Life Uncut - Breast Implant Illness & Explant Surgery - with Dr Kirsty Seward

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

Hey Lifers, First up, Laura set herself on fire at a surprise wedding where she had special duties and spoiler, one of them wasn't setting off the fire alarms! Ben finally met Britt's family. Britt might have some competition from her nan... and she also might want to find some new accommodation options for when she visits Port Macquarie. Then we are talking boobs! Joining us today to speak about her own personal experiences of breast implant illness and explant surgery is Dr Kirsty Seward. Kirsty had breast augmentation when she was 25 years old.5 years on & Kirsty had a range of symptoms from a condition that she had never heard of, breast implant illness. Her implants had not ruptured or leaked, but she was constantly fatigued, sick and had major brain fog. In this chat: The reasons why Kirsty got implants to begin with (and later regretted) How breast augmentation surgery works Symptoms of breast implant illness Explant surgery How her body healed afterwards We also speak about the psychological side of plastic/cosmetic surgery and questioning 'why' we want to change certain parts of ourselves. This is a great episode for anyone who has considered or has undergone a procedure just to be aware that there are potential side effects that aren't spoken about. You can find all of Kirsty's details here! Or her Instagram here You can join the Instagram party here Join us on tiktok Or join the facebook group here Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! xx  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never ceded. We pay our respects to their elders past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. This episode was recorded on Darug Wollongong land. Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. And I'm Brittany. I love that you were just mouthing, imitating me. I was imitating you, but I didn't think you were looking.

It's because... Does it count if I didn't think you were looking? No, it just means you were doing it behind my back. No, it's in front of you, but you were looking down. Yeah, okay, well, I saw you. You know why? I saw you imitating me and making fun of me, and guess what? Fuck you.

It wasn't... No, okay, hear me out. It wasn't making fun. Yay, yay, yay. It wasn't making fun of, but we, for four years, have said the exact same intro. So, in my head, I just say it word for word when you say it. It's because I'm a creature of habit, guys. I like the consistency of the safety of knowing exactly where I'm going

and exactly what I'm doing. It's actually so funny. We don't do it anymore because I didn't want to throw you into a spin. No, no. No, no, no. I know what you're going to do and you're going to pay me out. No, sometimes I used to try and do like something different for the intro or say one word or one sentence different and Laura would go into a tailspin.

She's like, I don't know what to do with that. She's like, where's our normal intro? but it's Tuesday welcome I hope everyone had a great weekend like I wish I had something to say in response to that but it's just so true I don't like it when things don't go to plan my brain's like make it stop I have probably never met someone as much as you I sorry let me rephrase that I have never met somebody that is such a creature of habit as you are I don't think in my entire existence and this goes for everything in my life like you might not know this about me guys, but like, if I find something I like, I would do the same thing every day. For example,

down the road from the shop, down the road from like my other work, Tony May, there is a bakery that does this like Asian chicken roll. And I ate that Asian chicken roll every day for a year and a half. Like I would just go there every day, get my Asian chicken roll, get the same coffee. I love this. It's so wigs for someone who likes, I like spontaneity. And then at the same time, I like things to be exactly the routine well they do say you're obviously like an outlier for this but they do say like highly intelligent people like routine so i don't know why you flipped into that no okay so what i have i'm the same a little bit with food when i find food that i love that's it like that spinach sausage roll spinach feta sausage roll that i ate from the bakery down the road

from my house i ate that every day for two years and i can't look at it now the same as chicken dinosaurs yeah as a grown as a grown-ass woman i'd come over to brit's house don't you chicken nuggets shame me and she would be eating like you can get all different kinds of chicken nuggets but the ones that brit would buy was the dinosaur ones laura's like oh your nieces and nephews coming over i'm like what why would you think that so every time you want to pay me out for my routine i just remember you're a grown-ass woman who eats dinosaur chicken nuggets i'm actually proud of that it's real chicken okay I've discovered that Ben is part you so on the weekend I took Ben up to Port Macquarie to meet the family it was a very official family meet all

my brothers came up nephews and nieces were there everyone came to visit it was a my nana it was a whole event I mean when you've brought your boyfriend from the other side of the world it really becomes like a how you meet the entire family it's a real spectacle isn't it I had aunties and uncles in the Facebook group chat messaging being like do you think we can pop up as well my mum was like no you have aunties and uncles you haven't even seen in 10 years and they came 100 no but ben ben would we would wake up in the morning and he'd be like what are we doing and i said well yeah i don't know maybe we'll go for a walk or maybe we'll pop down to the zoo maybe we'll get a coffee he's like what do you mean maybe he's like i like to i like to

know what we're doing like when i wake up i like to have a plan i was like oh shit how did i not know this how did i not know you're a laura burn i was like babe i don't make plans like I planned to move overseas two days before I left. No, see, this is where you're wrong. I don't like plans. I don't make plans for my day. I don't like to know what I'm doing. If I'm on holidays, I'm like a, let's just see where life takes us. I don't plan. I'm so unorganized. I don't plan, but I think it's because I don't plan things that I know the things that are my safe go-tos. That's it. Here's a question for you. This is too much in the backstory of the psyche of Laura Byrne. Here's a question for you. Serious question. Producer Keisha, if you want to try

I mean you can. When you're going to go to a restaurant, now maybe that's overseas, maybe it's local, do you pre-look at the menu? Never. And like pre-decide in your head what you're going to order? Never. Pre-judge case you're saying no. Okay.

I sometimes do. Sometimes I want to see if there's like a, you know, if this is like a nice burrata or like a seafood pasta. I'm so glad that we had that discussion. We're in the minority. No, I think this is a poll worthy. We love polls here. But I reckon you'll be surprised, Miss Byrne,

I reckon a lot of people pre-look at – my sister's never been to a restaurant in her life, Sherry, without pre-ordering in her head. She makes a whole order in her head before she gets there. Okay, but what if there's a specials menu? Then you just fuck yourself. Oh, no, she fucking cancels. She's thrown special menus down. Okay.

All right, well, look, speaking of things not going to plan and being a little bit more organised, I had a real doozy of a thing that happened on the weekend. Oh, didn't you ever? Didn't I ever. So on the weekend, my beautiful girlfriend, Steph, and her gorgeous boyfriend, they've been together for like 11 years. they've been together since they were 19 years old they are I remember we did an episode so long

ago about like the grass is always greener and they were the example that I used about how they were like each other's first they'd been together for so long and how the grass isn't always greener and sometimes you just get amazingly lucky and you end up with the right person and you know it and you know it and you know what god damn those people because the rest of us have to trawl through the shit to find the penguin but like they really did they met each other when they were so young 11 years later we had their wedding it was a birthday party which was a surprise wedding but I knew it was a wedding because I got to design Steph's ring so so how many people were at this surprise birthday wedding there's probably about like 80 people there I think

like it was a big 80 person birthday because it was so it was both their 30th during COVID and so they framed it as though they're having a big 30th birthday party to make up for the fact that they weren't able to celebrate during COVID so like Hamish's family and friends came from New zealand it was such a big event but because i knew that it was this surprise you know undercover wedding i got given some more important jobs to do like i got to help with like some of the arranging and some of the you know little bits and pieces on the actual day you were the insider you were the insider spy oh yeah oh yeah and i royally cocked it up guys what kind of jobs did they that's so cute it sounds like you're like the kid that has to help their parents like i got

special jobs i got special jobs so i mean well the special job was that i got to design both their rings so that was like that was a pretty big job and that was glorious because Steph has such like a cool and unique quirky design sense so it was really nice to make something that was super out of the box for her it was very beautiful I did I did look at it I did show Ben I was like look at this do you like this and yeah it was very nice so there was a few of us right there was about four of us that kind of knew we're all girlfriends and we all knew that it was a wedding and not a birthday party so we get there and everyone's crowded around and we're about to do the celebration part, like the transition from birthday to, ha ha, surprise, it's a wedding.

And Steph has these two amazing, massive cakes out on the bar. And I've been given the job of lighting the sparklers. Now this is... I don't know why that's so funny. Such an important job. It was because everything was happening quickly and the changeover was quick. Anyway, this wedding was in a nightclub. Basically, they had their wedding in the same spot that they met 11 years ago. And this nightclub is like underground. It's all wooden. There's like weird taxidermy animals on the wall. The roof is like Hessian material. Right. And so everyone was kind of thinking, God, you know, sparklers are a bit dangerous in this venue, but like, that's okay. Give it a crack. And I say to everyone, the four people who were on the sparkler duty, I'm like,

oh guys, I've done this before. I am the queen of kids' parties. I fucking know my way around a sparkler. So I was like, get them together and like, make sure that you hold them relatively tightly packed laura's holding 50 sparklers in one hand because when you light it just get your whole fist around yeah make sure you know i had about i had about 10 sparklers together and i was like when you light it like we've got to do it quickly so make sure you like light them all at once so the mc my girlfriend kaya who's the wedding celebrant she's at the front and she's like so everyone we're gonna sing happy birthday and i was like that's our cue so matt's got the little lighter clickers and he's there with the lighter clickers and the four of us girls are

there with our packs of sparklers that i've told them all to tightly pack it was like setting off four fucking hand grenades i'm not even joking the whole thing like matt lit the bottom of it and it just went up the sparklers my hand caught on fire i now look like i'm walking around two tampons as fingers because i'm bandaged up i don't know how there were so many people in this room and no one thought that grouping 50 sparklers together to light simultaneously was a good idea oh no no no some people mentioned it and i was like it's fine i've got this i've done this it was look at these little tampon fingers i doubled down on this so hard okay so my hands on fire everyone's screaming i then throw my fucking 50 sparklers on top of the

wedding cake the wedding cake is on fire the wedding cake was completely like scolded it It looked like it had been twice baked. Like the top of it was crisp. Anyway, so everyone's screaming. Then the fire alarm goes off. You cannot write this. So the poor Stefan Hamish is standing there like wanting to do this great big reveal that it's actually a wedding. And everyone's like there's people up on chairs trying to fan the fire alarms.

The bartenders and waiters are like for fuck's sake. We told you this was going to happen. I'm more concerned your fingers are on fire. I didn't want to make it about me. It already ruined their big moment. Laura's running around and her hand is still on fire. She's just running around with it in the air. This is wild.

And then I had to stand there and I was like silently in tears because it hurt so fucking much. But it was also so beautiful that everyone else was crying because they were getting married and I was crying because I was in pain. So did anyone know you were on fire? Yeah. I've got the video footage.

And now you've got tampon fingers. You know what the best part is? When you get your period, you've just got to put your finger in there. Literally. Anyone need a plug? Plug it up. Just click it on. This is so good.

Okay, so hang on. I'm back in the scene. Hang on. I'm back in there. The reason why it was so embarrassing was because I literally said. Oh, you haven't told us the embarrassing reason yet? It was just that I doubled down so hard. I was like, oh, guys, I've done this so many times.

Kids parties. I've done weddings. I know. I know how to light sparklers. And I really, I was like, let me do this. I'm all. It's not rocket science, guys. This is a PSA, though.

It's so dangerous. I learned the hard way. It's a bomb. literally it's gunpowder you've literally said let's group all these highly explosive things and pack them as tightly together as we can and set them on fire at the same time in a in an underground very tight very flammable location yeah it wasn't the smartest thing i've ever done it was one of those moments you know when you do something and then as it's happening you're like oh that was a bad idea your life flashes before your eyes so what's matt doing i for some reason

i see matt squealing running around squealing i don't know why okay it wasn't until after we got this so the bartender actually filmed the whole thing which is why we got most of it on video matt is standing there the cake is on the cake's on fire you're on fire and he's trying to blow it out oh my god matt chose to save the fire over you his flammable wife he's standing there going in the video blowing the cake so how was the cake what what part of the cake was on fire was the meringue the meringue anyway guys as much as it was meant to be it was it was still the most beautiful wedding but i truly made it about myself in the absolute clincher the moment that was meant to be the big surprise you just keep putting these tampons in my face when you're talking

i made it about me and i'm really sorry for that still it was a beautiful day what level of burns do you have um i don't have any feeling on the end of my thumb like zero feeling it went so deep but my finger i burnt my finger pads off so if i want to go and rob someone or do some crimes now's the time so is this a home job these raps yeah babe i think you probably need to go to a burn clinic i'll be fine everyone you know what do you have a soldier on no you burned your hand so you can't you don't have finger pads anymore. You could rub anything you want. That's like doctor level. Can I just tell you the most annoying part of this whole situation is that I can no longer open my phone or my computer because I've burned the two, the two crucial pads that you need for

using like any of your digital devices. I don't have any more. Thank God for Face ID. Oh my God, that you could not, I don't want to laugh in your face, but you've made my day, that story. And like talk about going out to create content. Well, I had been saying that nothing exciting had been happening in my life lately, guys. So I thought what better way to get some content than to set myself on fire at my friend's wedding you put it out to the universe okay so then what happened did the fires went out the cake's done you're back on track then the wedding proceeded yeah like nothing ever happened and i walked around with my hand in a spoon and glass for the rest of the day did people know you were actually injured do you think um yeah i mean they did by the end of the

night but like i think people in the back weren't really sure why everyone was screaming and why the cake was on fire some people thought it was a stunt some people thought we did it on purpose It was the entertainment. Everyone was just so confused by what was happening. You've just made my life. You've made my day. Thank you. But, like, enough.

You've made the content. Don't go burn yourself anymore. Look, I've got nothing. I can't contribute to this. I cannot up this story. I was expecting a little bit more from you with the whole Ben meeting the family situation, to be honest. The only funny thing that happened was it was just actually so wholesome. It was so wholesome.

Everyone loved Ben. No one even knew I was there. Like, you know those moments where you're like, hello. He's so nice. He's so nice. How could you not? He's lovely. He cooked dinner for my entire family and my nana all on his own.

He made everyone sit down. He did the whole thing. He was flirting up a storm with my nana. I tell you what, my nana walked in the door and they were just on each other. My nana was flirting back. I was like, this is weird. The only other funny thing was we stayed in a caravan park. We stayed in this beautiful place called Jordan's Caravan Park.

Now it is a very – Wait, I'm sorry. We can't brush over the fact you stayed in a place called Jordan's Caravan Park. Yeah, I know. No, it's just what it's called. Guys, I wasn't going to mention it. It's just what it's called. Well, you did.

I didn't look it up to go and find it. Was Ben like, I'm sorry, is this a bad omen? Does Jordan own this caravan park? I don't think he clocked it until he's going to listen to this. I feel like you didn't clock it until we both did. Moving right along. Imagine staying in a caravan park named after your ex-boyfriend with your new boyfriend.

What a time to be alive. It was funny. Okay, anyway, moving along, this is a nice caravan park. Can I ask who picked it? Me. All right, nothing more to say here. There's not that many options in port. It's by far the nicest one.

Now, Ben grew up in Switzerland and then he moved to the UK. He's not a camper, right? That's not his world. He doesn't do it. He doesn't even do caravan parks. And when I say he doesn't do them, they just don't have them. It's not like he's a snob. It's just not the way he grew up.

So, you know, that's what we do here in Australia. We love it. We love a good caravan park. it's my entire childhood was camping so i was like ben's not ready for camping so i'll just take him to a caravan park it was on the water there is glamping tents it's a nice area but we were in a proper cabin with bathrooms overlooking the water it had a balcony like this isn't even a real caravan it had a heater like it had an aircon and heating like it's a cabin we're in a cabin so i hear him i'm in the lounge room of the cabin and i hear him in the bedroom and i hear him

talking to his family and all i can hear him saying is yeah man it's pretty rough out here And I was like, no, that was very Aussie. He's like, yeah, it's pretty rough out here. I'm camping. And I was like, what is this guy going on about? And he's like, yeah, like if there's ever going to be a spider, I'm going to see it in this place. It's pretty rough out here.

And I walked out. I was like, Ben, you've got the air con on. You've got an en suite in here. What are you talking about? Anyway, he's convinced now in his head he's ticked off a bucket list that he's gone camping. So he thinks that this is as rough as it gets. I mean, to be fair, it probably is as rough as it will ever get for him.

I was like, bro, I used to have to dig a hole into a poop in the sand and then buried again. I'm like, look where you are now. All right. Well, I think we need to tell you what today's episode is about. We got pretty sidetracked there, but today we have a very, very interesting episode. We're talking to Dr. Kirstie Seawood. Now we're going to talk about breast implant illness. This is something I've been really interested in for a long time because I actually had a friend that had it. The reason it's interesting though, is because it's not actually an official condition. Or diagnosis. It's not an official diagnosis. It's something that more and more people are starting to talk about. It's accompanied by fatigue and brain fog. Some

people have hair loss. Some people have pain. There are a multitude of things that can come along with this breast implant illness, but no one will actually say that it's a real diagnosis. Well, I think one of the things is like so many people now are getting breast implants. Like back in the day, it used to be a bit of a taboo thing or a bit of like, oh my God, she's got her boobs done no one gives a fuck if you get your boobs done anymore more people have their I shouldn't say more people but so many people have breast implants and so many people I think now don't even think about what could be the repercussions of doing this or what could be the long-term side effects of doing this and because it is a relatively a new thing in that

only recently we've had mass amounts of people doing it and therefore the research isn't necessarily there for what the long-term effects are on the human body having a foreign body put to you there have been so many people who have come out and spoken about how they have been adversely affected and then how those symptoms were lessened or how they had recovery once they had their explant surgery done yeah it's wild people say like the second that they're out that they're back on track literally within two days they can think again their memory's back they feel better they have more energy it's it's pretty crazy and this is exactly the fact for Dr. Kirstie Seawood. Now, Kirsty had her breasts done and she had it done for, I think the thing I really liked

about this is that she speaks really honestly about her reasons. And it was about her own insecurities that she felt in her body. And I don't think we speak about this enough. I think we often have the dialogue around surgery or plastic surgery these days of like, well, if it makes you feel better, you do what you want, you be empowered. It's your body, it's your choice. And there shouldn't be any shame or stigma around getting any type of plastic surgery. and I think the stigma is lessening but I do also question what are the real reasons what are the real motivations that people have to go and get plastic surgery and does it come from this wanting to you know change something about themselves or does it come from a deep-seated insecurity

thinking that once they fix this thing they're going to be better more light prettier more attractive to the opposite sex or whoever it is that they find sexually attractive that's the big question and for Dr. Kirstie Seawood this is exactly how she experienced it and she thinks in retrospect looking back on her reasons she didn't go into having breast implants with the right intentions yeah so kirsty goes into the why the process of getting breast augmentation she talks about the feeling of knowing something was wrong with her body and feeling unwell exactly what that entailed then her explant journey and the healing process and what life is like after and how life has changed after how her perspective has changed i was thoroughly intrigued by the chat

because i think that this is an amazing thing for her to come out and talk about so publicly she has a lot of platforms she talks about it on and i think she's helping a lot of people so i hope you guys enjoy the chat but before we get into the interview we wanted to do our absolute favorite part that we've not done in a very long time accidentally unfiltered oh the nostalgia i feel like we've it's been a while it's been a second i miss saying that with you same we can say it anytime you want though if you want to say one more time okay accidentally accidentally unfiltered Boom. Producer Keisha is cringing at us.

I know. I'll stop. Okay. Okay. For those of you who are new to the pod and don't know what Accidentally Unfiltered is, this is where you guys write in your most embarrassing stories. And it's been a little while since we've done this because we thought, you know what? We thought we'd rest it for a while.

We brought it back intermittently. But we've had a couple of doozies. And if you do have a wildly embarrassing story that you want to share with us or something that is completely cooked that has happened to you recently or in the past, then please send it into the DMs. but this is one that we received and it gave me a little giggle. I was on the toilet. Fuck, of course it's got to do with the toilet.

I was on the toilet when my boyfriend texted me saying he was outside. I quickly finished up and I met him at the door. I hadn't seen him in a few days and I was so excited to see him, so I greeted him with the biggest hug. As he was hugging me, he put his hands in my jacket pocket that I was wearing. I was wearing my long dressing gown and my pockets were really warm and fuzzy. And as he did it, he pulled away and he looked super confused. And then he looked at me in disgust.

I took one look at what was in his hand and he was immediately horrified, as was I. And as it turned out, I had put my freshly rolled up tampon sausage in my pocket in my rush to meet him at the door. He didn't find it so funny. I laughed about it for hours and then told all my friends and now I'm telling you. That's so disgusting.

Imagine that. Why did you put it in your pocket? Because she was going to take it to the bin and then she just didn't want him waiting outside in the cold. What bathroom doesn't have a bin? I don't have a bin in my bathroom. What? I just walk it out to the kitchen bin.

You have to have a bathroom bin. It's like standard adulting. No. No, because when you've got kids, if I have a bathroom bin, my kids are going to get in there. That's like perfect eye height for a toddler. That's true. She'll get in there and pull out all those tampons

and swing them around the bathroom. That's a good point. I'll never forget the day that my old housemate left it sitting on the windowsill. She'd like wrapped it up, rolled it up, and then just popped it on the windowsill next to the toilet and I walked in to go to the loo and I was like, fucking come on.

i was like come on i feel like we've all done that no i've done it before where i've left it on the sink but it was in my own home but i did flat share it's not yes it was my housemate of course it's your own home it's not your own bathroom it's everybody's communal bathroom mine was also on the sink so it wasn't the windowsill it was like in the aisle that's really disgusting i mean like i know that we should all be fine like you know hashtag we you know bleeding is normalized but i don't want your period on my window or on my sink i just remember something funny this not the same same same but different a very very long time ago my boyfriend very very very very long time ago we had i don't can't remember what it looks like but it was a

dildo or vibrator or whatever a couple of things right and we were living together but we're living together unofficially at his parents house at his dad's house and we went overseas for a little while and we left everything in like under the bed and then while we were gone he decided he wanted to move house so he packed up his bedroom his son's bedroom and moved everything and we never saw the box of dildos and vibrators again so i think his dad i don't know what his dad did because i guess he threw him out but how embarrassing wait i just thought about this now this happened to you yeah that was me he stole a bag of dicks no he didn't steal the dicks he would have burned them i'm sure but we never spoke about it i reckon i reckon he took him into his

wife and was like hey honey look what i bought okay i haven't accidentally unfiltered as well now this is not me this was written in i don't believe it my partner just left for work here i am on facebook scrolling and i see this quote when you both call in sick to work to spend the day fucking and napping you know those memes so i thought this was funny and i shared it with him five minutes later i get a confusing message back saying well now i know why you called in sick last week. Little did I know I had sent it to my boss as they have similar names. RIP dead. I can never go back to work again. That is fucked. Imagine calling in sick and then messaging your boss and saying when you call in sick to fuck. Like just really doubling down on the reason you're

calling in sick to work. It's so funny. That's no. What do you do? Do you say sorry it was an accident or do you say do you like do you claim it? Do you acknowledge that it was an accident or do you say I think you have to pretend you send it to him be like haha psych like you gotta own that this is a bit left to feel but I had this thought the other day this is probably too much information watch some porn you can't call some porn you watch porn yeah you never watch porn no I didn't know you did since when since forever I've spoken about no like I'm not watching porn every night but once in a blue moon if I need a I need to move but quickly I'll watch some porn and do it.

With Matt? Nah, never with Matt. Just on my own. You look so shocked. I'm shooketh to the core because you're just so time poor, so I didn't think you'd choose the little bit of time you have to watch porn. It's late at night. It's efficient.

If Matt hasn't come to bed and I need to rub one out real quick, just put some porn on. He doesn't know this. I'm shooketh. Okay, well, anyway, I had this moment. I was, you know, I didn't have my five minutes and I watched my porn and then I saw it in the little right-hand corner. It's the link.

It's the share link. And I was like, who the fuck is sharing this? Who is sharing this to their Facebook? No. Who is sharing it to their – who's copying a link and sharing this? No, heaps of people. They cop it. They cop it.

They cop it. Heaps of people share it with their partners and stuff that they want to also watch the porn and masturbate. That's a thing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. They're not sharing it to their status update, Laura.

Like you're not sharing it to your Twitter. Hey, guys, this was really good viewing. You might enjoy it also. You're not live streaming it. Start at the seven-minute mark. Laura puts it as a clip. Swipe up to my porn link. Anyway, let's get into the chat.

Well, I don't know how we got there. Yeah, wow. Dr. Kirstie Seawood is a behavioral scientist, dietitian, and body image healing coach. She is here with us today to talk about titties. We're going to be talking titties. Fake titties. Titty implants. No, we're talking breast implants, breast implant illness, body image, and pretty importantly,

explant surgery. Welcome to Life Uncut. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. So we start every episode the same way. Now, I mean, we're going to get into all the chats about breast implant illness, but first we want to know what is the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you? Your accidentally unfiltered story.

Yes, I've had to think about this and there is a couple that stand out, but I'll share one of them and I feel quite silly even like resharing this, but I was selling something on eBay. I'd never sold anything on eBay before. So I put it online. and it was a pair of shoes. And I had someone reach out to me to buy the shoes. And I was like, this is great. Like, this is great. I'd put them in the Facebook groups previously and had nothing and then put them on eBay. And here we go. Someone wants them. Anyway, and we go through the process

and messages back and forth. And they're like, yep, we're going to buy them. And then I got to the point of going to the post office to post them. And then they sent me a message and said, hey, do you mind if you just add a couple of gift vouchers into the box and send them? Because I'm buying them for someone else and I'm posting them like I'm gonna get you to post them to that person for their birthday right gift vouchers like buy them buy them on behalf of them iTunes or Amazon gift vouchers what so she was gonna give you the money and you had to go yeah so she was like I'll just add it on top of the money that I send you which I've never sold on eBay before so I had no idea about all these rules and this is against the guidelines right and I was like oh I guess so like

I'm going to the post office I can like Woolworths is next door I can grab a couple of vouchers and add them into the box and I'll help you sure I'm like no no problem anyway I was in Woolworths buying the gift vouchers and they messaged me and said can you check your emails I've I've sent the money through and I was getting no confirmations in my email like nothing at all was coming through and I'm like this is really weird like everything else had come through like every time they'd messaged me I'd got the email saying you've got a new message and then nothing was coming through and then I checked my spam folder and they'd started going into there and anyway in this moment my sister happened to ring me and she's an accountant which is awesome and she's like what

are you up to and I said I'm just about to post these shoes I finally sold them and I'm getting some gift vouchers and she's like what what do you mean like what do you mean you're adding gift vouchers to your order and then she goes because I'm pretty sure this is a scam I don't think you're to be doing this and I was like wow like I've I don't know I don't know and then so then I googled adding gift vouchers to eBay purchases and because they asked me to send a photo of like the gift voucher number and the receipt when I purchased them just to prove that they were in the box and it's like one of the biggest scams that they scam people with so hang on they get the voucher number from the photo and then use the voucher yeah oh so you'd already sent it I was about to

buy them and send it. I was just waiting for them for the confirmation of the money to hit my account in PayPal. But what they'd done is like created this fake email that looked exactly like an eBay one that had gone to my spam. So it looked legit. Like if anyone didn't really know how to sell on eBay or done before, you would actually fall for this. I wouldn't know that. I would have 100%. I would have been like, yeah, I'm going to pay it forward and do my good deed for the day and give these scammers all the vouchers they want. Do you know what? It pays to be lazy. I'm so fucking lazy that the thought of going and buying gift vouchers for someone else, like I like the generosity aspect of it but they're having to make a special trip to the shops to do

it no it makes sense because like a lot of vouchers you can get at the post office like you post your thing and you just get the vet like they sell the vouchers there wait so what happened did you sell the shoes did they did you still get the money i still have the shoes i googled it and then i was like oh my god it's like one of the biggest scams they do on ebay and i was like i felt so silly right like how did i not even think about this just being a nice person and doing this so i messaged him and I was like you're a scammer like you're fake I'm blocking I'm blocking you and then had to report it to eBay and whatnot and to this day you're still wearing the shoes no I actually ended up selling them in a Facebook group but I've never used eBay since like I'm like I'm I'm not

doing it do you know I think that this is so good though because I think that people feel very very stupid when they get scammed but it's one of those things that can happen to anyone and the scams these days are so good that people who are highly intelligent, people who are doctors, people who are lawyers, like it's not just, it's not just like the little old ladies who don't know how to use the internet who are getting scared. But it is them too. Yeah, it's them. They get scared real bad, but it's anyone can fall to these sort of phishing scams. Yeah. Like I'm very soon I'm marrying a prince from Sweden. I just had to transfer him all my money, but that's normal, right? Yeah. You're right. It's like, I'm educated. I'm not silly. And then I

just get scammed by this person being like can you just grab a couple gift vouchers on the way so there you go this is I guess a learning experience for everyone okay see the reason why we want to talk to you today is to really unpack your experience with breast plant illness and also with explant surgery I love that you just put the breast implant you said with breast plant breast implant illness I knew as it came out of my mouth that I was wrong breast implant illness and explant surgery can you start at the very beginning in terms of the reasons why you wanted to get breast implants in the first place? Yeah, let's go to the beginning. It's quite a journey. So I actually got implants in July 2016. So I only had them in for just on four and a half

years, but I was 25 years old, just caught up really in the fitness culture, the diet culture world. I wouldn't have told you this then, but I can say this now after going back and doing all the reflection is I got them because I didn't feel worthy. Like I thought they would make me feel better in myself I also grew up with many people around me having them my mum had implants for example and then being in that fitness culture working as a dietician in these body transformation programs heavily involved in gyms my partner at the time worked in the gym wasn't also the most stable relationship I'd been in which probably is a good representation of where my headspace was in that time as well I also grew up with my mum owning a beauty salon so beauty was

always a big thing for us. It was always like in our immediate world. And I guess it just felt like the next thing to do. I really love that you are able to make this admission now, because I know that, I mean, we've spoken a lot about plastic surgery before on the podcast, and we've always taken the opinion of like, if you're doing it for the right reasons, then it's okay. But I do think that a lot of people maybe lie to themselves about what the right reasons are, because what is the right reason to change something that you don't like about yourself is it lack of self-worth is it that you don't feel pretty enough is it that you don't feel validated enough or good enough and I think that sometimes we can say oh no I'm just doing this one thing because I want to and

I'm gonna you know it's not because I'm gonna feel better but I do also think that with reflection maybe sometimes the real instigator the real reason as to why is probably not as highbrow as what some people think I also love that you made this point and it's something I think we don't really think about, but no pressure on the parents out there, but the environment you grow up in just has so much impact on who you are, what you do, what you choose to do with your life. And I don't just mean plastic surgery. I mean, every avenue. I didn't grow up around beauty. Like my mum is beautiful, but she didn't, those things weren't important to her in my, you know, I grew up in a country town and we were just camping and like really low key. I didn't grow up around those

things so I didn't know a lot about anything in the beauty world I never had plucked eyebrows I'd never waxed I'd never no one I knew had plastic surgery didn't know what Botox was till I was 30 years old on The Bachelor so it's funny that you said growing up and knowing your mum was in the industry there was a lot of weight on preening and pruning and looking the part and you would have just seen I imagine constant women coming through wanting to be better wanting to look better wanting to improve themselves and maybe even subconsciously that held a lot of pressure for you yeah I definitely can look back and reflect on that now and well I guess actually it's not bad to focus on beauty like it's not a bad thing to focus on the external it can be

really empowering as well but a question that I always share and or a moment I always share is that I wish going into that surgery someone asked me if I was okay like outside of my family outside of my immediate circle if they just pulled me inside and said hey are you okay because I would have been saying to my family friends like yes I'm okay but inside I definitely wasn't I didn't feel good enough didn't feel worthy and if that question had been asked I can't say it would have changed my mind because I was very tunnel visioned on I'm getting implants but if someone had just asked and I know that they are increasing that at the moment like there's new legislation coming through where there will be that psychological assessment component to getting

some cosmetic procedures which I think is amazing because that just adds to the piece of informed consent yeah what was the process like so from when you made that decision that you wanted to get breast implants and also because it's so normalized now it's not a big deal it's like going getting braces like I've got when I got why are you putting the braces on can I get some do you know what I mean like it's so normal that I almost think that when we talk about this like psychological assessment or like needing to kind of understand whether someone's okay it's not even expected that someone might not be okay wanting to get it because it's so normal to do so what was the process what was the appointments the conversations like what was the lead up between

when you made the decision and when you actually went in and had the surgery you're so right there as well it's something that's taken so lightly right like oh I'm just going to get implants I go in for a day I get home in the afternoon and I'm done and it's so quick and it's not really seen as major surgery but it's actually major surgery like you're being cut open and putting something inside your body essentially. So the process it was the normal wait list so you're probably waiting like three to six months to get in with a surgeon depending on the surgeon you're looking for. You would meet with a couple of surgeons so I met with two surgeons around to choose who I would go for for my augmentation. I chose a very well-known experienced surgeon

and it was a initial consult to talk about what your desired look is so what kind of like how big do you want to go how do you want them to fall all the technical things and then it was a pre-op consultation I think it was a week or so prior and then literally the next time you see them you're about to go into surgery and they're drawing on you drawing all the lines and yeah so that's pretty much the process it's quite quick if you're I guess adamant of like I'm getting them done I'm going for it. Can I ask if we just take it back one step? I know we just said that you had some issues with body confidence and you thought it would make you feel better. If we dive into that a little bit deeper, do you feel like the body confidence issues was something that you were

battling with just from external pressures like the magazine covers, people at school wanting to look like Hollywood? Or do you think it was the way you were made to feel insignificant in a relationship? This is a big question to unpack because it does go this deep, right? And this is what I learned from going through this journey and getting unwell and then having them removed because you ask yourself all of these big questions like, why didn't I feel good enough? I don't recall me ever really engaging so much in like magazines and kind of social media wasn't a thing quite back then. I think we were on the verge of getting there. So for me, I feel like it was more internal reasons of not being enough and then that kind of manifested externally to

okay if I change myself somehow and the way I look back at it now it's like I was just adding another layer onto me so I couldn't really be seen on the inside like here's another external thing for someone to look at so I don't have to bring my authentic self out so if I add this it may be making me look more worthy be more worthy to someone else add more value to me without actually having to show the real me if that kind of makes sense it's funny that we're trained to say that that's how much our looks have weight like you need to feel better oh if i just have boobs and i look like a hot fitness model that's enough to maybe keep a boyfriend that's enough to get a boyfriend that's enough for people to maybe sign up to my course my dietitian course

like just such a ridiculous external factor and i say ridiculous now because we've come so far as a society that we can look at it through that lens but at the time I have no doubt that you genuinely believed that was going to make your life easier yeah and the relationship I was in at the time was like I mentioned before also a reflection of my headspace at the time it wasn't healthy what I would say is healthy now and essentially yeah I was doing anything I could to stay within that rather than leave and empower myself or work on myself it's so interesting because in my career I never doubted myself like I never doubted that I went to uni I started my own business straight out of uni I was doing my PhD at this time so I in terms of career I never

doubted that but it was this body image and this self-worth piece that take away my career I was battling something there inside do you think at the time and it's easy with the you know the idea of self-reflection that you placed more importance on your aesthetic than what you did on who you were as a person like you thought that that was the most valuable part of what made you you yeah definitely I know that we have come so far in terms of having these conversations but I don't think that we've come that far I think that a lot of people still feel maybe they're not even aware of it but I think a lot of people still feel like that I think a lot of people especially if you're going through your 20s or your late 30s like and you haven't necessarily gotten to the place where

you expect your life to be we can often fall into this idea of like well maybe I'm not pretty enough maybe I'm not funny enough maybe I'm not enough and the easiest thing to work on or the easiest thing to change is the way that you show up in the world which is our external aesthetic and if I it's like if I just have that next thing that'll make me happy or that'll make me enough and it can can be for any area of our life right but yeah for me it was heavily focused on aesthetics which I guess looking from the outside it's not everyone would have known that like yes I was changing my body but I was so confident in my career but yet I was so unconfident in this area of my life so I think that's really important to highlight that sometimes it's not unconfidence in

ourselves as a whole it's different elements or areas of ourselves or our lives yeah and do you feel like it changed your confidence when you did get them this is interesting because if anything at times I felt more self-conscious because then you start attracting a different type of attention right and through getting the consultation pre-surgery pre-getting them in my surgeon actually they size you up so they say okay we'll go from either this size which my smallest was 330 up to 440 cc's and he put the largest ones in so when I woke up I was like wow they're big like significantly bigger like so at times of course I had fun with them right like many women will say like you enjoy them but I would definitely say at times that they made me more self-conscious like I

was conscious of what I was wearing in certain places around family and then even in my career as well. Did the surgeon go bigger like as in when you walk into surgery for someone who hasn't had breast implants and doesn't actually know the way that the procedure works so you don't specify this is exactly the size I want the surgeon kind of has some sort of creative leeway I guess and you woke cup bigger than what you expected to be is that how that unfolded for you yeah so essentially you go in there and you describe the aesthetic you're looking for I had many photos in my phone of like I'd saved on found them on Instagram for example this is the kind of look I want to go for and based on their expertise and their skills and their different techniques and you essentially

sign away to say yes I agree for you to put in either this size or this size so they have a range and essentially they choose while they're in there what they feel will get the outcome that you described and they can give you. And did you feel that they gave you that outcome or do you feel that they gave you bigger than what you were anticipating? I feel that when I look back at the images I gave him, he did well with the outcome that was described. I probably didn't understand what that would actually feel and look like on me. And I think that's important to think about too. yeah but I also think it's important from a medical perspective like you're someone going in who has never ever experienced this who has this is the first time that you've ever had breast

implants whereas this is someone's profession they're doing it every day I almost think that there's a duty of care to explain that is a significant jump that the outcome you're asking for is such a significant shift to where your body is at at the moment and what that psychologically might feel like for you as well that it seems like there's this real deficit in that conversation and in that duty of care yeah and essentially with the sizing my surgeon described that he felt the large implant being broader was better for me given my frame and the desired look that we were going for so there was kind of that discussion there but looking back I'm like what the fuck were you thinking like a little bit like you're literally sticking this form and being like

okay i'm giving someone else the power here to make a decision on the outcome essentially was there any conversation ever when you went for your i know you said you only went for your one consult was there any conversation about why you're getting it did the surgeon ever say why are you positive was that that real confirmation that this is what you want to do and an understanding of why or was it just like cool you want to get it i think this will suit you well like was there an upsell Laura and I were talking the other day about boobs and a nose well we're talking about going in to get like maybe going to get Botox and they're like oh you could do with some filler here like that upsell of you know I've got you here now let's just do the whole

haul what was your experience in that capacity there were certainly questions around why you here but I probably wouldn't have answered them honestly because I was so again envisioned on I want this I'm doing it let's just get the ball kind of rolling here's my vision here's the images I've saved and then they kind of explain to you he was quite an experienced surgeon he was able to say well I don't think you can actually achieve that look that you've saved here and this is probably more likely for you so there was discussion around the technicalities and that but from memory and from looking at reflecting on my headspace from where I was at I don't think it would have mattered to me yeah you you convinced yourself that that was what you wanted and needed

speaking in ccs but for someone who doesn't know what that looks like i mean what is that in terms of cup size so you went from a what to a what yeah so i would have been i would say a full b my boobs had lost size because i'd gotten into fitness and i lost some body fat so i would have been sitting at about a full b and i went to it would have been a double d wow even some sizes would have been an E. So quite significant. And I don't think I understood the physical weight of that, but also the weight of that decision as well. Did you have any concept of what breast implant illness was at the time? Did you know that that was a thing, that there could be some side effects or long-term side effects of having breast implants? Yeah, full honesty, I had no idea

about it. I was informed about the other common risks we hear about, which are like ruptures or them contracting or restricting and them needing to be replaced every, say, 10 years or so. I knew they weren't lifetime devices, but I never had heard of breast implant illness itself, no. But would I have changed my mind? I can't answer that if I had have known about it as well. So how long was it until you felt like something wasn't quite right with your body? yeah so it would have been in 2020 so early about feb march 2020 when i really started to notice that there was something really different about me i was really fatigued and not a normal fatigue like so at this point i was running a business i was lecturing at the university i

just finished my phd about six months prior i thought i'm having a social life i'm just busy but the fatigue was really really landing a lot and also brain fog I felt like I'd gone from this person who wrote an 80,000 word thesis the year before and then some days couldn't even write an email couldn't get an email out I didn't feel right I was also getting a lot of like viral infections and just repeat rashes and things and I was just constantly sick from someone who normally rarely kind of saw the GP or the doctor it seemed like I was there constantly or there was something going on. How was it that you made the link between the two? And like, how did you start to start to realize maybe this is to do with the breast implants that I have versus just

having some sort of chronic illness or long-term sickness? Or like aging? Yeah. From now being on the other side, I can say that it wasn't a normal fatigue at all. Like it was actually really quite severe. But when I first started talking about those symptoms, I actually had a friend who had had her implants removed and she mentioned some of those things she'd been going through and at the time I was like oh that's not me that's surely not me so denial was written all over it I was like no I'm just busy I'm doing all the things I'm trying to lecture I'm trying to run a business and do all the things and it's just normal and that's a pretty common thing that I when I speak to women about this it's like they don't want to believe or consider that this could be them as

well so it was towards the end or it was about mid 2020 when I was working I'd been working with my naturopath for some time to try and boost my energy and find out what's going on my period was also starting to go not normal I was skipping periods I was losing regularity in my cycle my thyroid was starting to play up so things more signs of coming up so I'd been working with her and it was in November 2020 I remember mentioning in finally after like probably six months of knowing about breast implant illness I was like hey do you think this could be it and then she said to me I've actually had a few women who have experienced a similar thing had their implants removed and had dramatically improved life like seeing the effects almost immediately

and I guess it was that day where I was like I can't really lie to myself anymore I can't I have to really start being honest that hey maybe this is a thing and over this time I'd also felt my intuition kind of kicking in and I remember waking up one morning it was like 3am and I set up in bed and it was like these have to go so from that appointment with my naturopath I remember walking out and I just sat in the car and cried I couldn't even like put it in drive and drive off more so for two reasons it was like one I had faced it and I said okay this is where I'm at I am looking at breast implant illness and I believe that's me it's a reality now and then also there was fear there around like what's the next step and I knew that was surgery so I was like well now I have to

face what this stage looks like and I remember that day so clearly because it was one of my good friend's birthday parties that night and I was meant to be getting ready and I was just sitting on the side of the road and I called my best friend and I said look I can't I can't get ready I need to just go home and she came over and we sat down for like an hour and she just chatted through how I was feeling what the next steps were and then ended up going to the party but no one really knew at this point either they'd seen my health kind of deteriorate my family knew that I wasn't right like they could see me slowly deteriorating and getting tired and not being present kind of at family events and just not being me but on the inside no one really knew

what that felt like as well. Did you go and seek out any GPs apart from the naturopath did you have any appointments with GPs or specialists to try and get to the bottom of it and if you did what were their responses or understandings of breast implant illness? I'm so lucky in this one because my GP was actually amazing and he listened and because I'd been seeing him so much as well throughout that year with all these repeat things coming up he was open to it he's like you know what this could be an option and so he he wrote me the referral because to see surgeons then same as getting an augmentation you typically need a referral so he wrote me referrals included all the medical background that I've been going through and essentially was like I support this

decision so he was actually really good which is not common I've heard stories from many women who would say that they were just dismissed they were told it's and this is where it's hard because there's no actual diagnosis yet like it's not a said breast implant illness is not a diagnosed thing. So, and it's such a cluster of symptoms that could just become down to lifestyle or stress really. I was just about to say that my understanding was that it's a lot of doctors don't diagnose breast implant illness because it's not in the medical journals, but you can't deny how many women have come forward and said, I felt like this. I took them out and everything improved. I tried everything in my power when I had my implants and nothing worked. I took them

out and I got better. I wonder what it's going to take and how many people, how many women need to come forward and explain their stories before it is something that's recognized. Did you have it checked? Did you have your implants ultrasounded to check for leakages or anything like that? No, I didn't. I didn't get mine checked. My GP didn't feel, we certainly talked about it, but he didn't feel like that was a necessary step in terms of where my symptoms were at and what I was experiencing for me I didn't have any of those pains in my breasts or anything which would usually come up if you did have a rupture or a leak so everyone's so different but my symptoms were really chronic fatigue brain fog I was getting migraines skin rashes I'd started to

gain weight and I'd never really had a problem with weight in terms of gaining it so incrementally like over time and inflammation my face was starting to get really puffy and I look back at photos now and I'm like, gosh, I was so inflamed during that time. And my hair, my hair was snapping and breaking. Like I could not grow it past my shoulders. It would just, it was so fragile. It's so interesting because I, when you say Brit, like what will it take for people to find that correlation? We know that we have a very misogynistically geared healthcare system. We spoke to Bridget Hathwaite about endometriosis a year and a half ago and how long it has taken for women to be able to even have that seen as a real medical issue for so long it was just like

yeah periods are painful I feel like in this instance there's even less attention to it because it's an opt-in cosmetically enhanced it's like you made that choice um so I feel like there's even less empathy and sympathy to what the potential ramifications and outcomes could be and it's like who's going to be doing that research study who's going to be funding the amount of money that needs to go into what are the long-term health implications of having breast implants it's certainly not the people manufacturing implants they're not going to do it it's not going to be the surgeons who are doing the operations because that would be counterintuitive as well so it's almost like there's this gap of responsibility of who would actually do that

research or who would actually find out more about it the other part of this I guess as well is when When you went to the doctor and you decided to have your implants removed, what was the next step? So what was that surgery like? Did you go back to the same surgeon? Did you see a new surgeon? Yeah, this plays into what you just said there. So it's the same process around getting an augmentation. So essentially you then go and I Googled surgeons, explant surgeons, because not all of them will remove implants, right? They're proud of their work. They've got skills in putting them in and well, they want to take them out. So I Googled surgeons. I actually did book in with my original surgeon, but I couldn't get into him for, I think it was six months or so. So in the

meantime of waiting for that, and of course you have to pay for all these appointments as well, the deposit payments, so it can be quite an expensive and a long process in itself. I was again, really lucky or fortunate that I happened to get booked in for two consultations with surgeons one in Sydney and one on the central coast on the same day so I booked those and I had to wait it was about a month it was quite quick for what it could normally take the first surgeon I walked out of there again in tears and I remember him saying like you'll look deformed if you take them out are you sure you want to do this have you looked at every other avenue that it's actually user implants and then going back to upselling tried to upsell me to get fat grafting

in the same conversation so if you're going to get these out we refill them and he was the first one I guess that explained the actual process of getting them removed as well like how you have to remove not only the breast implant itself but there's a capsule that surrounds it so once it gets put into your body your body forms this capsule around it to essentially reject it or protect your body from that foreign object so that has to come out as well and sometimes that could be attached to your rib cage or anywhere kind of on your chest like it's right on top of your heart and lungs right so I walked out of that consult just like oh my god like this is this is intense and such a procedure that I like in the weight of this procedure versus going to

get them in like we're polar opposites and then I went to the second surgeon who ended up being the surgeon that I went with and the conversations with her were so different she had was full of compassion she was actually a breast cancer specialist surgeon so she had a lot of empathy compassion for where I was at explained everything so calmly and considerate and I just knew when I met her that she was the one to kind of take me through this step and how did the surgery go because I know you just said that the the previous surgeon scared the bejeebers out of you like you could lose a rib and your heart could fall out at the same time yeah how did it go did you have any complications or was it quite easy did you do a rebuild like a graft or did you yeah how did

that go well I actually cancelled my first surgery date it was in the November or early December I was going for these appointments and then I had surgery scheduled for near the end of December just before my 30th birthday and I cancelled like days before I was like I just can't do this I'm not ready I mean I think that again from talking to women about this that's a normal response as well so I rescheduled for the 8th of January which happened to be my nan's birthday she'd passed away but I still wear her ring like every day so I was like this is this is the sign that this is the date for me I was so scared walking in there because we had COVID during this time so I had to walk in there alone my immediate family were the only ones that really knew what

was going on at this time and my close circle my best friend drove me to the hospital and I had to walk in there alone and like do all the pre-op stuff alone and just sit there for like two hours or so just getting ready for this procedure but it all went really really well so she was able to remove the implants and about 95% of the capsules. There was about a five to five cent piece size of the capsules that were too close to my ribs that she couldn't remove. But then she used a procedure to neutralize those to kill any cells that were on there. Do you know why it's an issue for them to leave some of the capsule in your body? Like what's the problem with doing that? They are researching this at the moment, whether it's like you have to remove the whole capsule or

not it's recommended to remove the capsule essentially because that capsule is encasing the implants and it's then got the toxins in it itself so if you leave part of that capsule you could potentially leave some of those toxins that have been leaking out within the body itself and like I mentioned before my implants weren't ruptured they weren't leaking so they don't actually have to be damaged to have this effect and I guess it's the idea of at the end of the it's a foreign body in your body still. So it's still something your body doesn't really know or recognize. And with implants, like you mentioned earlier, you're supposed to take them out and rechange them every 10 years. If you've left a part in there, I imagine that would cause problems

down the track. If you're happy to talk about it, how do your breasts look afterwards? Is the scarring different to when you put them in? Is it as traumatic as this first surgeon made it out to be yeah I still remember the first time looking at my body and that because that's a big question you ask yourself right like what am I going to look like once they're out what are they going to look like are they going to are they going to be saggy are they going to be flat are they going to be droopy because obviously my skin stretched where I had them in and going that size that I did I looked at my body for the first time was just in absolute awe I remember like I had tears like welling up because I was like I am so fucking proud of your body for like holding me

through this whole journey even though I decided to put these things in you that were that were not great right you stood by me and I was like you're giving me all the signs for these to come out so and since that day I've always I've had this connection with my body that it's just so hard it's so much deeper than I've ever had before my boobs now look very very similar to what they did pre-implants so it takes about six to nine months similar to when you get an augmentation ladies that have had an augmentation will know the terms drop and fluff so sounds like what I'm gonna do tonight so essentially it takes time for the the tissue to like drop and get comfortable and then fluff back up so mine now I actually looked at a photo not that long ago of it was

my pre-op photo that I'd sent the surgeon before getting augmentation I looked and I'm like they're literally so similar to what they were before. And I just wanted to hug myself in that moment and be like, what were you like? You were so enough. I'm so glad you said that because I think I was really expected a different answer. I expected you to say it was really hard to look at myself afterwards, the difference in the morning, the loss, and maybe that'd be more deflated. All those things you said, I almost just welled up when you were like, I looked at myself and I was like, fuck yeah, because I think there's a lot of women out there that are probably thinking right now that they may have breast implant illness or maybe they don't but maybe

they just want to take their breast implants out for whatever reason but I think a lot of women would be really scared to have that surgery that explant surgery for fear of I mean it is surgery but for fear of what they're going to look like after are they going to be happy body confidence plays such a large part in our life and I think it does that at any age I don't think it matters what age you get to or what part of life or what relationship you're in as women there's always a small part that we we care about what we look like and on the outside it affects our inside even when you've done so much work on yourself so for you I think you're going to help a lot of people out there right now being like fuck yeah I loved it I felt good and I look the same so it's

not as scary as maybe a lot of people think yeah and it took a lot of work to look at them too like I remember sitting in the bed and I was like I don't want to look down I don't look down what's it going to be like and then when I walked into the bathroom and like unbuttoned my top and opened and just stood there I was like you are so beautiful like I just I struggle to put it into like into words as well the type of connection I have had since yeah I'm struggling see I'm struggling now to put it into words because it was the most beautiful version of me that I think I'd ever felt and I didn't expect that I didn't expect to feel more connected I was like okay it's surgery there'll be a recovery but I didn't expect the connection that I got from this

especially after the scaremongering of the first surgeon who you know the first point of call is to tell you that you know that there would be deformities or that you know it wouldn't live up to the expectation but it's also because a lot of surgeons who are doing breast implants are only seeing the outcome of people who have wanted that therefore it's a positive thing for them they're like I'm doing good I'm helping people feel better about their bodies but maybe because it's not the long-term connection they're not seeing people who maybe six months or a year down the track don't feel like they identify with their own body anymore because of this surgery because of having this thing that's foreign on them that doesn't feel like themselves my surgeon

did really well as well around the scars so she used the same incisions that my original surgeon did so they're only like slightly longer and then I took care of those really well they're still there and I think they're a beautiful reminder now of that journey but going back to that then around identity you are losing a part of yourself through this and I don't think any woman can really go through this step without acknowledging that like there is a certain part of us where these implants do become our identity or they are seen as an element of us and that's different for everyone obviously but I think it would be very hard to go through this journey without asking yourself the big questions around who am I and what am I doing here like what is my actual

purpose here as well because it's not about being enough for other people like am I even enough for me and it does this for a lot of women that I've spoken to it connects you to something much greater within yourself in terms of going back to your breast plant illness how did the symptoms change or did you find a resolution quickly like talk me through that part of your journey yeah the first breath and again many women will say this when they wake up the first breath is incredible I took the deepest breath I'd taken in what four and a half years like physically you mean your lungs could physically expand yeah well I had almost 500 grams of weight on each side of my chest for four and a half years and I don't remember feeling a difference when I got them

put in but when you get them taking out it was like oh my god I can breathe again and my energy even like from the moment of waking up and my mental clarity in the days following surgery, I stayed in hospital for three nights because I lived alone. I was single. So when I got them out, I was single as well. So that played on my mind too. And I just kept getting better and better. Like it was expecting recovery to be maybe challenging and a bit of pain. And there was a little bit of tenderness around my incisions, but I felt 200 times better than I'd felt in a long time. Isn't it funny how counterproductive it is? And hindsight's a wonderful thing, but you got them at the start, A, because you were in a fitness industry. It was a vibe. It was a look.

Everyone was doing it. You thought you looked more of the part. B, you thought it would help your relationship and help maintain a relationship if you looked better for that person. When all it did was take away all of your health, like for someone that did it in the health industry, you couldn't breathe properly. You had all these illnesses that came off the back of it. in hindsight you must look back and just think fucking hell what am I like what was I thinking but I think it's because not enough people were talking about it like you are talking about it so openly now yeah I look back and guilt shame and forgiveness are like three key things that I talk to women now about this journey and I've always shared it's like it was a lot of fucking

forgiveness like a lot of sitting there being like okay I made this choice and I acted the best I knew then but like girl what were you thinking like yeah did you feel that people treated you differently after having them removed I mean you said that it attracted a different type of attention what was the the flip side of that like once you'd had them removed and you'd gone back to being the previous version of yourself did you notice that that attention had gone did people treat you differently did people notice I think because there was such an internal shift in myself because I never knew my values before I now knew my I'd done work to unpack my values and what relationships look like to me I think I started to connect with myself and other people in a

different way on a different level and people were saying like because when I shared my journey which I questioned should I share this and when I shared it I had so new like the response I got I was not expecting it was so supportive and everyone was like I didn't even know this was thing I think I might be experiencing this but a lot of people reach out to me and they're like you're so beautiful for being this vulnerable and sharing this and I'm so proud of you and I think it was the first time I'd really opened myself up to letting people see that part of me and just to be clear the rest of what you were experiencing the chronic fatigue and the brain fog the illnesses the rashes all of those went away when you had the explant surgery yeah yeah so they tend to say

to give a rough guideline, for the number of years you've had them in, it's like for every one year, it's about three to four months of detoxing. So depending on how long you've had them for, your explant's not a solution to everything. It's certainly going to take a big stress away, but not everything may be resolved straight away. But for me, I feel like my body just responded so well to the relief of having them out. And yeah, I can say today, like all of those symptoms are gone. For anybody who's considering getting breast implants, what do you wish you had known or what do you wish you had thought about before going through that journey? I would say really know why. Know why you want them or why you're getting them and what you feel

like they're adding to your life. And I think at this point, you can't ignore the evidence that's coming out. So reach out to women who have potentially, who have been through breast implant illness or have had complications and actually have those discussions because I didn't and there's there is more awareness of it now but just be honest with yourself about the potential complications and sit with that as well and then I mean on the other side for anyone thinking about getting the explant surgery now what do you want to say do it but you'll know you'll know the right time for you and you're not crazy one for thinking like for thinking like you have these symptoms you know your body best so please listen to it I believe explant

surgery is an amazing step but it's still just a step and then there is work more inner work to be done after that around coming back to the root issue around your body image concerns and your relationship yourself too but explant if you're considering that you have breast implant illness go and have the conversations with surgeons just go and talk about it and step into the reality and actually get the facts there to take the next step. So I feel like a lot of people are going to want to know more about this because anyone that's jumped on this episode probably is experiencing that. And I know you're very open online.

So where can people find you to just go and get all the nitty gritty? So my Instagram will be the best place to start. So at DrKirstieSeawood. And then I also can offer one-on-one support sessions for this. And then I can send you in the direction of numerous Facebook support groups. So my surgeon, Dr. Mary Ling, has a Facebook support group as well where you can ask those questions. You're a gem.

Kirstie, thank you so much for being a part of the podcast and for sharing your story and for sharing. I mean, we hear so much about the celebrations of plastic surgery these days. And I think sharing the fact that it is a very real and sometimes has bigger and more long-term complications that can be associated with it and the reasons why people should take that decision seriously is so important. So thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.

all right it is time for our sucking our sweet we never finished the episode without except for next week's episode which we're gonna finish without a second sweet but this week's episode without a highlight and our low light of each and every week and i'm gonna go first because you always go first okay well you set yourself on fire i think it's pretty standard oh i wasn't even gonna say that that was my suck because the wedding was so good i feel like i can't double down okay well if you've got a bigger suck than setting your body on fire at a wedding bring it because i want to hear it this was not my highlight put it that way you remind me of like a little crab every time you put your little pins white tampon pincers together i just

look like a little crab tampon crab little tampon crab here she comes okay no my suck for the week is that today is marley's birthday which is not my suck i'm very happy about that glad that she was born no but i'm very thrilled it's the day she's four years old today and it's so cute but My suck for the week was that I had to get up super early to come into the office because we had a lot of work to get done today. And so I didn't get to see her when she woke up. But I'm going home early. But I spoke to her on the phone and she was so sad.

And it made me really sad. And then that was my suck and I cried. Have you got a little prezzy for her tonight? Yeah. What did you get her? Got her a dollhouse. Oh, nice. More shit in the house that we don't need.

Totally right. Honestly, every time it's like one of their birthdays, I just look online and I'm like, fuck, we don't need any more shit in our house. Because kids, you can't get a kid that little inexperienced, can you? Because it doesn't, they don't have that grasp. I mean, she's going to Fiji for the holidays. But that's what I mean. It means nothing.

They want like, you better have to get them a doll, you know? Totally. She's going to Fiji and she does not care. Of course she doesn't care. If I said, hey, sweetie, we're going to Fiji for your birthday, she'd be like, piss off, mum, get me a dollhouse. 100%. But also, I feel it because she's only four.

She's so ungrateful. Leave her behind. I know. She can stay with Nana. You're not even going to enjoy Fiji anywhere. You go to the kids club. It's for mum. to be fair it's actually my present it's kind of our honeymoon and we're taking the kids with us

but i it's like a family honeymoon yeah no okay next week we're going to fiji it was our honeymoon and then it's also my sister's 40th birthday so then i was like why don't you come and it can be your 40th birthday and then somewhere in the conversation matt was like i thought it was our honeymoon and then alicia was like i thought it was my 40th birthday and i realized i forgot to tell either party that i'd merged the two together oh so everyone's coming worst and then it's also well i hope you have a funny pg thank you yeah guys we're going away on a little break but we have some awesome content prepped and ready for you guys over the little mid-year hiatus we're not having a break this year we're going to be dropping content the whole time oh yeah there's

no break break we just won't be physically here but everything is is as planned is as planned okay and my highlight for the week and this is a little bit self-promoting but i don't even care i'm taking opportunity it is tony may's end of year financial sale have you paid for that sponsorship uh yep yeah i'll slide on into your dms with some mid-year payment eofy sale eofy sale yeah it's massive it's our biggest mid-year sale i freaking love it it's been very busy and yes if you like jewelry go hashtag tony may how long does it go for www.tonymay.com.au this episode is brought to you by tony may it goes until the 30th of june oh great yeah maybe i'll get myself treat myself maybe I'll just give you something for free okay as payment I mean that's the outcome

I'm not gonna say no no it is honestly like it's the biggest time for us because like I mean I know you guys this takes up so much time like life on cart is my main priority it's a full-time job and then like I kind of have another well it's almost like sometimes I forget that or maybe people don't realize I have this other full-time job that I do and that takes up so much of me but it's not as public it's not as like it doesn't have as big a profile but when we have moments like this I feel really proud of it and so yeah it's a big time of year for us I'm very proud of you you work very hard thank you my honey yeah this I don't see my children's birthdays hey you win some you lose some all right what is your suck for the week cool well my suck is that you brought

it to my attention that I took my new boyfriend to a caravan park named after my ex-boyfriend I didn't realize and I don't reckon he did either I can't believe you didn't realize that that's when you know you've moved on that's when you know there's a definite line in the sand that you're no longer thinking about your ex totally even the name seeing the name and saying the name we're staying at jordan's did not clock because they just call it jordan's they don't even call it jordan's it's just like oh are you at jordan's that's what it is that should have been worse that should have been a more of a sign not less of a sign didn't clock it that's so funny and my sweet okay yeah moving quite along my sweet would be i mean i have loads of sweets but they're all

around Ben and his time here because it's like I imagine it's what it's like when you have a kid and your kid sees things for the first time like they have these first experiences they're doing all these first moments I feel like that's what it's like like seeing him with the Australian wildlife and my family and he's enamored by the beauty of Australia like the the beaches it's making me re-realize how beautiful Australia is because like my home in Port Macquarie he walked down to the beach that i lived on and i go to every day of my life and he's like this is so beautiful i can't believe you live here and then i'm like wow that's yeah i can't believe i live here it's interesting isn't it because the more that you're exposed to something and the more

that we become familiar with it the more we take it for granted and i think that that's the case for literally everything in life it was like the sun was setting on the beautiful beach there was a whale just like hopping past they don't hop but it was if a whale it wasn't well it was the whale I was hopping past, the sun was there, the dogs were running and it's winter and it was perfect. And he was like, this is literally your every day. So just seeing that and seeing him with my family, I haven't taken anyone home to my Port Macquarie home in 10 years.

So it was a really big deal and everyone loved him and it passed the test. And, yeah, it was a nice like solidified, not that I needed to, but it was like solidifying the relationship for what it is and it's serious and it's moving forward. It was just a bit of a moment, a milestone I guess. Oh, no, I sound disgusting. I think I've vomited my mouth gross.

Ew. Yeah, but cute though. I'll let you have it. It sounds silly. I'll let you have it. Also, Tony Mays on sale. Hey, talking about new experiences, you should take Ben to the end of year financial sailor, Tony Mays.

Oh, my God. Do you want to have a baby? You should call it Tony Mays. You like the beauty of Australia? You should go. My dad's name is Tony. I know this great Australian jewelry designer. Okay, guys.

I'm so sorry. We have to go. I love you all. We love you all. You're the fucking best. But she's got to get to the sale. Okay, love you, bye. But if you've loved the episode or, you know what,

if you've had your own experience with breast implant illness, we would love to hear about it. Slide into the DMs. If you have an accidentally unfiltered story, it's time for us to bring it back, baby. Slide into the DMs. It's Life Uncut Podcast. Follow us on TikTok.

Follow us on Instagram. And you know the drill. Don't forget. Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friends and share the love and go to 20 May. Because we love love. We'll be right back.