Christa 0:00
Hello, hello, welcome to another episode of The Wild and well collective. Today we're talking to Dr. Robert Whitfield, who is a plastic surgeon. He's board certified and he specializes in breast implant illness. He is actually one of the top people in Austin who does breast X plants. He in addition to his exceptional work as a surgeon, he's also a sought after provider for his holistic accelerated recovery program known as harp. And the protocols of harp helps reduce systemic inflammation and assist patients who are both preparing and recovering from surgical procedures. So today is going to be super interesting talking all things, breast implants, breast X plants, and how to overcome inflammation in the body. So I hope you enjoy. All right, Dr. Whitfill. Thank you so much for being here. I think I want to start out first and foremost, as a plastic surgeon, most practices most surgeons, I would say focus on breast implants, right. So you went a different route. And I'm really curious what the road looks like to you becoming a breast X plant expert.
Speaker 1 1:04
So my background is in oncology. So in terms of what I did and how I trained, my specifically focused on reconstructive techniques, and I did microsurgery for most of my career at the time, I finished in a four until the time I stopped doing microsurgery in 2019, I concentrated on reconstruction for breast cancer patients had neck cancer patients and sarcoma patients. That's predominantly what I did. Certainly, I did a portion of my practice as cosmetic. But with those procedures that didn't have as much time. And that was not a principle focus. I got very adept dealing with the breast cancer population on taking care of implant based issues like capsular contracture injuries, or problems secondary radiation therapy, like fibrosis, and I would do different reconstructive techniques either with their own tissue called a DAP free flap to reconstruct those areas, or I had already developed quite a bit of scale in terms of correcting breast implant problems. So I was not the principal person placing implants for cosmetic purposes. To a large degree. I didn't really have time for that.
Christa 2:16
Yeah, okay. So interesting. You're already working with people that were sick on some level and kind of navigating kind of the exception to the role wasn't just straightforward implants, per se. Yeah,
Sheree 2:30
you bring up quite a different spin, I guess, when people think about breast implants and not really thinking about breast implants. You know, just before we jumped on to record, we were even talking about how uncommon this is even heard of in places like even in New Zealand, and that that people would even be aware of breast implant illness. And so you're probably a lot of woman walking around with breast implants in and having no idea that a lot of the symptoms that they're getting, just like with an I guess so many things we can think about when we're looking at holistic health and holistic well being that are actually going on inside the body that are attributed to this that can you share some of the symptoms that people might be experiencing?
Speaker 1 3:10
Sure, I think breast implant illness as I think about it, is a chronic inflammatory process. Where there's a medical device involved. It could be a hip, knee, breast implant, dental, implant, cardiac, they're all any implant will give your body inflammation. anybody thinks any difference is kind of being blindly ignorant. The body's always going to try to get rid of anything foreign. And if you think about how we, you know, help patients who've had kidney failure, or liver failure or heart failure, who can have an organ transplant, the reason those survive? Well, the first transplant was a kidney transplant by Dr. Joseph Murray, he's the last surgeon to win the Nobel Prize. He transplanted a kidney from one siamese twin to another. Now that worked because they have the exact same immune system, their DNA is the same, so there's no tolerance issue. So when you take a cadaver kidney or a cadaver liver, a non allergenic match, not you not your siamese twin, you have to give them drugs, in order for it to be for it to survive, not be rejected. And so everybody who gets an implant of any variety is going to have inflammation around that your body naturally forms a scar around it to get it walled off from the rest of your body. Any game plan could get infected, that's been known forever. Any implant can get biofilm that's been known for a very long period of time. So all these things can contribute to a larger amount of inflammation in your body. Women, unfortunately, have more stress hormones because they don't have the protective effect of other hormones like testosterone. So they're more sensitive to the effects of cortisol, estrogen once those are are thrown off in conjunction with their thought Avoid, you can see that it's kind of a mechanism for disaster, you throw in a bad mold exposure or eating poorly or drinking poorly or living in a crap place or working in a crowded place. And you have quite the mechanism for problem. Yeah,
Christa 5:13
so this kind of explains why some women don't have breast implant illness, they have impotence just fine. And then some people are just a disaster with it. So what you're saying is, some of it is environmental. What about genetic or there's some women that are just more predisposed to developing a reaction than others.
Speaker 1 5:31
Yeah, and our experience, genetics play a role. You can't outrun a bad diet, and you can't pick your parents. It's what I always tell the patient. So if you don't detox, well, if you have a poor vitamin D pathway, methylation pathways, withdrawn, addiction pathways, and antioxidant pathways, you're already set up to have this problem. And if you have problems with estrogen toxicity, because you can't metabolize, and you create more estrogen or other toxic metabolites, so those people have PCOS, endometriosis, bad periods, and sometimes an effort to help them some, for some reason, they get put on more hormones, which doesn't really help them. And so that's it, those are kind of my worst case scenario, patients, because you just know, there's no easy way for them, like they don't detox. Well, genetically, they have estrogen toxicity, and x. And if you live in my country, you've got a bad diet based on the fact that Western diets bad because you live in Texas, or on the coast of this country, you're going to get exposed to mold. If you live up north in a cold environment, you're gonna get exposed to mold, it's just going to happen. If you don't detox, well, anything that or if you eat, you know, some of the Dirty Dozen, you know, fruits and vegetables, you're going to get glyphosate, it's, if you eat drink out of a plastic bottle, which this country still is enamored with plastic bottles, you're gonna get dilates. And you can kind of see where all this ends up going, you're not gonna, you're not gonna do well. And so looking back on my career, there'll be a bunch of people who did well, after surgery, there'd be a bunch of people who just took longer than you thought they would take to recover. And then there's kind of the mid portion. So my program in the book I wrote about my strategic, holistic accelerated recovery program, this is trying to take all those people put them in the middle, so they all recover at a more efficient but similar rate by knowing their genetics and toxicity, got health, food sensitivities, hormonal balance, and trying to proactively address that up front before they ever have surgery. Now, you're not going to cure people with breast implant illness or problems like chronic inflammation in the face of an implant, because your body's not going to let you do that. You can have the most sophisticated detox methods and everything. And you're still going to struggle with that any protocol basically. And so, we tried to design it as a comprehensive program where you have a detox pathway created through the test scene, and we currently use cell core to help with detox afterwards. And then we have supplementation program based on genetics that runs for the year of surgical follow up. And we feel like that is the best way in conjunction with what we have in our office, I have hyperbaric in my office, lymphatic massage and red light therapy, we concentrate a lot on diet, we have a great relationship with a restaurant here in town called the well, they have a gluten free, dairy free seed oil free menu. Currently, that's Well, I do get everybody to be more of a air quality person. So we have a nice relationship with Jasper air filters, and they filter out a bunch of the allergens and things that would really bother or stimulate, you know, your sinuses or further complicate an already complicated detox picture with mold spores.
Christa 8:47
Yeah, especially in Texas.
Sheree 8:51
There's so much to the picture here. And I love that you explained the protocol. And is this what you're describing really what people go through after they've had their breast explanted from their body? What really drives someone to come and see you because for the most people, they've gone and got their breast implants for some reason. And so to take them out is is a big goal, right? It's another intensive surgery. So what drives people to get to that point to come and see you to get them out?
Speaker 1 9:16
Yeah, usually I'm the indie game. They've tried everything else and it hasn't been successful. And we've spent probably a fair amount of money and time may have caused or is going to cause a lot of stress between themselves and their families, their friends and their relationships. A lot of like psychosocial issues that are developed. So I partnered with a psychologist, Amanda savage brown to help care for our patients. And then we have health coaching. So we're trying to provide support and a lot of ways because arriving at the decision is complicated because you got implants, like you said for a reason, usually image reason. And I'm not going to resolve that by taking these out. I'm going to you know, bring all that back. And I let everybody Do on your show and every other show I'm on. I am not a mental health professional. And I shouldn't be viewed as one. So I did my team trying to deal with that either I have a professional association with someone to help with that.
Christa 10:15
I have a question about, you know, on a personal side, my mom had a double mastectomy done. And, you know, she's also got Hashimotos. So she's constantly trying to battle with the thyroid. But at the same time, she doesn't have any breasts at all. And, you know, she recently had fresh implants put in and part of me just kind of cringed because I'm like, Ah, you know, this is probably part of what's driving some of this autoimmune, you know, to the thyroid. What other options I guess, do you have for women? I mean, do you consider an I don't know, if you do this? Or if you send them somewhere? Do you consider maybe a fat transplant? Or what other options do women have, particularly those who have no breasts at all?
Speaker 1 10:56
Yeah, so it's about an hour ago, like prehab patient is, is this patient who's having an X plan tomorrow on a fat transfer. So I try to do my best to accommodate based on the situation with a fat transfer. Now, they're all very different. So we can't just generalize that we can do that for everybody. And I've had patients want to go flat, I've helped them with that. I don't do micro surgery anymore. So I don't do that tissue reconstruction use the abdominal tissue. But back during my career, when I did that, that would be an option. I did that for almost a couple 1000 patients. So there are options. And you know, if someone was experiencing problems with their implants, before I knew what this really was, as an entity, I probably did a bunch of those x planet surgeries for breast cancer patients and then converted them to reconstructions with their own tissue using the DAP free flap. And then of course, everything going away is your own tissue. So as soon as you remove the burden, that's a foreign body, many of the things will get better, because your body will do its best to heal itself to reset itself. However, you want to describe that here, whether it's a cosmetic patient or a cancer patient, or somebody who had an asymmetry problem that wasn't either cancer or were really cosmetic, after you develop a plan for them based on their, you know, genetics and toxicity burden that they already exhibits, their gut health, their food sensitivities, and hormone balance, you know, you create their detox plan, because everybody's gonna have something like I've yet to have anybody come in here that doesn't have some nonsense on a test. And that's just living in today's world. I mean, nobody's immune to this. And, you know, you know, building up to them and letting them go through the process and providing support, like we have with coaching and detox. And mental health group support is a lot to go through, it's very, very important to have a supportive, either significant other, or family member, somebody's got to be helping them we have caregivers who come and spend a lot of time and they're super important in the process, it's very hard to do anything on your own. We see those patients they do have seemingly more difficulty was to the point where I don't like really offering them, you know, the whole come to Austin and spend time here if they don't have help, because it's not something that's easy to do on your own or have held for a few days, and that person leaves there aren't around. And I mean, I have people come here from Europe spend three weeks so that's not for everybody. But if you come here has been the time we'll help you get as big as ready as possible go back. It's
Christa 13:44
interesting, I think, Oh, it's just taking them out. What is can you describe a little bit what it entails to have implants out and I'm assuming it doesn't stop there. And you've got more because just removing you know, that's step one, and I want you to kind of explain what that process looks like. And that recovery process looks like why maybe it's a bit more complicated than the implant itself. process. But then also, women don't just snap out of it the post surgery that healed from the incision and that's it you're saying there's kind of a process to detoxifying and really getting your body to heal so what is kind of point A when they walk in your door for a console to point B feeling like themselves again kind of look like what does that road look like for people considering this
Speaker 1 14:28
varies and a lot of people have heard me on Lauren Bostick show this getting confidential so she had a really bad tox test with a lot of heavy metals and hers was secondary to how she was you know, overheating herself on a sauna. So she had a barrel sauna, it would get up to 220 and obviously things were leaching out of the implants and that was making her unwell. So I have to kind of know what you've been doing because a lot of people are doing a lot of things to try to detox themselves whether It's an IR blanket IR sauna barrel saunas, cold therapy. So far, I haven't seen Cold Therapy cause problems, but the heat induced things have surprised us like her story is she just had a list of heavy metals on her tox report the worst I'd ever seen. And I did her surgery. And then on her follow up, Toxis everything's gone. So, you know, the only thing in that process that happened, she did absolutely, you know, detox with us not she didn't do any at all. She went to Italy for the summer it's been at on Lake Como. So you have to like, it depends on how they start and setting the expectation for them. Most people who start poorly, and say they have a lot of symptoms, a lot of a lot of detox issues through genetics and exposures, they're going to have typically longer recovery period. And then when I take everything out, I try to take it out as a undisturbed easter egg. And so for everybody listening, it PCR testing and pathology testing on every single specimen, you can watch it on Instagram all the time we show them and we try to take everything out intact, because about a third of them will have biofilm. So it's typically a bacterial contaminant, I don't want that all over the chest cavity. So we we try to control all that and not disturb it. And then I've had unfortunately, breast implant associated lymphoma case, I've had a breast cancer we found before surgery or a couple of before surgery, actually, I've had one we found, after surgery that I was able to take out completely, we had one that was much larger than we could get out. So we send everything off and make sure it's looked at but depending on, you know, if it's a standard breast implant illness situation, depending on their symptoms, depending on their genetics, their exposures, their gut health, their sensitivities, and hormone balance, it's really going to dictate a lot of how they recover. If your guts bad, you're not going to recover super quick. So we have a lot of work to do in that situation, you have to most of my supplements that I run for inflammation support during the year are liposomal. So they're liquid based, so you don't have to have or need as much ability to absorb. And we know people just don't, in general have a great capacity to do this based on how they start. It's not an easy little picture, when you have all this and taking implants out and not really are doing a meticulous job. I don't think it's a great idea. I know some people are supporting that hypothesis, but that's you have potential buyer of an infection or cancer doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to approach it that way.
Christa 17:51
Yeah, not, not every excellent surgeon is created equal. Like as far as their technique to get in there and really do the patient a service of testing for biofilms eradicating any kind of maybe smaller cancers around there.
Speaker 1 18:07
I mean, our background for my clinic is in cancer. So based on what available data has shown, in some studies, they have biofilm rates of like 45% That would be like saying half the things you do get infected. So you know, practically speaking, doesn't make a ton of sense. You
Sheree 18:31
explain to our listeners what you mean by biofilm. I mentioned that the people jumping in like What is he talking about with the biofilm around the server
Speaker 1 18:39
shelves, bacteria and basically it forms a colony or community on the device. It can be hip knee, breast implant, cardiac implant like this has been happening for years and people always want to ask and original understand how you get bacteria or any kind of micro organism on an implant. So the first way is someone opens the implant and contaminates it on transfer to the surgeon. So that's in the operating room. The second is somehow the surgeon contaminates implant on placement. But both of those are extremely low because there's all these things that are in place to help avoid that with how you do things. Technically. Third, and by far the most common is some kind of infection, or we'll just say bacteria gets in your bloodstream. Now that could be a number of ways you know common ways or somebody gets a cut gets a skin infection and it gets in your bloodstream. Women get urinary tract infections far more frequently than men. That's a way to get that in your bloodstream. And you can just like go on and on and on. You know a cold any kind of sinus infection a common one since I went to the dentist this morning and got my teeth cleaned is getting a teeth cleaning. So back in the day when all heart implants, for valves or mechanical, you would always have a standing prescription for the patient at your office, if you're a heart surgeon for them to get their teeth clean and be protected from getting bacteria into their bloodstream, because obviously, when people are removing the plaque and making your gums bleed, it's going to get in your bloodstream. So everybody's known this, I'm not saying anything new. I'm not saying anything clever. This is how things happen. I would be hard pressed to believe, which is the my practice forever was letting people know that anytime they got a teeth cleaning they call the office, and we'd give them a prescription to take starting in the night before the teeth cleaning. So that would be they would be protected from that. And those are just basic, I mean, not saying anything super complicated here. That's just how things can happen. And your body. Yeah, that's because it's not, that's not your body. That's an implant.
Christa 21:00
Yeah, I think most people wouldn't even put two two together or things like that. You know, that's, that's really interesting to me, I want to go back to what you described with the sauna because a lot of people, myself included, I mean, I have a red light sauna in my office because of the benefits of it. But who is at risk for using an our lower temperature, like infrared saunas, where you're, you know, at around 150? Who is at risk? And who should really avoid saunas? Like, should everybody across the board? Or what is that just kind of?
Speaker 1 21:29
Nobody knows. And this is why I get in all sorts of trouble. Oh, yeah, basically, say, someone's got an older implant, pick a year, I don't care. You know, the other day, I had somebody come in 20 year old implants, and they're using an IR blanket all the time, and they feel worse after their song, you're gonna get their their tests back. And depending on the methodology, or I'm sorry, to spread all the testing method, I'm sorry, you'll see you know, what they have, and there's a whole list of things that are in the shells, and in the process of making it the Preston plan, oh, then you know, they're supposed to be in very, very small quantities that shouldn't be harmful. But then you'll find them in these tests. And we do a urine test that looks at all these, and they're just into high quantities. I'm not somebody who's, you know, willing to sit there and you know, say, oh, my gosh, this is from your tattoo, or oh my gosh, this is from your whatever. That would be kind of asinine, to be honest. So if you have all these things, and I use Lauren, again, as the perfect example, I've never seen a test worse, not before, not since ours. And she had the most extreme example of a device, I think hers was 10 plus years don't know, exactly, it doesn't matter, you know, devices can degrade. And this is since the components are leaching out of the device. And you know, I have the before and after. So I know exactly what it looked like before. And after I have her clinical recovery. I mean, I'm not stupid or blind, and pretty astute. It's pretty obvious what was going on. And I've been trolled by a bunch of people both on whatever platform you want to describe, and colleagues have reached out because you know, people call their office that should we stop doing IRS on? I'm like, I don't know, do you think they ran a bunch of ladies through the IR sauna? When they put press their plants in them? Well, the short answer is no. So nobody has the information to tell you one way or the other. And neither do I tell my patients, if you're coming here, and you're gonna spend your time and money and invest in yourself, then don't sauna. From the point you talk to me until 90 days after I'm done with your case. And we'll have our detox team, you know, working with you during that timeframe. Now, this is gonna sound crazy from the allopathic plastic surgeon, but I have a lot of things behind what I say a lot of experience. So I'm not super interested in people, you know, complaining about that. I don't know this. I don't know what I'm talking about, or, or whatever. I just don't care anymore. So this is what I've seen. And I see it because I see this, you know, patient in my clinic 50 times a week.
Christa 24:16
Yeah, I think it comes back to it's N equals one, right? I mean, if you feel like trash, every time you sauna, then something is happening in your body. And that might not be true for the next person. Right. But absolutely, I think there's truth to that. I mean, if you don't feel well, and that's bringing up some things in your body, that that's just you're not at that stage. We need to be opening up different pathways before we're just pushing detox, right? So
Speaker 1 24:41
they're trying to find a way to feel better. So women are far more tolerant of beating themselves up and guys, I've seen this over and over again. They tolerate pain better, they'll do crazy stuff.
Sheree 24:52
And, yep.
Speaker 1 24:55
One of the things that I've had to I've had patients that I've taken care of Over the last seven years, they start feeling a lot better after sometimes very early after surgery. And y'all in general, saying to women in the audience, you're not good listeners, if I tell you not to do something, not to over exercise not to do too much too soon. It's for a reason, a very good reason because I don't need you tearing your pec after surgery, which I've had women do because they want to go back to all y'all are junkies, like you like to exercise for dopamine. Everybody knows why everybody does this. And I have to have these very specific discussions. Like, I know what you want to do. And I know why I get it completely. You have to do it a different way, until you're healed up enough to go back to doing things and I had this discussion this morning with a patient from oh my gosh, she's in Florida. She's like, I, you know, I want to run or do whatever. And I'm like, Yeah, I know why y'all want to run you get high. But you can't run after surgery. And if you're somebody who's lean, and that's the reason why you got breast implants, you didn't have a lot of tissue, and you get an x plan, you want a fat transfer, and you want me to do your fat transfer. You can't be a runner, or a cyclist or teach peloton, orange theory or all this other stuff. Because if you just listen to that, what I'm saying it doesn't make sense. Like he's just just bear with me, like, I can get you through the process, if he just will come along for the ride, so to speak. And, you know, all of y'all should be doing resistance training to avoid osteopenia and osteoporosis, Fado cyclist, or you know, a runner going to avoid osteopenia or osteoporosis. In fact, you're more likely to probably get your hip done if as a runner from all the wear and tear, you know, cycling's a little bit better. But I, I'm very acutely aware by that people do that. I know why they're doing.
Christa 26:57
I'm guilty. I'm the worst patient ever, I had three C sections. And it's just the worst to try to wait, you know, I'm like, No, I can do this. So I hear you. Sometimes it is, it's like you just, if you're one of those that really loves exercise, it's hard to allow your body to recover anything, you know, because you're saying the body not only has to physically recover from the surgery, the cut of the x plan, but then also, you've really got to be gentle with your body to get your body back on track as far as allowing that detox to happen to open up those detox pathways with the supplements that you recommend and all of that, right. It's a process and I think I'm guilty of it too. We're not patient, a lot of us are just not patient, we're ready to just push a button, take a pill do this, and I'm on my way, right. And and that's a challenge, I think for a lot of go getter, people that are ready to just hit the button.
Speaker 1 27:47
I mean, I get it, I just you know, for our part, this is a complex problem, we took a multidisciplinary approach to and develop a very, you know, comprehensive plan for and so you know, whether it's Suzy Smith, who's doing great in 20 seconds after she wakes up from x plan, everybody thinks that's how it should be or they want to get back to running or cycling or weightlifting. And then they tear their pack or they have some other you know, unfortunate outcome. I can't control behavior at all. So I try to do my best with you know, at least being as conservative with that after you know, surgery as possible. Because I want everybody to have a great outcome and recover well and feel better. And you know, all the things which we do.
Sheree 28:36
It's beautiful, you can really hear that you care. And you I think a lot of the things that we can struggle with is we're often looking for the research, we're looking often looking for the science and you see patients day in day out you have so many case studies right in front of you that we're really just waiting for science to catch up on like you say when you're talking about the saunas and like Krista said, it's like an N equals one situation. And you know, I can't really relate to the fact that it yes, I'm probably a junkie and and a sense that I love doing things that are for my health. But if you tell me to do something, I will do it. I'm a real teacher's pet. So there are a few, there are a few of us out there that are more and then that cabin in that category. And so if there's someone I guess in that space, maybe that is a little bit freaked out about taking the implants out. Is there anything that you give to people before they have to go down that route to try and combat some of the breast implant illness? Is there a way to kind of detoxify a lot of it without actually taking the implants out? Because I know I have a number of friends that will be sitting and going, oh my gosh, I don't want to take them out. Again, that can be that mental component and that sort of thing. Like how do you address that?
Speaker 1 29:44
Yeah, I mean, I have I live in area and Austin has they're pretty fluid and they'll they'll do whatever it takes to avoid getting these operations and for good reason. Because they don't want to go through that surgery and recover on all things. So I've seen people really diligently do a diet and supplementation. And the thing with detox and what y'all have described as you can detox yourself and make yourself sick. So I see that a fair amount. I think the thing that is not talked about enough, that's really kind of, you know, the quiet part that's not set out loud is a mindset issue. So you can't come to me without having changed your mindset. So if you're not ready to have this done, I'm not the person to see, I'm not changing anybody's mind about anything. People ask me like, do I tell people to get experts? No, I don't have to tell anybody to do anything, the person coming to me has already made up their mind right now. After that, they have to get into the right mindset. So in general, you have to understand that you're gonna go back to maybe a version that you really did like your yourself when you were younger, or before you had a problem like breast cancer. So that becomes, in the words of my patient, Casey, something where you just have to give yourself a lot of love, and every day of society, so you love yourself, and you love this new appearance. And so that's the most important thing for my clients understand is, we're going to take really great care of you, but you have to start taking care of yourself, if you don't do that, or start thinking about that up front, it's going to be a very complicated situation for you afterwards. And if your significant other or spouse, whoever that person is, is not on board, I find that very disturbing. I do not like to have people who don't have that person on board, I find their kids dreamily problematic. They're almost combative with me sometimes afterwards. And we have a lot of work to do for a lot of people. And we want to be focused on getting them better. Not on people who, you know, can't kind of get over the situation and help themselves. Yeah,
Christa 31:54
it's Yeah, that's a big decision. Yeah, man, it's a big thing. And I think you know, when you're when you're talking about what's driving, a lot of this is inflammation. So I think just going back to the women who aren't ready for the next plan, it's just more than a focus on how can we decrease inflammation, how can we make sure you know, maybe educating themselves on on gut health on stress management, like things like that, that are really, you know, if you're not ready for the next plant, then the best thing you can do for yourself is really focused on just chronic inflammation. Everybody listen
Speaker 1 32:23
to that can float by cutting gluten, other diet and dairy out of their diet and concentrate on eating things cooked in seed oils, those are all conscious decisions, you can start making now anybody can get better water quality, drinking filtered water and not drinking out of plastic, using glass or, you know, something stainless steel that doesn't have some weird other thing in it. And I have become this real, I'm very concerned about air quality. Because I live in Austin, there's a lot of cedar oak mold and Austin. And when I moved here, I had lots of trouble in in the first several years, I moved here after 2012 with allergies. And it got to a point where I did take, you know, some steroid shots and things. And then finally, I got more astute about my diet through my own genetic testing and working with a naturopath. And then I got really interested in air quality during the pandemic, because as a physician, I had to see people in person, otherwise I can't really, you know, take care of my team or my family. So we returned to seeing people with a specific type of air filter that I felt would be as protective as possible for us during the pandemic. And then we've just gotten more and more higher quality air filters. And, like that's kind of everybody's used to filtered water, but nobody really cares about filtered air. Yes.
Christa 33:44
Where do you use Jasper? Jasper is the one that you would recommend for air quality. Yeah. Well, I
Sheree 33:49
mean, if you think about it, like you say, there's so much potential for mold and so many different places. I know you mentioned a lot of across the state. But you know, in New Zealand, it's huge as well. We're a little island, right? And so it's wet and warm. It's where mold grows and thrives. And it's a very damp climate. And I think a lot of us are unaware of how much like you say the air toxicity can be how much the things that we're breathing in can impact us and how that can be leading to first seasonal allergies. So is that something that you see with a lot of the clients that come to you is the allergy the mold kind of flare up that's causing a lot of the impact?
Speaker 1 34:26
Well, it's if you just sit and listen to people talk to they'll tell you exactly what's wrong. And I just wait for them, you know, this kind of talk and talking? And I'm like, well, that's how, you know question like, Okay, have you ever lived anywhere where you saw black mold? Because if you ask the question differently if you say hey, I think you may have mold in your house, they immediately get defensive because I was house houses. Now in Austin, a lot of them won't say this because they live in old houses. You'll get people get super defensive. So you have to just ask it a different way. Say like it's up point, maybe when you were younger or something like that the Jew, I think you got exposed to mold like maybe where you live maybe in a dorm in college or at UT or whatever, for the people who don't know what a dorm is, you know, either went to university if you're out of the US or you went to college here and stayed in a dorm, and they're just tragic places, basically, they're old. You know, they paint over mold, they don't mitigate it. So if you have a daughter who all of a sudden starts acting, you know, a bit odd, unhealthy unwell after going to college, you might consider the fact she got a toxic mold exposure. It's not really that hard to think about if we just open our ears and listen. So if someone has light sensitivity, sound sensitivity, headache, all of a sudden gut issues, like anxious, probably should look into, might want to ask a couple more questions. And I've had this happen. And I've had some moms be very astute and worried. And then, you know, some people don't know, they just don't know how to ask the questions or don't know what questions to ask. And I'm super, like, worried about it all the time. So I'm always asking questions, listening. You know, if someone gets into the car with you, and immediately tells you to turn down the radio, they have sound sensitivity.
Christa 36:14
Yeah. So they're just foreign. I like to electric. Like it loud.
Speaker 1 36:23
You have somebody with them, though. That's with them all the time. Like, I just look at the spouse and say, does she always turned down the radio no matter how low it is? And they're like, yeah. Oh, interesting.
Christa 36:35
It is really interesting. Once you know, when you know what clues to look for.
Speaker 1 36:40
Just a different way of, of listening. People will tell you, things you need to know if you listen.
Christa 36:47
I want you to talk a little bit about the fancy equipment that you have, because I'm so fascinated with like the hyperbaric chamber, for instance. And I'm curious a little bit about the toys that you have, because I want to just pop up there and hang out and see what's going on up there. But so what you mentioned is the hyperbaric chamber, what do you do for lymphatic drainage? And then I yard like do you to a blanket like what are some of the toys that you find to really move the needle for people? And what did they do? So
Speaker 1 37:12
you know, we always start with what you put your mouth. So we give people digestive enzymes, because I want them on a very high protein diet. We give them more ways to take in protein with amino acids in a powdered form. And then we have them on supplements. So we're trying to give them a very nutrient dense diet. But when they can absorb with the way it's, it's put in front of them. And then obviously tell them no gluten, no dairy, no seed oils, and then after surgery that are coming here, and I've had a German lymphatic massage device called the balanced approach for several years now. And it works by leveraging lymphatic drainage. So we don't use drains in my practice. I haven't used drains in the last several years and lowers infections down to almost none if you don't use trains. Oh,
Christa 38:03
so you're saying drains posts up like in the tissue. So you're using Wow. Because if you've ever had a drain, you know there's a lot of fluid in there so you're able to help the body differently.
Speaker 1 38:14
Yeah, the most efficient drainage system in the body is not a drain tubes sticking out of your go into a bulb. So that would be your system. You just have to every everything is hackable. Right, so they're talking about biohacking, Dave Asprey jokes that I'm a bio hacker I biohack humans. So anyway, I will, you know, open up the breast pocket to the subcutaneous tissues in the abdomen, just like you were doing liposuction, and then I'll have them come to the office. And the balanced approach goes up to just below the breast area from the bottom of the foot. It's like a big suit. And then you said it's the settings we like to use their 45 millimeters of mercury at duration of 45 minutes, and it just rolls gently from your toes up towards your chest. And that helps drain the lower portion of the body. I don't really do much with the top right off the bat. I let them you know have several sessions of this and this is just part of our program. After that they'll do hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Now there'll be some people that are critical of hyperbaric my mentor Bill Zamboni has passed away now was an NIH funded researcher and got me certified in hyperbaric medicine when I was his fellow four or five and it works incredibly well to help with wounds in terms of healing. It also helps kind of clear people up after from anesthesia and some of its side effects to great cure the other things that we have like red light might have six foot tall Juve red light and we'll we'll have those running. I don't have an IR sauna. People are not really here long enough to leverage that so I don't have one in office one because the build out for those some Will people have them at home now. So those are the three main things. Now I have like $4 million for the skin tightening equipment that people take advantage of either in the operating room or we have some non invasives. In the office, some people will get treatments with soft wave and caregivers, you know, we get facials done up to estheticians and my lymphatic Mazouz as well for people who have more problematic areas or want more specific treatment. I have a great team of great reception team, great nurses, nurse practitioner, patient advocates, detox practitioners, health coaches, we have a big squad here in Austin.
Christa 40:33
Yeah, I love that. Just want to come up there and play with how things just bounce from one thing to the next. You know,
Speaker 1 40:41
I love it in the morning.
Christa 40:46
I love it. Thank you so much for taking the time. I know you're super busy, you travel all over people fly you places and fly in. And I really appreciate the fact that you took some time to share with our audience what is available to them, like there are people like you if they can't make it to you like look for somebody who actually cares and understands this process and acknowledges symptoms as what they are potentially as breast implant illness and that it's not just about the xx plant that there's actually a bit more beyond that and understanding your body. I love that you bring in some of the testing to genetics so that people really understand because that's something that they can bring with them for the rest of their life. So yeah, I really appreciate your time and just sharing your gifts with us.
Sheree 41:27
Thank you so much. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1 41:28
if y'all listening so people may have told you that they don't think it's a real thing are you you're you're acting crazy. You're not acting crazy. A when people have a lot of chronic inflammation, it causes lots of problems, neurologic problems, cardiovascular problems, problems with your breathing and your digestion and how you feel in your extremities. So you can learn more by following us on At breast implant illness expert where my YouTube channel by the same name or my URL by that day.
Christa 41:57
Amazing. Amazing. Yeah, we'll put that in the show notes. Like she said, Because you're just a wealth of knowledge and you have your own podcast as well. So people can pop in and kind of listen to things and you you post things on Instagram so that people can follow along and kind of learn more about just applying this to this
Speaker 1 42:11
I guess, sir, if anybody wants I've been on a lot of shows just like people have been super really nice to me to have me on. So if you search Dr. Robert Whitfield on Apple or Spotify or whatever platform I should come up with my own show breast implant illness and then I've been on a lot of differentiations Yeah,
Christa 42:29
like that. So much good, juicy information. If you have any questions, let us know but we will put his information in the show notes and thanks again for being here.
Unknown Speaker 42:37
Thank you for having me.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
