Episode 24
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
In today’s episode, Dr. Robert Whitfield, Board Certified Plastic Surgeon, who brings a unique, holistic approach to his patients. He shines light on the lesser-known facts of breast implant illness. His unique treatment approach focuses on lifestyle, genetics and whole health. We discuss the additional steps he takes, well beyond explantation to allow his patients to fully heal. This is a MUST LISTEN episode!
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Connect with Robert Whitfield, MD
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Episode Transcript
Julie Michelson: Welcome back to the inspired living with auto-immunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson. And today we are joined by Dr. Robert Whitfield, who is an innovative holistic plastic surgeon. That's right. A holistic plastic surgeon until we coined another term for the work he's doing. We're talking today about breast implant illness and the role it can play in chronic illness and auto immunity.
[00:00:58] And Dr. Rob [00:01:00] shares with us, his knowledge about the proper approach to explantation that addresses these underlying complications and how he's using his holistic approach to get remarkable results for his patients.
[00:01:13] Dr. Rob, welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:17] Robert Whitfield: Thank you for having me.
[00:01:18] Julie Michelson: I am so excited. You're here. We're going to talk about something that is so important, especially in the autoimmune world or chronic illness world that nobody is talking about. So, one thing I ask everybody in the beginning is, you know, how did you get to be doing what you're doing?
[00:01:38] I think your story is going to be different. A lot of us it's because of our own health journey. But you know, how do you go. From, and you are still a phenomenal plastic surgeon. How do you all of a sudden become this expert in breast implant illness?
[00:01:54] Robert Whitfield: I think you had started early on you. Shaped by our experiences. And I was in medical school, I think [00:02:00] for about two weeks, my sister called me and she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and I was a little brother. I was in medical school. So by. You just by the fact that I was there and in medical school, I should know what's going on and how to take care of her.
[00:02:13] And I was like, oh my God. So fortunately, our professor who was teaching us that they in I think he was a biochemistry lecture. Anyway, he was an oncology. They had clinicians come and fortunately I have to class, I, you know, I was just like, Hey, can you help me out here? And he was wonderful and actually connected a colleague with my sister who ended up taking care of her.
[00:02:38] And ultimately she underwent chemotherapy. She had mastectomy, she had reconstruction with. And my friend and mentor took care of her. And you know, about my third or fourth year of medical school, I was deciding what I was going to do. I was very interested in cardiac surgery. I didn't want to be a plastic surgeon.
[00:02:57] So I worked with, at [00:03:00] that point, one of the best plastic surgeons in the United States stuck to William Simponi. And he couldn't convince me either. I was going to be a heart surgeon, many surgeons are stubborn. So I went to train and about my third, fourth year of training out of nine. I decided a candy heart surgery, and ultimately went back and finished my surgical training and then two years of plastic surgery training.
[00:03:21] And then I spent a year just with Dr. Zamboni doing cosmetics and oncology training in microsurgery basically. So my background is complex reconstruction and aesthetic surgery. And so. For the longest period of time, I performed a very specific form of breast reconstruction called the deep plow. It's taking the abdominal tissue.
[00:03:38] That's discarded from a tummy tuck, leaving it connects to its blood vessels, and then connected to the blood supply that the heart surgeons used to revascularize the heart up in the chest after mastectomies. So I've had a long standing history with breast cancer patients, implant problems placement of implants, removals, revisions.
[00:03:57] And because of that reputation I had nationally [00:04:00] people would look me up and get consultations regarding their breast reconstructions, either for revisions or improvements or complete replacements with a deep flap. And the patient from Georgia had relocated to Austin to To retire had looked me up on the internet and requested a consultation regarding her implant-based reconstruction.
[00:04:21] And I saw her and I never know obviously what the patients ultimately going to want, and she didn't want to revision Jen. She didn't want a deep flap reconstruction or a autologous reconstruction is what we referred to it. She just wanted to get rid of the older reconstruction. And from time to time, I had faced.
[00:04:38] In my career and it's not for me to decide whether or not somebody should keep their breast reconstruction. If, if that's no longer the desire, then you know, my goal was to help facilitate the request and safe as possible banner. And she had one overwhelming symptom and I'll get that after like nothing on physical exam.[00:05:00]
[00:05:00] I mean zero problems, soft breast reconstruction after a long period of time, which is uncommon, no laboratory abnormalities at all whatsoever. She had a cardiac condition that required her to be taken care of at a hospital monitored overnight, because that was a request of her physician. And so her number one thing was he was fatigued
[00:05:23] Julie Michelson: Hmm.
[00:05:24] Robert Whitfield: and she had a fistful of.
[00:05:27] At this point, what I referred to as heavy, heavy metal testing. And, you know, I'm, I'm an allopathic physician trained in oncology and cosmetics. I don't know anything about heavy metal testing. And I was just like, I don't know what to do with this right now, but I'll look at it. And I looked at it and I mean, of course she had high levels of kind of everything.
[00:05:48] So I didn't know what to make of that. And so, yeah, I was like, I don't know, you know, this is circa.
[00:05:54] Julie Michelson: this have to do with your breasts?
[00:05:56] Robert Whitfield: 2016. And I was like, I don't know, what, what do [00:06:00] you want me to do with this? So I got her set up and took care of her at a hospital and per protocol that I've done for, you know, the entire time I did oncologic reconstruction was when I was taking a reconstruction down.
[00:06:12] Out is of course we would send specimens. Now she did request that I do it in black capsulectomy if the audience should be familiar with that, it's like taking everything out, like an unbroken Easter egg. So the scar surrounding the implant is taken out. It's not disturbed. It's like an oncology section for tumor.
[00:06:28] And so she requested this, which was an odd request. But because I did mostly oncology reconstruction, it wasn't unusual for me to, to understand or to perform. So I did it in the manner in which she requested and. At the end, I always take samples and send those off for both microbial microbial analysis and make sure there's no bacteria or fungus or microbacterium.
[00:06:49] And then we send everything off to make sure there's never recurrent cancer. Obviously we want to make sure the patient has ever occurrence that's undiagnosed as yet. And at that point I put a drain [00:07:00] tube in, which was pretty stable. For her and that issue and she stayed overnight, went home the next day, I was fine.
[00:07:07] Started a week about three or four days before her follow-up appointment. We got her labs back from the hospital, CLIA based lab for everybody in the audience, doesn't understand clear based labs need a hundred thousand colony counts of bacteria to give a positive. And hers was positive for. So for a hospital lab to pick that up on it on a swab, my new, I just did swabs back then.
[00:07:31] They're not quantitative, not DNA analysis. That was a big deal. And so this lady unfortunately had been wandering around poor thing with a e-coli infection for, I don't know how long now people have asked me how to get Ecolab. I mean, So, if you have an implant hip, knee, breast dental, I don't care what it is.
[00:07:52] If you get an exposure, if you step on a splinter and it has staff or whatever, or [00:08:00] you're walking barefoot around and get some stuck in your foot or a few dig into something, you get a cut, or if you get a colonoscopy or if you get a tooth cleaning and bacteria gets through your bloodstream, it can easily go to any implanted device.
[00:08:12] That's a foreign body, your body can't surveil that. I wasn't so concerned about how she got it. I was just more apprehensive about why I missed it completely. I felt like as a clinician, I think I know what's going on. Only signs symptom. I reviewed all this stuff. I made sure I went back and looked at everything and her only symptom was fatigue.
[00:08:34] It wasn't brain fog. It wasn't
[00:08:36] Julie Michelson: When not, yeah, that's wild.
[00:08:40] Robert Whitfield: So. Anyway, I treated her with an oral antibiotic, cause I didn't know what else to do. And I had sensitivities based on the laboratory results. So I treated her and she got better. Fatigue went away, basically had a month. She was, I guess, as normal. She had been in years [00:09:00] happy, you know?
[00:09:01] And I presume it was her that put me on some forum or mentioned me somewhere. And then people started trickling in wanting, you know, wanting X plans and to make the long story short is clear based lab is completely inferior when you're trying to identify this. So I switched to PCR testing in 2019, and I have over 400 consecutive samples of capsules from patients with you know, the complaint and they're predominantly going to have a.
[00:09:32] And the 60% is range, but bacterial contaminant, it's not fungus. It's not mold, it's not the nonsense written on the internet. In reality, the most predominant species is QD bacteria, Agnes, but just in general, what's the skin flora. I mean, I don't need to make it any more complicated, but I've found some really exotic, weird things as well in triathletes, Spartan racers, because if you get your hand punctured or if you get your foot.[00:10:00]
[00:10:07] Julie Michelson: Ah, You froze for a minute. Let's circle back. You were talking about some of those triathletes having a kind of more bizarre infection.
[00:10:22] Robert Whitfield: Right. So. I've been doing these PCR tests for quite a while. And that common bacteria is QT Katy bacteria, Agnes, but you can get more stranger spurious results in, in patients who have, you know, different environmental exposures, like a triathlete who swims a lot in a lake and then gets out and runs barefoot on the ground or somebody who does Spartan racing and digs around.
[00:10:45] And. Mud with their hands. So if you think about it, there's more than plausible explanations environmentally to get these exposures much like you do when you see somebody without toxic mold exposure in their home. So I thought, oh, you know, I'm onto something [00:11:00] here. This makes a lot more sense. So in terms of problem solving, you know, just like a complex reconstruction problem for oncology, I thought this testing problem, we, you know, really solved the majority of this.
[00:11:11] So I was like, okay, I'm just going to do these PCR tasks. I'm going to check this box and everything's going to be fine. But in about, you know, 30% of the patients, you don't ever find anything and they still get better. So in those patients, I commonly would say, look, I don't understand what the genetic predisposition is that you have.
[00:11:31] I presume you have a single nucleotide polymorphism, or what we call to a snip somewhere in your system. COMT FET as sod to, I don't know where it is, but I presume you have it and you're going to get better. I don't know when it may take three months, it may take nine months. It may take a year and a half.
[00:11:51] I don't know. And so I think now that we're further along the road with both DNA testing and using AI to [00:12:00] evaluate it, that we can confidently say that defects in superoxide dismutase. Defects in Lutheran metabolism and defects in your methylation pathways represent, you know, probably another 20% of that equation.
[00:12:15] So now I feel like we're, we're definitely closing the gap on what was a, a huge, you know, open loop to me for a long time. And you know, I still brain fog baffles me. So I added an EEG platform to my And, you know, care plan. So anybody who complains a brain fog, we do an EEG preop and then repeat it three months out.
[00:12:33] And, you know, hopefully we'll work backwards and supplement them and get their brain function you know, improved so that they can interact, you know, with their family and friends and loved ones.
[00:12:44] Julie Michelson: I love that. So I want to circle back to. Why I have you on the show, right? This is an auto-immune focused show. So some people may not directly be connecting the dots that you and I have already. Well-connected. I want you to [00:13:00] repeat the statistic again about, you know, with the X plants you've you're doing.
[00:13:06] 60% have a bacterial infection, but that's a, that's a tremendous number. And I want people to understand this connection of, you know, we always talk about root causes and things that are driving inflammation. And,
[00:13:20] Robert Whitfield: Right.
[00:13:21] Julie Michelson: so
[00:13:23] Robert Whitfield: So that was the thing. When, when I started finding those. I felt very validated what I was doing because I was taking a lot of heat for doing this. And I think, you know, just because you can't see it, smell it, taste it, it doesn't mean it's not a problem. And DNA testing, you know, was pivotal in this, just like it is for COVID.
[00:13:43] Now either you have COVID or you don't have COVID on PCR testing. Sarah, when I can scientifically explain a driver of an immune response, And the patient can then say, oh, okay, well that makes sense. And you know, the, the oxidative [00:14:00] stress created by having the device in coupled to infection. Tips people over.
[00:14:05] So maybe they were handling their oxidative stress and their life stress to a certain degree. But then what event, what environmental exposure happened to make that tip where they can no longer manage their oxidative stress. And if that's partly due to their genetic predisposition, then the auto immune response is rubbed up even more and more and more.
[00:14:24] And they, they never really recovered. It's just a hamster in a wheel.
[00:14:28] Julie Michelson: Sure. Sure. I want to talk a little bit about you. You mentioned fatigue. You mentioned brain fog as. Symptoms people usually show up experiencing. What else, what else are you seeing that overtime gets better after X plant?
[00:14:45] Robert Whitfield: Lots of problems with anxiety and depression. Lots of problems. I mean, 96% of my clients are female digestive. Is huge problems hair loss, but the fatigue, the muscle [00:15:00] joint pain, all those things are, as you know, there's a lot of things that could be responsible for these, you know, issues. They, they overlap with quite a few other issues.
[00:15:13] Julie Michelson: You mentioned the scale tipping point, right? It's we can only handle so much and everybody's level is different as far as, you know, how many, how many different insults can the body handle?
[00:15:27] Robert Whitfield: Correct.
[00:15:28] Julie Michelson: Yeah, that it's, it's amazing. So for the, I'm guessing by the time people find you women find you they've already said, oh, I think I may have this thing, breast implant illness, right?
[00:15:42] Like ha.
[00:15:43] Robert Whitfield: It isn't unusual, still not, not defined pathway. Right? Cause this, the, the general allopathic, medical community barely recognizes this. If at all, recognize that. And I testified about it at the FDA hearings in 2019, but. That hasn't [00:16:00] filtered down the plastic surgery. Societies recognize it's an issue, but on a whole, I don't think there's enough as you would imagine data.
[00:16:10] And then in terms of by grassroots, you know, boots on the ground, providers barely any of them would even consider this to be a problem. It's usually upon the client to figure out that this could be. An issue or they've seen a functional medicine provider who is familiar potentially or natural path who's familiar.
[00:16:36] It's still I've S I've got people after they've had every test, every workup known demand on, and they show up, in fact that a patient yesterday, he had had an X plant five years ago, or a little bit longer done through the incision underneath the area. If you follow, so a Perry areola incision. So just for your audience to know it is [00:17:00] absolutely impossible to do it in block capsulectomy through a Perry areola incision, and the moment I see that and hear the story, and there's still something.
[00:17:09] It's really got to be taken to the operating room and opened and done. And in a, in block or total capsulectomy manner, that way, depending on how much shrinkage of the capsule. It has happened over top of mine. I've had people that have had no shrinkage and I can put a temporary implant and acts as a you know, the, the egg, if you will.
[00:17:32] So I can work around it in a 360 manner or yesterday I could not, because it had shrunk down so much. It wouldn't even accommodate the smallest expander we had. So I just had to take it out as a total capsulectomy, but, you know, once you take all that out and then we have. Ways to sterilize the pocket with a couple of different solutions and some pH related to solutions and then drying them.
[00:17:54] I I'm confident she's going to get better from a you know, a microbial [00:18:00] standpoint that that's all that's gone. That's done that after yesterday. She, she will be fine. Now,
[00:18:05] Julie Michelson: No she'll heal.
[00:18:06] Robert Whitfield: everything else is the purview of basically you, because I have a lot of trouble. Closing that loop with these, these folks are they go back to where they came from?
[00:18:19] Cause prior to COVID about 60% of my clients self flew in and after, you know, COVID or were still in COVID I guess it's more of a regional, but I am getting some more people to come and travel.
[00:18:31] Julie Michelson: Sure. A couple things I want to, I want to touch on. I want to really dumb it down for us as far as, because I want to drive this home for people. So they understand the different approach. You are not simply removing an implant, which is what the patient who saw you yesterday had done. Why she's still sick, right?
[00:18:52] So you are making sure that you're getting that in a whole encapsulation. It's not just pulling the device.[00:19:00]
[00:19:01] Robert Whitfield: Right. I always tell everybody, they think of the little Easter egg at Easter with the candy inside. So the implant is the candy inside and the shell is the actual capsule. And so if you take that capsule out with the candy inside undisturbed, that's an end block. Capsulectomy everything else is considered a capsule.
[00:19:20] And if you simply open the Easter egg and take the candy, get out, that's just wasting the patient's time and money because it's not going to do anything. If they're suffering from those symptoms. Based on my series with PCR analysis, I know that over half of those are going to be infected. So you're just leaving infected material.
[00:19:35] Julie Michelson: Thank you. I just wanted to circle back to that. I, I know enough about your practice to know that you take an approach that makes me. Happy dance with your patients, which I think is kind of what you were alluding to. As far as people get on a plane, they go home, they return to so you, you take a very holistic, as it says right next to you, holistic and scientific plastic [00:20:00] surgery approach.
[00:20:01] So this is not just, I show up, you know, Dr. Rob fixed me and I go home back to my life. You are, you put patients on specific diets. You're, you're treating the whole person for healing. Tell us a little bit about somebody comes to you and you know, they, they, they want the surgery. What, or what kind of lifestyle changes are you having them make even.
[00:20:29] Robert Whitfield: Yeah along the lines of what you do and what you're following would probably appreciate is I had a lady a little east of Austin show up whose eyes were swollen shut, and you could just see how adenomatous us. He was just inflamed and I would speak to her and. It's not very communicative. Her husband was with her.
[00:20:53] And you could tell that she could hear what I was saying, and she just couldn't process it very [00:21:00] well. So I said, where do you all live? And she says, oh, we live in the country. Okay. And. So I'm already thinking she has a mold exposure and whatever old ranch style home, she lives in the country. And I said, have y'all been doing anything?
[00:21:16] She was like, oh yeah, we laid a bunch of sod. Recently took us like two months to do it. We had so much to that. So, you know what sod does after it rains and lays around outside. So she just looked like somebody who had a toxic mold exposure. In addition, she had implants that were greater than 10 years old.
[00:21:37] She had fatigue. She had weight gain, she had joint pain. She had hair loss, she had dry eyes. She had dry mouth, she had acid reflux. She had digestive problems, everything she ate made her blow up. And so, you know, this is like, unfortunately, the, the appearance of. Mold superimposed on [00:22:00] BII. She didn't have, or couldn't relate a history of, you know, Frank Lyme disease, but she lives out in the country.
[00:22:06] It easily could be part of the equation. And I told her husband and her I'm like, and they had went to all sorts of doctors and everything and had MRIs and cat scans. And I said, wait, you know, this is what I want you to do. I want. Start a gluten-free dairy-free diet. We explained that to them and I tell them, I want them to try to shoot for a hundred grams of protein a day, which is, which is hard to do.
[00:22:28] And you know, we got her on the schedule, you know, relatively soon and we were able to, to do her case, not because. It was exactly what I wanted to do at that time for her, but it was the fastest way to get her better at that time. Because if you take that stimulus away from the immune system and then take some of the drivers away from inflammation from her gut, she'll do better quicker.
[00:22:52] So I did her case and a week later she had already lost 10 pounds
[00:22:56] Julie Michelson: Well, yeah.
[00:22:58] Robert Whitfield: because she just carrying around a bunch of [00:23:00] fluid cognitively. She was. Matter. So I think, you know, I having dealt with this enough and, and we had a nutritionist that was full-time prior to COVID and then because of COVID couldn't you know, be with us, we always did the same thing, not a Frank AIP diet, but I would just put people on a gluten free dairy, free diet and.
[00:23:24] Decrease the, the stimulus of inflammation in the GI tract, most of them are really important resolvers. Many of these folks you'll find out the history of Accutane use prolonged antibiotic use lots of reasons to have leaky gut. So it ends up being the most holistic way to get started with the process.
[00:23:43] Behaviors are very, very hard thing to change and listen to your plastic surgeon, probably recite things about diet is weird. So I think I'll let your audience know. I trained at Indiana university in Indiana university medical center is the hub of burn care for the state of Indiana. And [00:24:00] the burn units are ran by the plastic surgeons.
[00:24:02] So all of the quote, unquote calories and feedings are all ran by plastic surgeons. And I trained there in surgery as well. And the people I trained for trained with where some of the people involved with the development of Ivy nutrition. So. You know, part of my training to know exactly what to give people, how much protein to give somebody.
[00:24:25] And there's nobody mortgage calorie demanding than the burden of patient. So I treat, you know, each patient individually with some basic tenants, we need to decrease inflammation wherever possible and increase what I would would try to do as a, a non-inflammatory protein diet, as best as we can to see where we can get them to prevent.
[00:24:48] Basically a DEMA, which is what is the biggest driver after surgery of discomfort and, you know, overall, just getting rid of that feeling of, of, [00:25:00] of having had surgery.
[00:25:03] Julie Michelson: Which is, again, this is what makes you so unique and why I was so excited to talk to you today because as you've mentioned several times, and I say all the time, it's. One thing, right. You know, the implants and the gut and the other toxic and the again, who knows the, what the tipping point is. And I love that example of, you know, which drivers can you handle quickly?
[00:25:29] Like you said, like maybe in a different scenario, you wouldn't have done the surgery so quickly, but you knew getting that, that driver out. Getting the gut to be a little less inflamed was going to get her results quicker, which is amazing.
[00:25:44] Robert Whitfield: Yeah, she's pretty, I mean, I've seen over, you know, I've done over 500 X plants. It means I've seen probably 800 a thousand patients like this. They don't all come to me. They don't all, you know, buy into what I'm telling them. And, and I'm not [00:26:00] everybody's cup of tea. I'll be very blunt with you about what I think.
[00:26:03] And you know, if you want to keep your implants and still have those same symptoms, I've basically said I won't revise you. I mean, it's not practical. If you have those symptoms for me to go ahead and then put another device in you. So, you know, I stopped doing primary augmentations really quite a long time ago, and I never wanted to, to take care of.
[00:26:25] To be honest. I never wanted to put an implant in a young person outside of cancer patients to have to have them for the obvious reasons, because young people are ill-equipped to decision make about this. Does it matter how well you explain it?
[00:26:38] Julie Michelson: That's why I tell him to get married young. You just don't know what you don't know yet.
[00:26:44] Robert Whitfield: Right. Okay.
[00:26:46] Julie Michelson: you know, emotionally.
[00:26:47] Robert Whitfield: still, that's still happens.
[00:26:49] Number one person I take care of. It was in their mid to late thirties. I got these when their other twins.
[00:26:54] Julie Michelson: Yeah.
[00:26:55] Robert Whitfield: And so they're in between kids are done having kids or having [00:27:00] symptoms based on their last child, or, I mean, that is a very common problem that I have another group who are much, much older, who are really experiencing health issues and they don't know what's going on.
[00:27:14] They have zero idea and now. Opposites. Right. You have people taking care of young people because they're new moms. And then you have grandmothers who are having trouble functioning, basic, like.
[00:27:30] Julie Michelson: right. So I'm going to just, this is something I want to know. So I'm going to throw it at you and I can't wait to hear your opinion on it. Cause I, I kind of am thinking about. What you do as there's, you know, a growing field, at least it's bigger than what you're doing of, of biological dentistry, right?
[00:27:52] Like we all know that we have symptoms, oh, we have mercury fillings and we go, and we have a regular dentist, take them out. And now we've just increased our [00:28:00] exposure and, you know, a whole, whole nother story. And I'm, I'm kind of thinking of this the same way, because I'm thinking, gosh, there's gotta be, I can't even imagine how big the number is.
[00:28:10] But enough, a lot of women who somehow connected the dots, right. Or they weren't well, and they were with it enough to say like, Hey, I wonder if these implants could have been a problem. And they just went and had X plants done, but didn't necessarily get any bacterial things addressed. Right? No, no treatment of infection.
[00:28:32] What do you think? Or, or do you see them and do these women show up at your doorstep or. Or they just kind of lingering, maybe they're a little better, but not really better. What, what do you think about that? Like women listening that are like, wow, I had implants, I got them taken out, but I never did anything else.
[00:28:51] Now what.
[00:28:53] Robert Whitfield: Yeah. I mean, that's definitely a mixed bag. If they were in that category, we described where they just had implant removal and no [00:29:00] capsulectomy then they're definitely going to experience symptoms of some variety, but depending on their level of their body body's capability to manage that oxidative stress load, they may not have.
[00:29:11] And get symptomatic to the point where they want to be, or have to be seen. And then there's definitely going to be that group that either has. Symptoms or so much oxidative stress or something else, tips them that they're going to have symptoms and need to be seen and taken care of because that pocket, if it wasn't really dealt with, then they have contamination.
[00:29:33] Now the level of contamination is, is obviously different in every individual. I just know that just like we clean surfaces with a solution like bleach, you know, that has a really low PA. The best antibiotic in the world is the one that Seidel, which means it kills versus the one that just statically controls the level.
[00:29:54] So I use things that are cidal in the operating room. So when I leave the operating room, one of my patients has [00:30:00] done everything that was in that pocket is sterile. Now they still have things running around their body that I can't account for. I don't put anybody on systemic antibiotics afterwards because usually as you know, my patients have leaky gut already and giving them more antibiotics is not what they need.
[00:30:22] You're going to get more problems with refractory BV and candidiasis more gut problems. So I don't ever do that to women. That's just a stupid. Just non-scientific approach to a problem. So I think if you're a symptomatic and you had a cap select me it'd be a case by case basis that I have to look at their reports and go through them to see if there's a way that we could manage them.
[00:30:47] Non-operatively but just like the patient I told you about yesterday, I had to take them to the operating room. Cause there wasn't, they didn't have another choice then they're, they're going to be on a long road of recovery from so much oxidative stress. [00:31:00] For the past many, you know, over five years of having the cert three, that then didn't really solve the issue.
[00:31:06] And I'm anxious to see her reports come back so I can. I'm hopeful that it's very simple and I took care of it. There was contaminant there and it's gone. Now, if it was purely a stressor in the system is still a notice of inflammation, then that's gone, but then it's harder for me now I got to work backwards and see if there's.
[00:31:27] You know, glutathione metabolism deficit. If there's a methylation deficit, if those superoxide dismutase, you know, issue something else that I can help her with so that she can get on with their life.
[00:31:39] Julie Michelson: Gotcha. But so for some, some people there is perhaps a non-surgical approach. If they've already had an X plant.
[00:31:47] Robert Whitfield: Yeah, I definitely would try to do that. I wouldn't commit them to going back and then going through a procedure without reviewing the notes and making sure that symptomatically there weren't [00:32:00] other ways to, you know, drive change.
[00:32:02] Julie Michelson: Gotcha. Wonderful. So where do you see? I, I think what you're doing is which is why we're gonna broadcast this. I think it's the best kept secret. I think it is it's so beyond needed. I personally, because that's just how I am, you know, would love to see you training other docs and like really getting this out there.
[00:32:25] But where, what do you think are the future directions for.
[00:32:30] Robert Whitfield: I think what I would like to see is if, if we can get. Some mastery of behavior through genetic analysis and modification of diet by the client. And I can give some objective data about EEG through audio ebook response changes both pre and post. I feel like we'll have made some real headway that then as evidence grows and it's real evidence, it's not anecdotal, it's not written on [00:33:00] Google.
[00:33:00] It's not a Facebook post. I haven't published my series. I was president of the research foundation from 19 until 20 in the midst of, of COVID. And we were making progress and funding some research projects, but the scope, the scale that's needed is, is it's not ready for prime time. You're not going to have those answers.
[00:33:23] I feel like we just have to keep pushing and establishing, you know, that cause and effect because the tippy point is the thing that neither of us can understand basically in each patient is going to be different. I've I just want to eliminate. A clear like pathway or pathway to change and those symptoms where I know I can.
[00:33:51] So that's why I got all excited about performing our own EEG on patients with brain fog, because I feel like brain fog. When I first heard it [00:34:00] as a term, I'm like, what the hell is brain fog?
[00:34:02] Julie Michelson: Define that.
[00:34:03] Robert Whitfield: And I said, you know, thou, I will tell you that. That term was not taken well initially by clinicians because they didn't know what that meant.
[00:34:20] And I, I kept asking patients like, what do you mean by brain fog? What specific problem are you having? So I can't remember things and I'm like, well, we call that short-term memory loss. So basically for me to communicate with another colleague, I want you to pay attention to people having short-term memory loss.
[00:34:37] This is a potential issue, brain fog to a plastic surgeon who doesn't know anything about this. They don't know what that means. I mean, that's just, doesn't register with them. Like we're making huge assumptions that everybody's going to understand terms that they don't. So.
[00:34:57] Julie Michelson: Green funds something you don't understand unless you've [00:35:00] experienced it. And how is it different than just as a short-term memory problem, you know?
[00:35:06] Robert Whitfield: Right. And I didn't have any idea what people were talking about. And so that still bothers me, but I face it all the time. And when it's superimposed online or mold, it is so much worse. It is so much harder to deal with and understand from. The client's perspective, like what they're actually experiencing, because they cannot express it.
[00:35:28] And then they're very hard to communicate with and feel like you are getting across any messages and it's.
[00:35:36] Julie Michelson: Yeah, they're not processing well. Yeah.
[00:35:40] Robert Whitfield: Thinking I can't process it all. That's where I want to do the EEG. And then, you know, I want to show change and if there's not changed, then we definitely have to look deeper and see, is this a mold problem? Is this a lime problem? Is it all of the above? I mean, I don't want to send somebody out after doing a case and feeling [00:36:00] like I did everything right.
[00:36:01] And they still can't, you know, process their information. Remember their kids' names, you know, their spouse, or remember where they were the day before.
[00:36:10] Julie Michelson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and like you said, that leads to more than one driver. And so sometimes it's not just the one, I mean, all of the, all the things you just mentioned all can cause brain fog, right? So when you have all these layers of players that are, you know, creating one symptom, sometimes fixing one is not enough.
[00:36:30] Robert Whitfield: And that's the problem problems, you know, full disclosure, people have argued this and they're like, this is the same as Lyme. This is the same as, as mold Lyme more frequently because it's. The symptomology lines up. So conveniently with lime, there is like I mean, this is, sounds like Lyme disease to me.
[00:36:47] They, they sound like they all have live. I'm like, well, not every person I've taken care of over the last 500 has Lyme disease. Now I don't have a Western blot or another PCR done on them to prove that. But I mean, I guess I can, I can [00:37:00] start doing that, so.
[00:37:01] Julie Michelson: No,
[00:37:02] Robert Whitfield: Okay.
[00:37:03] Julie Michelson: no, it makes, it makes perfect sense. And this is why you, you go after what you can. And like you said, you, you keep. You're not just sending people out the door and you are looking for these improvements and these changes. And I just think what you are doing is so vastly needed and so important.
[00:37:24] What is one? My question I ask everybody is, you know, what's one step. Listeners can take today to start to improve their health. So you can you feel that one, however you want, whether it's people with implants, people that D doesn't matter, however you want to answer that what's one thing people can do today to start to move their needle.
[00:37:46] Robert Whitfield: I think if you have implants and you're following. Into this kind of line of symptoms that we discussed, there's going to be an assessment tool online that we'll have shortly and you can [00:38:00] visit our website or contact us and we'll get you connected with it. But it's really just, if you run through the symptoms, like we just discussed.
[00:38:09] And you're like 10 for 10. You probably should give me a call. And I can help you if in fact you have implant sent. Now, if in fact you don't have implants and you have all the symptoms we discussed, then I would definitely be looking at Lima, you know, Lyme exposures toxic mold exposure. And I've seen like so much superimpose mint of that here in Texas.
[00:38:32] It's it's startling how common it is.
[00:38:35] Julie Michelson: Yeah, and I, and I would say from my practice as well, again, it's never just one thing.
[00:38:40] Robert Whitfield: All right.
[00:38:41] Julie Michelson: finding the thing that is going to tip the scales towards healing.
[00:38:45] Robert Whitfield: And it definitely affects women. So very startling. How, like I've gotten into just managing. I feel like I have to micromanage everything now. So I do our own hormone assessments [00:39:00] because so many perimenopausal and post-menopausal women have. Symptoms that you can not mistake, but align with implant illness.
[00:39:10] So in terms of recovery, for instance, if I have somebody who's Perrier post-menopausal and the number one thing is fatigue, and the other things aren't lining up as much. So I'm like, okay, we'll just go ahead and have the brain. And we're going to do all your blood work, including our sex hormones and your thyroid function and your FSH, your aisle six and your history.
[00:39:31] I'm just going to make sure that I've looked at all this stuff. Then we found a lady who was horribly anemic because she was having heavy, heavy menses period because she was becoming. Menopausal and that it's either, or right. You can have infrequent periods or they get worse and worse and worse and worse.
[00:39:50] So I had to go and send her to get Injectafer or iron and iron infusions, because she would be unsafe to be operated on because of anemia. I [00:40:00] would have, I would have superimposed a new problem for her. You know, I don't lose a lot of blood, but just going through surgeries and stressful experience enough.
[00:40:08] So. I I feel, oh yeah. Oh, and so the other thing is women need about, we'll say one 16th of testosterone of a male. If they don't have it, the recoveries are so much more prolonged. They have a DEMA for a longer period of time. They can't rebuild the re retain muscle mass. I mean, all of these things line up to create huge problems.
[00:40:31] Julie Michelson: In that group, you just mentioned, you know, people think estrogen or, you know, but so many peri-menopausal men and post menopausal women are really low in testosterone if they have barely any. So it's, it's really important. And again, that goes back to the word holistic
[00:40:48] Robert Whitfield: I've found it's a huge driver. If you take care of their nutrition and balance their hormones, you've, you've not got half the battle won, but you're on your way to a much more positive recovery experience. And that we're [00:41:00] just trying to take the variance out of the recovery. And so I know it seems probably like a lot when people are like, oh God, he wants to like check all my hormones and look at my blood work and do this supplement and that supplement.
[00:41:13] But there's a reason, you know, I, I do that. People come back afterwards and they're like, when do I stop taking the supplements and stopped doing the hormone therapy? And I asked him like, are you feeling. Good or better than you felt in a long time. Yeah. And I was like, well, I would probably just continue taking those things because this is how you should feel.
[00:41:33] You should have an energy level where you can function at work and you're with your family and you can be communicative. You're not losing your hair. You have a libido you're, you're not puffy and swollen. So your diets, right? I mean, those are all things that should be benefit.
[00:41:50] Julie Michelson: Absolutely. Absolutely. So to circle back to the one thing because we now there's so many more than one but what, what is. Some things, you [00:42:00] know, someone can do, obviously we we've got the, you know, you've identified the people that would greatly benefit from reaching out. You said you're going to have an assessment soon up on your website.
[00:42:12] Robert Whitfield: yeah, so we're going to have a an assessment tool is going to be on. Basically X plant website that we're going to start and it's going to be, it's going to have videos about what I feel is important to look at in terms of basically many things we've discussed, but just going through the symptoms, like we've talked about the top 10 things and what I see that are missed by both allopathic and functional medicine practitioners that relate to breast implant illness, or superimposed low mold or Lyme disease.
[00:42:44] Julie Michelson: Awesome. I love it. So for those that are listening on audio, before we wrap up, where can listeners find where's the best place to find? You we'll have the links in the notes, but somebody is just listening and they're like, wow, this guy is amazing. Where should they go?
[00:42:59] Robert Whitfield: [00:43:00] Well, it's a little complicated, cause I have a long last name, but go to drrobertwhitfield.com and we have a little chat function. If you want to start a chat with my team, it's actually not a bot. It's my, my team. And you'll get to communicate with them and to help you. I'm happy to reach out to folks.
[00:43:16] We do virtual consultation, so you don't have to leave your comfortable east coast or west coast home to visit me. I'll come back. then you can follow me on Instagram. We do a lot of posts and then Facebook and tech talk. And I have a podcast, holistic and scientific.
[00:43:33] Julie Michelson: I love it. Thank you so much, Dr. Rob, you have shared such a big old pile of gold with us today. Appreciate you being here.
[00:43:43] Robert Whitfield: Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
[00:43:45] Julie Michelson: For everyone listening. Remember you can get the show notes and transcripts by visiting inspired living.shell. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did.
[00:43:56] I'll see you next week.
[00:00:58] And Dr. Rob [00:01:00] shares with us, his knowledge about the proper approach to explantation that addresses these underlying complications and how he's using his holistic approach to get remarkable results for his patients.
[00:01:13] Dr. Rob, welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:17] Robert Whitfield: Thank you for having me.
[00:01:18] Julie Michelson: I am so excited. You're here. We're going to talk about something that is so important, especially in the autoimmune world or chronic illness world that nobody is talking about. So, one thing I ask everybody in the beginning is, you know, how did you get to be doing what you're doing?
[00:01:38] I think your story is going to be different. A lot of us it's because of our own health journey. But you know, how do you go. From, and you are still a phenomenal plastic surgeon. How do you all of a sudden become this expert in breast implant illness?
[00:01:54] Robert Whitfield: I think you had started early on you. Shaped by our experiences. And I was in medical school, I think [00:02:00] for about two weeks, my sister called me and she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and I was a little brother. I was in medical school. So by. You just by the fact that I was there and in medical school, I should know what's going on and how to take care of her.
[00:02:13] And I was like, oh my God. So fortunately, our professor who was teaching us that they in I think he was a biochemistry lecture. Anyway, he was an oncology. They had clinicians come and fortunately I have to class, I, you know, I was just like, Hey, can you help me out here? And he was wonderful and actually connected a colleague with my sister who ended up taking care of her.
[00:02:38] And ultimately she underwent chemotherapy. She had mastectomy, she had reconstruction with. And my friend and mentor took care of her. And you know, about my third or fourth year of medical school, I was deciding what I was going to do. I was very interested in cardiac surgery. I didn't want to be a plastic surgeon.
[00:02:57] So I worked with, at [00:03:00] that point, one of the best plastic surgeons in the United States stuck to William Simponi. And he couldn't convince me either. I was going to be a heart surgeon, many surgeons are stubborn. So I went to train and about my third, fourth year of training out of nine. I decided a candy heart surgery, and ultimately went back and finished my surgical training and then two years of plastic surgery training.
[00:03:21] And then I spent a year just with Dr. Zamboni doing cosmetics and oncology training in microsurgery basically. So my background is complex reconstruction and aesthetic surgery. And so. For the longest period of time, I performed a very specific form of breast reconstruction called the deep plow. It's taking the abdominal tissue.
[00:03:38] That's discarded from a tummy tuck, leaving it connects to its blood vessels, and then connected to the blood supply that the heart surgeons used to revascularize the heart up in the chest after mastectomies. So I've had a long standing history with breast cancer patients, implant problems placement of implants, removals, revisions.
[00:03:57] And because of that reputation I had nationally [00:04:00] people would look me up and get consultations regarding their breast reconstructions, either for revisions or improvements or complete replacements with a deep flap. And the patient from Georgia had relocated to Austin to To retire had looked me up on the internet and requested a consultation regarding her implant-based reconstruction.
[00:04:21] And I saw her and I never know obviously what the patients ultimately going to want, and she didn't want to revision Jen. She didn't want a deep flap reconstruction or a autologous reconstruction is what we referred to it. She just wanted to get rid of the older reconstruction. And from time to time, I had faced.
[00:04:38] In my career and it's not for me to decide whether or not somebody should keep their breast reconstruction. If, if that's no longer the desire, then you know, my goal was to help facilitate the request and safe as possible banner. And she had one overwhelming symptom and I'll get that after like nothing on physical exam.[00:05:00]
[00:05:00] I mean zero problems, soft breast reconstruction after a long period of time, which is uncommon, no laboratory abnormalities at all whatsoever. She had a cardiac condition that required her to be taken care of at a hospital monitored overnight, because that was a request of her physician. And so her number one thing was he was fatigued
[00:05:23] Julie Michelson: Hmm.
[00:05:24] Robert Whitfield: and she had a fistful of.
[00:05:27] At this point, what I referred to as heavy, heavy metal testing. And, you know, I'm, I'm an allopathic physician trained in oncology and cosmetics. I don't know anything about heavy metal testing. And I was just like, I don't know what to do with this right now, but I'll look at it. And I looked at it and I mean, of course she had high levels of kind of everything.
[00:05:48] So I didn't know what to make of that. And so, yeah, I was like, I don't know, you know, this is circa.
[00:05:54] Julie Michelson: this have to do with your breasts?
[00:05:56] Robert Whitfield: 2016. And I was like, I don't know, what, what do [00:06:00] you want me to do with this? So I got her set up and took care of her at a hospital and per protocol that I've done for, you know, the entire time I did oncologic reconstruction was when I was taking a reconstruction down.
[00:06:12] Out is of course we would send specimens. Now she did request that I do it in black capsulectomy if the audience should be familiar with that, it's like taking everything out, like an unbroken Easter egg. So the scar surrounding the implant is taken out. It's not disturbed. It's like an oncology section for tumor.
[00:06:28] And so she requested this, which was an odd request. But because I did mostly oncology reconstruction, it wasn't unusual for me to, to understand or to perform. So I did it in the manner in which she requested and. At the end, I always take samples and send those off for both microbial microbial analysis and make sure there's no bacteria or fungus or microbacterium.
[00:06:49] And then we send everything off to make sure there's never recurrent cancer. Obviously we want to make sure the patient has ever occurrence that's undiagnosed as yet. And at that point I put a drain [00:07:00] tube in, which was pretty stable. For her and that issue and she stayed overnight, went home the next day, I was fine.
[00:07:07] Started a week about three or four days before her follow-up appointment. We got her labs back from the hospital, CLIA based lab for everybody in the audience, doesn't understand clear based labs need a hundred thousand colony counts of bacteria to give a positive. And hers was positive for. So for a hospital lab to pick that up on it on a swab, my new, I just did swabs back then.
[00:07:31] They're not quantitative, not DNA analysis. That was a big deal. And so this lady unfortunately had been wandering around poor thing with a e-coli infection for, I don't know how long now people have asked me how to get Ecolab. I mean, So, if you have an implant hip, knee, breast dental, I don't care what it is.
[00:07:52] If you get an exposure, if you step on a splinter and it has staff or whatever, or [00:08:00] you're walking barefoot around and get some stuck in your foot or a few dig into something, you get a cut, or if you get a colonoscopy or if you get a tooth cleaning and bacteria gets through your bloodstream, it can easily go to any implanted device.
[00:08:12] That's a foreign body, your body can't surveil that. I wasn't so concerned about how she got it. I was just more apprehensive about why I missed it completely. I felt like as a clinician, I think I know what's going on. Only signs symptom. I reviewed all this stuff. I made sure I went back and looked at everything and her only symptom was fatigue.
[00:08:34] It wasn't brain fog. It wasn't
[00:08:36] Julie Michelson: When not, yeah, that's wild.
[00:08:40] Robert Whitfield: So. Anyway, I treated her with an oral antibiotic, cause I didn't know what else to do. And I had sensitivities based on the laboratory results. So I treated her and she got better. Fatigue went away, basically had a month. She was, I guess, as normal. She had been in years [00:09:00] happy, you know?
[00:09:01] And I presume it was her that put me on some forum or mentioned me somewhere. And then people started trickling in wanting, you know, wanting X plans and to make the long story short is clear based lab is completely inferior when you're trying to identify this. So I switched to PCR testing in 2019, and I have over 400 consecutive samples of capsules from patients with you know, the complaint and they're predominantly going to have a.
[00:09:32] And the 60% is range, but bacterial contaminant, it's not fungus. It's not mold, it's not the nonsense written on the internet. In reality, the most predominant species is QD bacteria, Agnes, but just in general, what's the skin flora. I mean, I don't need to make it any more complicated, but I've found some really exotic, weird things as well in triathletes, Spartan racers, because if you get your hand punctured or if you get your foot.[00:10:00]
[00:10:07] Julie Michelson: Ah, You froze for a minute. Let's circle back. You were talking about some of those triathletes having a kind of more bizarre infection.
[00:10:22] Robert Whitfield: Right. So. I've been doing these PCR tests for quite a while. And that common bacteria is QT Katy bacteria, Agnes, but you can get more stranger spurious results in, in patients who have, you know, different environmental exposures, like a triathlete who swims a lot in a lake and then gets out and runs barefoot on the ground or somebody who does Spartan racing and digs around.
[00:10:45] And. Mud with their hands. So if you think about it, there's more than plausible explanations environmentally to get these exposures much like you do when you see somebody without toxic mold exposure in their home. So I thought, oh, you know, I'm onto something [00:11:00] here. This makes a lot more sense. So in terms of problem solving, you know, just like a complex reconstruction problem for oncology, I thought this testing problem, we, you know, really solved the majority of this.
[00:11:11] So I was like, okay, I'm just going to do these PCR tasks. I'm going to check this box and everything's going to be fine. But in about, you know, 30% of the patients, you don't ever find anything and they still get better. So in those patients, I commonly would say, look, I don't understand what the genetic predisposition is that you have.
[00:11:31] I presume you have a single nucleotide polymorphism, or what we call to a snip somewhere in your system. COMT FET as sod to, I don't know where it is, but I presume you have it and you're going to get better. I don't know when it may take three months, it may take nine months. It may take a year and a half.
[00:11:51] I don't know. And so I think now that we're further along the road with both DNA testing and using AI to [00:12:00] evaluate it, that we can confidently say that defects in superoxide dismutase. Defects in Lutheran metabolism and defects in your methylation pathways represent, you know, probably another 20% of that equation.
[00:12:15] So now I feel like we're, we're definitely closing the gap on what was a, a huge, you know, open loop to me for a long time. And you know, I still brain fog baffles me. So I added an EEG platform to my And, you know, care plan. So anybody who complains a brain fog, we do an EEG preop and then repeat it three months out.
[00:12:33] And, you know, hopefully we'll work backwards and supplement them and get their brain function you know, improved so that they can interact, you know, with their family and friends and loved ones.
[00:12:44] Julie Michelson: I love that. So I want to circle back to. Why I have you on the show, right? This is an auto-immune focused show. So some people may not directly be connecting the dots that you and I have already. Well-connected. I want you to [00:13:00] repeat the statistic again about, you know, with the X plants you've you're doing.
[00:13:06] 60% have a bacterial infection, but that's a, that's a tremendous number. And I want people to understand this connection of, you know, we always talk about root causes and things that are driving inflammation. And,
[00:13:20] Robert Whitfield: Right.
[00:13:21] Julie Michelson: so
[00:13:23] Robert Whitfield: So that was the thing. When, when I started finding those. I felt very validated what I was doing because I was taking a lot of heat for doing this. And I think, you know, just because you can't see it, smell it, taste it, it doesn't mean it's not a problem. And DNA testing, you know, was pivotal in this, just like it is for COVID.
[00:13:43] Now either you have COVID or you don't have COVID on PCR testing. Sarah, when I can scientifically explain a driver of an immune response, And the patient can then say, oh, okay, well that makes sense. And you know, the, the oxidative [00:14:00] stress created by having the device in coupled to infection. Tips people over.
[00:14:05] So maybe they were handling their oxidative stress and their life stress to a certain degree. But then what event, what environmental exposure happened to make that tip where they can no longer manage their oxidative stress. And if that's partly due to their genetic predisposition, then the auto immune response is rubbed up even more and more and more.
[00:14:24] And they, they never really recovered. It's just a hamster in a wheel.
[00:14:28] Julie Michelson: Sure. Sure. I want to talk a little bit about you. You mentioned fatigue. You mentioned brain fog as. Symptoms people usually show up experiencing. What else, what else are you seeing that overtime gets better after X plant?
[00:14:45] Robert Whitfield: Lots of problems with anxiety and depression. Lots of problems. I mean, 96% of my clients are female digestive. Is huge problems hair loss, but the fatigue, the muscle [00:15:00] joint pain, all those things are, as you know, there's a lot of things that could be responsible for these, you know, issues. They, they overlap with quite a few other issues.
[00:15:13] Julie Michelson: You mentioned the scale tipping point, right? It's we can only handle so much and everybody's level is different as far as, you know, how many, how many different insults can the body handle?
[00:15:27] Robert Whitfield: Correct.
[00:15:28] Julie Michelson: Yeah, that it's, it's amazing. So for the, I'm guessing by the time people find you women find you they've already said, oh, I think I may have this thing, breast implant illness, right?
[00:15:42] Like ha.
[00:15:43] Robert Whitfield: It isn't unusual, still not, not defined pathway. Right? Cause this, the, the general allopathic, medical community barely recognizes this. If at all, recognize that. And I testified about it at the FDA hearings in 2019, but. That hasn't [00:16:00] filtered down the plastic surgery. Societies recognize it's an issue, but on a whole, I don't think there's enough as you would imagine data.
[00:16:10] And then in terms of by grassroots, you know, boots on the ground, providers barely any of them would even consider this to be a problem. It's usually upon the client to figure out that this could be. An issue or they've seen a functional medicine provider who is familiar potentially or natural path who's familiar.
[00:16:36] It's still I've S I've got people after they've had every test, every workup known demand on, and they show up, in fact that a patient yesterday, he had had an X plant five years ago, or a little bit longer done through the incision underneath the area. If you follow, so a Perry areola incision. So just for your audience to know it is [00:17:00] absolutely impossible to do it in block capsulectomy through a Perry areola incision, and the moment I see that and hear the story, and there's still something.
[00:17:09] It's really got to be taken to the operating room and opened and done. And in a, in block or total capsulectomy manner, that way, depending on how much shrinkage of the capsule. It has happened over top of mine. I've had people that have had no shrinkage and I can put a temporary implant and acts as a you know, the, the egg, if you will.
[00:17:32] So I can work around it in a 360 manner or yesterday I could not, because it had shrunk down so much. It wouldn't even accommodate the smallest expander we had. So I just had to take it out as a total capsulectomy, but, you know, once you take all that out and then we have. Ways to sterilize the pocket with a couple of different solutions and some pH related to solutions and then drying them.
[00:17:54] I I'm confident she's going to get better from a you know, a microbial [00:18:00] standpoint that that's all that's gone. That's done that after yesterday. She, she will be fine. Now,
[00:18:05] Julie Michelson: No she'll heal.
[00:18:06] Robert Whitfield: everything else is the purview of basically you, because I have a lot of trouble. Closing that loop with these, these folks are they go back to where they came from?
[00:18:19] Cause prior to COVID about 60% of my clients self flew in and after, you know, COVID or were still in COVID I guess it's more of a regional, but I am getting some more people to come and travel.
[00:18:31] Julie Michelson: Sure. A couple things I want to, I want to touch on. I want to really dumb it down for us as far as, because I want to drive this home for people. So they understand the different approach. You are not simply removing an implant, which is what the patient who saw you yesterday had done. Why she's still sick, right?
[00:18:52] So you are making sure that you're getting that in a whole encapsulation. It's not just pulling the device.[00:19:00]
[00:19:01] Robert Whitfield: Right. I always tell everybody, they think of the little Easter egg at Easter with the candy inside. So the implant is the candy inside and the shell is the actual capsule. And so if you take that capsule out with the candy inside undisturbed, that's an end block. Capsulectomy everything else is considered a capsule.
[00:19:20] And if you simply open the Easter egg and take the candy, get out, that's just wasting the patient's time and money because it's not going to do anything. If they're suffering from those symptoms. Based on my series with PCR analysis, I know that over half of those are going to be infected. So you're just leaving infected material.
[00:19:35] Julie Michelson: Thank you. I just wanted to circle back to that. I, I know enough about your practice to know that you take an approach that makes me. Happy dance with your patients, which I think is kind of what you were alluding to. As far as people get on a plane, they go home, they return to so you, you take a very holistic, as it says right next to you, holistic and scientific plastic [00:20:00] surgery approach.
[00:20:01] So this is not just, I show up, you know, Dr. Rob fixed me and I go home back to my life. You are, you put patients on specific diets. You're, you're treating the whole person for healing. Tell us a little bit about somebody comes to you and you know, they, they, they want the surgery. What, or what kind of lifestyle changes are you having them make even.
[00:20:29] Robert Whitfield: Yeah along the lines of what you do and what you're following would probably appreciate is I had a lady a little east of Austin show up whose eyes were swollen shut, and you could just see how adenomatous us. He was just inflamed and I would speak to her and. It's not very communicative. Her husband was with her.
[00:20:53] And you could tell that she could hear what I was saying, and she just couldn't process it very [00:21:00] well. So I said, where do you all live? And she says, oh, we live in the country. Okay. And. So I'm already thinking she has a mold exposure and whatever old ranch style home, she lives in the country. And I said, have y'all been doing anything?
[00:21:16] She was like, oh yeah, we laid a bunch of sod. Recently took us like two months to do it. We had so much to that. So, you know what sod does after it rains and lays around outside. So she just looked like somebody who had a toxic mold exposure. In addition, she had implants that were greater than 10 years old.
[00:21:37] She had fatigue. She had weight gain, she had joint pain. She had hair loss, she had dry eyes. She had dry mouth, she had acid reflux. She had digestive problems, everything she ate made her blow up. And so, you know, this is like, unfortunately, the, the appearance of. Mold superimposed on [00:22:00] BII. She didn't have, or couldn't relate a history of, you know, Frank Lyme disease, but she lives out in the country.
[00:22:06] It easily could be part of the equation. And I told her husband and her I'm like, and they had went to all sorts of doctors and everything and had MRIs and cat scans. And I said, wait, you know, this is what I want you to do. I want. Start a gluten-free dairy-free diet. We explained that to them and I tell them, I want them to try to shoot for a hundred grams of protein a day, which is, which is hard to do.
[00:22:28] And you know, we got her on the schedule, you know, relatively soon and we were able to, to do her case, not because. It was exactly what I wanted to do at that time for her, but it was the fastest way to get her better at that time. Because if you take that stimulus away from the immune system and then take some of the drivers away from inflammation from her gut, she'll do better quicker.
[00:22:52] So I did her case and a week later she had already lost 10 pounds
[00:22:56] Julie Michelson: Well, yeah.
[00:22:58] Robert Whitfield: because she just carrying around a bunch of [00:23:00] fluid cognitively. She was. Matter. So I think, you know, I having dealt with this enough and, and we had a nutritionist that was full-time prior to COVID and then because of COVID couldn't you know, be with us, we always did the same thing, not a Frank AIP diet, but I would just put people on a gluten free dairy, free diet and.
[00:23:24] Decrease the, the stimulus of inflammation in the GI tract, most of them are really important resolvers. Many of these folks you'll find out the history of Accutane use prolonged antibiotic use lots of reasons to have leaky gut. So it ends up being the most holistic way to get started with the process.
[00:23:43] Behaviors are very, very hard thing to change and listen to your plastic surgeon, probably recite things about diet is weird. So I think I'll let your audience know. I trained at Indiana university in Indiana university medical center is the hub of burn care for the state of Indiana. And [00:24:00] the burn units are ran by the plastic surgeons.
[00:24:02] So all of the quote, unquote calories and feedings are all ran by plastic surgeons. And I trained there in surgery as well. And the people I trained for trained with where some of the people involved with the development of Ivy nutrition. So. You know, part of my training to know exactly what to give people, how much protein to give somebody.
[00:24:25] And there's nobody mortgage calorie demanding than the burden of patient. So I treat, you know, each patient individually with some basic tenants, we need to decrease inflammation wherever possible and increase what I would would try to do as a, a non-inflammatory protein diet, as best as we can to see where we can get them to prevent.
[00:24:48] Basically a DEMA, which is what is the biggest driver after surgery of discomfort and, you know, overall, just getting rid of that feeling of, of, [00:25:00] of having had surgery.
[00:25:03] Julie Michelson: Which is, again, this is what makes you so unique and why I was so excited to talk to you today because as you've mentioned several times, and I say all the time, it's. One thing, right. You know, the implants and the gut and the other toxic and the again, who knows the, what the tipping point is. And I love that example of, you know, which drivers can you handle quickly?
[00:25:29] Like you said, like maybe in a different scenario, you wouldn't have done the surgery so quickly, but you knew getting that, that driver out. Getting the gut to be a little less inflamed was going to get her results quicker, which is amazing.
[00:25:44] Robert Whitfield: Yeah, she's pretty, I mean, I've seen over, you know, I've done over 500 X plants. It means I've seen probably 800 a thousand patients like this. They don't all come to me. They don't all, you know, buy into what I'm telling them. And, and I'm not [00:26:00] everybody's cup of tea. I'll be very blunt with you about what I think.
[00:26:03] And you know, if you want to keep your implants and still have those same symptoms, I've basically said I won't revise you. I mean, it's not practical. If you have those symptoms for me to go ahead and then put another device in you. So, you know, I stopped doing primary augmentations really quite a long time ago, and I never wanted to, to take care of.
[00:26:25] To be honest. I never wanted to put an implant in a young person outside of cancer patients to have to have them for the obvious reasons, because young people are ill-equipped to decision make about this. Does it matter how well you explain it?
[00:26:38] Julie Michelson: That's why I tell him to get married young. You just don't know what you don't know yet.
[00:26:44] Robert Whitfield: Right. Okay.
[00:26:46] Julie Michelson: you know, emotionally.
[00:26:47] Robert Whitfield: still, that's still happens.
[00:26:49] Number one person I take care of. It was in their mid to late thirties. I got these when their other twins.
[00:26:54] Julie Michelson: Yeah.
[00:26:55] Robert Whitfield: And so they're in between kids are done having kids or having [00:27:00] symptoms based on their last child, or, I mean, that is a very common problem that I have another group who are much, much older, who are really experiencing health issues and they don't know what's going on.
[00:27:14] They have zero idea and now. Opposites. Right. You have people taking care of young people because they're new moms. And then you have grandmothers who are having trouble functioning, basic, like.
[00:27:30] Julie Michelson: right. So I'm going to just, this is something I want to know. So I'm going to throw it at you and I can't wait to hear your opinion on it. Cause I, I kind of am thinking about. What you do as there's, you know, a growing field, at least it's bigger than what you're doing of, of biological dentistry, right?
[00:27:52] Like we all know that we have symptoms, oh, we have mercury fillings and we go, and we have a regular dentist, take them out. And now we've just increased our [00:28:00] exposure and, you know, a whole, whole nother story. And I'm, I'm kind of thinking of this the same way, because I'm thinking, gosh, there's gotta be, I can't even imagine how big the number is.
[00:28:10] But enough, a lot of women who somehow connected the dots, right. Or they weren't well, and they were with it enough to say like, Hey, I wonder if these implants could have been a problem. And they just went and had X plants done, but didn't necessarily get any bacterial things addressed. Right? No, no treatment of infection.
[00:28:32] What do you think? Or, or do you see them and do these women show up at your doorstep or. Or they just kind of lingering, maybe they're a little better, but not really better. What, what do you think about that? Like women listening that are like, wow, I had implants, I got them taken out, but I never did anything else.
[00:28:51] Now what.
[00:28:53] Robert Whitfield: Yeah. I mean, that's definitely a mixed bag. If they were in that category, we described where they just had implant removal and no [00:29:00] capsulectomy then they're definitely going to experience symptoms of some variety, but depending on their level of their body body's capability to manage that oxidative stress load, they may not have.
[00:29:11] And get symptomatic to the point where they want to be, or have to be seen. And then there's definitely going to be that group that either has. Symptoms or so much oxidative stress or something else, tips them that they're going to have symptoms and need to be seen and taken care of because that pocket, if it wasn't really dealt with, then they have contamination.
[00:29:33] Now the level of contamination is, is obviously different in every individual. I just know that just like we clean surfaces with a solution like bleach, you know, that has a really low PA. The best antibiotic in the world is the one that Seidel, which means it kills versus the one that just statically controls the level.
[00:29:54] So I use things that are cidal in the operating room. So when I leave the operating room, one of my patients has [00:30:00] done everything that was in that pocket is sterile. Now they still have things running around their body that I can't account for. I don't put anybody on systemic antibiotics afterwards because usually as you know, my patients have leaky gut already and giving them more antibiotics is not what they need.
[00:30:22] You're going to get more problems with refractory BV and candidiasis more gut problems. So I don't ever do that to women. That's just a stupid. Just non-scientific approach to a problem. So I think if you're a symptomatic and you had a cap select me it'd be a case by case basis that I have to look at their reports and go through them to see if there's a way that we could manage them.
[00:30:47] Non-operatively but just like the patient I told you about yesterday, I had to take them to the operating room. Cause there wasn't, they didn't have another choice then they're, they're going to be on a long road of recovery from so much oxidative stress. [00:31:00] For the past many, you know, over five years of having the cert three, that then didn't really solve the issue.
[00:31:06] And I'm anxious to see her reports come back so I can. I'm hopeful that it's very simple and I took care of it. There was contaminant there and it's gone. Now, if it was purely a stressor in the system is still a notice of inflammation, then that's gone, but then it's harder for me now I got to work backwards and see if there's.
[00:31:27] You know, glutathione metabolism deficit. If there's a methylation deficit, if those superoxide dismutase, you know, issue something else that I can help her with so that she can get on with their life.
[00:31:39] Julie Michelson: Gotcha. But so for some, some people there is perhaps a non-surgical approach. If they've already had an X plant.
[00:31:47] Robert Whitfield: Yeah, I definitely would try to do that. I wouldn't commit them to going back and then going through a procedure without reviewing the notes and making sure that symptomatically there weren't [00:32:00] other ways to, you know, drive change.
[00:32:02] Julie Michelson: Gotcha. Wonderful. So where do you see? I, I think what you're doing is which is why we're gonna broadcast this. I think it's the best kept secret. I think it is it's so beyond needed. I personally, because that's just how I am, you know, would love to see you training other docs and like really getting this out there.
[00:32:25] But where, what do you think are the future directions for.
[00:32:30] Robert Whitfield: I think what I would like to see is if, if we can get. Some mastery of behavior through genetic analysis and modification of diet by the client. And I can give some objective data about EEG through audio ebook response changes both pre and post. I feel like we'll have made some real headway that then as evidence grows and it's real evidence, it's not anecdotal, it's not written on [00:33:00] Google.
[00:33:00] It's not a Facebook post. I haven't published my series. I was president of the research foundation from 19 until 20 in the midst of, of COVID. And we were making progress and funding some research projects, but the scope, the scale that's needed is, is it's not ready for prime time. You're not going to have those answers.
[00:33:23] I feel like we just have to keep pushing and establishing, you know, that cause and effect because the tippy point is the thing that neither of us can understand basically in each patient is going to be different. I've I just want to eliminate. A clear like pathway or pathway to change and those symptoms where I know I can.
[00:33:51] So that's why I got all excited about performing our own EEG on patients with brain fog, because I feel like brain fog. When I first heard it [00:34:00] as a term, I'm like, what the hell is brain fog?
[00:34:02] Julie Michelson: Define that.
[00:34:03] Robert Whitfield: And I said, you know, thou, I will tell you that. That term was not taken well initially by clinicians because they didn't know what that meant.
[00:34:20] And I, I kept asking patients like, what do you mean by brain fog? What specific problem are you having? So I can't remember things and I'm like, well, we call that short-term memory loss. So basically for me to communicate with another colleague, I want you to pay attention to people having short-term memory loss.
[00:34:37] This is a potential issue, brain fog to a plastic surgeon who doesn't know anything about this. They don't know what that means. I mean, that's just, doesn't register with them. Like we're making huge assumptions that everybody's going to understand terms that they don't. So.
[00:34:57] Julie Michelson: Green funds something you don't understand unless you've [00:35:00] experienced it. And how is it different than just as a short-term memory problem, you know?
[00:35:06] Robert Whitfield: Right. And I didn't have any idea what people were talking about. And so that still bothers me, but I face it all the time. And when it's superimposed online or mold, it is so much worse. It is so much harder to deal with and understand from. The client's perspective, like what they're actually experiencing, because they cannot express it.
[00:35:28] And then they're very hard to communicate with and feel like you are getting across any messages and it's.
[00:35:36] Julie Michelson: Yeah, they're not processing well. Yeah.
[00:35:40] Robert Whitfield: Thinking I can't process it all. That's where I want to do the EEG. And then, you know, I want to show change and if there's not changed, then we definitely have to look deeper and see, is this a mold problem? Is this a lime problem? Is it all of the above? I mean, I don't want to send somebody out after doing a case and feeling [00:36:00] like I did everything right.
[00:36:01] And they still can't, you know, process their information. Remember their kids' names, you know, their spouse, or remember where they were the day before.
[00:36:10] Julie Michelson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and like you said, that leads to more than one driver. And so sometimes it's not just the one, I mean, all of the, all the things you just mentioned all can cause brain fog, right? So when you have all these layers of players that are, you know, creating one symptom, sometimes fixing one is not enough.
[00:36:30] Robert Whitfield: And that's the problem problems, you know, full disclosure, people have argued this and they're like, this is the same as Lyme. This is the same as, as mold Lyme more frequently because it's. The symptomology lines up. So conveniently with lime, there is like I mean, this is, sounds like Lyme disease to me.
[00:36:47] They, they sound like they all have live. I'm like, well, not every person I've taken care of over the last 500 has Lyme disease. Now I don't have a Western blot or another PCR done on them to prove that. But I mean, I guess I can, I can [00:37:00] start doing that, so.
[00:37:01] Julie Michelson: No,
[00:37:02] Robert Whitfield: Okay.
[00:37:03] Julie Michelson: no, it makes, it makes perfect sense. And this is why you, you go after what you can. And like you said, you, you keep. You're not just sending people out the door and you are looking for these improvements and these changes. And I just think what you are doing is so vastly needed and so important.
[00:37:24] What is one? My question I ask everybody is, you know, what's one step. Listeners can take today to start to improve their health. So you can you feel that one, however you want, whether it's people with implants, people that D doesn't matter, however you want to answer that what's one thing people can do today to start to move their needle.
[00:37:46] Robert Whitfield: I think if you have implants and you're following. Into this kind of line of symptoms that we discussed, there's going to be an assessment tool online that we'll have shortly and you can [00:38:00] visit our website or contact us and we'll get you connected with it. But it's really just, if you run through the symptoms, like we just discussed.
[00:38:09] And you're like 10 for 10. You probably should give me a call. And I can help you if in fact you have implant sent. Now, if in fact you don't have implants and you have all the symptoms we discussed, then I would definitely be looking at Lima, you know, Lyme exposures toxic mold exposure. And I've seen like so much superimpose mint of that here in Texas.
[00:38:32] It's it's startling how common it is.
[00:38:35] Julie Michelson: Yeah, and I, and I would say from my practice as well, again, it's never just one thing.
[00:38:40] Robert Whitfield: All right.
[00:38:41] Julie Michelson: finding the thing that is going to tip the scales towards healing.
[00:38:45] Robert Whitfield: And it definitely affects women. So very startling. How, like I've gotten into just managing. I feel like I have to micromanage everything now. So I do our own hormone assessments [00:39:00] because so many perimenopausal and post-menopausal women have. Symptoms that you can not mistake, but align with implant illness.
[00:39:10] So in terms of recovery, for instance, if I have somebody who's Perrier post-menopausal and the number one thing is fatigue, and the other things aren't lining up as much. So I'm like, okay, we'll just go ahead and have the brain. And we're going to do all your blood work, including our sex hormones and your thyroid function and your FSH, your aisle six and your history.
[00:39:31] I'm just going to make sure that I've looked at all this stuff. Then we found a lady who was horribly anemic because she was having heavy, heavy menses period because she was becoming. Menopausal and that it's either, or right. You can have infrequent periods or they get worse and worse and worse and worse.
[00:39:50] So I had to go and send her to get Injectafer or iron and iron infusions, because she would be unsafe to be operated on because of anemia. I [00:40:00] would have, I would have superimposed a new problem for her. You know, I don't lose a lot of blood, but just going through surgeries and stressful experience enough.
[00:40:08] So. I I feel, oh yeah. Oh, and so the other thing is women need about, we'll say one 16th of testosterone of a male. If they don't have it, the recoveries are so much more prolonged. They have a DEMA for a longer period of time. They can't rebuild the re retain muscle mass. I mean, all of these things line up to create huge problems.
[00:40:31] Julie Michelson: In that group, you just mentioned, you know, people think estrogen or, you know, but so many peri-menopausal men and post menopausal women are really low in testosterone if they have barely any. So it's, it's really important. And again, that goes back to the word holistic
[00:40:48] Robert Whitfield: I've found it's a huge driver. If you take care of their nutrition and balance their hormones, you've, you've not got half the battle won, but you're on your way to a much more positive recovery experience. And that we're [00:41:00] just trying to take the variance out of the recovery. And so I know it seems probably like a lot when people are like, oh God, he wants to like check all my hormones and look at my blood work and do this supplement and that supplement.
[00:41:13] But there's a reason, you know, I, I do that. People come back afterwards and they're like, when do I stop taking the supplements and stopped doing the hormone therapy? And I asked him like, are you feeling. Good or better than you felt in a long time. Yeah. And I was like, well, I would probably just continue taking those things because this is how you should feel.
[00:41:33] You should have an energy level where you can function at work and you're with your family and you can be communicative. You're not losing your hair. You have a libido you're, you're not puffy and swollen. So your diets, right? I mean, those are all things that should be benefit.
[00:41:50] Julie Michelson: Absolutely. Absolutely. So to circle back to the one thing because we now there's so many more than one but what, what is. Some things, you [00:42:00] know, someone can do, obviously we we've got the, you know, you've identified the people that would greatly benefit from reaching out. You said you're going to have an assessment soon up on your website.
[00:42:12] Robert Whitfield: yeah, so we're going to have a an assessment tool is going to be on. Basically X plant website that we're going to start and it's going to be, it's going to have videos about what I feel is important to look at in terms of basically many things we've discussed, but just going through the symptoms, like we've talked about the top 10 things and what I see that are missed by both allopathic and functional medicine practitioners that relate to breast implant illness, or superimposed low mold or Lyme disease.
[00:42:44] Julie Michelson: Awesome. I love it. So for those that are listening on audio, before we wrap up, where can listeners find where's the best place to find? You we'll have the links in the notes, but somebody is just listening and they're like, wow, this guy is amazing. Where should they go?
[00:42:59] Robert Whitfield: [00:43:00] Well, it's a little complicated, cause I have a long last name, but go to drrobertwhitfield.com and we have a little chat function. If you want to start a chat with my team, it's actually not a bot. It's my, my team. And you'll get to communicate with them and to help you. I'm happy to reach out to folks.
[00:43:16] We do virtual consultation, so you don't have to leave your comfortable east coast or west coast home to visit me. I'll come back. then you can follow me on Instagram. We do a lot of posts and then Facebook and tech talk. And I have a podcast, holistic and scientific.
[00:43:33] Julie Michelson: I love it. Thank you so much, Dr. Rob, you have shared such a big old pile of gold with us today. Appreciate you being here.
[00:43:43] Robert Whitfield: Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
[00:43:45] Julie Michelson: For everyone listening. Remember you can get the show notes and transcripts by visiting inspired living.shell. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did.
[00:43:56] I'll see you next week.
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My Guest For This Episode
Connect with Robert Whitfield, MD
Robert Whitfield, MD
Breast Implant Illness Specialist
Dr. Whitfield is an experienced, Board Certified Plastic Surgeon. He completed six years of surgical training at Indiana University Medical Center. He remained at the Indiana University Medical Center to complete his Plastic Surgery Residency. At the completion of his Plastic Surgery Residency he chose to gain additional training in Microsurgery and Aesthetic Surgery by completing a one year Fellowship in Las Vegas, Nevada under Dr. William Zamboni.
He is an Active Member American Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery, American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and the American Medical Association.
Dr. Whitfield focuses on providing clients with nutritional guidance, nutraceutical advice, personal genetic predisposition screening, non-invasive, minimally invasive and surgical options for treatments all over the body. He has completed over 4000 breast procedures since 2004 including over 500 implant removals.
He is an Active Member American Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery, American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and the American Medical Association.
Dr. Whitfield focuses on providing clients with nutritional guidance, nutraceutical advice, personal genetic predisposition screening, non-invasive, minimally invasive and surgical options for treatments all over the body. He has completed over 4000 breast procedures since 2004 including over 500 implant removals.
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