The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - 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 pre-existing autoimmune or Hashimoto's, those things are going to become very hard to manage. As you guys know, I removed my implants and little update for you. I have more energy. The 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 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. Robert's office, I would see Candice. And we just talked. And we became friends 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.

Today's show is going to be fun. I have someone that I personally worked with, which we'll get into. I don't even know if worked with is the right thing to say but collaborated that helped me through a 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. Michael's going to talk about his penis explant. No, we have Candice 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 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 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. 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. Within six months, I was experiencing chronic fatigue to 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. They're like, oh, it's just because you

have two kids under four. 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 insurance for that. Come back in. We'll replace both of them. Replace both of them. But they told me I had to go bigger because my skin had stretched. So I went a little bigger. This is what they do.

It's 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. So I had those for a couple of 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 I went back, got my gummy bear implants, woke up, and I had 450 cc double days, even though I asked to go smaller. And this is something that I hear from women. Nine out of 10 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's and they wake up with 600. I'm thinking about this in a really stupid way probably. But if I go to get a tattoo and the guy shows me the picture of exactly what I want and then 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 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 breasts done at this point. Did you ever think at this point, because this ex-planting wasn't popular at this point, maybe I should get them taken out? Or was that not even an option?

Not even on my radar. 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 to them that you feel like your body is vibrating from

the inside. And as that goes on, eventually it 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 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 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 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 thou there's I mean probably

hundreds of thousands of stories now yes and for 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 Dr. Whitfield, who you work with, all around her explant and 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 explant? 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

explant surgery. Some only did explants 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 or lived in San Diego at the time, it was horrible. They flat out told me that breast implant illness isn't real, that 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 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. 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 enemas 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. 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 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. Yep. 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 be aware. That's all I wish. 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 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 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 known, 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 her, to what she was saying earlier, like, I think the first time around, she had no issues what she was saying earlier like i think the first time around she had no issues the second time around i think caught 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 as the husband without making her feel but like why are you so inflamed but i was like watching her because she's doing all the right things she was eating eating right. She was going to the gym. She was sleeping, like all these things. And I'm like, well, 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 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 her for so long. She was always like, I don't want to say bony. That's not the right word. But you had this figure that it just wasn't inflamed. You know what I mean? And then I'm looking at him like, why? 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. Thyroid. Thyroid, 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 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. If you want the most beautiful, aesthetically pleasing, clean, simple, stunning pet design gear,

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replenishes the outside barrier of damaged hair. You too can purchase Ultimate Repair Miracle Hair Rescue at Amazon and Ulta now. To give everyone 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, 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 the 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,, cut our drinking severely since we left LA, eat healthy, sleep right because we have the kids. And I was watching her for this first year and a half and I'm making progress and I'm watching, I'm like, listen, you're doing every single thing you're supposed to be doing and it's not working to your point. Not that she wasn't doing all this stuff, but it just like the progress that she was having wasn't nearly what I thought it should have been being in the gym for as long as I've been in there. It was crazy because as soon as this happened, it's been like a full transformation. And I think to your point, 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. Nope. Nope. 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 i didn't want to know this i 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 five thousand dollars out of my own bank account i got them done and i didn't give a fuck yeah 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 LA and like that was like a look. It was like, you know 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 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 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. And 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. Yep. Maybe's kind of crazy to just for me to think about. 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 him 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 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, do you like your implants?

And she's like, yeah, I like them. 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 presses your stomach into a little shelf right under your implants yep so you get this kind and again not everyone this is what happened to me and my stepmom 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 is, my posture like is so much better now. 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 its 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 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, what, 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, 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 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 boobs. Now I feel like look like 21, like 18. Like I'm 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 was as a man on this show i know i can't contribute as much to the conversation oh come on but i want to talk 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's showing me asking like what does michael think or what is

your partner 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 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. But for me, and the reason I was all for this is 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 if it's a question of should she have boobs and be unhealthy or be

healthy without, I'm like, remove right away because I love her, obviously. But I think a lot of men that are maybe resistant to this, they don't have that context. If they do have the context and 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 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, one, I think that's a little bit immature, but two, it's just like that's probably not a good person. They're worried more about their selves and their aesthetic than

they are about the health of their partner. 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 it, until we talked with Dr. Whitfield. So I just think a lot of guys, they don't understand that this is even an issue. I think a lot of women don't understand this is an issue. I think you've also had front row seats to a transformation with me. 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? 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 explant. So a lot of women can have a 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 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 the Mayo Clinic, had seen every dermatologist on the face of the earth, traveled to other countries, and no one could figure out how to take 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 had when you got in well you know what's oh i can sweat with implants michael michael can't believe how much better i smell listen i was getting concerned there for a minute um oh yeah and speaking of like rashes she used to get these like small rashes on her the bottom of her legs and i'm like we couldn't figure out what the hell was detergent that all went away yeah no it, it was crazy. That went away. When Dr. Whitfield came

and showed me what you guys do, which is kind of wild when she was in the surgery, and he showed me 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 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 of 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, 10 years. It's still there. It's not ever going to go away. We know that 30 to 35% from PCR testing have biofilms, bacteria, which is basically your body 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 textured 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. 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. And it's perfect for touching up your hair in the morning. I literally will turn it on. I'll do my skincare routine. I'll come back to it. It takes me like three minutes. I touch up my hair and I have perfect slight curls, very slight and simple. The best thing about it though, is there's this tangle free tech,

which makes it so my hair doesn't tangle. 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 zhuzh, 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, and he just talked about how we're cooking our eggs every single morning

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non-toxic. And this is what sold it for me. It has a chemical-free ceramic coating, and it's also so beautiful. I have their pot out on my stove with bone broth cooking every single day because it's so pretty. I got the classic cream set. They have all different colors. I even am like kind of obsessed with the sage, which is like a green. Go on there. You can see it's just a really great gift, I think, to give someone non-toxic kitchenware, especially that's pretty. Visit carawayhome.com slash skinny10 to take advantage of this limited time offer for 10% off your next purchase. This deal is exclusive for our listeners, so visit carawayhome.com slash skinny10

or use code skinny10 at checkout. Caraway, non-toxic cookware made modern. Let me tell you what the move is for glowy,wy skin that's protected. Okay, this is what I've been doing. I'm mixing the Skinny Confidential Depuffing Oil with One Skin's Mineral Tinted Sunscreen. It is like the most amazing sunscreen. I'm really a big fan of mineral sunscreen, and this one is slightly tinted, but it's also amazing for your skin. We had the co-founder of One Skin on our podcast, and we learned all about the root causes of aging. We also learned that most skin care available on the market is designed to provide a temporary reduction in visible signs of aging, but One Skin tries to focus on results. They really focus on clinically improving your skin's

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skin feels and appears younger. And I can attest for this. I've been using it every single morning and my skin does feel super plump. It's time to get started with your new face, eye, and body routine at a discounted rate today. You get 15% off with code SKINNY15 at oneskin.co. That's 15% off at oneskin.co with code skinny15. We only have one body, one skin, and only you can choose to make it better. Age healthy with OneSkin. I'm sure we're freaking some people out here, but I'm just wondering, like, to play, not that there's another side, but to... No, play the other side.

No, no, to get some data. Yeah, 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 like, you can't say like, hey, five out of 10 women potentially have this issue or, 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 or 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 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 nother 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, 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 now. 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, if you have all this inflammation and it's throwing your thyroid off and you need it, then you get rid of the inflammation. To me, 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'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 explant, 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 explant 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 explant and then you're on your way to figure the rest out on your own. And I was seeing this doctor who was doing functional medicine testing, who was recommending supplements over pharmaceuticals, and who had a lymphatic massage and 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 that have to do with how you detox. And that's your glutathione pathway, glucuronidation, 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 in women with breast implant illness or who have the most amount of issues is that at least two of those four pathways don't function optimally. What a good tip. So if you did the genetic testing and you saw that before you were going to get breast implants, you could look at that and say like, maybe you're not the best candidate. Correct. 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 should 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 light bulbomas,

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 of 10, five out of 10. 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 test I've ever done in my whole life. I know you have to, you guys have to read. Is that the blood one? No, it's the spit

one. You have it. You've done it. Okay. We did it with Ancestry. Okay. A lot of conspiracy theories now about that because people. No, this is not Ancestry. This is a company. They got our data guys. I don't know what they're going to do with it. 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 explant? If so, why or why not? Right. So I get this question a lot. I did not have a lift, but I'm four years post-explant. I did a very small fat transfer. I'm barely an eight 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. At first, they almost feel small, and then they 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. 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

PTSD 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 with that 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 areola. I didn't have sensation for 17 years. 20 years with once with my explant that restores complete. Nipple sensation 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? Alistico 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 had explant surgery and specializes in the gut. I think that Candice is an amazing follow too. If you're just curious about dipping your toe into this, she's not overwhelming. It's not fear mongering or whatever that word is called. Mongering. Mongering. 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 stalk Candice on Instagram or you can stalk Dr. Robert Whitfield. I had an amazing experience with him at Breast Implant Illness. That sort of tells you everything you need to know. His Instagram is 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 Rehm.