175: Breast Implant Illness- is it REAL? with Christina Roulund

Hi, I'm Natalie Jill, fat loss expert turned high performance coach. When odds are stacked against us, how do we shift and create everything from nothing? How do we level up when we aren't feeling it yet or we've had a big setback? On this podcast, I'll be talking to some of the most inspiring and courageous men and women on this planet who at their worst, learned how to achieve success greater than they ever dreamed possible. Leveling up and creating everything from nothing. Today on Leveling Up, I am excited for a different type of topic today. I've got Christina Dennis here, who is founder of Size Happy, where she helps with a healthy body image, but she's also a big advocate for BII education, which is breast implant illness education. Now, before you jump off this, because you're like, well, I have them and I'm not. I don't want to hear it. Or you're somebody that, you know. This is not a topic that you feel like you're interested in. I am going to urge you to listen in because this is something that is getting more and more important. There's a lot of awareness growing around it. And I wanted to dive in and talk with her because I love Christina's approach. She doesn't come at people. She doesn't create controversy around it. She really comes in with some education and support to all women. A little bit of a disclaimer before we start. I have implants. I got them when I was 19 years old. I wish I had not, but I did get them when I was 19. I've had six surgeries. I'm 48 now. Six surgeries dealing with implant problems. I still have them now. I do not believe currently that I have bii, but I do believe that I've had problems with implants. That's where I am. And I have myself decided that at one point I will get them removed. I don't know when I'm not in an urgent situation to get them removed, but I will at one point get them removed before I would ever do another surgery on them personally. But I wanted to dive into this conversation. I have so many questions for Christina, and I really want to make this an education. You, for your children, for friends that you've got, so we can really, really dive in and talk about it. So, Christina, thank you so much for being here today.

Yeah, thank you so much for this opportunity for me to talk about this with your audience.

Yeah. Okay, so let's back up. Christina, Like I met you years ago online, you were really more in Just the general nutrition and fitness space. When I first became aware of you, what happen that you pivoted from that? Talk to me about what was going on with you.

Yeah, so I have always had a passion for fitness and health since I was like 15 years old. Just always admired the women on the front of Oxygen and Fitness magazine. And so once I read those magazines and discovered that all you have to do is exercise and eat healthy, you can look this way, started to really shift the way I ate and what I did with my body. Now, back then, being as though I was so young and this was all very new to me, I took it to extremes like most people do in the very beginning. There's so many rules and you're very strict. But nonetheless, I was very passionate about health and fitness. When I was 25, I decided to become a personal trainer just because I love educating women as well and empowering them and I just love transformations of all sorts. So I really started in the health and fitness area, so to say, from there it kind of shifted for me. I did get into helping women with binge and emotional eating because I too struggled from when I was like 16 to 22, I was very restrictive. Yo, yo, dieter. Yeah, just counting calories and all of that. But then when I was like 23, I had binge eating disorder. So it went from one extreme to another. And so I felt like I could really help women who had binge eating and emotional eating disorder really connect back to their body. But amongst doing that and amongst doing fitness coaching, I found a common theme. And that was a lot of the reasons why women are turning to food or wanting to alter their body is because they're not happy and they're not happy with their body. So they're trying to change the way that they look. But from the aspect of hating their body and not loving their body, I.

Totally get what you're saying there. And I think that's where a lot of people start. A lot of people come to fitness, nutrition, weight loss, all of it. With. I want to control and change. I believe that.

Yeah, yeah. So I saw that common theme and I just again, I love empowering women. I want women to feel good about themselves, about their body, about their life, about the relationships. I feel like happiness and peace of mind is so important to everybody, but I specifically work with women. And so that's where size happy came along is because it actually just came to me when I was laying, laying in bed with my son one day. I was just thinking about things and women are Like I want to be a size this and I want to be a size that. And I was like, just size happy, right? Like whatever that looks like for you. And so size happy was born actually two years ago. And after I got my explant, it kind of took on a whole nother like world of being size happy with your friends.

I didn't know this about you, so this is interesting. To size happy wasn't about breast implants. It was about no ahead of time. And then that just sort of it did.

And then when I started to talk about explanting and breast implant illness and women saw that I had size happy, that my brain was size happy. But at the time, again, I was working with women who had binge and emotional eating who wanted to be a size happy. Right. So it kind of took on a whole new meaning and kind of transferred into that world, so to say.

So let's talk about why the choice to explant. Like where. How did you even get aware of, wow, maybe this is going on with me. I should tell me how you even and explain what that means to people. Because a lot of people listening, they have never heard of breast implant illness. They've also never heard of the word explant. And they don't even know about this yet. So can you talk about how you came to this and what those things mean?

Sure. So When I was 23, almost 24, I decided to get breast implants. At the time I thought they were safe. I didn't know anything about the chemicals and ingredients that were made up of them. I just thought they were silicone. There's not a lot of this information out that there is today. So anyways, I was 23, 24, I got the breast implant. And honestly, for the first five years I didn't have any issues whatsoever. No pains, no symptoms, nothing like that. But then in 2011, when I had my son, and I've heard this story before with other women, like something triggered, something triggered within my body and I started to experience a lot of fatigue and a lot of just brain fog, just feeling spacey, forgetfulness, memory issues. And I just chalked it up to being a new mom, being a new stay at home mom. I just had a baby. I'm used to being out and training people, and now I'm at home in a little apartment with a baby. And so I chalked it up to that. But as the years went on, those two symptoms never went away. And then in October 2014, I developed a lymph node in my Right armpit. And I was like, oh, what is this? It was very tender. You could literally see it. And I went to my gynecologist, showed it to her. She said, oh, yeah, it feels like a lymph node. Your body's just probably fighting something. If it goes away and then comes back, go see your doctor. So I was like, okay. She didn't seem concerned about it. So I wasn't concerned, went on with my Life. And then two months later, in December of 2014, the lymph node came back. So then I was like, okay, my body's definitely responding to something. Let me go to my doctor again. I went to my normal doctor now. She looked around, felt it, put me on antiviral and antibiotics, and neither of those two things did anything for it. And literally from October 2014 till, I want to say, May 2015, all of a sudden, I felt like my body was just falling apart. So I was dealing with the fatigue in the BR fog. Then I started to have a lymph node in my armpit, start to swell and respond to whatever it was. And then I started to experience really, really, and I mean, I could say really a million times, like really bad anxiety and depression, like out of nowhere. And then I started to lose a lot more hair when I took showers to the point where I hated to take showers because I hated all the hair that I was losing. My vision started to get really dry with eye floaters and just blurry. Started to experience hip joint pain in my right hip joint, ringing in my ears. And literally all of this happened within a six month period. Now, mind you, before this, like we talked about, I was a health and fitness coach. I took very good care of my body. I ate right, I exercised, very mindful with my life. And at this time, I'm 32 years old and I'm dealing with all of these symptoms out of nowhere.

So my question right now that's coming up for me right now is everything you described could be a lot of things. Like it could be fibromyalgia, it could be hormones, it could be. There's so many things that those can be. So what made you link to breast implants?

So we're talking 2015 right now. I went on to doctors, chiropractors, protocols, supplements. I even went as far as to follow, like, an alkaline diet where I didn't want anything acidic in my diet. I was peeing on ph strips. I was doing, like everything that I was told to do. You know, I was trying all of the things Basically Right.

And did it help at all doing those things?

Like, very temporary? Yeah, it did. But then as soon as I would stop, things would start again. And so 2015 went by, 2016 went by, and I'm still just dealing with all of this. And at this point I'm just feeling like, okay, I just have to like adjust my life to all these symptoms. Right. And I just managed them. And then in 2017 is when I discovered breast implant illness. So I was sitting downstairs on the couch watching the news, and there's these handful of women who are talking about explanting and breast implant illness. And like you said, these are two things that I never heard of before in my life. And they were talking about all these symptoms that they had. And I was like, they have like the exact symptoms that I have. Right? And then they were talking about they had breast implants and they removed the breast implants. And without really changing anything else in their lifestyle, just by removing the breast implants, either all of their symptoms got vastly better or just completely went away. For me personally, it was an aha moment. It was like, why didn't I think about this? No doctor has ever told me about this. None of my friends told me about this. And if they would have, I probably would have researched it a long time ago. Here I am suffering for like three, four years now. And so once I heard about breast simplant illness again, I started to research it. What is it? Like, what are the chemicals made up of breast implants? And for me it was like a no brainer. It's like, look, I'm young, I'm healthy, and I shouldn't be feeling like this. To me, this just makes sense. And it worked like I expanded. And I'm not even exaggerating. My symptoms went away without changing anything else in my lifestyle.

So let me ask you this. When you first, okay. So you first hear about this and you're trying it on and you're like, okay, wow, this sounds like me. I'm assuming when you went to your doctor and told this, they weren't like, yes, take them out. Like, what was the conversation there? And were people challenging you saying, no, it's not that.

Okay, so I didn't go to my doctor. I didn't want an opinion. I already just knew within my gut and in my intuition that this had to be it. But I did go to a surgeon, and the surgeon is very popular in my area, does a lot of explants. And he was just like, yeah, you know, a lot of women do come in and tell me that they're experiencing these symptoms and a lot of them get better. I mean, not healed. Because I firmly believe that explanting is not the thing that's gonna heal you. Like you need to explain, but then you need to also do some things afterward like detox and stuff. So I didn't go to my doctor, I didn't say, hey, could it be my implants? I was just willing to take that risk and go back to the body that I had, you know, in my 20s to see if that was it. Because I couldn't think of anything else in my life that I was exposed to or doing wrong or whatever it was being so young, in my early 30s. And I was just willing to take that risk. And at this point I was also 11 years into having breast implants.

Yeah.

So I knew that I was at that time to where I either had to get them exchanged or just get them out. And I was, I didn't want to have a surgery every 10 years. So I was just like, I'm just going to get them out. And two, this is like the perfect timing because I found out about this and I just believe that these chemicals and these foreign objects should not be in your body. So it was just like a no brainer for me.

So a couple of things coming up for me. So one, I totally get that there are, we're going to talk a little bit about that too, that there are studies, there's proof that these are not, they're not healthy for people. We can all agree that it's not healthy. But my question is how much is the belief now that something's not good in your body versus like it really isn't. And then my other question around that is there's lots of things that are made of silicone that go in us. Like if you have a knee replacement, it's silicone. Do those things cause the same issues?

Yeah, well, have you seen the documentary Bleeding Edge on Netflix? It talks about, okay, so it talks about all about medical devices, mesh, hip replacements, everything that you just mentioned. Breast implants, it touches upon slightly, but it does talk about when you put those things in your body. Just the way our bodies are. The physio, physiologically you put a foreign object in your body, your body is going to send off the alarm of like foreign invader. Foreign invader, like intruder. I don't recognize this thing. And it's gonna attack it. So it does produce like that protective layer around the implants. That's where you see like the red capsule around the implants, because it is trying to protect you. Our bodies are so smart. And I mean, everybody is different. I truly do believe that everybody's different. Like, do you have viruses? You have the MTHFR gene mutation? What are you exposed to on a daily basis? How's your mindset? Are you taking good care of your body? There's so many different factors to include in regards to any kind of implant and how your body's going to respond to it.

Yeah. Okay, so what you're. So if I'm hearing you correctly, it might not just be breast implants. It could be any implant in your body. So if you're having these symptoms and you don't have breast implants, but you have a knee replacement, for instance, it could be something connected there. Am I hearing that correctly?

I mean, it could be. Anything's possible. But again, I'm not a medical doctor, so anything that I say here isn't to be taken as medical advice. And I haven't really done too much research on, you know, like hip replacements or anything in regards to that, or mesh. But, you know, I would just assume you put metal in your body or especially anything like breast implants that are just full of nothing but chemicals and heavy metals, your body's going to respond in some way. And what the severity of that is is totally different from person to person.

Yeah.

In my opinion.

Do you. Okay, so now my next. I have so many questions, but. Okay, talk about explant for a min. What's the difference between just removing your implants and then doing a whole capsulectomy where you were. Because I know there's some trains of thought that you need to remove the whole capsule. Can you explain that? Because I know, for instance, I've spoken to my surgeon about what would happen if I removed them, and I was encouraged that. Just remove them, don't worry about the capsule. So can you speak into that? The difference. Does it have to be the capsule, too?

Let's.

I want to hear about that.

Yeah. So from what we know and from what I understand, the capsule should be removed because your implant, whether it's ruptured or not, still leaks out some chemicals. And so that capsule that's been holding the implant in place could still have, like, on the inside of the capsule where it's touching the implant, it could still have some of those implant chemicals and heavy metals on them. So the point of taking the capsule out with the implant, it's actually two reasons. One is because should you have any kind of Silicone attached to that capsule. You want to make sure that you're getting all that out to improve your chances of recovering and healing. And two, should your implant be ruptured? And I do know of quite a few women who didn't even know that their implants were ruptured. And when I say ruptured, I mean, think about melted jello. Just, like, ruptured. Right. They didn't know their implants were ruptured. And should their surgeon have cut through the capsule, it just would have been a mess. So that capsule, when they take it out en bloc, and the definition of en bloc just means together in one piece. So you're taking the implant and the capsule out together in one piece. And when you do that, you are ensuring that whatever is inside of that capsule just gets taken out without any of those chemicals or anything getting exposed to your bloodstream or to your body. Does that kind of make sense?

That makes sense. Okay, talk about what happens. Recovery after. Because, like, on both, not just health and, like, what you need to do there, but, like, mentally, what happens? Like, what do you look like after? Did you have to lift with it? Like, all the things.

Yeah. So, again, everybody is going to be different. And I stress this so much in my Facebook group. Your healing and what you look like is going to be different than what somebody else looks like. So just like, with fitness and weight loss and all of that and success, you don't compare your journey and your results to anybody else's. So I just want to say that for me, I did get a lift because I did breastfeed, and my breasts were very thin.

I would imagine, like, if you don't get a lift, like, I think I would be like, socks and rocks. Like, that's like, I'm like a D. And I would. Like, I've had them for 20 years, you know, like, what the heck?

So, yeah.

And so actually, 30 years, my gosh. I just realized I got them at 19, so. Wow.

30 years. Yeah. And you've had how many sets at this point?

I've had six surgeries. That's a whole nother thing. And I want to own right now. Like, I think I was fricking crazy. Like, what's wrong with me that I did six times? Like, I'm owning that. And I do think this is another conversation, like, why we get them to begin with.

Yeah.

And I'll own it. I'm the first to say I was obviously trying to fix something with body image that I didn't, you know, that could have Been addressed mentally, so I'll own that. Like, I get that I'm also a different person now at 48 than I was at 19. And I'll own my mistakes. However. Yeah, now I think I'd have. That would be hard for me. Like, I don't know what the heck I'd look like.

Yeah. So getting back to, like, the emotionally mental aspect of this, which to me is it's equally, if not more important than the physical aspect of physical symptoms, it is honestly a big adjustment. And there are two types of women when it comes to explanting. There are, like, for me, I didn't care what I looked like. I just felt like crap for so many years that I just wanted to feel healthy. I wanted to have energy, I wanted to make memories. I wanted to laugh again. I wanted to do things without being so tired that I was like, I will gladly trade in, like, bliss if it means I'm going to be flat. Like, I don't care at that point. Right. So for me, it was pretty easy. Whereas for other women, they do identify with their breasts, and they do attach happiness and confidence to their breast size. And for those women, you know, I truly do believe that you have to ask yourself, because there. There might come a time where you can't have both. Do you want health or do you want big boobs? Because if you're truly dealing with all of these symptoms and you truly do feel like it's from your breast implants, you're going to be smaller. That's a fact. You're going to get the breast implants, you're going to be smaller in exchange for possibly getting your health back. So, like, what's more important to you in this moment? And it is a big adjustment. A lot of women, including myself, we experience, like, an emotional roller coaster. So we will feel sad all of a sudden for, like, no reason. Nothing triggered us. But I truly feel like it's just a process. And there's all these. These emotions like shame and guilt and fear and worry that are just so pent up in us over the years that once you explant, you feel that relief, physically and emotionally, things just come to surface and you cry and you feel mad, and it comes in waves. And always just telling the women to just feel everything and don't judge it and just let it come through you. And forgive, like, at the end of the day, forgive yourself, forgive your surgeon, forgive your ex if he told you to get the implants. Just, like, forgive all that you've been through and gone through. Because at the end of the day, you're stronger, you're braver, you have more courage, you're beautiful. You've come such a long way from when you got those breast implants. Right. And so just look at it from that aspect and from that view of. Look how far I've come. Like, I'm willing to go back to being smaller, to finally be happy and healthy. Like, that takes a lot of courage in and of itself.

So the other interesting thing that I think it's a good time right now is, you know, I'm 48 years old, and I can speak that in the 90s, it was super popular to have. Be super skinny with big boobs. Like, that was. It was in. It was an in thing to get a boob job. Right. That was the whole thing of the 90s. So I think a lot of us that have them, we're coming from. That's what was acceptable. Like, you're supposed to have a boob job. I think now Fast forward to 2020. A different thing is in style. It's in style to have a big butt and the big chest is not as important. Right. So it's interesting. So it's actually a good time in a way, because it's becoming less. It's not standard and normal to have big boobs now. But that was a thing, I think, in the 90s, right?

Yeah.

You almost looked weird if you didn't have them in the 90s.

Yeah, I agree. And so I grew up on MTV, so there was Pamela Anderson, Carmen Electra, Jenny McCarthy. I'm seeing all of these really pretty women who are getting attention, and they seem happy and they're beautiful and they have fake boobs. And so here I'm thinking, oh, well, I don't have them. Let me just go out and buy them. Everybody else's. They're not having issues. Like, I'm just gonna go out and buy my own. Like, and I'll be happy and it'll fulfill me, and all of the things are gonna fall into place, and my life's gonna be amazing. Temporarily for me, my confidence, like. What am I trying to say? Like, increased. Like, I felt great. But then once my health started to kind of go in the toilet, I was like, yeah, no, yeah.

Okay. So I have so many more questions. I'm like, I keep jotting down. I'm like, I have another question. I have another question. Okay, so how did you deal with like. So I think of my husband right now. Like, my husband loves me for me, but he loves booed boobs. So how did you navigate that? Like, I feel like my husband support whatever I do, but I know deep down he'd be a little disappointed. Like, he loves them.

So. I mean, my husband likes boobs too. He also likes butts. But here's the thing. He saw how I was for seven years. I was literally a couch potato. I wasn't showing up for myself, for my business, for my son, and for him, I wasn't showing up. And so for him, it was like, look, if you feel like this is what it's gonna take for, like, us to get back on track and for, like, you to get back on track, I'm willing to take that risk with you. And for him, it was. There was no question. He, like, this is my body. This is my choice. And he believes in all of that. Right. He's not one to tell another woman what she should and shouldn't do with her body. And so for him, he's always been super supportive. Yeah. And, yeah, he's been supportive. And, I mean, I'm sure it was an adjustment for him, too. And for those of you that are married or been with somebody for a very long time, I always say, keep your husband abreast. No pun intended.

Just give him the implants once you take them out, right?

Have him play with those. Like, stuff them in your bra.

No joke. My last time, I replaced them, and by the way, I replaced mine because I1 had a rupture in my 20s. That was a massive rupture. So that was fun. Like, they had a liposuction out the silicone that had ruptured. Which, by the way, that's something in the back of my mind always is, like, okay, if it ruptured, my surgeon could not get all that out. That silicone travels in your body. So to me now, I have that thought. Like, okay, we'll say I go in and remove the capsule and all the things. I still have silicone in my body. Like, I'll never be able to get all of that out because of that rupture. That is a thing. But I will say that I just lost my total train of thought right now.

Where was I going?

No, but I'll say that I also had capsular contracture a lot. And for those of you that don't know what that means, it's when it starts getting really hard. And what I know now to be true is it's your body's way of saying it doesn't want it. So that capsule or contracture that hardening is your body's way of wanting to push it out. And what's interesting is most surgeons will do a number of things around that they'll, they'll have you fight getting that capsule. One of the things surgeons will do is put you on, to put you on allergy medicine. That's a common thing. Like, let's take an allergy medicine every single day so your body doesn't try to fight it away. Which if you think about that, that's so odd. Like we're going to add another chemical, something else into your body to fight its natural response, response.

And it's only masking a symptom. Again, it's only like it's only managing the thing. It's not.

Yes, yes. So. So I stopped doing that. Now, I do believe surgeon technique has a lot. I'll tell you, I had capsular contraction every single time until my previous doctor, Dr. Kat Begavix, who I love Dr. Kat on Instagram. She did my surgery three years ago and I've not had a problem, knock on wood, since. And I believe her technique and what she did, whatever was different, had something to do with it. So I do, I believe, just my own personal experience, that surgeon technique does have a lot to do with how it's going to respond in your body. She had explained to me how she's got a very different technique, how she's putting it in, how. So you don't have that bacteria, so you don't have the issues. I've not had one issue yet since. And that still doesn't mean I wouldn't take them out in my mind. I want to know your opinion. Do you believe everybody should take them out? Because, like, where I'm at now, I would say I would do it when I have another problem. So what is your mindset around that?

So if somebody came to me and said, hey, I'm feeling all of these symptoms, should I take them out? Knowing me, I would probably say, here, look at the symptoms, look at everything they're made of. And I believe that when you do put them in, your immune system does attack them. And it probably does bog down your immune system over time, leaving you susceptible to more things in the future. Now, whether I think she should get them out urgently and like, you must get them out now, that's not my approach. I feel like here, here's what I know. Let me share it with you. And now you make that decision for yourself because it's your body and it's your choice and it's Your life. And that's something that only. I feel like she should go through that journey.

And what, Christina, what if they have no symptoms? Like, I'm like, right now I don't feel I have those symptoms. Yeah, I don't have that. What would you say to that? Is it.

Well, then you're lucky. Like I always say, gosh, you are lucky. Like, that is great. I'm happy for you.

And I'm not saying, by the way, I'm never tired. I'm tired sometimes. I don't have all the things that you listed.

Yeah. I would just say if you're not feeling symptoms, like, don't bug anything. Personally, don't bug it. I do know one woman, she's a good friend of mine who felt like she didn't have breast implant illness, but she works for a surgeon and she was seeing all of these women come in saying, I'm feeling this and this and this. And she just wanted to be proactive. And she's like, look, I'm getting them out. I just know too much. She got them out and she's like, my energy is better. She actually lost 15 pounds, I think, with my. And don't take my word for this, but I think it's been like three months. And she lost 15 pounds without doing anything, which is a lot of inflammation, which a lot of women do tend to have. And then when they explant, they lose all this inflammation and all this weight. And then she mentioned something about her ankles were always swollen, like in the morning. And since she explanted, her ankles are skinnier again. So she did have some symptoms that she didn't think were tied to her breast implants. But after she explained it, like a couple little things went away. Yeah, but I mean, if you don't have a rupture, if you don't have this capsular contracture, if things aren't like super grave for you, you know, just. I always say, keep an eye on your body. You know your body best. Stay in tune with your body. If these symptoms start to appear and you go to doctors and they can't find anything wrong with you, I mean, maybe at the end of the day, it's could be your breast implants, you know?

Do you. What do you think about. Okay, actually, this is. This topic I'm. That's really near and dear to me right now. Let's talk about the cult dish feel about people that are advocates for bii. You are the only one I've encountered that doesn't come out. People with attack. And I really appreciate that. And I'll tell you, there's an me and a number of my friends, especially people that have a public following that we get messages and it's like funny. We'll screenshot them and send them back and forth to each other where people are just nasty. Like they assume and they diagnose us. Like you have BII and it's really, I think it's really weird.

It's annoying and it shuts you down and it makes you not want to listen to them. Right?

What is that about?

I mean, I wish I could tell you. I. I feel like. And there is a group out there where the women just act like this. They just feel like they know what's best for women. And because they've gone through it and experienced it, they can go and place their non medical advice or not. You know, they don't have a degree in being a doctor. Oh gosh. I mean this is like soapbox topic. But you know, I'm not them. That's not my approach. So it's really hard for me to understand those types of women. I feel like there's a right way and a very wrong way to approach, approach somebody if you think they have breast implant illness. Right. And I wrote a blog about this too. Because you can't go like on the attack and on being aggressive in your approach to bringing up breast implant illness. And maybe it could be your breast implants. Right. You can't just assume it's breast implant illness. I don't know.

There's just one reason Christina and I, we've been following each other on Instagram. But one reason we connected. You guys, this is a funny story. So I posted about skin cancer because I had a skin cancer on my face, which I 100% know is attributed to my tanning in my. When I was in my teens. Okay, I know that's what it was from. I went to tanning beds. Another dumb thing I did. And some I shared that vulnerably on social media. And somebody, I don't even know who it was, somebody wrote to me that my skin cancer was because I had BII and I was really triggered. I'm not gonna lie.

Oh man.

My face is not from bii but you don't, you know, basically. So anyways, they didn't like my response. And so they screenshot they took. They, they thought in my response, which I didn't say they were thinking. I said I don't have breast implants, which is not what I said because I. I own that I have them. And I somehow ended up, my picture ended up in this group with all kinds of people screenshotting my boobs and.

Saying, yeah, I remember all that. I stood up for you, girl.

She knew me like, listen, Natalie does not lie about this. She. She's own that she has them. So it was a very like take, but it really triggered me. Like, what? Yeah. How is that supportive?

So it's not. It's not supportive.

Yeah. And. And there's a lot of us that have gone through this where people basically like attack us with. You have this.

Yep, yep. Everything. I mean, you stubbed your toe. You must have breast implant illness. Right? It's like, I mean, come on.

Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about. So what is the right way? If you, if you are somebody that has bii, you are removing it, you are believing and you want to educate the world on it. What is the right way to do it?

Yeah. So if you feel like you have breast implant illness, if you were like me and you've tried everything and you're like, look, I'm willing to take this chance. I'm going to explant. I feel like it is going to make me feel better. So what you want to do is you want to see a plastic surgeon, you want to see a board certified plastic surgeon, you want to kind of see how many expanse they've done as well there is. Well, first I would tell you to go inside Facebook groups. So my Facebook group is Breast Implant illness rejuvenation and education with Christina. So just go inside of these groups and ask the question, hey, I'm considering explanting. I'm from this area and I'm considering this surgeon. Have any of you heard of him or her? Right. And so that's typically like the best way to kind of get some real feedback and advice on surgeons. Because there is a recommended explant surgeon list out there that's associated with a group and I personally despise that list because one, allegedly the person who made this list is getting paid by the surgeons. Right. And two, know, I just know a handful of women right off the top of my head who went with a surgeon from that list and their, in their words, got botched. Brought it up to the lady who made this list. And this lady did not take that surgeon off the list. Maybe because she's making money, I don't know. But when it comes to the explant surgeon list that you might see out there, be very, very cautious. Do your own homework. On that surgeon, look at Yelp reviews, so on and so forth. Anyways, I digress. You know, you just want to make sure they're a board certified plastic surgeon and just kind of trust your gut. That's what I did. I looked at my surgeon's credentials, how many explants he did and I had a connection with him. Having a connection with somebody who's going to look at my breasts, work on my breast is very important to me. I don't want to, I don't know, be with a surgeon who's like a douchebag or anything. So like having that connection was really important. And then for there, schedule your explant date, whatever date works for you. If you have kids, be very aware of when they might be out of school or anything like that because you will need easily about two weeks off of work and you will need some help around the house. Especially if you get a lift. Things are just going to feel really sore. Like you did some chest exercises, it's not going to be like too painful or anything like that. But you do want to be cautious because you're not going to be able to lift anything up overhead and you're not going to be able to pull anything down from a shelf. So everything just kind of needs to be at arm's length. So I always tell women to like keep plates and keep their hygiene products. Keep everything like in arm's length in the bathroom and in the kitchen and you know, just be super patient with your body again, have that forgiveness. Incorporate self care. Don't compare your body and your healing to anybody else's. And just reach out inside of the Facebook groups as well with any kind of questions that you have or if you need a vent, if you're worried about something. Those Facebook groups, Facebook, Facebook support groups are really important if you find the right one to help you kind of get the process going and to not feel so alone and so scared in doing this.

And I, and I personally like your group because it's a non shaming group group. I think there's some other groups that are really about shame and I think that doesn't work. I just think it does. I think approaching things from shame does not work.

No, it's not support, it's not support group. If you're shaming people and you're bullying people and you're intimidating people and you're telling people how they should do things and blocking them from your group, if they don't follow your narrative, it's just wrong. And women like me we're desperate. Like, we don't feel good, and we need support, and we don't need other women telling us what we should be doing. So, yeah, my group. I make it very clear in my group, if you're not healing after your explant, like, let's talk about it. If you had a bad experience with your surgeon, let's talk about it. If you're feeling xyz, like, let's talk about it. Because in other groups, those types of questions are not allowed.

Do you believe that all breast implants are bad?

I do. I do. Because. Just because of the chemicals that they're made up of.

Yeah.

So, I mean, I have the list of it right here. There's a lot of these that I can't even pronounce, but they're made up of these chemicals. A lot of them are neurotoxins and carcinogens. And then there's 19 different metals in the implants. And I got this information from the summary of safety and effectiveness report by Mentor it about these heavy metals. So although we may have heard in the past that saline are safer, you're still getting exposed to that shell. So the only difference is what's inside the shell is saline, and inside the silicone shell is the silicone gel. Right. But you're still getting exposed on the outside to all of those chemicals. So I do firmly believe that all breast implants are toxic.

And I personally believe with my research, I actually have the worst possible ones out there right now. I happen to not have the symptoms of capsular contracture right now or. But I have. I have the gummy bear ones that are textured.

You're gonna say that.

So I have. But I. And what I did, I don't have the recalled ones, but I have a version that are just like the recalled ones. And I went. I went and had extensive testing on them just to make sure I didn't have that fluid around the outside. For those that you don't know what I'm talking about, there is the textured gummy bear ones. There's a specific manufacturer that have been recalled for a link to a very specific type of cancer where a fluid forms around it. And if you do have the textured gummy bear ones, my surgeon recommended actually that I go get tested for it. I recommend you get tested for it where you. They can scan and see if you have that fluid, because that does make it urgent if you do.

Yeah. So let me talk about that for a second. So if you do want to get that Test. It's called the CD30 test. It's a pathology test. And your surgeon will send out a piece of the capsule and the fluid to the pathology, and they will be able to test if there are any. So the cancer is called breast implant associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma, or Bialcl for short. So as of January 24, 2020, there are 885 cases and 33 deaths that have been associated with this cancer. And the thing about this cancer is it's not a breast cancer. It's an immune system cancer. The only way you can get this cancer is from breast implants.

And it's very localized. So if you catch this early, you can treat it. I do know that.

Yeah, absolutely. So if you have any kind of pain, swelling, and I mean, one just swells up like eight times bigger than the other, any kind of itching, rashing, if anything just feels and looks abnormal with your breast, get it checked out immediately. Get it. Get that test done. Just to have that peace of mind and that clarity. Because you do want to nip it in the butt early.

Because the interesting thing about. The interesting thing about that specific type of implant is you don't necessarily get capsular contracture because of the way that it is, and you don't get Right. So it can almost fool you because you feel like, oh, I don't have these things happening, but it actually has. They've been recalled for that reason.

Yeah. So on July 24, 2019, Allergan recalled. It's called BioCell, and it is for both the breast implant and the tissue expanders in 38 countries. So they did recall a specific breast implant because of the issues of BIA alcl that they were seeing with it.

That's amazing. Okay. Gosh, so much information here. This is. This is really, really helpful. So ultimately, what is your stance to women? Like, women in general, like anyone that has them, what do you want them to know? Like, whether they believe in bii? They don't believe in it. What do you want? Just to help women. What do you want people to know that have implants?

Oh, that have implants. Okay, one. I want you to know that. I mean, if you are experiencing. Are you talking. Do you want me to talk to.

The women in general? Like, you're on stage talking right now. And.

And in general, women.

Okay, people have implants. What do you want them? What do they need to know right now?

The first thing I would say is just stay in tune with your body because you know how your body and how your breasts feel more than anybody, more than anybody's opinion online, more than your doctor even. So just really stay in tune with your body. You know, get educated on the symptoms that a lot of us have seen with breast implant illness. And I'm just going to name off a couple of the common, like, most common ones. So there's lip fatigue and the brain fog. Those two are by far the most common. There's also insomnia, joint pain, blurry vision, anxiety, depression, hair loss and thinning. Gasping for air was another one that I experienced. And then, of course, the swollen lymph nodes, like, all throughout the body, but mostly in the armpit area. A lot of women have rashes and kind of, like skin issues, so there's that as well. Tingling and numbness in the arms and legs. A lot of women experience vertigo and then food intolerances. So, like IBS and candida and UTI infections, migraines, those seem to be the most common symptoms. So, like, if you just all of a sudden are experiencing these or, like, as the years go on, they're kind of compounding on each other and you're seeing doctors and you're getting temporary relief and you're just not feeling good, you know, possibly consider that it could be from your breast implants and, you know, that's just a personal decision that you're gonna have to make and obviously talk to your husband about and all that stuff. But, I mean, yeah, at the end of the day, and I would also, you know, my thing that I like to nail in the head is to help women to detach their happiness and their confidence from their breast size or from their gene size or from their weight or their shape, you know, and more or less look at their body as a miraculous machine who is on their side, even though it might not feel like it sometimes, Right? And look at your body for all that it does on a daily basis. Right? Like, there's things it's doing for us right now that we're not even aware of, like digesting our food. It's, you know, our heart's beating, it's pumping oxygen throughout us, and gosh, who knows what else. But, you know, just start appreciating and really embracing your body for what it does and how far it's carried you up until this point, you know, and not get so caught up on dimples and stretch marks and the number on the scale. And, gosh, my one big thing is social media. Don't get so caught up on social media and trying to look like everybody else. Or, you know, you mentioned earlier that butts are in. I can't stand that body parts are ever in trendy. Right. Like in the 90s, like you said, it was being skinny and being like a supermodel, and then it turned into having boobs, and now it's like, now big butts are in. It's like when our body parts stop being in.

I don't think ever, Christina. I think.

I know it's very sad.

It's really. I don't think ever. I think it's. And it's. But it's just so fascinating to watch that because I'm very clear on what we strive to be in the 90s and now. What's in now is very different. It's just. It's so, so. And for those listening that are in their 20s, you haven't even seen those cycles yet. But for anyone in their 40s and 50s, you've really seen that cycle of like, what's in, what's out. Like, I even big lips. Like, my big lips are in now. And bushy eyebrows. And they were not in the 90s, like how to have tiny, thin eyebrows. Yeah. So I think that all goes and comes around. What do you want women to know that are considering getting implants right now? What do you want them to know?

So if you are considering getting implants, the first thing I would have you do is go inside Facebook groups because. And here's the thing, also be very hesitant when you go inside Facebook groups because you might get some extreme people in there. But also just look through the files, if anything, because especially in my Facebook group, I think I have over 40 different files. And these files are all just factual. They're from FDA's website, they're from manufacturer's website. So just go inside. Like my Facebook group, for instance. Look through the files. Just get educated on what breast implants are made of, possible things to look out for if you should get breast implants, like with your body and symptoms. And ultimately I would try to probably convince you to not get them and to just love your body and all the things.

But, you know, you know, that's not completely realistic. And it's really somebody recovering from cancer. But I want you guys to know that there's other methods. Like if you're really insisting you could do. You could do a fat transfer.

Yeah. Thank you for saying that.

Your own body fat and create something.

Yeah, exactly. And a lot of women even opt after explant. Some surgeons will do a fat transfer at the Same time as explant. And some surgeons won't, but that is an option. If you explant and you're not happy with your size, you can get a fat transfer. So you can get like the outer thighs or your stomach. Your look, you know, wherever you have fat, you can get it transferred to your breasts. And it's not toxic, it's not poison.

Score. Like you take the. Like too much butter or something.

I'm just right.

That could be another option. Yeah, yeah.

So there is that option too.

This was so helpful today and so thank you so much for sharing and not coming at it with this. Like you must remove your evil if you have. Because I feel like that's such a problem out there. So I hope this was helpful for people. I know it was extremely helpful for me. I think so. Thank you. Thank you for what you do, for taking us down and for educating people and for coming at it from a place of compassion and. And just being open to all versus attack.

Right. Nobody else should tell you what's right for your body. Only you should decide that. And so if somebody's telling you that, just question their motives, you know, Once.

Again, where can people find you? Where do they find your group?

So my group, yeah, my group is on Facebook. It's a Facebook group. It's called Breast Implant Illness Rejuvenation Education with Christina. You can go there. That'd probably be the best place. You can also find me on Instagram at Size Happy Underscore with Christina and then on my website, which is size happy dot net.

Thank you so much, Christina. This was great.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

Thanks for leveling up with us today. Please share this episode if you found it helpful so others can join in. And don't forget to hit that subscribe so you don't miss out on future shows. And if you would leave me a five star review, I appreciate, appreciate those so much. I read all of them and it's how I know that I'm giving you information that you find valuable. And come interact with me over on Instagram at Natalie Jill Fit. I read all the direct messages and comments over there. Make it a great day. Creating everything from nothing.

Sam.