The Bossticks - The Truth About Breast Implant Illness, Plastic Surgery, Explant Surgery, & How To Listen To Your Bodies Signals Ft. Candice Barley

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

#625: Candice Barley is an actress, documentary photographer, and patient advocate for women with breast implant illness. In 2017, she became extremely ill and was diagnosed with an unexplained liver disease. Candice's health continued to decline as she developed full-body tremors and multiple symptoms of chronic inflammation. After doing personal research on the causes of her health problems, Candice decided to have her breast implants removed in June of 2018. Within eight weeks, her liver disease and tremors began to resolve. Today, we're sitting down with Candice to discuss all things breast implant illness. She tells us her story and the stories of countless other women who have had unexplained illnesses that were healed after explant surgery, and gives us the signs of breast implant illness. We also dive into why it's important to do your own research and how the plastic surgery industry can be dishonest. Lastly, she gives tips on how to deal with unsupportive partners and how to be a supportive partner when it comes to implant removal. To connect with Candice Barley click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To subscribe to our YouTube Page click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential This episode is brought to you by Fable Pets Fable Pets designs gear that solves problems for you and your pet, so the two of you can enjoy exploring the world together. Go to fablepets.com/skinny for 20% off sitewide and 35% off sets. This episode is brought to you by Cymbiotika Cymbiotika is a health supplement company, designing sophisticated organic formulations that are scientifically proven to increase vitality and longevity by filling nutritional gaps that result from our modern day diet. Use code SKINNY at checkout to receive 15% off your purchase at cymbiotika.com This episode is brought to you by Wella Wella Professionals just released its most luxurious hair care line; Ultimate Repair. You can purchase The Ultimate Repair Miracle Hair Rescue at Ulta stores, or go to wella.com to learn more. This episode is brought to you by Conair Introducing the new Curl Secret by Conair, your new favorite styling tool for effortless curls. Shop Curl Secret by Conair at any major retailer near you.. This episode is brought to you by Caraway Caraway Home's non-toxic kitchen wares are all designed for the modern home and feature a chemical-free ceramic coating, so food can be prepared with peace of mind that no hard-to-pronounce compound will leach into your healthy ingredients. Visit Carawayhome.com/SKINNY10 or use code SKINNY10 at checkout to receive 10% off your next order. This episode is brought to you by OneSkin Visit oneskin.co and use code SKINNY15 at checkout for 15% off your first purchase. Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

Women aren't associating the problems that they're having with their implants. I just want women to be fully informed. If you had told me that once I get implants, I'm going to lose my libido and I'm going to gain weight and I'm going to have acne, I would have really probably rethought that whole process. And if you have any preexisting autoimmune or Hashimoto's, those things are going to become very hard to manage. As you guys know, I removed my implants. And a little update for you, I have more energy. rash on my legs is gone, like gone. I have lost about 20 pounds since removing my implants. Now, a lot of that was not fat. It was inflammation. This is my own theory, by the way. It was inflammation.

I lost about, I want to say like 12 pounds right when I got them out. And then it's been like six months. And overall, I've lost 20 pounds. I feel lighter, brighter. I also feel like younger. I swear, because I think the inflammation and I had had had. them for a really long time, the inflammation was like making me look older. I know that sounds bizarre. This is just my own sort of like guinea pig project that I've seen. I most importantly have noticed that I'm not chronically fatigued and that's been huge. So those are sort of the things that I have noticed after getting them removed. While I was going through this process, my surgeon, Dr. Robert Whitfield had this incredible patient advocate that was there. Her name was Candice. And I asked

Candice to come on the blog. She came on the blog. She did a three-part series about her experience of removing her implants and how she just feels so much better. She goes through the whole story in this episode. And every time I went to Dr. Roberts' office, I would see Candice. And we just talked and we became friends. And I learned all about her story. And it was such an incredible story. that I wanted to bring her on the podcast. She's an amazing person, and to give you a little background before we hop into it, in 2017, she became very ill and was diagnosed with an unexplained liver disease. And this is her story. I think this episode is eye-opening, informative, and educational, and I know you'll love it. Candice Barley, welcome to the Him and Her

Show. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. Today's show is going to be fun. I have someone that I personally worked with, which we'll get into. I don't know if worked with is the right thing to say, but. Collaborated. That helped me through an intense journey that I went through personally. And I also have someone who's a friend, an advocate, and I feel like you're doing a lot of good for women. I know, Lauren. I've been doing it for a while. Oh, fuck. Michael's going to talk about his penis ex-plant. No, we have Candace here.

Candice Barley is an actress, a documentary photographer, and a patient advocate for women with breast implant illness. Welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm super excited to be here. I have wanted to interview you since I met you. And what I would love to do is I would love to sort of walk the audience through your story. So first, start with why you felt like you had to get implants in the first place, how old you were, and what that looked like. Sure. Well, it really started middle school. I was a super late bloomer. And my first

real experience with my peers was all of these girls came up to me in the girls locker room as I was changing. And they said, if you didn't have feet, would you wear socks? And I was like, I feel like there's no way I can answer this question correctly. So I said, no. And they said, well, then why are you wearing a bra? And from that point on, until I was a junior in high school, I was bullied primarily by girls for being flat. I have no idea why it was their main source of entertainment, but I somehow attracted that type of negative attention from, you know, your peers, your pack. So for me, I didn't fit in in my mind because I didn't have breasts. Even though I had been a ballerina, even though my dad's a commercial photographer, I had only looked at books of,

you know, art books of women that are flat, and that was beautiful. And so until school, middle school, I didn't realize that I was somehow less than. That's what I got in my mind. After I got married and I had two children, I breastfed, and I was back to being flat again. So I finally developed around like 18, super late bloomer. Totally out of my mind about anything to do with that until I was flat again. And then I was like, all right, I'm going to do something about this because I wasn't accepted back then. What if my husband starts thinking that or what if my girlfriends think that? I have no idea. You know, it's trauma that wasn't healed. So I got breast implants. And I just wanted to be small. I wanted to be a B cup. And I had small implants that looked like

bolted on grapefruits, but I felt feminine. And so went on within six months, I was experiencing chronic fatigue. So the point I went to a doctor and said, something's wrong. I think I have thyroid problems. I'm so tired. I can't make it through the day. And they're like, oh, it's just because you have two kids under four. And I'm like, I had two kids under two. One that was in the hospital all the time. I never slept and I was never this tired. Wasn't connecting any correlation between implants and this. Just learned to manage being chronically exhausted all the time. and one day I was getting in the shower, looked down, and I had completely flat on one side, flat tire. So I freaked out, called my surgeon. They said, it's okay, you bought the warranty. You have, you have insurance for that.

Come back in. We'll replace both of them. Replace both of them, but they told me how to go bigger because my skin had stretched. So I went a little bigger. This is what they do. They boil the frog. Yep. Switched them out and started to get, I was more tired, started to struggle with chronic, restless leg syndrome out of nowhere. Still, no connecting the two. About three years after that, I was riding a roller coaster for my son's birthday, another rupture. So back to the surgeon, I went. They told me I needed to go bigger again because, and I said, I wanted to go smaller. They said, oh, no, no, no, that won't work. You've got to go bigger. I think I'm about like a D cup by this point.

I only ever wanted to be a B. D cup at this point. And after that, I started struggling with really bad acne. My hair wasn't growing, falling out. Then, so I had those for a couple years. And then the gummy bear implants came out. And it seemed to me like a really good idea since I was scared I was going to have another saline rupture. And so went back, got my gummy bear implants, woke up, and I had 450cc double days, even though I

ask to go smaller. And this is something that I hear from women, nine out of ten women tell me that they woke up with implants that were two to three times larger than they asked for. Why do they do that? So this is what we are all told across the board, that women are always going to wish. that they had gotten bigger implants. And to save you money and time, these surgeons who their whole business is based on making money, say, I'm going to just forego you having to worry about wanting bigger implants later.

And I'm going to go ahead and give you bigger implants. These women, some have been told they would get 350 cc and they wake up with 600. I'm thinking about this in a really stupid way probably. But like if I go to get a tattoo and the guy shows me the picture of exactly what I want, and then in the size that I want and puts it on my body and then does the tattoo and it's completely different in a different size. I just want to understand like how you're even legally allowed to do that. I don't know, but I guarantee if you were to take a poll and ask women if they got the size implants they asked for or if they were bigger than they ever wanted and they all cover them up,

just watch and see how many women say that's exactly what happened to them. I would say it's close to 90%. That is not what happened to me with either of my implants. I got exactly what I asked for. And I had amazing doctors for both. But I have heard from many other women that that is what happened to them. So I think maybe I was the one out of 10 that that didn't happen to. Yeah. Four times you've had your breast done at this point. Did you ever think at this point? Because this ex-planning wasn't popular at this point. Maybe I should get him taken out or was that not even an option? Not even on my I just kept getting sicker and sicker. After I got the gummy bear implants, I started experiencing such severe hormonal issues that they were talking about doing a hysterectomy, which we see a lot with

women. You also told me that you had gained weight and were chronically inflamed. Is that correct? Oh, yeah. And eventually, I was in bed for about 18 hours a day. I had full body tremors. This is something that a lot of women come to me with that no doctor has been able to explain them that you feel like your body is vibrating from the inside. And as that goes on, eventually gets to the point that your hands shake or your legs shake. So that's what was happening to me. And my liver was, I had developed non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. And I didn't drink alcohol. I only ate organic, extremely healthy lifestyle. And they couldn't explain why my liver enzymes were doubling and tripling every four weeks. To the point.

point where they had scheduled a liver biopsy. And this is when I got to the point that my mom was having to take care of my son. And one day, I got up, made it to the corner of my room where I had a chair. And in total desperation, in the middle of praying, meditating, I screamed out what is wrong with me. I was home by myself. And I'm 41 years old at this time. And, I hear in my right ear, I've never heard a voice in my whole life breast implants. Only time I've ever heard anything audible in my whole life. At that point, I had had implants for 17 years and never once had I considered that any of my health issues were related to them. You could have told me my left arm. That's how used I was to having implants. So after I calmed down and like tried to realize

I'm probably not losing my mind. Maybe I am. I don't know. I picked up my laptop and I typed in, can breast implants make you sick? And that's when I found thousands of stories exactly like mine, my exact symptoms. And then I started looking for an explant surgeon. I had an epiphany similar to you. It wasn't someone saying that in my ear. But once I started thinking, is the reason I'm so inflamed because I've had these implants in for so long. And then I went even deeper and I had the gummy bear texture too. I started to be like, wait, these gummy bear texture implants are, and you can say it more eloquently than me, for breast cancer patients, right? Yeah, the textured implants primarily were used originally for breast reconstruction after cancer. There's all these signs that I saw.

and the second that my brain went to the implants, it wouldn't go back. I knew that there was something that was keeping me inflamed that I was doing, but I didn't know what it was. I kept getting rashes on my legs. So when you go online and then you really dig, because you do have to dig, you can see that you're right. There's, I mean, probably hundreds of thousands of stories now. And for people that are, I think the majority of people know this story in the episode

that we did with Dr. Whitfield, but for people catching up, Lauren and I did an episode with with Dr. Whitfield, who you work with, all around what she, her ex-plant in the context of why she did that. So if you're confused, go listen to that episode. So when you find an explant doctor, did you find someone specific? Was it just someone that you Googled next to you? What was that process like to get the ex-plant? And I guess walk us through that whole entire surgery and then how you felt afterwards. I started looking again, just Google. searching for explant surgeons. And I found a few. Some still put in breast implants and said they did X-plant surgery. Some only did X-plants and didn't put in breast implants. So that was primarily who I

wanted. But the first few surgeons that I interviewed, who lived close to me, lived in San Diego at the time, it was horrible. They flat out told me that breast implant illness isn't real. That when I, if they did remove my implants, that I was going to look terrible and be extremely unhappy with my results and that I wouldn't have any resolution of symptoms. So that left me feeling very defeated and broken. And so I found a surgeon that had a lot of women who were talking positively, who had gone to him, and he only did explants. And he removed the capsule, which I had learned was very important. He had a year and a half wait list. And I just got on that wait list and I called every day. And within six weeks, I was in. And what was that like? What was the surgery like? The surgery was in a hospital. It took about two and a half hours. And when I woke up, I remember feeling different. I knew I'd made the right decision. But because, because, you know, I was a lot of time. And I was, you know, I was a lot of hours. And when I woke up, I remember feeling different. I remember feeling different. I knew I knew I knew I knew I knew I, but. I was my liver was in such a bad state, it was very hard for me to detox the anesthesia. So it took

me about two weeks. I was slurring my words and just could not get over the anesthesia because my liver. Within four weeks of my explant, I had to go back to have my liver enzymes checked and move forward with the liver biopsy. Mind you, I have had general anesthesia, you know, within four weeks, which is not good on your liver. And my results came back and they had reduced by half. Wow. At this point, the only thing I've done is remove my implants. So they told me I could wait on the biopsy.

My levels still weren't within normal range, but I could wait another four weeks. Four more weeks. All my enzymes, everything, all of my blood work had returned to normal. Biopsy was canceled. other things that I started to notice was my tremors were reducing. My hair loss was, my hair wasn't falling out like it had been. My heart palpitations were going away. Anxiety was coming down. I was being able to actually get through a day without having to take 10 naps. And slowly but surely all of these things started to improve. But because I had so many issues,

that had built over the years with thyroid problems, gut issues, skin problems. I had a lot to rebuild. So over the next two and a half years, I started deep diving, working with functional practitioners and figuring out how to heal myself. And through testing and protocols like sauna and coffee anamas and these binders, these products that we now use with our patients, I was able to completely recover to the point that at 46 years old, I feel better than I've ever felt in my entire life. It's almost like, this is really weird, that it's lowering women's vibration. I don't know, like, how to, it feels like it's like almost like a, I don't know. So it's blocking your heart chakra.

Yeah. Yeah. And what I didn't even realize, like my youngest son, I had implants in between having him, I had never been able to give him a heart-to-heart hug. And I didn't realize how much I was missing that heart-to-heart-heart. energy that you get when you hug someone because it was always blocked by these big silicone implants. It's also like when you start to really think about what the silicone or the salines in your body, like we're not drinking out of plastic. We're trying to avoid that, but like they're in

your body. There's got to be repercussions. And my thing is like if you have implants and it works for you and you haven't had anything wrong, like amazing. For a long time, I didn't have anything wrong. I'm not trying to scare anyone. I just think if someone doesn't feel good and they hear this episode, maybe this is a tool for them to have themselves and they can just, they can be aware. That's all I wish. Yeah. If I had been aware at any point in those 17 years, I could have changed the trajectory of my life at that time. I believe that pain is tied to purpose. Every awful thing that's ever happened in my life has always led to the next chapter, the next level of my life. I wouldn't have gotten there if it hadn't. I can see even being bullied in school and what led me to

implants, what led me to explant, what led me to even starting sharing on my page about this, all came from really hard things. You know, it's like what's crazy after talking to you and obviously seeing Lauren go through this and meeting Dr. Whitfield is, again, to each. their own, you know, if it's working for them and nobody and they feel good, of course, like, do what you want. But what's crazy to me is, like, how this conversation either just gets like swept under the rug or shut down in some cases. And people, you know, are so hesitant to acknowledge that many women are having this issue. I mean, if you tell me, there's thousands and thousands of people online communicating this, but it's not becoming something that more and more people

are talking about. Like, that's, that's really strange to me. I'll tell you why. It's because women are kind of labeled the boy that cried wolf because if they're complaining about being chronically fatigued, that's invisible. No one can see that. And they're going to be like, oh, you're hormonal. You're on your period. You're emotional. So we're stamped with that. So when we complain about something, we kind of get, it's kind of like, oh, you know, sack up. You're a mother of, you're a mother of two under four, whatever they say to you. Like get over it, like drink coffee. And instead of like taking the symptoms seriously, they automatically just label us as emotional. And I tend to run, I think, pretty logical. I'm a pretty logical person. I try to be logical. I practice it. And to me, there's nothing really, I mean,

there is stuff that's emotional about this, but it's actually pretty logical. When I woke up from surgery, I was immediately felt like a weight of 50 pounds was lifted off of my chest. In the car, I was crying, not because I was sad, not even because I was. emotional. It was like relief. I was surprised how much energy she had and how happy she was after it. I was bright. It was clear. You know what's crazy though to me is I've no and maybe people like I have the benefit of knowing Lawrence and she was 12 and seeing her the first time with implants and to what she was saying earlier like I think the first time around she had no issues. The second time around I think got up and I was you know as husbands do I was trying to kind of like politely say like why

are you so inflamed? Why do I have a rash all over my life? But you can't say to your wife as the husband without making her feel about like, why are you so inflamed? But I was like watching her because she's doing all the right things. She was eating right. She was going to the gym. She was sleep.

Like all these things. And I'm like, why? Like it wasn't like she was gaining weight from poor habits. It was like it was just an inflammation. And I've known her for so long since we were little kids and I've known her body that whole time. And I was like, what is happening here? And as soon as she said it's this thing.

I mean, you met me. I was like, I was right on board. I was like, of course. because it made complete sense to me. And it's crazy because I run into people all the time now. It's been, I got it done in April. It's, I don't even know what the date is right now. It's October now.

People are like, you look different. What did you do to your face? What did you do? It's like I literally removed something that was blocking my lymphatic system for 17 years that was in my body. If you go look at her body composition, pre second time breast implants and post, you'll see. Like, Lauren was, like, I've known it for so long. She was always like, I don't want to say bony. That's not the right word. But you, like, you had this figure that there was, it was,

it just wasn't inflamed. You know what I mean? And then I'm looking at, I'm like, why, like, I kept saying to her, I think something's wrong, right? I thought it was pregnancy, hormones. Well, and that's what you would be told if you went to see a doctor about it. Biroid. Yeah. Biroid, yeah. So what inflammation does, because many, many of the women that I work with are extremely health conscious. They take all the supplements. They work with functional practitioners. They're doing all the things. But it's not working because inflammation literally works as a brick wall in your system.

So nothing can get through. And all breast implant illness is is your immune's response to a foreign object that creates inflammation that increases over time. And when you have chronic inflammation, your immune system is fighting all the time. And it makes total sense. It's very simple. It's a foreign object. But we are exposed to so many environmental toxins now that our liver and our immune system has to work over time. So when you have a foreign object, eventually it can't keep up.

And so you start to have thyroid problems, hormone problems, gut problems. Oh my gosh. And it's just nothing that you do helps. And then eventually you start gaining weight and you can't lose weight. And they'll say it's your age. They were telling me it's because you're 40. That's just how it is. No, look at you now. You're like teeny tiny. Yep. Oh, when I finally got into the endocrinologist, it had taken me about three months. And I'd had my most recent all of my blood work. She said, what happened eight weeks ago? And I said, I removed my breast implants. And she said, I had to look at your blood work and paperwork three times. The other blood work looks like that of a 90-year-old nursing home patient. Whoa. If you want the most beautiful, aesthetically pleasing, clean, simple, stunning pet design gear,

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I'm sure if you're shopping, you'll also probably pick up the vitamin D, which is one of the best and the vitamin B. But instead of having that pumpkin spice latte, maybe just swap in a little bit magnesium and have a sweet drink. Of course, we always have a special offer for all of our listeners. Visit symbiotica.com slash skinny for 15% offsite wide. Again, that is symbiotica.com slash skinny for 15% offsite wide. Well, a professional's new line ultimate repair is the most premium line to date. and it was developed with 140 plus years of experience and research, and they are delivering you the very best. Miracle Hair Rescue Repairs Hair in only 90 seconds. The other day, I went and got a

blowout, and I actually brought My Wellas Professional Ultimate Repair Spray. I brought it in and was like, can you use this on my hair? It's a leave-in spray treatment designed to work on wet hair. And I had my stylus, spray it in my hair because I have noticed since going Burnett mixed with all the care and love that I'm giving my hair. My hair is just thicker. So I have like a whole routine now that I do with my hair. And one of those is the ultimate repair at Miracle Hair Rescue. So many people have raved about this brand in general. But I've really seen an emphasis on the Miracle Hair Rescue. And when well I had me try it, I was blown away. My hair just looks like shinier and more luscious after a blowout. I think it's because this replenishes the outside barrier of damaged hair,

so it's sort of like a bonding serum that repairs your hair in 90 seconds. And you notice it right away. Like you'll spray this on your hair and you will blow out your hair and you will be like, oh my God. With key ingredients like AHA and Omega 9, it rebuilds the hair bonds inside the strands and replenishes the outside barrier of damaged hair. You too can purchase Ultimate Repair a Miracle Hair Rescue at Amazon and Ulta now. To give everyone, like, specifics with me is when I got out of surgery, in a week, I lost 15 pounds. Now, that doesn't mean 15 pounds of fat. And people online, they're like, oh, those are your implants. I think my implants weighed maybe five pounds.

Not even that. Okay. So let's say my implants weighed five pounds. So then I lost 10 pounds. I didn't lose 10 pounds of fat. I lost 10 pounds of water and inflammation. So immediately I lost 15 pounds. And then since I'd seen you, even Dr. Whitfield yesterday was like, like, how much do you weigh? I've lost 20 pounds. And I honestly believe I'm doing the same. I'm weightlifting. I'm eating protein. I'm taking my supplements. I'm walking around the block. I'm doing all, like, working out. But I'm all, but the removal of the implants, I think was like for me, it was like, it was like the hammer. Well, listen, the internet like, you know, they people are all, like it's, people are going to believe what they want to believe. But what I will attest to as her husband, as you've

seen us. Like, Lauren and I, for the last two and a half years, like, we go to the gym together multiple times a week. We stopped drinking, like, cut our drinking severely since we left L.A. Eat healthy, sleep, right? Because we have the kids. And what I was, I was watching her for this, like, first year and a half. And I'm making progress. And I'm watching, like, listen, you're doing every single thing you're supposed to be doing. And it's not working to your point. Like, not that she wasn't, like, doing all the stuff. But it's just like the progress that she was having wasn't nearly what I thought it should have been, you know, being in the gym for as long as I've been in there. It was crazy because as soon as this happened, like it's been like a full transformation.

And I think to your point, I don't think, I think she could have kept doing the right thing for years and years and years, but it wouldn't have made a difference with all that inflammation in the system. No, no. I tell women that implants are the elephant in the room of your immune system. Your immune system cannot focus on anything else, cannot do its job effectively. with them in the way. I will say, though, you don't want to know. I didn't want to know this. I look back on myself.

At 18, I didn't fucking care. Like, I was getting those implants. I went in on my dad's birthday. No one went with me. I think my boyfriend dropped me off at the time. I went in. I paid the $5,000 out of my own bank account. I got them done and I didn't give a fuck.

I was in my juicy couture zip up at my dad's birthday that day. I didn't care. You could have told me that that was what I was doing. And I'm a type of person when I'm doing something. I'm like blinders. Well, I think that's a lot of people at 18. Right. So then when I got them redone, you still couldn't have told me because I was living in L.A.

and like that was like a look. It was like a, you know, the Kardashians have made that voluptuous body popular. And that was that was what I was doing. But this is the thing about it. I didn't want to see it. I didn't want to see it. I didn't want to see it. didn't want to look at the elephant. I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't even want it to come in my

ether. But once it comes in and once it starts, you start thinking about it, you're like, fuck, this is what it is. I tell women timelines. All you have to do is look at timelines. Did you have this before you had implants? How soon after did it start? Have you had every time you had a replacement? So when you get your implants replaced each time your chance for bacteria goes up. That's the craziest thing to me as a male looking in because I obviously didn't know anything about this topic in the beginning when she told me like, hey, this is something that you should, if you're going to keep them regularly, need to do, like, what is it every 10 to 15 years or so? I'm like, well, if you get that at 18 and you live to 80, what are you going to do this? You're going to keep doing it four or five times over and over and over. Like when I think about just like the long term, every time the older you get, the harder surgeries are. The more chance there is for issue. I'm like, what is the long-term plan here for people that are, you know, if you have these, you have to just keep doing them that many times. Yeah.

That's kind of crazy to just for me to think about. Yeah. She would have had to go in, what, four more times in her life? Yeah, maybe more. Maybe more. And then you'll go in, a lot of women go in and they say, oh, you're doing fine. They're like, I've had them 15 years. Are you sure?

If you're not having any problems, then you're fine. But women aren't associating the problems that they're having with their implants. And that's all I think I really have ever wanted to happen. I wish I had been fully informed. I just want women to be fully informed. If you had told me that once I get implants, I'm going to lose my libido and I'm going to gain weight and I'm going to have acne and I'm going to have, I would have really probably rethought that whole process.

And if you have any preexisting autoimmune or Hashimoto's, those things are going to become very hard to manage. Here's another fun fact. My stepmom, when I was 18, I was talking to her about it, Julie. And I said, like, do you like your implants? And she's like, yeah, I like them. You know, it was this long time ago. And she goes, but you kind of get a shelf.

And I'm like, what do you mean a shelf? Sure enough, I got the shelf. So the shelf is your body has to support the extra weight of the implants. So what your body does is it pressing. your stomach into a little shelf right under your implants. Yep. So you get this kind of, and again, not everyone, this is what happened to me and my stem mom. You get kind of like this roll underneath your tits that helps support the weight like a shelf.

Which is probably because your posture is messed up. And also your posture is my posture like is so much better now. Oh yeah. I noticed like such a difference in the posture. But the craziest thing to me, and I would love for you to speak on this, is I had the ability to look at a lot of before and after implants. And what I've noticed is that implants on the people that I've seen, they look really good for like four years. But then if you get pregnant or as you age and the weight of the implant comes into the boob, it starts to pull them down, which they almost end up looking. like real boobs, which is fine, but it's just interesting how the implant doesn't even maintain. It's

like perkiness that you love for the first four years. It starts to look like a real boob anyway. Yeah. And what happens oftentimes is the breast tissue actually ages off of the implant. So some women will have like these round things here, but the breasts down here. We see that a lot. Or a lot of women have capsular contracture and they don't even know it where one side's much harder and higher. And so there's a lot of different things that implants don't generally stay looking as perfect as they do those first few years. But no one talks about that because they either get them replaced or they don't want to talk about it.

Like I don't, I think that it needs to be talked about more like what is this looking like in 15 years. What is this looking like in 10 years? because after I got pregnant, my implants were so heavy and they had stretched so big from all the milk that they like almost, I felt like a cow. And then on top of that, like, they also widen out, which is not useful to me. And what I noticed seeing my before and afters yesterday is like, if you didn't show my face and you just showed my boobs, one looks 35, the implants and my. and my boobs now, I feel like look like 21. Like 18.

Like I'm looking. They look like they look like perky young boobs. It's almost like the implants as they as for me, my experience. The implants as they age make you almost look older. Well, you know, I was as a man on this show right now. I can't contribute as much to the conversation. Oh, come on. But I want to.

You were talking about your own. No, no, but I want to say this as as a man's perspective. I think a lot of women are nervous about what their partner's response will be if they remove. Like I know Lauren was really concerned and I've seen messages come into her that she showed me asking like, what does Michael think or what does your partner think? That was one of the first questions. I wanted to be like, hey, I've had these like the whole time we've been married. Is this an issue? So here's the thing.

I think a lot of men, if they don't have the context of what women go through with these issues, these health issues. and they're asked, oh, can I, can I leave them in or take them out? If they don't have all this context, if your preference is boobs, they might get the reaction like, no, don't do that, right? Right. But for me, and you know, like the reason I was all for this is like the context that I had was my wife, who I love, didn't feel good. And this wasn't working for her health. And when she asked me, like, if it's a question of should she have boobs and be unhealthy or be healthy without, I'm like remove like right away because I love her obviously. But I think a lot of, lot of men that are maybe resistance to this, they don't have that context. If they do have the

context, then they're still pushing for someone to stay sick and healthy. That's probably an indicator to get rid of that guy, in my opinion. My opinion, too, because I do, of course, see this happen in office where women are coming in, extremely sick, even had bouts of cancer since getting implants, and their spouse sits there and says, I'm a boob guy. I'm not okay with this. Listen, I can understand the guys that are boob guys, but I can understand the guys that are boob guys, But I guess what I'm saying is if you know the person that you care about is going through these issues or they're telling you that and you're still pushing the boob guy thing like one, I think that's a little bit immature. But two, it's just like that's that's probably not a good person, right? They're worried about more about their selves and their aesthetic than they are about the health of their partner.

Right. But I think, again, giving men some benefit of the doubt. I knew none of this until I met you and Lauren started talking about until we talked to Dr. Whitfield's like I just think a lot of guys like they don't understand that this is even an issue. I think you've also had front row seats to a transformation with me. Like I think you've had front row seats to seeing how much better I feel now. When you are in a consult with a patient that is feeling like shit that wants to explore getting her implants out and there is a partner that is saying stupid immature shit, how do you deal with it? Dr. Whitfield and I basically go through explaining how every

single one of their symptoms and issues that they have experienced have been this is all contributing from their implants and what we see when women get better. Dr. Whitfield also offers the ability to get a fat transfer at the time of X-plant. So a lot of women can have volume restoration at the same time. So that helps. Sometimes that helps those partners to get on board. I have to bite my tongue because I want to be like, this person doesn't love you if they rather you stay sick so that they can play with your boobs. That is just, that's my point. Yeah.

So it's very hard for me to not say anything like that. I can be more open in my DMs with women who reach out to me about that. But if someone doesn't value your health, that's not someone. I think that you should be with. What are some transformations? that you've seen in the office that blow your fucking mind. Oh my goodness. Let's see. Well, the most incredible story recently was this woman who had full body rash almost to the level of leprosy. She had been for four or five years seeking specialists going to like the Mayo Clinic,

had seen every dermatologist on the face of the earth, travel to other countries, no one could figure out how to take care of this rash. She was on medication that was damaging her liver. Her liver had to be checked every other month. And she finally heard about breast implant illness and decided to get her implants removed. As Dr. Whitfield was sewing her up after removing both implants, the rash started to dissipate on the operating table. By the time she was in recovery, the redness had subsided. And within two weeks, she didn't have a single spot on her body just scarring from years and years of having this full body rash.

Truly incredible. Another woman who came in had this horrific chemical smell, like rancid chemical smell coming off of her. And she could not, no matter what she did, could not control this smell. In surgery, when I was in there, we removed the implants. It was the implants. This rancid chemical smell filled up the room. It was, and she had seven different strains of bacteria once we sent it off for PCR testing. Well, if you think about it, too, they're also blocking, and I don't know the exact scientific term, but they're blocking like your armpit lymphatic area.

So if you're sweating, it can't be good. that it's coming through your armpit. Many women lose their ability to sweat. I couldn't sweat. When you got implants. Oh, I could sweat with implants. Michael can't believe how much better I smell.

Listen, I was getting concerned there for a minute. Oh, yeah. And speaking of like rashes, she used to get these small rashes on the bottom of her legs. And I'm like, we couldn't figure out what the hell is saying was detergent.

That all went away. Yeah, no, it was crazy. That went away. When Dr. Whitfield came and showed me like what you guys do, which is kind of wild when she was in the surgery. And he showed me like the removing

of the capsule. Again, I was ignorant to the process. I'm like, is this the body literally walling off and creating a system to like wall it off from the rest of the body? And as soon as he showed me that, I'm like, well, this obviously cannot be good if the body is doing everything it can to literally wall the foreign object out of the system. Speaking on what Michael just said, can you talk? I know there's a lot of controversy between removing the capsule and not removing the capsule. What is the debate and what's your opinion? So they say that it's just, scar tissue that it's fine it'll absorb dr whitfield removes scar capsule that's been left behind seven ten years still there it's not ever gonna go away we know

that 30 to 35 percent from PCR testing have biofilms bacteria which is basically your body is has a low-grade infection going on all the time if you leave the capsule behind you're leaving those biofilms or the contaminants if you had texture to implants you're leaving back behind that texturing that texturing is associated with breast implant related lymphomas. So leaving a capsule behind that could develop that lymphoma because there was textured implants in there. That risk completely goes away when you remove the capsule. What we have found is that a lot of women that just remove their implants, maybe that only had mild symptoms.

Once you cut open that capsule and you leave it behind, their symptoms go through the roof. Oh. So, in my opinion, no capsule should ever be left behind. So I do this thing. I will get a blowout. And then the next morning, I'll wake up and I'll try to preserve it with like a sleep bun. But sometimes that doesn't happen. So I have to have something that's quick and easy and something that I can like carry and travel with to fix the blowout. Just like touch it up. And I was sent the curl secret. It's by infinite. Pro by Conair. And I was shocked. It gives you like the most effortless, simple, easy curls without feeling super, super curly. So it doesn't look bridal at all. What it does is it takes what you already have and just gives you like a nice long vertical curl. And this auto curler is so easy to use. It's nothing fancy. It's straight to the point. And it just gives you that nice simplistic look. The hair goes in. The curl comes out. It is just like magic.

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I run tangled, so this is really nice. And it also has like a heat protectant on it. And I really like this because I don't like a lot of heat on my hair. So if you're looking for a styling tool that makes things easy and simple on your hair, especially in the morning after you've washed it and you just want something to give you a little juge. You should check out the new Curl Secret by Conair. Shop Curl Secret by Conair. Now available at all major retailers. One of the things that I did when I switched my entire household to non-toxic was switching out my cookware. So I learned all about kitchenware from Dr. Josh Axe. He was on the show.

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code skinny 15. We only have one body, one skin, and only you can choose to make it better. Age healthy with one skin. I'm sure we're breaking some people out here, but I'm just wondering to play, maybe not that there's another side, but to. No, play the other. side. Yeah, I don't play the other side. No, no, but I guess to get some data, maybe this doesn't exist because people maybe aren't having this conversation enough. But out of all the women that choose to get breast implants, is there any data around people who start to exhibit symptoms and people who don't? Or is it, it doesn't exist because they don't associate the symptoms with the breast implants? Right. A lot of women don't associate with the breast implants. So there's not,

you can't say like, hey, five out of ten women potentially have this issue. You know, because like you said, some people may have these and have absolutely no issues. Here's what I would ask. You all can name at least five women who have thyroid issues. So when she first told me she had thyroid issues, I found that to be very strange. I think about it the same way when young people come to me and say they have back issues. Like you shouldn't have back issues as a young person. It means you're probably too sedentary.

And I keep saying something shows. or you don't have hamstring, whatever it is. But to be a young, youngish person and have thyroid issues is strange, right? Like that's not common. And so to her point, like that is, that's a byproduct of these things. Like, that is very strange. And a lot. And if you look, like, I feel a lot more women talk about thyroid issues than men.

Like, I don't know any of my male friends ever in my age group that have come to me with thyroid issues. Yeah. Very rare. And, you know, thyroid issues, there are women without. implants that have thyroid issues. And a lot of it just comes down to, are you having things that are creating major inflammation in your body? Do you have mold exposure? Do you have heavy metals? If you have breast implants, you probably have all of these things because your immune system's

not being able to kick those things out as easily as it could without them. So we see that's a whole another thing is the mold issue. But what seems to happen is your immune system cannot function in a way that your thyroid stays balanced. And so what we see is that when women remove their implants, suddenly their thyroid medication becomes too strong. That's exactly what happened to you, right? This is like wild.

So when you guys said that, I was like, okay, like, That'd be crazy. I was walking my son and I had to stop the stroller and sit down because I almost fainted. And then I stood back up and I almost fainted again to the point where I called my dad and I'm like, Michael's not, you weren't home. Michael's not home and I feel like I'm going to faint. I had to call the nanny to come meet me on the side of the road to walk us back home. And I text Dr. Whitfield and I said, hey, I'm feeling really faint and every time I bend down, I see stars. And he said, your thyroid medicine is too strong for you know. Cut it in half. So I started cutting it in half and I immediately felt better. Like immediately that went away. And now I'm in the process of completely getting off

of it with you guys, which is really exciting. But I think that the thyroid experience definitely had to do with inflammation. If I'm losing 15 pounds in a week that my body's like, what the hell is going on? But again, like if you're, if you have all this inflammation and it's throwing your thyroid off and you need it, but then you get rid of the inflammation. Like to me, I keep, I've been saying since that day, I'm like, you probably don't need this medication. You probably never would have needed it if you didn't have this issue. No, no. And then there's someone that we took care of recently is a sex coach. And she had no libido. And she was having all of these other health issues. And she was. And she's like, I'm a sex coach. And I don't want to have sex. So she had her implants removed. And within two

weeks, she even wrote a review talking about how absolutely her boyfriend was like, who are you? What has happened? How her libido came back, how everything with her body changed, her health issues. She was young. I mean, we have people come in within six months of getting their implants who are having symptoms. So I just think that based on how many things we're exposed to now, you know, we're all trying to do the right thing and not drink out of plastic and make sure we're eating organic and all of those things, but we're still getting exposures. I just think it's too much for the system if you have a foreign object now. When people get their X plan, what are other ways that you can support the detoxification process

to make sure that you're really like removing everything, heavy metals, whatever else it is. Yeah. So this is what, you know, what led me to eventually work with Dr. Whitfield is I started my Instagram page where I was sharing resources for how to heal after X-plant and just recover from chronic inflammation and the things that I had done in my life to completely detox. And then I had women saying, can you recommend an explant surgeon? So I was recommending the one that I went to, but he just does explant. And a lot of, well, all of them just primarily will do xplant and then you're on your way to figure the rest out on your own. And I was seeing this doctor who was, you know, doing functional medicine testing, who was recommending supplements over pharmaceuticals,

and who had a lymphatic massage and it was just all of these things that I had utilized to heal. And so I started referring women to Dr. Whitfield. And then he eventually invited me to be on his podcast. And that did really well. And then women were all coming in saying, is Candace here? And so that led to eventually me being a patient advocate for him. But what we do is we have basically a BII detox program where we do testing, we do gut testing, which is a stool test. We do total toxicity testing, which looks at mold, heavy metals, environmental toxins.

We do hormone testing. We do genetic testing. Oh, my gosh, this is a question that I get from women all the time. Is there one test or any test that you can do to determine whether or not you have breast implant illness or if you're likely to get breast implant illness? And no, there is not one specific test, but the closest thing out there is to know your genetics. Why? Because it has everything to do with how you detox. So there's four main immune pathways, detox pathways.

detox pathways that have to do with how you detox. And that's your glutathione pathway, glucoronidation, your methylation pathway. Everyone hears about MTHFR. It's how you methylate. Your antioxidant pathway, vitamin C, and then finally your vitamin D pathway. So what we see and women with breast implant illness or who have the most amount of issues is that at least two of those for pathways don't function optimally. What a good tip. So if you did the genetic testing and you saw that and before you were going to get breast implants, you could look at that and say like maybe you're not the best candidate to do that. Oh, see, this is my husband compared to me. See, I never would think when you just said, oh, do it before. See, I'm like, oh, yeah, we could do it after when we have the

implant. He's always like mitigating risk. No, but I think like, I think if people are, so maybe some people, I mean, there's people that have these and are maybe having lipobomous, but people that have maybe been thinking about doing this. And this is why I was trying to get like that data point earlier. It was like seven out ten, five out ten. But if you did this and you had these two, what you're saying is there is an increased likelihood that you will end up having issues. Right.

So for me, all four of my main immune pathways do not function optimally. So you should have never got them in the first place. No. But the reason I feel so good now is because I supplement those exact pathways. You genetically know what supplements you need. Yeah, people should do it anyway. They should do it anyways. Best tests I've ever done in my whole life. I know you have to you guys have to read is that the blood one. No, you've already done it. You have it. You've done it. Okay. We did it with ancestry. Okay. A lot of conspiracy. No, this is a company. This is a company. I don't know what they're doing with it. Yeah, I need to go look at my results there again. Yeah, this is a company out of Toronto. They're amazing. Would you recommend for me, I got a lift. I got the lollipop lift, which is the real lift. I lifted everything up. Would you recommend a lift after X plan? If so, why or why not? So I get this question a lot.

I did not have a lift, but I have, I'm four years post-explant. I did a very small fat transfer. I'm barely an A-cup. And at this time, I've decided I want to do a donut lift. What a donut lift does is that just tightens the skin and slightly raises the nipple complex. And I feel that's the best lift for someone who has small breasts. The lollipop lift, like what you had, is great for someone who has a B cup or larger because that way, or if they have really wide breasts or the implants are really wide, you can narrow the breast and really lift the nipple complex up high. But if you have very little breast tissue, you're going to take that little wedge of the only area that you really have breast tissue.

So that's why the donut lift is a better one for those with smaller breasts. before you go, you have to tell us about fluffing. And like what fluffing means, because I was trying to explain this to my guy friends. Because I think there's multiple kinds of fluffing. This is not fluffing like you get a fluffer blowjob underneath the desk. This is fluffing your boobs. You get a fluff after an explant. So at first like it feels like they almost feel small and then they like fluff out like a peacock.

What is fluffing? And if someone does get an explant, how can they make sure they're getting the full fluff? What the fluffing is is basically you've had implants that have been compressing your breast tissue and the fatty layer of the breast. So think of it as this tissue as like slow acting memory foam. And it's going to take a few months, generally three to six months, for that tissue to expand back to where it was. The breast is very resilient. A lot of the skin will tighten and that fluffing continues to happen for up to six months. But really helping restore that blood flow, which is the stuff that I discovered in my healing process is I love this stuff. You love it. What's it called? It's called Renew 28. Okay. And it's just like a lotion that you rub on. Yeah, it's just a gel. It's completely non-toxic, absolutely safe. And, that was important to me because a lot of times they give you like silicone products and different things, which are still safe, but I just had like, yeah, you're traumatized from that. So I wanted

something that was completely safe because everything you put on your skin absorbs. You absorb 64% of everything you put on your skin and like you ate it. So for me, I'm like, okay, I need something that's completely clean and that's going to help without restoring that blood flow. Now, mind you, after my explant, that's five breast surgeries. Then I had fat transfer. We're talking six, seven surgeries. So the amount of times I've had numbing medication, which cuts off the blood supply so that you don't bleed a bunch and you can stay numb for a very long time. Most women lose nipple sensation when they get breast implants because the implants are pressing up against those nerves or they went through the ariola. I didn't have sensation for 17 years,

20 years with once with my explant. That restores complete nipple sensation. And and help to restore the blood flow. So then the fluffing happens. I use that. I love it. I have nipple sensation. Thank Jesus. Yeah.

Michael, don't pop a boner. If people want to ask you specific questions, can they DM you? Oh, yeah. I always answer all of my DMs. Sometimes it takes me a while because I'll have quite a bit. But I'm very committed. Yeah, I'm committed to helping women. And they can, I have links on my website to help with.

I'm even doing consultations from time to time. And what is your Instagram? Olistico life. Okay. And then where can everyone find Dr. Whitfield and everything he's up to? Right. So breast implant illness expert is the website and his Instagram and TikTok. And we're always sharing the surgeries that we're doing, the women that are getting better,

and all of the different procedures and detox program that he offers. We have an amazing functional practitioner who also had breast implants. and how to explant surgery and specialize this in the gut. So I think that Candace is an amazing follow, too, if you're just curious about dipping your toe into this, she's not overwhelming. It's not fear mongling or whatever that word is called. Mongering.

Fongering. Fuck, I can't pronounce anything. Candice, thank you for coming on. Thank you for helping me through my surgery and my stepmom's surgery. I loved the experience so much. My stepmom, Julie, ended up going to you guys and getting an explant. she is feeling so much better. I have nothing but nice things to say about Dr. Whitfield and Candice.

You guys can feel free to message Candice on Instagram and go say hi to Dr. Whitfield. I think he's booked for like six months or something. So get on the list if you feel like you have symptoms, even just to see him. Thank you for coming on. Thank you, Candice. You can stock Candace on Instagram or you can stock Dr. Robert Whitfield. I had an amazing experience with him at breast implant illness. That sort of tells you everything you've.

need to know. His Instagram's super informative. And also, you can watch this episode on YouTube. So go on YouTube, watch us. It's kind of fun. Feels like we're all in the same room together. Hope you guys love this. And we'll see you on Monday with one of the top investors, Courtney Ream.