody everywhere around this country. It's, it's not— it's too big.

And, you know, I think it's really important to make sure people know that any surgery, you really need that lymphatic drainage. I know that even in Brazil, yeah, there are certain places they're focused on that lymphatic daily or every other day drainage to make sure that you can heal.

One of my patients, uh, this won't come out anytime soon, she just posted a reel and she's very early after surgery and she was singing and dancing and, uh, super sweet lady. She had a lot of surgery and, um I sent her a message. I said, was this last night? She's like, yeah, I felt great. And was very complimentary of what we had done for her. And she's someone who's a little bit more complex. She already had a preexisting autoimmune disorder. She has type 1 diabetes, so she's already got a problem. That's usually not everybody's cup of tea. And we took care of her, and she's a very— she's a Leo like me, in fact. Very strong personality. Fortunately for everybody, I have a stronger personality than most, so I can always help guide folks because a lot of experience.

Some people really need that guidance.

A lot of energy. But it is great to see her doing that. So early, and he brought up lymphatic massage. Now, it was a body contouring patient where we had taken fat from multiple areas to augment the breast. So it was quite an extensive surgery. And to see them dancing around next to a DJ that I know, I was like, oh, okay, you must be doing okay.

And you're like, wow.

So, but that's because we have a therapist like Carol. That's because we have Flowpresso and we have a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. And I always tell everybody that I do a fat transfer on for natural augmentation of the breast. You want to do as much of that as possible. And my, my strict rule of thumb is if, you know, if they have a bad tox test like mold, whether you're in Miami and you're using the Sentner Center or you're here in Austin, you're using my center for the month beforehand and a very specific protocol with hyperbaric and, and therapy for it. And then afterwards, you need to be doing the same thing plus Flupresso. As much as possible. You know, whether it— the minimum is 2 to 3 times a week because the fluid builds up and it just kind of settles in the tissues, and that's what bothers patients. If somebody 17 days after surgery can go dance around next to a DJ and sing, then I don't think there's a problem with the surgery and/or the recovery because that patient really embraced what we said that understands the concepts of rest and recovery and diet and lymphatic massage and lymphatic drainage and hyperbaric oxygen. And we have a— did they get you in front of the 6-foot-tall Juve Red Light?

Yes, yes, I did that, which is great for, uh, PCV.

So yeah, all this stuff. The only thing I don't have that I really should have, and I want—

and you have the Nano V, which is also one of my favorite machines.

We want to, uh, of, uh, which one you want to have? I want the vibroacoustatory device, the sound thing.

Yes.

Yeah, that's the only thing I don't have that I would like. Otherwise it's just a multiplier of what I have. So instead of having a chamber—

I love that bed.

2 or 3. Yeah, it's a— it's the Vimy or the Pimmy? Vimy.

Uh, I know the—

I used it at a San Diego meeting.

Oh, okay. I know the guys out of San Diego and neuroacoustic.

This is the one out of Miami.

Out of Miami?

Yeah.

Oh, okay. I know the guys in San Diego that do the frequency and they do a test and they look at your exact sound waves to stick it into the bed so that you can go in and retrain your, with like NASA technology or whatever. Like it was fascinating. I went there and I did it and I just, went into parasympathetic and I was like out. It was amazing.

That's what you want. Yeah. So that's the other thing. Sound therapy is underrated. Energy therapy on a whole is poorly understood.

I agree. So Tesla said, Albert Einstein, the future of medicine is frequency medicine. I 100% believe that we underestimate that.

Yeah. I had Harry on to talk about it. He's so smart.

Harry Massey.

Yeah.

I love Harry Massey. Yeah.

So I I agree. I— it's not something that I'm, you know, I have enough, you know, of a, a knowledge base to really, uh, understand and explain it well. But like, I'm curious about it. Any way that we can help. I mean, I'm using— I have a Human Regenerator, for goodness' sake.

The Rolls-Royce, baby.

Yeah.

Um, I do like that we're touching on this subject of how surgery is changing, like how we do the prep work for any kind of surgery, because I also went and did my biological dentist. I had a root canal, so I did that and it was the front tooth and oh my gosh, I was scared. I was like, I'm gonna be out. I did one tooth in the back and I was like in pain for a week. I was bleeding and it was painful. And so I did it in Costa Rica with my guys and they prepped me the day before with an IV. And then they, during the surgery, the next day they gave me the IV with like different vitamins and cocktails. Plus I wanted to be out because I was— because they did, um, 2 cavitations and this thing, and I got an implant. Can I tell you, 3 hours later I was eating banana chips. I literally took a video and I'm like, you guys, I just had implant and surgery and I'm like eating banana chips. Like, is this even real?

If you've been listening to this podcast, you know I take these conversations seriously. And some discussions simply don't belong in short clips or public comment sections. That's why I created Dr. Rob's Circle. It's a private community for those who want a deeper level of education and dialogue. Inside Dr. Rob's Circle, I share extended clinical insights, structured guidance around surgical planning and recovery, and conversations that go well beyond what I post publicly. This is a more focused environment. It's more thoughtful, more detailed, more direct. If you value careful evaluation and want access to a higher level of discussion, I invite you to apply to join us. You can learn more at drrobscircle.com. I look forward to continuing the conversation with you inside. That's right. Now, for her, because she had a dental procedure, she can do IVs, and we'll just touch why I don't do them. So yeah, I was gonna ask, yeah, if we were to add more fluid after you had a surgical procedure because your cortisol level is already high, your you're what we would call leaky, so you would just swell more.

Okay.

So you could do something like that up front, like say in the week before or whatever, you would get— if you're depleted for whatever reason or out of balance, you could get not just hydration for the sake of hydration, but any micronutrients, things like that. That would be fine. But after surgery, I'd control volume intake, not because we don't want people having enough hydration People tend to overhydrate and then they overuse electrolytes. Like, it's super common now, like, really just dumping electrolyte powder. So for my patients, the goal for our patients is 100 grams of protein, and electrolytes are not going to give you any of that. So we want either our amino acid mixture, or we use a really simple pea protein. It's vegan, so nobody can complain about it, and you're, you're trying to stack it. And I'll give you the hack so you guys understand this. So, um, people always, you know, ask me, how am I supposed to get all this protein in? So if you use like the 3-2-1 before bed, about 3 hours before bed you want to stop eating, about 2 hours before bed you want to stop drinking, because I don't want people waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom to pee. But at that 2 hours before, if that's when you're last going to take in any kind of fluid, we just have you mix up some of the protein with some filtered water. And that's a little gross sounding, but you don't want to necessarily— some people really, they get more neural activity with aminos, like they'll stay awake more. So protein, because it's already— it's got to be broken down it's not bioavailable right away. So I feel like that works better. Then they have— they're satiated, and then they can get to sleep. You gotta urinate before you go to sleep, and then go to sleep. And then in the morning, if somebody's thinking, you know, the way I've helped them think about it is you're dehydrated and you're nutritionally depleted, and that's the time that if you wanted to make another little, not even a shake, but filtered water, some electrolytes and some protein. And that's how you would sandwich sleep so that you'd have enough nutrition before bed that your body would then use while you're asleep to rest and recover, because that's when you heal, not when you're upright walking around. And then you're depleted when you wake up and you add it right back. And most of us don't do a good job of eating and drinking relatively soon after we get up. We jack around, we drink coffee too early, we don't give enough of a gap, like the 90-minute gap you should have in terms of rising and then getting some sunlight and then waiting to have caffeine so that it resets.

Yeah.

So I have—

I'm very focused on that one. Guided patients, water, water first and then wait, right?

So this is just the hack to help them get that extra, you know, if you do it the right way, you could probably get, depending on the scoop of protein you're utilizing and its availability of, uh, you know, grams of protein, 20 to 60 grams just before you've, you know, done anything. And then the day becomes much easier. Like, you're not really modifying behavior that much to just do that. And then your afternoon would be so much better because you've had enough dietary intake of protein. Because it's not a carbohydrate or a fat that's going to make you recover faster, be more efficient, or feel better. You're going to end up— if you don't have enough protein in your system in the afternoon, you'll have friends who have surgery for whatever reason, they'll just crash in the afternoon. We'll have to just go have a nap, have a lie down, so to speak. And it's because of that. And so when you avoid that, the swelling in your tissues will go down quicker, but you'll maintain energy. And then you'll— you're— you have to get your circadian rhythm back to normal as quickly as possible after surgery. So my patients are usually done by if we're on a good day, 1 or 2 PM. So it's light out, they get back. I tell them all to stay up, do not go to sleep. Try to tell the caregiver, the spouse, the friend, the loved one, whatever— keep them up. Try to get their circadian rhythm back to normal. And then when they get up in the morning, they're going to come to the office. So get them up, get them out, sunlight, help reset. And then come to the office. So everybody comes to the office and does what you did today. You didn't do hyperbaric, but they all come and do hyperbaric.

So question, because we're talking about the nervous system reset and the brain, how the brain and the neuroplasticity in that moment gives you pain or maybe doesn't, like to certain patients or not. What is it, Dr. Sarno? Yeah, that talks about how some people manifest pain if, you know, they— some people have a slipped disc and have no pain, and some people, uh, have it, and they, you know, some people with and without. So how do you explain that, and how do you get around that? Because I'm sure you see that a lot, like you're saying, some of these patients that have anxiety and this concept of pain, this, this—

really, Natalie, if you, you see how they are before they go to sleep, if they're really wound up, if they're crying if they're—

oh dear—

really not in control, they wake up that way and they have more trouble. Now, the other thing we didn't talk about is everybody's trauma.

Yeah.

Now, when you're holding on to the trauma— we had a patient wake up recently violently thrashing around like a teenager and saying they had pubic pain. And back pain. Neither area was where I operated.

Mm-hmm.

And I was like, this is really odd, huh? And I was back at the office, they called me and said, hey, this patient's not acting right. So I went back and saw them and they were not acting right. I agreed. We went and got a CAT scan of them and, and the CAT scan Showed no organ issues, nothing to be concerned about. And I kept messaging our anesthesia provider and I was like, this is just, this is going to be PTSD. Wow. And so about 2 weeks later, a nurse practitioner came and told me like that patient called her, or I'm sorry, they were communicating and the patient said they, were reliving a assault when they woke up. Oh, wow. So being disinhibited, but like we said before, not doing any kind of therapy or self-work or whatever we're going to call that about that problem.

If you're constantly keeping that in the background and numbing it and shutting it down, and so then in that moment, it came up because there was no way to get around it.

And so all the medical providers, all the nursing staff, all the anesthesia people, and myself—

that's crazy.

I was like, this is really abnormal. So, but when you see that, I mean, I've been operating for over 30 years now. I was like, this is some weird—

this is weird. You get to see some Weird stuff.

But it is, you know, it's when you see outliers, they're really not outliers. There is always an underlying reason at this point. It's like a lot of things in life. Once you have enough experience or repetitions or—

Yeah, well, the body keeps score. The body has memory and we're thinking here, but you like, there's still—

It's always good to tell us. Yeah, it doesn't do you any good to not tell us because then you get extra— yeah, drugs, or you get extra scans, or, you know, because I have to prove that you're not having a problem. Yeah, that requires—

what about people that have like severe low blood pressure and start dipping? Like, have you— I'm sure you probably had that. No, no.

I mean, most of, uh, people with POTS are a little bit, uh, difficult to manage. Um, And many of our patients have problems with mast cell activation, uh, histamine dumping.

How do you deal with mast cell activation?

You know, we're just mindful. We know anything—

that's a tough one.

Yeah, we know anything can trigger it. So our anesthesia team is great in terms of being really careful with— and we don't use a lot of medications that would then typically trigger somebody. They're very careful with and very respectful of everybody's sensitivities. So I'm just super fortunate. I've worked with the same anesthesia group since, uh, 2018, and, um, I work with a small cadre of them because they do the ultrasound-guided nerve block. So all of my patients get an ultrasound-guided nerve block for breast surgery, and I almost feel like that should just be the minimum standard of care across the world because it makes a huge difference in terms of preemptive pain control.

And what does that mean?

So just like you got the shot for the dentist and you wanted to be out. So what they would do is in the pre-op area, after I had marked you for surgery, they would, you know, through your IV, give you medicine. And then under ultrasound, they'll find the nerves over here in the armpit area and they'll inject local medicine. and then that'll help numb the chest.

Huh.

So we do that in every single case.

Wow.

Before anybody goes back, before we ever start. So they've already had our medications that we give the night before for nausea and inflammation and nerve pain, and then the anesthesia team helps do this nerve block before they ever go back. And then once they're back and, and we're ready to start, restart and we add medicine as we go. So we try to be as intentional as possible about creating, you know, a— like, you can't get everything to be completely, you know, pain-free when someone wakes up. But if they wake up and they're comfortable, they may say, oh, I feel sore, or whatever. That's fine. You don't want anybody having sharp pain or anything like that. Now, If you don't do any of the things that I spoke about, a lot of patients wake up having really intense or sharp pain that's from surgery. Then they'll get medicine through the IV that's IV narcotic, and that's what leads to people getting nauseated and throwing up. So it's almost unheard of that any of my patients throw up at a surgery center. Wow. And they're all ready to go usually within 30 to 40 minutes. Because everything that we did upfront makes the recovery room process easier. You know, the nurses don't want to have to give you extra medicine. They just want you to be comfortable so you can get up and, you know, leave on your own with your friend or family member, loved one, whomever's helping. And sometimes people have a nursing service if they're, you know, solo. Nobody goes home alone. We want to make sure everybody's cared for that first night if they have any needs. Um, but just like the patients we saw today from last week, most of them, they don't want to take pain medicine, and many of them don't really need much. And if they kind of just follow the principles that we've laid out in terms of getting enough rest and nutrition and lymphatic massage and hyperbaric therapy and red light I mean, we have a pretty complex multimodal system to prevent the need of relying on a controlled substance for pain control.

And they are taking antibiotics or not? 'Cause you said earlier—

No, so the, what we do is the anesthesia will give one dose IV before we make the skin incision, usually about 30 minutes before, and that's it.

So no pills, no antibiotics needed?

Wow. And we operate— you had some of my B complex, so yeah, we have a core set of supplements that we use and I operate on. So I don't stop supplements for operations. Most people stop them because they're worried about bleeding. So we balanced ours out. So we have the level of vitamin C and methylated B and glutathione and D3K2 that we want, and we operate on that, and we run that for the year that we take care of everybody because our commitment to them is, uh, for surgery is for the year, and then I have a detox team that helps them with their Vibrant Wellness Tox Test, and we use Cellcore for that or Quicksilver depending on what, what we're doing.

I was going to ask you more about that. I love Quicksilver Scientific. I love the Cellcore for mold. What do you do when you have certain patients that are super toxic? Are you like, whoa, let's delay, why don't you guys do a little bit of detox? Like, how does How do you tell them?

Yeah, that's hard.

What's the timing?

Yeah, so if someone has mold, we have a very specific game plan for them, and we don't delay, uh, surgery— surgery plan.

Okay.

Now, if, if someone is got a bad tox test and otherwise healthy and they just want to do an explant Then we'll usually do just a little bit of a run-up of phase 1 with them, with Cellcore, do their explant, and then have them do all the rest of it after, because it's very hard to detox people with implants in place. Sometimes you give them Herxheimer reactions because they just detox too quickly, and so we've just tried to be mindful of that. Careful.

So you have a detox team you work with?

They're my team.

Oh, amazing.

Yeah, you didn't know that either?

No, I didn't. No. And I love detox. That's like my favorite subject.

Let's talk. Yeah, there are two of my patients who've had explant with us, so they run our functional program.

Oh, okay. And what do you— like, what do you do, like a 4 to 6 months program with like different protocols from those two brands and So what's a, what's a mold date? What's a glyphosate detox?

So they're going to run all 4 phases of Cellcore for a year, but it's usually after surgery. So if someone wants a fat transfer, which we talked about earlier, and they have mold, we will do a month of medical therapy, hyperbaric before that, and then they'll come here and have surgery and then carry out hyperbaric and continual medical therapy based on what we found pre-op, and then they'll repeat that tox test usually every 3 months.

Amazing.

Well, if they have a lot of mold, it's— you have to be more aggressive with that.

Yeah. Do you believe in like, um, the— what is it— the oxygenation through the bum and all these different other kind of gadgets, or it's just supplements?

Yeah, so what we've gone for, um, and we— one of patients was very good, and we learned a lot from them, actually. They were doing everything, and I spoke to their functional provider, and they had also a problem with Lyme. So they had all these different providers that were helping them, and we just coordinated care with them. And they did our medical therapy, plus they did hyperbaric, plus they did, um, uh, ozone. I, I don't know if they did ozone. Trying to think of the other thing they did at the Sentner Center. They kind of run their— they ran their stack. The two things that are for me, the Weber laser, the phosphatidylcholine, Patricia Kane. Oh, I think it was the Kane IV. I think she was doing that. So she got herself in really good shape. Okay, pre-op. They repeated her test and her mycotoxin levels had all dropped. Okay, so that made me comfortable to then have her come and do her explant. But I do simultaneous fat transfer. I don't make people wait 6 months or a year or whatever. I want to do them simultaneous because, especially in someone who, you know, the reason many of you—

you mean, you mean while it's being taken out, you're putting a new one in versus having to wait 6 months before you redo it? Is that what—

yeah, so I'll take out the implant, then I'll take fat from the, you know, the love handle area, inner outer thigh area. And after we have the implant and the scar tissue out, we'll put the fat back.

Oh my gosh, at the same time.

So that's basically—

I have a girlfriend that like did that and she had to wait and had like—

right.

And so that's like the old school method.

Well, I, I think, or I feel that I mean, we've tried very hard to be very forward-thinking and utilize like what's available to help patients as much as possible reach their goals at the same time. Like, this is a very big decision. It's a very emotional decision. It brings up, like we talked about, all sorts of problems with trauma and bullying as a child or feeling underdeveloped or bad relationship issue, whatever the thing is, uh, if I can, you know, less than that, that's my goal. If I can do it with a simultaneous fat transfer, I think— here's what I would say. What pisses me off is people say fat transfers don't work, and I would say, why? Why do you say that? Do you think the entire continent of South America thinks a fat transfer doesn't work? You ever heard of the Brazilian butt lift? Like, they stick a liter of fat in someone's butt cheek. Yeah, on each side. I don't hear a bunch of complaints about doesn't work.

Yeah, so, and they're pretty epic and like forward-thinking on surgery in Brazil. Like, it's apparently like going to the—

so why does that work there versus here? Yeah, now there's a couple reasons, right? They're doing that typically on younger patients. Fine, we know everything works better when you're younger. Okay, so You're the biohacker, you're longevity person. So how can we make that scenario work? Right. We check their toxicity tests, we check their gut health, we understand their genetics, we look at their hormone balance, but the food sensitivities, like, you can kind of see now where I go.

Yeah.

So I'm going to try to get you to be a younger version of you so that you're much easier for me to operate on.

Yeah.

And you're not as toxic. And I also check your BMI very carefully.

Yeah.

So I'm trying to make this a— if you want to think of it, it's just an exercise in steps to me. Like, can I get you in good enough position for me to do what I already know how to do extremely well, which is operate? Like, I'm not the problem here. I know what I'm doing. The only thing that keeps changing in front of me is the canvas. So I just need the canvas to be ready for the operation. Yeah, I'm always ready to go. So the artist trying to get everybody to be, you know, basically leveled up from a health standpoint is what I'm trying to do. Now, I'm not everybody's cup of tea, and I really don't give a shit about that either in general. If you have the fat, you can keep your BMI stable, you're going to retain up to 70-80% of the fat. This has always been my thinking. Now, when people write and fearmonger on the internet that fat transfers don't work, I always look at it like, is this an experience problem? Like, if you're not experienced in it, just don't talk about it because you're not helping patients, you're scaring.

Yeah, yeah.

And if this has been your experience, then who trained you? What's your problem? This is not hard to do. It's your own genetic material. It's not foreign. Yeah, you put it in the right space, it's the safest, right amount, right time. Now, timing's the problem, because if you take somebody who's got a shit ton of mycotoxins and you transfer everything, it's probably going to be more challenging for And before I knew about that, I'm sure that could be a problem, but I was always very conservative about how much I did and where I put it. And I always had very good results, but there will be a group of patients always who will humble you. And if you try to, you know, get too far outside your guardrails, if you try to get too aggressive, if you try to this term over graft somebody, like put in a bunch of extra because, you know, some amount is going to dissipate. That's just going to lead to problems. Like, you have to understand, like, what is possible, what is practical, what's good for the patient. And if they're unrealistic from a patient perspective, then you just say you can't do it. It's okay.

Yeah. I wonder what, uh, you would advise to people or ladies who need a mammogram, because mammograms kind of like out of date. And especially after, you know, having a surgery like that, there's different ways now to be healthier with the radiation and that squeezing and pressing. Like, what do you advise?

So my friend Jen Simmons has QT Imaging, that's her baby. And that hopefully will become more and more the go-to. If someone's really concerned about, or they express to me concern over radiation or compression or, any problems like that, a breast MRI is fine. And if they're worried about gadolinium, which is the contrast agent used, then they can avoid the gadolinium. I mean, there's lots of ways to do things.

And I think there's actually a product called Chélex that helps detox the gadolinium.

Yeah, I try to like, you know, everybody's got to understand, like, MRI has no radiation. Zero. So it's perfectly fine if you're concerned.

And it's okay. It'll show me enough on my—

It is the diagnostic test for the breast. If anybody— like, so I have a bunch of people come with Prenuvo, and it'll say their implant is ruptured. I'll say, okay, now people get worked up, as you would imagine.

Oh, sure. They think I'm leaking.

Yeah. So I look at it. And I say, okay, you need a devoted breast MRI, number one. I don't, I don't operate on Prenuvo scans. A devoted breast MRI is the most sensitive and most specific study you can get to look at the breast and the accompanying implant, if there's one there.

So there's a difference between the Prenuvo MRI and a real breast MRI, right?

A breast MRI, you're lying down in the breast is suspended, so gravity is able to give you an effect. And, you know, I recently had this happen where the patient had a Prenovo, it said it was ruptured, and then they got a devoted breast MRI, which we ordered, and it wasn't. And then they asked me, like, which one do you believe? I'm like, well, I always believe devoted breast MRI. And I'm not somebody who's, you know, uh beats the drum about everything from a diagnostic standpoint. Like, I don't make my patients get MRIs. I've operated on enough people where it's not been accurate. Um, it misses posterior leaks a lot. So the scar tissue—

how do you know when there's a leak?

So if it's a posterior leak, if my hand is the rib cage and this is the back of the implant, if stuck down because of scar tissue and there's a little hole there, you won't see it because there won't be a— there won't be any visibility between the layers because even though the breast fell away, that didn't come away. So you could still miss it. But overall, it's the best study going for that. Okay.

And so mammograms are out of date. Not so good for us.

So I'll— we'll— comparatively, yeah, we'll explain why mammograms are still used in this— this country is enormous. So we're in Texas right now. Uh, Spain, uh, Germany, uh, France all can fit within Texas. The, the issue for our country is you have to have a system to communicate with all the providers around the country. So the reason mammogram and ultrasound utilizes the BI-RADS system. Oh, so if you have a concerning lump and you're in Texas, but you move to Massachusetts and you need a follow-up, the language is consistent across the country. So it's a scale and it's just our country is lovely as it is because of its size. That's also a detriment because of its that size. We're not the Netherlands. The Netherlands can fit between Austin and Waco. So when, you know, you're trying to, you know, change something, change in this country is challenging because of its just size. And I certainly hope that as we get further along, the cost of like some of the more advanced imaging devices will come down and make it more accessible. Because if you just got 30 minutes outside of Austin, you would lose access to a bunch of things.

Yeah.

And that's how it is.

Yeah.

Around the country.

Well, and a lot of— it upsets me that people are getting radiation and they're toxifying themselves on a whole nother level thinking this is the only way, and there is another way, right?

Yeah. MRI is absolutely a way that doesn't require any radiation. And once again, when patients—

and it's sufficient—

are asking me like, what, what can I do? I want to avoid it. That's the answer.

Okay.

Yeah.

What other little hacks do you do?

What other hacks do we have?

I'd also like to know how you start your day. What are your important biohacks? You got everything else here, all the gadgets, but what are your— and I saw all your supplements and pills and everything. You've got this whole store out there when you come in. I don't know what starts my day.

I don't drink. At night anymore. And I try to really concentrate on getting into bed at a certain time. And I have obstructive sleep apnea, so I have a CPAP because I want my brain to be available for all intents and purposes as long as possible. And then when I get up, I come over here. I don't have coffee right away. Most of the time I will have like a little protein drink. And then when the sun's up, 'cause I get up at like 5, the sun's not up. When the sun's up, I'll go out and I'll get some sunlight.

And you have an air purifier, you said?

Is that one in here? Yeah, in our office, we have like 9 different ones. I don't have, I have a Jasper, I have Swiss IQ Airs, I have Austin Health Mate Plus. So we have, I think we have 11 total in the office.

Wow, yeah.

And then we have an Echo hydrogen water machine. So everything, everything that anybody gets here is of the same quality you'd get at my home.

Amazing.

And we have Lifeboost Coffee. Big shout out to my patients. Very low toxic, mold-free coffee.

Oh, I might want one of those.

Well, I do drink a lot of coffee.

You do?

Oh boy. Yeah, I do drink a lot of coffee.

I found out on my 3x4 genetics because I've done Intellect's DNA. I did in Germany my genetics which was like 300 pages. That's how I found the JAK2. And like each doctor, each system, each country has a different way. But the 3x4 showed up that I'm not great with caffeine. And I was like, ah, bummer.

CYP A16, I think. And so my son is like that.

Oh yeah?

Yeah, yeah. You can also, do you have trouble with sugar?

No.

Just coffee.

Yeah, so it's just caffeine. Okay, well, I mean, you should go back and check that, but like I have like oxidative stress and I mean I've got the like G6PD and all that too.

So I mean, but as long as you understand it, yeah, you can, you know, some people— I had a patient come and super nice lady. She had a lot of little kiddos already. And she said to us that she wanted to get her implants removed and she felt she was unwell because of them. And I wanted to know about her diet because usually moms, because of just the managing the children, it's harder for them to eat properly. I said, what do you all eat? She said, uh-oh. My kids really like Monster and chips.

Is that Monster? That's a—

and candy.

Monster's a cereal?

Monster is that big energy drink.

Oh my gosh.

So I said to her—

oh my goodness.

I said to her, Natalie, I'm like, I can't—

how old are her kids?

The oldest was 7.

At that age?

Yeah. What I told her, just to be fair, was I'm like, you cannot be are patient right now. But I'm going to write down some options for you to replace what you're using, and they're not perfect, but, you know, you can substitute Doritos by using Siete chips, or you can substitute, you know, Skittles by using like a good dark chocolate product. Yeah, not a milk chocolate product, but a dark chocolate product.

Yeah. Which there's also a lot of dark chocolate that has even higher cadmium. So you gotta watch out which one of those dark chocolate is actually toxin-free, 'cause I love my cadmium, I love my chocolate.

Exactly. So you always gotta be paying attention to this. And then for the Monster, I said, you can't give kids Monster.

Good for you.

Zevia is something that is not perfect, but it is a more, acceptable alternative, or drink cranberry juice. Well, I think you gotta— like, you got a bunch of addicts now, and you have to change slowly what's going into the system. And you've eaten at The Well here in Austin, so one of my faves.

I love that in Austin because everything's so healthy, seed oil free, and, you know, this person had never—

they didn't understand that because they didn't grow up being you know, told like that's an option.

Yeah.

And I— so I said, here, I want you to go to lunch and use our discount code for my patients to have lunch there and get some tacos and take them home to your kid and just see, because that place is gluten-free, dairy-free, and seed oil-free.

Where? The Well? Yeah, with the tacos. Oh, okay.

Yeah, because they use cassava or corn. Oh, so these are just all like for us, just like very routine. But for people who don't know and didn't learn that, I mean, there's no way you would intuitively know this. It has to be taught at a young age.

Yeah, there's no awareness. And I love Brian from Food Lies who's really waking people up. I just reposted that story today with, are you, are you coming to the tree? And he goes through all the different Big Pharma and foods.

We had him on the show recently.

Yeah, I love his work. I support him. And I think that the problem is deeper. It's really the poisons in our food system. Even, you know, like even Whole Foods, I heard sprays a peel in the organic section and you have no idea. And there's a little sign on the bottom and the main owner sold it, right? And he's also, is aware. And so it's like, it runs deeper. How are we really giving ourself that healthy, healthy nutrition, and do we know what's in our products? And, you know, I, I used to eat McDonald's like 20 years ago. I didn't know.

Well, right, right. Well, that's the problem.

I used to love Cheetos.

And you have to become problem aware before you can actually make some sort of change. So we, we end up educating patients a lot just on that. Yeah. And, uh, and I reinforce it seemingly.

Healing lives.

All the time. When people ask, like, uh, like, why do we either— well, we talk about insertion all the time. I think that's somehow lost on— and most people don't know, like, how surgical education used to be. But it was very— I was taught by a very strong group of, uh, you know, surgical professors, and they were just wonderful about making sure you knew all about nutrition and electrolyte balance and all the, all the things to be a good doctor rather than concerning yourself initially with being a really good surgeon. They wouldn't let you take care of patients if you weren't a really good clinician. So I was very fortunate.

Yeah, I love that you have this very broad view of multiple layers and a plethora of, you know, biohacking gadgets, but also wisdom in different areas, whether it's the nutrition, Ayurveda side, holistic, the different treatments that you have here, supplements. I'm really happy that I actually got to come and really get to explore all this 'cause you don't really get it unless you're in it. See it today. So I'm grateful for that.

Yes, we're happy to have you. I think when I first met you at Xenergy— well, most people don't know what to think of me anyway. Probably a little bit less than—

I think you're very humble. That's what I would say after today. I'm like, quite humble as a Leo. Seen it all in surgery. So you're—

I'm super comfortable in my own skin. I got nothing, nothing to prove.

Yeah, that's, that's beautiful. And you're also curious, and I think curiosity is a big life hack. I think it's on the top of, you know, there's this— what is it— hierarchy of, uh, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and it's authenticity or different thing. And I do think that curiosity is one of them, and I I see that. I see that with you and I love that.

You have to be curious.

That's why we get along.

If you're not curious, you're boring.

Yeah. And you're creating growth. You know, that's your beautiful legacy.

Well, we hope that the program can really be expanded more and more to more surgical practices where we made our detox program available now as a group program. Um, I think that's valuable because many people who have cosmetic surgery, not just explant surgery, need help with that. They just don't know. And once they become more aware of that, that is probably to me a bigger— well, it is a much bigger value add that I can give is our programming because we have thousands of patients. We know it works really, really well. The thing is like, how do you measure and how do you then take what is a very traditional way of thinking and adapt that to what is now the integrative functional biohacking approach? Versus, you know, how I was taught. I feel very comfortable. We've blended those two along with what we know about genetics, and that's our program. And I think that's how it should be. Takes a bit of convincing around the rest of the—

we're getting there—

place.

We're getting there.

Thank you for joining me. I'm glad you could come and visit.

Yeah, thank you.

All right, let everybody know where to find you.

Um, so on Instagram it's island_natalie, islandnatalie, and then I have Legacy Life with L-Y-F-E on Instagram, and website is natalielefevre.com. Awesome. Yeah, thanks for having me.

Yeah, it's awesome.