Today is National Breast Implant Illness Awareness Day. If you don't personally have breast implants, you definitely know someone that does and unfortunately, stories of women being properly informed of the risks before surgery are few and far between.
I'm welcoming two remarkable women, Robin and Amanda, who generously share their own stories of facing breast implant illness. Robin—a determined patient advocate and breast cancer survivor—dives into her complex battle with breast implant illness and her triumph in shaping Arizona's legislation for informed consent.
Amanda, known as The Holistic Beauty Coach, recounts her own health struggles and the rejuvenation she experienced post-explant surgery. They're candid in illuminating the mostly ignored symptoms associated with breast implants. This is a conversation about transparency and patient autonomy in medical decisions. Unfortunately, the truth about Breast Implant Illness has been deliberately concealed for years.
Breast implants introduce all sorts of chemicals into the body, from heavy metals to siloxanes to acetone - it's basically a bag of chemicals that leak into the body. But financial conflicts of interest skew narratives in the medical community. So while the FDA may be slow to respond, the information is out there. We just have to get it into the right hands so that informed consent is possible.
For those contemplating the path to explant surgery, today's guests provide actionable insights and compassionate guidance. My hope is that this episode brings to light to the issue so that less women are suffering in the dark, going from specialist to specialist with symptoms they can't explain.
Looking for information and support?
GPAC United Website
Patient Informed Consent Guide w/ List of Symptoms
Breast Implant Ingredients List
Report Adverse Effects to FDA
head on over to www.detoxyourpits.com and use discount code WENDYKATHRYN at checkout for 10% off!
If you enjoyed this weeks' episode, please:
Today is National Breast Implant Illness Awareness Day. If you don't personally have breast implants, you definitely know someone that does and unfortunately, stories of women being properly informed of the risks before surgery are few and far between.
I'm welcoming two remarkable women, Robin and Amanda, who generously share their own stories of facing breast implant illness. Robin—a determined patient advocate and breast cancer survivor—dives into her complex battle with breast implant illness and her triumph in shaping Arizona's legislation for informed consent.
Amanda, known as The Holistic Beauty Coach, recounts her own health struggles and the rejuvenation she experienced post-explant surgery. They're candid in illuminating the mostly ignored symptoms associated with breast implants. This is a conversation about transparency and patient autonomy in medical decisions. Unfortunately, the truth about Breast Implant Illness has been deliberately concealed for years.
Breast implants introduce all sorts of chemicals into the body, from heavy metals to siloxanes to acetone - it's basically a bag of chemicals that leak into the body. But financial conflicts of interest skew narratives in the medical community. So while the FDA may be slow to respond, the information is out there. We just have to get it into the right hands so that informed consent is possible.
For those contemplating the path to explant surgery, today's guests provide actionable insights and compassionate guidance. My hope is that this episode brings to light to the issue so that less women are suffering in the dark, going from specialist to specialist with symptoms they can't explain.
Looking for information and support?
GPAC United Website
Patient Informed Consent Guide w/ List of Symptoms
Breast Implant Ingredients List
Report Adverse Effects to FDA
head on over to www.detoxyourpits.com and use discount code WENDYKATHRYN at checkout for 10% off!
If you enjoyed this weeks' episode, please:
Did you know that joint and muscle pain, ribotort arthritis, chronic fatigue, memory and concentration problems, breathing problems, gastrointestinal problems, premenopausal symptoms, autoimmune and inflammation are all well-documented symptoms of breast implant illness? Today is February 13th and is National Breast Implant Illness Awareness Day, in honor of my friend Julie, who so bravely shared her ex-plant journey publicly to spread awareness. I am talking to the leading expert patient advocate, breast cancer survivor and co-founder of GPAT, global Patient Advocacy Coalition, robin Taupe. Robin recently was successful in passing a law in Arizona that requires patients to be given informed consent on the symptoms associated with breast implant illness, as well as the cancer risk prior to receiving plastic surgery. Her expertise has made her a sought-after speaker and she's testified before the FDA and co-author to textbook chapter Understanding Breast Implant Illness in Advances in Cosmetic Surgery. I also have with me today Amanda, who is well-known on social media as the holistic beauty coach and is a tireless patient advocate and speaker who works with women who are healing after their breast ex-plant surgeries. After seven years of illness, she finally had her own ex-plant surgery and has since healed completely. She spent many years working with the plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills helping women through their own ex-plant surgeries and is now a health coach and speaker who continues her work of helping women heal.
Speaker 1:This episode is for all the women out there who have been told their illness is all in their head. I see you, let's dig in. Hello ladies, welcome to the detox dilemma. I'm so excited you're here. Thanks for having us. This is actually the first time I've had two people on the podcast at the same time, so this is going to be good. I just want to jump right in. So, robin, I would love for you to just, in a nutshell, give us a really quick story. What brought you here? Why this topic? Why this issue?
Speaker 2:My story is really short. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017 and I chose to have a double mastectomy and I had breast reconstruction with mentor silicone breast implants. Then, literally as soon as those breast implants went in my body, I just became so sick and had a ton of symptoms. I didn't do any other treatment for my cancer, didn't do chemo, didn't do radiation. There was no reason for me to be this physically ill, started with headaches and migraines and heart palpitations, difficulty breathing, difficulty swallowing, joint pain, hair loss, like skin rashes. I mean. My health just tanked. So I started just trying to figure out what was wrong with me and I came across another patient that was a breast cancer patient and she had told me that her breast implants made her sick and when I asked her how, she started listing her symptoms and I could literally check every box. So I actually only had my implants in for four months and I chose to take them out as soon as I possibly could and the first week I had them out, everything went back to normal, everything.
Speaker 2:I was shocked. I was like I'm so excited because I got my health back. I felt great again. I didn't feel like 110 year old woman with one foot in the grave. But then I got angry. I was like what just happened here and why did none of my doctors tell me? I had a whole team of doctors as a breast cancer patient my oncologist, my plastic surgeon, my breast surgeon I did consult with a chemo nurse, even though I chose to opt out of chemo. Nobody told me. Nobody told me anything. And that made me angry and I felt like, okay, this is what happened to me, but what can I do to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else? And so that's just really what launched me into my patient advocacy work.
Speaker 1:I've never met an advocate that didn't have a story, who didn't feel really passionate about it, and I think that's how you change things. So thank you for everything that you do. I'm really excited to dive into the work that you're doing, but first let's go over to Amanda. I would love for you to tell my audience your story.
Speaker 3:So I received saline implants in 2003. They had to be replaced because of something called capsular contracture. A year later, when I went to a new surgeon because my original implantian surgeon was on maternity leave he was one who was working with manufacturers, doing studies, supposedly, and so you hear that. And I was only in my 20s thinking, oh, he must be one of the best. And it was interesting because he had suggested, when I replaced them, to replace them with silicone. And I didn't do any research. You know, a lot of my girlfriends had breast implants. I was getting them for a minor breast deformity, so I hadn't done any research because it was not my first choice to do this. And so I did say to him wait a minute, isn't silicone bad? I mean, I had the wherewithal to at least say that. And he said, oh, no, no, no, we're actually made them new and improved, and all of the women who will be getting them you're a great candidate for it because you're so thin, you will be tracked in a study. And so you think, okay, I'm going to be tracked in a study. He thinks it's best, all right, let's go with silicone. And that's important to note because in 2004, when I had them replaced.
Speaker 3:There was actually a moratorium on silicone breast implants that's how many women were sick and they were focused, though, on the ruptures that these breast implants were having and women were getting sick, which is valid right, but I would go on to, after nine months, get hormonal disruption that seemed like paramedic causal symptoms, and I was only like 25 years old. My gynecologist was already gaslighting me and saying, oh, this is just normal, and I said no, it's not normal. That's why I made my appointment today, and as time went on and again we didn't know this at the time my poor little body was fighting these things the entire time, and my immune system in 2012 finally just said all right, that's it, that's all we've got. It was after a minor car accident and an emotional distress. I got over 40 symptoms almost all at once, from thyroid dysfunction, hormonal dysfunction, my hair falling out, couldn't breathe, walking up a flight of stairs, and in the meantime, I had started working in the beauty industry and I had started working in plastic surgery to help other women to feel better about themselves who had my same condition, and so I always went into it with the right idea.
Speaker 3:I was just as clueless as everyone else I would have never stopped to ask what kind of chemicals are in these implants I didn't know enough about heavy metals back at the time or your lymphatic system or circulation all of these systems in my body that just were not working optimally. And here I went from one of the healthiest people I never even get the common cold to walking around like I was a retired football player is what it seemed like, and so when I figured it out at the end of 2018, I made the decision to expand within three weeks. I expanded on it. It will be five years in a week, february 21st 2019.
Speaker 3:Happy anniversary and thank you. I've made a full recovery, which is kind of shocking when you have that many things going on. I became a health coach and I decided I really want to give back and help other women because I saw through my research in these support groups how many sick women there were and I just was shocked. Like I told you, it's like the Twilight Zone You're waking up and you're so confused because I never had any women come to any of the offices that I worked complaining, nor any of my friends complaining of these same symptoms.
Speaker 2:Well, and because they don't know, they're not really going back to the plastic surgeon's office where you worked, right, Amanda? They're going to a rheumatologist because they have joint pain. They're going to a neurologist because they're having chronic headaches and migraines. They're going to an allergy specialist. My hair was falling out, my eyelashes were falling out, I had skin rashes. So they're not going back to their plastic surgeons, you know. So, in their defense, the plastic surgeons are sitting there thinking all my patients are happy with their implants, but they're going around to 22 different specialists trying to chase a diagnosis because they have no idea what's wrong with them. So that's really problematic. And still to this day it's a problem because you know the FDA and the plastic surgeon industry. They keep it very well hidden. It's not talked about. They wait as long as possible to even disclose these things to the public. So it's a problem. It really is, and that's why we're here to raise awareness about that and just change the whole narrative.
Speaker 1:So let's go straight to symptoms, because I would really like women who are listening to this to kind of take through a list in their head. And I'm full disclosure here. After meeting you guys, I went and joined a couple of support groups on Facebook. There's some really big groups of women out there that will. I mean I think one of the groups I joined was like 186,000 women and they all talk about the exact same set of symptoms. And I was actually really surprised.
Speaker 1:I went on the FDA's website and I didn't have to dig very far to find the FDA saying, yes, if you have systemic joint pain, if you have, and there's like a list of symptoms. I mean even just to find that on the FDA website. As somebody who works in the industry, I'm like, well, hey, this might actually be such a big issue that the fact that the FDA is willing to acknowledge it on their website is a really big deal. It's probably way bigger but the fact that they felt the need and we can dig into this a little bit when we talk about the FDA and regulation. But first I just want to say I would love to give anyone listening what are kind of those common symptoms that women that have breast and plant analysts have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the top ones on the FDA website are fatigue, joint pain, anxiety, brain fog, autoimmune diseases, hair loss, depression, rash, headache and weight fluctuations either gaining weight or losing too much weight. But we have a list on our GPAC website and it just has, I think, over 50 symptoms just chronic infections or vision problems. I had really red bloodshot eyes. I lost more than half of my eyelashes. I just looked sick and you're right, these women are all talking about the same symptoms.
Speaker 2:It's been going on for 60 years that breast and plants have been making women sick, and so we did push really hard to get that information out there. We went to the FDA meetings back in 2019 and it was very enlightening to be there and see all the information that came forward, and that's why we're here. We're here to get things done. We're here to bring awareness to it. We're here to hold the FDA accountable for holding manufacturers accountable and just giving proper, informed consent to patients.
Speaker 2:I mean, amanda and I say it all the time we don't judge anybody who wants to get breast implants, but it needs to be an educated and informed decision, and that's not happening. If people know that these symptoms can happen when they get breast implants, then they don't have to suffer for a decade like Amanda did. I know women that have suffered for 20 or 30 years just thinking this is normal life. This is me being a middle-aged woman, or premenopausal, or in a stressful job, stressful marriage, chasing three kids around. Whatever excuse you want to make, they just won't admit it's the implants. So, finding a support group or women like Amanda and I on Instagram that are talking about this it's a very vulnerable topic to talk about. We're talking about our breasts, but thank goodness for social media because up until this point, they've kept it very well hidden. They've kept it from the entire medical community and it's just been this hush-hush little secret that no one wanted to talk about because it's a multi-billion dollar business.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, follow the money. And I want to ask you because now you work with a plastic surgeon who ex-plants that's what you do every day, right? You support women who are going through the ex-plant process. What do you see coming in as far as symptoms go, and do most of those women? Did they know, or was it something that they had to kind of go through a process and maybe have their? Maybe their rheumatoid arthritis was really bad and maybe somebody said something to them like, well, hey, have you ever considered your implants? Or maybe they had surgery and maybe somebody said, hey, have you ever considered your implants? Like, did somebody have to drop seeds? What do women? Where are they typically when they come to see you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'm not doing that anymore. But I did spend three and a half years after getting my implants out working for a surgeon who removed mine, because I just really felt like I well, I knew I would have a big voice in this because I've worked in the industry for so long, I've had my own journey I really feel like God. It had to be seven and a half years because I often thought to myself isn't that wild Like I should have found out faster than anybody else really working in the industry? And actually my colleagues were some of the ones who were lying to me and just saying this doesn't exist, even though they had worked during the moratorium and knew how sick all of those women were. And I just thought I'd want to do better. I want to, you know, help, make things better Women, not trying to even get them off the market, just saying I'd love to be a support for other women who have had the same experience that I have. I would say that I, obviously, through my followers, I meet women at all different points on the journey. I meet ones that just got them and, of course, then are freaking out because they were not given all of the information before getting them. They're feeling fine, but they're like well, what do I do now? Do I remove them? Nobody's saying to rush to make any decision like that, of course. We just want people to be aware of the symptoms.
Speaker 3:I would say, though, that, in general, the women who I helped the last three and a half years were women who had been to every practitioner, who had been sick for years. Like I say all the time, if you are like seeing a functional medicine doctor and you're trying all of the things healing your gut, doing all of this and things aren't necessarily getting better and things are declining, like continuing to decline, and you happen to have breast implants or another implanted medical device, consider the symptoms and just kind of start researching and start asking around. I found a lot of information from even people I knew. Guy friends of mine would say oh yeah, my mom had that and removed her implants 20 years ago. Oh, my friends, my best friend, I thought where were all of these people when I was going through it? Because everyone was looking at me like I was from outer space and yet now getting in, like the support group you said almost like 180,000 women in just one support group.
Speaker 3:So I'd say that the women who were already at the point where they were ready and had made the decision to remove them, they had tried everything to no avail and they had just gotten to the point. Like I say, when you get sick enough, you don't care anymore what things look like. I just wanted them out and happy to get them out, I never really liked them. A lot of women do like their implants and my heart does break for those women. They really and not every woman seems to be sick.
Speaker 3:But then if I ask more questions, like on my phone call with them before they come in to see the doctor, some would get very defensive, which is fine. They'd say, oh, I'm just removing them because, xyz, I just don't want implants anymore. I'd say, okay, but would you mind just looking at the symptoms? We can discuss on our call and, sure enough, oh, I have every symptom on this list, every symptom, yeah. And they say, well, just about. But my doctor said that's normal for somebody in their 40s or 50s or whatever, and I'd say, no, that's actually not normal. I've never had a patient, by the way, who didn't either fully resolve all of her symptoms or very much, so I'd never had one that was disappointed. Just from my experience you know that removed them and didn't get better.
Speaker 1:Well, and I really appreciate the point you made about these. Women have been to all these doctors so I'll just share from on a personal level. I don't have implants, I've never considered them. I have friends who have them and absolutely love them and are like nope, no problems whatsoever. And I have some very close friendships with women who have been through absolute hell with their health and, you know, didn't want to even think that it could possibly be their implants, but they spent thousands of dollars seeing functional doctor after you know all endocrinologists thyroid issues, menstrual issues, premenopausal, you know, bloating GI, joint pain, all of it and then finally finally found out you know what this could possibly be. My implants, even ex-plant, immediately got better. And you know they're mad, like Robin, they're angry, they're like I spent so much money, I saw so many doctors, how come not a single doctor said to me hey, we should consider your breast implants. Why isn't that written on every intake form? Why isn't that like a question that every single medical professional asks?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, and that was a great point. When I was going through it I saw, however, I've lost track. I think it was 67 practitioners in all in those seven and a half years, and I will say, even some of the functional medicine docs that I saw at the time didn't have that on their intake forms. Now I'm seeing it more and more like. I went to acupuncture not too long ago and they even have it on there, so Bravo for all of them. It is such a dirty little secret Nobody wants to talk about it. You don't even have to be a plastic surgeon to want to not want to talk about it.
Speaker 3:My ER, doctor friends were poo-pooing me and saying, oh, this can't be. And then I'd say, yeah, look at all of these chemicals. And then the doctors are asking me, why are all these chemicals in a breast implant? And I'm like you're asking me.
Speaker 1:Now you're speaking my language. Yeah, I want to go down this road, robin. Maybe you can help me. You know, it's really interesting. When I started looking at the ingredients, I started thinking to myself, as somebody who works in toxins regulation, what are these even doing in there? There were so many that literally, I genuinely want to know what would the purpose be of that? So, robin, can you just kind of explain what are some of the ingredients that are found in breast implants?
Speaker 2:I mean most of them I can't pronounce, but I know acetone. I know that's neurotoxin. They use it in nail polish remover. Propanol, pentanone, eudocane, limonene, saloxane, saloxanes are known to be endocrine disruptors. They're known to be forever chemicals, but also, what's really concerning for a lot of women, which I had no idea any of these chemicals were being put in my body.
Speaker 2:I'm a three-time cancer survivor and if someone had showed me this list, I would have never signed up for it. But I have a sensitivity to nickel. So what happens if you show me this list of cannabis segments where you reveal there? So I can't wear the cheap earrings or jewelry that have nickel on them? Nickel was in my breast implants, along with arsenic, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, copper, lead, magnesium, mercury, tin, zinc, titanium. These are heavy metals. These are heavy metals that take our body a long time to detox out.
Speaker 2:If ever, I would have never, never signed up for it if I had known all of those were in good breast implants and basically it's a chemical soup that they use to make this cohesive gel and to make the shell of implants, because I do want to point out that even saline implants have a silicone shell, so they're all in the same type of shell which is, you know, using those chemicals in our body.
Speaker 2:And, like Amanda said, I mean, eventually we all get to a point where we might think we're okay, but your body only has a threshold that it can tolerate and once you get that threshold, it's game over. I mean, right, I was fine, I was fine for 30 years and then all of a sudden you put these breast implants on my body and it's like everything went haywire. And unfortunately, like Amanda said, she'll get patients that come to her and say, oh, I'm fine, my breast implants aren't making me sick, I just want them out. But then they're on thyroid medication. That's one of the biggest things is it starts disrupting your thyroid, your hormones, your endocrine system, and they have all of these. I take migraine medication, I take this medication, that medication, and it's like every single one of those can be linked to these breast implant illness symptoms.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know it's a good point. Like Robin said, when I saw arsenic on the list, that to me was probably the most shocking. I said to someone you know, oh my gosh, there's arsenic. What would arsenic? That's the king of all poisons. Why would that be in a breast implant show? You're telling me that it could not stay together without that little bit of arsenic. And then I feel like a doctor or someone said oh, but it's just a little bit, it's just a little bit.
Speaker 2:It's safe. It's at safe levels, acceptable levels, and I'm like there should be zero tolerance, like no level of arsenic is acceptable. Why do we have that in our bodies? And, interestingly enough, some of the plastic surgeons are trying to do these studies to prove that it's anything but the implants right. And a recent study came out a couple of years ago and these two female plastic surgeons were saying that they really thought breast implants were making women sick. It wasn't the breast implants. They were looking at their patient populations and they said that a lot of their women had tattoos or ate a lot of fish or rice Rice, you know, is just tends to have arsenic Brown rice and so they're blaming it on tattoos and fish and rice, but not the implants, not all these samples that I just listed. It couldn't be that right.
Speaker 3:No, and heavy metal toxicity from ink could very well be. But then I'm saying to myself, like I have some followers, that I posted their pictures. They're fully tatted and they're like, but I got my breast implants out and all of my symptoms got better.
Speaker 1:I'm curious, robin, you are very active, which thank you, by the way, for being such a warrior for women and in my home state of Arizona, you actually passed an informed consent law, and so my question to you is what does informed consent actually look like for a woman?
Speaker 2:I'm glad you asked that because truly informed consent should be a conversation. It's not a piece of paper, it's not a list of things. It should really be a conversation between the patient and the doctor. But I'll be 100% honest with you that's not happening. And the doctors the way they present the information, is very biased and skewed. Because of the leadership in the plastic surgeon community. They're passing down this narrative that these plastic surgeons are regurgitating in their office, so they're brushing over the risks and these complications and these systemic symptoms. They're saying that it's rare. They're saying the women in those Facebook groups are crazy and they're sensationalizing their story. Yet I wasn't even on social media when I got sick and my story and my symptoms were identical to all those women. It's really unfortunate. I can see the surgeons being a little dismissive if we don't really know what's going on. But this has been going on and the last 35 years have shown that nothing's changed in the breast implant world.
Speaker 2:So informed consent in the state of Arizona is surgeons are mandated by state law to not only give the patient information booklet that is supposed to come with every single set of implants and given to the patient. That is required by law in Arizona. Women in other states are not getting that information. Also, there's a patient decision checklist that we developed and we worked really hard to make the checklist easy to understand in layman's terms and really point out not just saying what the symptoms are or the autoimmune diseases, but really outlining what those diseases look like.
Speaker 2:Because, I'll be honest with you, most people, if you've lived a relatively healthy life, you don't know what scleroderma is, or lupus, or fibromyalgia or connective tissue disease.
Speaker 2:So you see those things on your typical plastic surgeons will make you sign off on an informed consent and you just initial that, yeah, you know breast implants, women with breast implants have known to have this, but you don't really know what that is. And so, really, then you start developing all these symptoms and our checklist outlines what lupus looks like, what fibromyalgia looks like, what connected tissue disease looks like. So then if women do start having symptoms, it's so much easier for them to figure out. They can take their implants out and get their health back quicker, because some of these women that have had them for decades they're really still suffering, even after x-plant. I mean, yes, they feel 80% better, which is great because they can at least get out of bed where they used to be bedridden. They lost their job, they're on disability, they're on state insurance because they just are too sick to word. So in Arizona I'm just really proud that at least I know women in this state are protected, and I had no idea you were in Arizona.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I am Went to University of Arizona. Go wild cats, Uh-oh.
Speaker 2:We're a son double family.
Speaker 1:Oh no, I don't know if we can be friends, I'm just kidding. I do love, though, this idea of let women choose, because if you give women a set of symptoms and you say, listen, all of these things are associated with breast implants, there may be some women that say, yeah, no, I'm good. But for those that say you know what, I still want them at least going forward into the future, they've been informed that if they start to have these symptoms, then they're not going everywhere making themselves crazy, trying to figure out and spending all this money because they're like, oh wait, a minute, I know what this is. I was told about this when I had them and that, to me, I informed consent is everything. I believe everyone has a right to choose what they do with their body period, but don't lie to me about it.
Speaker 1:Another thing I found really interesting. I'm like a hardcore researcher. You know you Google this issue. You can Google it and be like are breast implants? You know blah, blah, blah, and you get all of these very censored, very biased blogs and written things by government officials. But it is not hard to go into the journal system If you're somebody who understands medical journals to go into the journal system and find tons of science and data absolutely proving all of this to be very true, and so the fact that so much scientific literature is published and exists. Why doesn't that get out? I mean, it's all there.
Speaker 2:It is and I'm glad you brought that up, because those studies that you're talking about because that's my favorite thing to do is just research they poo, poo those studies and they try to discredit them and say you know that those have been debunked.
Speaker 2:But what's interesting is the people that are saying that they are actually doing studies that are funded by industry. They are actually taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from breast implant manufacturers and then they're sitting here telling us they're perfectly safe and they're declaring no conflict of interest and, I'm sorry, $468,000 is a pretty big conflict of interest in my opinion. So it's really when I started diving into the studies, like you said, that I realized oh, I see what's going on here, but lo and behold, the FDA is the biggest problem. They have known about this for at least 40 years. They have known about cancers, multiple cancers that are caused by breast implants since the early 1990s, that it took them till 2022 to announce all these breast implant cancers. And here we are in 2024. They still haven't let the medical community know about these cancers caused by breast implants.
Speaker 1:Can we talk about breast cancer? I did notice all the time I spent on the FDA website. They in September put out a notice of a new, very aggressive cancer that has been connected to breast implant capsules, something you know. According to them, according to the FDA's website and I'm happy to go link that website for anybody that wants to go look they want women to report it. They have a reporting system. They want women to report it and they actually came out and said we're really concerned about that. So can you kind of explain what that is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so most of the cancers that are caused by breast implants develop in that capsule. So if you think of an orange, right, the fruit part of the orange that we eat is the breast implant, and then the peel around it is the capsule. That's like a good analogy I like to use for people that don't understand what that capsule is. And you know, when the implant goes in the body, the manufacturers admit that these chemicals that we've been talking about leach into the body. It's called gel bleed, so it's right in the manufacturer's literature, it's in all of their safety studies. So these chemicals are leaking out into the body. The body's kind of like, hey, there's a foreign object here, and so the body builds this scar tissue capsule around the implant to protect our body from it.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, that's where the cancers are developing. Same surgeons who said breast implants don't make us sick, it's tattoos and rice, are also saying if you take your breast implants out, don't take the capsule out, you don't need to. But the cancer grows in the capsule. So why would you leave it in there? I don't want that in my body, knowing it can develop a cancer. But unfortunately, this new cancer that you said they just announced, which isn't new. I've read case studies back to 1990, 1991, 1993.
Speaker 1:New to the FDA.
Speaker 2:Yeah, new to the FDA talking about it. Unfortunately, like some of the other cancers that stay in the capsule, this cancer does not. It migrates out of the capsule, it metastasizes very quickly and it spreads to bone, nearby tissue, nearby organs. I watched a presentation where one woman it invaded her sternum, it invaded four ribs, it invaded her heart. The saddest thing about this cancer is it has such a high mortality rate 60, 50% of patients are dead within six months of being diagnosed to this cancer. Now, the other cancer that the FDA has been all over in one year after being diagnosed, only 2% of patients die. Okay, so I mean it's bad enough having any deaths, but in this cancer, 50% of patients are dead within six months.
Speaker 2:This patient that I watched on this presentation had to have her sternum removed for ribs. She had a hole in her chest the size of a volleyball and then they used a 3D model to build a titanium rib cage for her to replace the ribs that she lost. To protect her heart, they had to remove part of her heart that was invaded with cancer and then they slapped a big piece of pig mesh over the defect to close her up and now she has this huge scar, I mean, and she was just a breast augmentation patient that came in at age 21 for breast implants. So no one's telling these patients oh hey, by the way, 20, 30 years from now you could look like this. You know, they like to brush it under the rug and say it's rare and there's not that many cases.
Speaker 1:It makes me well, it makes me very sad, but something that in the very now that's near and dear to my heart that makes me very sad is we have rising rates of breast cancer among young women. So women in their 30s and 40s are starting. Rates are starting to go up a lot. I have a lot of data that I share on underkin disruptors and their role in breast cancer and how just removing specific underkin disruptors from your personal care products can improve your chances of getting breast cancer. We have all this amazing data.
Speaker 1:So day in and day out, I'm on the internet telling women avoid underkin disruptors, avoid all of these things, and I'm trying to teach people cleaner living, because I don't want. I mean, I'm 43. I have five friends that are my age that have been diagnosed with cancer after having a mammogram and their doctor said the safest and absolute best thing that you can possibly do choice-wise and they encourage this is to do a double mastectomy and get reconstructive surgery, and that is the safest thing for you to do. So, as I'm sitting here listening to you, I'm thinking about these women who are getting breast cancer early on in their life. They're getting double mastectomies and they're getting reconstructive surgery and they're not being told. Oh, by the way, this has been linked to, and can lead to, this really aggressive form of cancer that sounds to be more dangerous than maybe even whatever they found to begin with.
Speaker 3:Right and until that really downloads into you and you get it. That's when people then look at me in shock and horror. I had a woman who was going on and on about donating to Susan J Coman and I got started on that every year with my pink washing speech.
Speaker 1:Everyone gets it, yeah.
Speaker 3:But I said I'm gonna stop you right there.
Speaker 3:They are putting these implants with all of these heavy metals and highly toxic chemicals into a woman who has just survived the biggest battle of her life and they are linked to other additional cancers. And from an article I found that I love to post all the time, from the New York Times in 1993, breast implants and what they do to the immune system. And that's basically what happened to me and is happening to other people. It's like our immune systems are going absolutely berserk and that's why you're getting all of these symptoms. And then you have the doctors calling you crazy, when these women that I'm seeing I can't even believe that they are being mothers and wives and working and putting food on the table and doing laundry, cleaning, and they are feeling so sick like I did I don't see how I could have ever raised children during that time and they are being so disrespected by all of these practitioners who, by the way, are your customer. Women make up plastic surgeons and pay for everything their nice cars and their houses and that's how they talk about their patients.
Speaker 1:So let's detour for a second, because I do want to mention that. Yes, specific to this, breast implants, the FDA, the cancers that we're seeing but as far as these symptoms go, a lot of them cross over into all implants. So chin like little implants or surgeries where there's other things that need to be in your body, it's basically anything that your body would deem a foreign object, and I always found this fascinating that I have friends who have had to have organ transplants. Thank God have been able to find matches and had organ transplants, but they're an anti-rejection medication for their entire life to keep them healthy. And as I was digging into this research, what I started seeing was it's all foreign objects that are found in the body. So can we talk about that for a second also?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting because I stumbled into advocacy for surgical mesh a couple years after I was doing the breast implant stuff and a patient online reached out to me and she said I have tons of mesh in my body from a hernia. She saw that I had passed the state law and was interested in passing the law in her state. So it's interesting because when I started listening to these women's stories I realized they were the same as mine. I also met a couple ladies in Phoenix a couple years ago. They were part of the movie. There's a documentary called the Bleeding Edge Great film. I recommend everybody see it. It talks about the FDA approval process and how they just kind of let all these medical devices slide through without any clinical trials. So these women were harmed by e-shor. It's a birth control device and I was talking to one of the women that had this device. They actually got their device banned worldwide, so it's not on the market anymore at all. And this woman was telling me her story and telling me her journey of illness and she started telling me all her symptoms and they were identical to mine. And I looked at her and I said are you sure you don't have breast implants? She said, no, I've never had breast implants. So I'm really glad you brought that up, because we are not just seeing patients with breast implants going through this. It's surgical mesh, it's dental implants, it's metal pins and rods, Like if you've had shoulder surgery or knee surgery. I mean, I understand people getting car accidents and they need to put your leg back together if it snapped in half, but we are seeing it with all these different foreign objects in the body.
Speaker 2:So shortly after I started getting involved in all this, I actually had a really bad accident with my thumb where I completely amputated my thumb, except for the pad part, and had to go in for emergency surgery to get it put back together. And I begged the surgeon not to put a metal pin or rod in me and he told me that he might have to to keep the bone together. And I said if that's the case, can you just take it off? And he looked at me like I was crazy. And you know, maybe I do seem crazy. But after what happened with me with breast implants, I don't want another foreign object in my body and I pray that I will ever have to have one. And, yes, I would rather have the tip of my thumb amputated than to have that in my body. Because he looks at me and he's like, well, you know you're going to have one thumb shorter than the other. And I kind of looked at him like you know, I have no boobs, Like that's the least of my problems, right?
Speaker 2:We actually have a list on our GPAC website with the symptoms for mesh surgical implants and a lot of them they're the same. And then they have the added risk of mesh. The surgeons like to tell patients that it incorporates into your tissue. It actually doesn't. It kind of disintegrates and starts dissolving and migrating throughout other parts of your body.
Speaker 2:If you think of like a window screen that's on your window and you cut it with scissors, you know you have the little frayed edges. The frayed edges can migrate into your organs. They can perforate your organs. They can perforate your bowel. They can also migrate and strangulate your bowel and actually cause a blockage and a rupture and uterine sepsis. You know these are complications that patients are not being told and unfortunately, like if you have a hernia and you need hernia repair, how did they repair hernias before mesh was invented? We need to go back to that because all the damage that I'm seeing with these patients could have been avoided if their surgeon just took the extra time in the OR to fix it with a native tissue repair rather than just a 20-minute. Slap a piece of mesh onto the patient, sew them up and send them on their way home.
Speaker 1:Medical devices are big business and I think we should touch on that as well. I'd like to talk about just for a minute the conflict of interest that you kind of brought up earlier, but I don't think people realize just how deep it goes kind of the cascading effect of and, by the way, this conflict of interest exists in all categories. This is regulatory capture. This happens in big fragrance, this happens in big telecommunications, this happens in big pharma, this happens in big food. This idea of regulatory capture and conflict of interest and owning the science is not just on this topic. But I would love for you to share kind of that top-down conflicting issue and how things like this, how you end up with surgeons who really don't know and are kind of blinded to the science itself. How does that happen?
Speaker 2:I actually wrote a really great article about the hierarchy of the medical device, specifically breast implants, and we have the manufacturers at the top of the hierarchy and it trickles down to surgeons who, like I mentioned before, take hundreds of thousands of dollars from these implant manufacturers, even into the millions. But what was really disturbing to me when I started researching conflict of interest is it's not just like oh, I did a study and I'm saying this. These people have positioned themselves in positions of power and influence. They are key opinion leaders in the industry. So they go to their medical conferences every year and they're giving these speeches talking about these products. Their colleagues and peers are listening to their presentations and taking it at face value because they did a study on it and they studied so many patients. But what they don't know is they also took $1.2 million from one breast implant manufacturer alone. So some of the surgeons are starting to speak out about it and it's not being received well.
Speaker 2:We actually had a surgeon who did a podcast, made a social media post about he went public with. When he started talking about BII, he started getting harassed by his peers and colleagues. Someone actually called him up and said you're pissing a lot of people off. You need to stop. Stop talking about BII. That is very disturbing to me. I have had surgeons tell me I have private conversations with them saying, well, why don't you do this, or why can't we talk about this? And they're like we've tried and we get attacked, we get bullied, we get harassed by our peers and it's happening. So then they also don't realize. So, these people, not only are they speaking at the medical conferences, they're putting on CME presentations about these devices, doing the same thing they're doing at the medical conferences. So essentially they're controlling the entire narrative.
Speaker 1:And they're sitting on editorial boards of the papers who are deciding what gets published, and I think that's a big piece that people don't realize. They really are censoring the science. Yeah, truly they are, absolutely yeah. I think it's important for people to understand that. I think that, lifting the veil on, I think some people think, oh, you're such a conspiracy theorist, there you are with your tin foil hat, and for me to have found this information so quickly, like anybody who wants to find this and knows where to look can find it, but most people don't know how to get beyond the narrative that's being told to them and not by any fault of their own, but that's because that's the way the system has been rigged.
Speaker 1:True.
Speaker 2:And people believe and trust their doctors, because we were raised that doctors went to medical school. Doctors are good people that want to heal people and first do no harm the Hippocratic oath. But, and I will say this, when this first happened to me, I was very angry at all plastic surgeons. I thought they were all just complete corrupt, total corruption. But as I've stepped into this advocacy deeper, I've met some amazing human beings on this planet that are helping our patients, that are kind and caring and compassionate, so they restore my faith and humanity.
Speaker 2:It's just a very small group of powerful people that are controlling this narrative and I think once people realize that, like you said, the information's there, and unfortunately, just after everything that's happened in the past few years of our life, people are very skeptical now of the whole medical community in general and they are starting to do their own research. And that's what I think is so interesting, because when they do their own research, like you, they find that information and they're like holy cow, why didn't my doctor tell me this? And so now there's this distrust Like why is this slimy guy not telling me the truth? And can I trust him? You know I want him cutting me open on the operating table, so it trickles down. I think they had a good run. They had a great 35-year run, keeping this swept under the carpet, but the truth is out now and it's not going back. It's not going back that way, no, and really.
Speaker 3:I mean, think about how many people are in the world are aware of breast implant illness. Now I mean, I don't know A couple million, what have you? I always say that once 5 million know 10 million, 20 and so on. Everybody knows somebody with breast implants, whether it's somebody's mom, somebody's sister, somebody's friend or themselves. I can't even imagine, when the floodgates open, how scary it is going to be, the anger of not only the patients who maybe survived breast cancer but were told to just reconstruct you get a free boob job out of this. Or, you know, if someone finds out later that their mother, who didn't need to be reconstructed, could have had flat closure, ended up getting a secondary cancer. Yeah, so Robin and I are just speaking out because we would want someone to do the same for us, and I know there are some women who get even angry, upset and call advocates' names for this because they're upset. We're not trying to do it to upset anyone. We're trying to do it to look out for other women.
Speaker 1:Well, there's no judgment. This is not the fault of women, period, and women should be able to do what they want. If a woman wants a boob job, she should be able to go get a boob job, but in order to respect the woman's right to make that decision, that comes with informed consent and that means you tell that woman sure, you want a boob job. Here are all the risks associated with it. Do you still want it? Yes, okay, great. No, okay, great. We deserve that respect and we could go to a rabbit hole where that respect does not exist in our maternity care system and lots of other places, but we won't go down that rabbit hole right now. I want to pivot a little bit towards more of a hopeful conversation.
Speaker 1:If a woman is listening to this and they're like, ticking off the checklist of like, and I'll be honest, most of the science I found was in journals that are specific to rheumatoid arthritis. That was a lot. Joint pain, rheumatoid arthritis I mean, that is a clear, that is a thing Like. There is no question, nobody can question that. And so if you're out there listening and if you're interested in getting an ex-plant, where should a woman go to find out what surgeons can even help them through this. That won't try to talk them out of it. Right Like who can they trust to go to? Where can they find somebody that they can go talk to to work down this road?
Speaker 2:I always recommend looking for support groups where women have been through this experience, used those doctors and are sharing their experience with those doctors. So, like you said, there's really large support groups out there that are full of tens and hundreds of thousands of women. And then there's more local support groups that you can probably find in your area and look for local doctors that women in your area have used. I always recommend at least having two to three consultation appointments and just see because someone might love their doctor and had a great experience but maybe you don't love their bedside manner and just really do your research on the doctors. But I really think that connecting with other women who have been through this, talking with them and their experience and I mean, if you've joined the group, you see people share their results and so you can see, ask to see the surgeon's work.
Speaker 2:They know a good ex-plant surgeon knows that our community has been mistreated, we've been gaslit, we are very untrusting. We ask for pictures and videos because we want to see that they got everything out, because that's the only way we get that peace of mind right. We want to know that all the capsules came out. We don't have that additional risk of getting cancer later on down the road. Really, just interview your surgeon, like you would interview somebody to nanny your child or for a job, and just make sure you trust them, make sure you really articulate what your expectations are, and I think that's the best way to go about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Because I want to empower women to, like Robin said, have several consultations. My first couple. I didn't walk. I ran out of their offices because they were poo-pooing BII. They were telling me this was a social media phenomena. A man to these women are crazy. I said how about just the fact that I just would like them out? I mean I'm just going to make the decision. And they said no, because it's you're going to be deformed. I'm not deformed. They look great If I had listened to that and remained sick. So you know, women have to start trusting their gut. Don't be afraid to speak up for yourself. Go to a surgeon who does the ex-plants on a routine basis. Right, practice it. Practice makes perfect. I want to go to somebody who's doing it all the time, not just somebody who does it once or twice a year, and I don't think there's anything unreasonable about that. But if a surgeon's still gaslighting you or poo-pooing it or telling you that women are making it up, probably not a surgeon for you.
Speaker 1:And let's take it one step further. You know, as you guys were talking about all of the different chemicals because that's my world my brain immediately goes to. Well, you can remove the source of it, but there's going to be lingering issues that need to be taken care of. There's going to be a healing process. I even had in my head All those heavy metals. Probably should get tested for heavy metals. Do a hair analysis. Maybe they might need some chelation therapy. I know this is your world healing. After, what are some advice you can give women about the need to continue the healing process and what are some of the best practices, some of the best things that they can focus on afterwards?
Speaker 3:Well, I always say that any chronic illness journey. But breast and plant illness. What I see is it's an opportunity to heal, not only on a physical basis but on an emotional and spiritual one instead, and it's up to all of us how far we want to take that healing right. So I would help all of our patients pre-surgery getting their bodies prepped. That might include like lymphatic massage. Our lymphatic systems in many cases are stagnated from the breast implants. So to start opening up your detox pathways we talk about that a lot is important. So then when your body does start detoxing, the toxins can get out.
Speaker 3:I notice that a lot with women who have breast implants. They don't sweat necessarily. They might be constipated. I have never met a woman with breast implants. It doesn't have some degree of digestive issues and again, we could have them without breast implants. I get that, but I find it that fascinating, since disease starts in the gut, we're not absorbing in many cases a whole slew of problems. So to start getting that going kidneys. All the time I have women who have either frequent urination or they're not urinating enough. But it's important that we get that healthy.
Speaker 3:And then I would help our patients in the weeks after their ex-plant because I didn't do a big, fancy, wild, crazy detox program In my mind. I wanted to take it slowly because I wanted to see what started improving on its own, what was directly correlated to the breast implants, because if you start doing too much we're not going to know what the breast implants resolved. I noticed the inflammation starting to drop off pretty quickly. I started walking because to me walking is a great way that you can start moving your body again after illness or injury. I didn't do infrared sauna until my incisions were totally healed, so it was about four weeks, four to six weeks Infrared sauna.
Speaker 1:now I do it about three times a week.
Speaker 3:I don't know if infrared sauna can be an issue with women who have implants still, but there are studies being done and it does seem that those women do seem to have more chemicals in their body. So do your research on that. So I always say that women want this one stop shop or this one detox. Every body is different and how these breast implants affected you is different. If it were Robin, if it were me. So working with a functional medicine doctor, I think, is key. I have a holistic breast team, two natural paths on the team.
Speaker 3:Healing your gut important for all of us, but especially if you've had an implanted medical device or you've been chronically ill. Healing your gut can solve 99 problems that you have right there. But my hair stopped falling out. But it took time and, if you know, like the human body, homeostasis, we just the body wants to be in balance. I would say it took about a year and a half. I was sick for seven and a half years. It took about a year and a half to fully start feeling like myself again, looking like myself. The hair stopped falling out, vision improved, all that. But there are some women who still have to clear mold and parasites and other things, so everybody's a little bit different.
Speaker 1:I actually saw a picture in a journal of an ex-plant that was full of mold, Like a picture.
Speaker 2:I was like I have a set in my office of moldy implants saline implants. Yeah, they were given to me that day that the patient had them taken out and they had mold around the valve where you insert the saline. And now they're just full of mold, probably like that picture you saw. It's disgusting, it's terrible.
Speaker 1:So, as we wrap this up, I want to do two things for my audience. One, amanda where can people find you? Because I love following you on Instagram. You are so educational and so helpful and I love following you, so tell everybody where they can find you.
Speaker 3:Yes, the Holistic Beauty Coach on Instagram and, by the way, I have a lot of male followers too we don't just talk about breast implant illness, we talk about holistic beauty. I'm a health coach, so just different aspects of health, spirituality, truth. But the Holistic Beauty piece because, hello, I said to myself, I know for me, getting my implants out, I wanted to change everything in my life, like you were talking about earlier, and I just wanted to support women and empower them and say you can give up your Botox too, and it's going to be okay. You can switch from your latte, from Starbucks to your green juice and guess what? You're going to start feeling so much better. And if I can do it especially at the age I was when I just decided to change my life I believe anybody can do it.
Speaker 1:I love that and I really enjoy following you. I always say, whenever I get a little pop up, it's like, are you sure you want to see this person? I'm like, oh, this is somebody actually like that they're trying to censor. She's probably saying something I actually want to hear, so Did you get?
Speaker 3:that with me. That is such a comfort. Thank you.
Speaker 1:So, as one advocate to another is somebody who has spent years in the legislature working tirelessly to move legislation and try to change anything even in the smallest amount. I know how important volunteers and people getting engaged is. What are some ways that women can help change and then they can jump into advocacy as well?
Speaker 2:We actually have a little video on our website that gives ideas on how women can just join in the fight. Terri Diaz and I we formed GPAC together and we really like to foster everyone's individual passion for what they like to do. So if you like to write or you do social media posts or you do artistic creativity, making videos and stuff find a way that you can share the information to create awareness, and I highly recommend everybody do this. Please report your problems to the FDA's Mod Database. There's links on our website for that at GPEC Unitedorg, and we need to keep reporting our medical device adverse events. And go back to your doctors All of those doctors that Amanda saw. Take your medical records with you, take your symptoms list with you, go back to them. Take the FDA announcements, the safety updates, the cancers that are caused by implants, the studies that are in the rheumatology journals. Take all that with you and educate your doctors, educate these medical professionals.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, I've been asking the FDA for over five years to please issue a healthcare provider letter to every doctor of every specialty, and they think they're doing a good enough job. I actually had a meeting with them where they shared with us that their communications about these safety updates reached about 300,000 people. 300,000 people and we have a million licensed active practicing physicians in our country and 3.8 million nurses. So five million medical professionals just that. That doesn't count. Holistic practitioners like acupuncture and massage therapists Five million people. In the FDA communications reached a few hundred thousand. So we need to do better and we're still fighting for that.
Speaker 2:Every day, every meeting we have with them, I try to hit that home. Every interview I do on a podcast or TV, like we need that awareness out there. And then there's just lots of other things you can do Share your story on social media. Tuesday, february 13th, is breast implant illness awareness day and we're asking everyone to just kind of go and share your story on all your social media platforms, tell what happened to you and just watch the ripple effect. Right, if everybody tells five people and those five people tell five people, then everyone will know. So we just encourage people to share the knowledge and the experience and share their story.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you both for being here. I genuinely appreciated this conversation and I have absolutely no doubt that we have planted seeds and that this is really going to help women, and so just thank you for the work that you do. Thank you for being here, and we are already planning another episode where we talk about Botox, but we'll save that for another conversation. I'll have you guys back. That's one of my most requested episodes, so I'd love to do that, but thank you for being here and I'll see you next time. Perfect Thanks for having us.