278. When The Body Says No: Genetics, Implants, And True Recovery

We dig into why explant surgery often isn’t the finish line, how biofilms and genetics drive lingering symptoms, and what a structured plan can do to restore energy, hormones, and peace of mind. We share the SHARP method, smarter detox, and faith-forward mindset shifts that help healing last.

• defining breast implant illness and systemic symptoms
• biofilms, oxidative stress, and oxylipin markers
• sauna, leaching, and when “detox” backfires
• why full capsulectomy matters for recovery
• genetics of detox and the one‑third who struggle
• testing for toxins, mold, glyphosate, and metals
• gut health, food triggers, and mitochondrial support
• fat transfer expectations, DEXA, and training choices
• emotional and spiritual self‑work for lasting healing
• resources: SHARP method programs and private community

Go to drrobertwhitfield.com  to join the community and access SHARP without surgery

If you’re ready to stop trying harder and start healing smarter, your first step is Empowered by Faith — the 5-Day Reset.

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This is where many women begin.

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Transcript

Faith, Healing, And Today’s Topic

Dr. Tabatha 0:00

And if you don't believe that you can heal or get well, you just actually will not heal and get well. That is the truth of it. Your mind will win every time. If you're tired of doing all the right things and still feeling exhausted, stuck in your body, and disconnected from God, this podcast is for you. I'm Dr. Tabitha, triple board certified functional medicine physician, and I help women stop fighting their bodies and start healing them God's way. This isn't about another diet or quick fix. This is about restoring your energy, your confidence, and your faith through fasting, functional medicine, and biblical truth. Welcome to Fast of Faith, where you don't just lose weight and feel great. You step into who God created you to be. So let's get into it.

Ashlee 0:57

Welcome back to the Fast of Faith podcast, where we talk about healing the body by honoring the whole person, body, mind, and spirit. Hello, Dr. Tabitha. How are you today?

Dr. Tabatha 1:09

I'm pretty awesome. It's actually my birthday. So happy birthday to me. Everybody's saying to me before.

Ashlee 1:16

Yeah. When everyone sees this, it won't be your birthday anymore, but people will be talking about her birthday. I see what she did there.

Introducing Dr. Whitfield And BII Focus

Dr. Tabatha 1:22

I love it. Well, I'm actually excited for today's conversation because I lived in shame around this topic for many years. And so I believe it's an important conversation. And then we were just talking to our guest before we got recording. And he was saying how he is getting shadow banned on YouTube because of this topic. And I'm not okay with that. Like there is a real agenda going on. And the what it comes down to is women need to know their bodies and understand the truth of what's happening to them. And so stick around for this conversation. Whether you have had breast implants yourself, you know a woman who has, or maybe you don't even have somebody in your life. But the fact is that things get done to us by the medical system. Of course, we sign up for it, we ask for it, but there is not full informed consent going on. There is not a full understanding of long-term sequelae when you have procedures done and different things. And so this conversation is essential just for us as consumers of the medical system, right? So let me sing Dr. Whitfield's praises really quickly before we bring him on. So Dr. Robert Whitfield is a board-certified plastic surgeon. He's widely recognized as the leading expert in breast implant illness and explant surgery in the United States. He has dedicated his practice to helping women navigate breast implant illness and now what's being referred to as systemic symptoms associated with breast implants or SSBI. And this is really important, you guys, because sometimes just taking them out isn't the solution. If you've been watching this podcast for a few years, you know root cause resolution takes some digging and everything's connected. So if you want to hear about breast implant illness, go back to episode 241. Dr. Robert was a guest and we talked about that, you know, what is breast implant illness and how is it addressed surgically? But today he is back because he is going to talk about this sequelae that continues on and he has created the Sharp method. It is a structured framework that actually looks at the biological and psychological factors that influence long-term healing. This is so pivotal, you guys, because we're talking about this recovery process that doesn't necessarily happen afterward. And we've had the honor and pleasure of helping some of his patients navigate after their surgery with hormone replacement therapy. And so we get to see all the good work that his method has done for women. And it's absolutely inspiring. And I'm so grateful for you. So welcome, Dr. Whitfield. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Well, thank you for having me. It's so fun to be back. Happy birthday.

Dr. Tabatha 4:21

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I know it's not necessarily the best conversation for birthday talk, but that's okay.

Ashlee 4:29

It's a needed conversation. And I'm excited about this conversation because even though I've heard of breastplant illness, um I don't know that I would think of it being possible, a possible issue if someone already had her implants removed. And so I would assume explant surgery is the finish line if that's not the case. And then is it true that the studies show one in four women continue to struggle long term?

Biofilms, Oxidative Stress, And Markers

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Yeah, so let's uh I'll go back a little bit uh from the episode I believe she says 241. I talked a little bit about breast implant illness. So I'll just quickly define that and what is referred to as systemic symptoms. So if someone has a device, medical device placed, it could be a hip knee, breast dental implant, cardiac implant, whatever it is, your body reacts to it when it's placed, causes acute inflammation, and then over time you would traditionally form what's called a like a foreign body reaction. Giant cells form around it, makes a little collagen sac, that's the scar, and your body just walls it off. And so we thought it was just kind of ignored. Um, over time, uh we've learned more about that. And as I've explanted patients, we published a paper in September of 2024 that showed that in 694 consecutive cases of ex-plants that I did, 29% had bacterial contamination on PCR testing. So that's the most sensitive and specific method to determine whether or not something is there or not there. It doesn't beyond that give you like a sensitivity pattern to determine an ambiotic therapy or anything. It's it's not for that. It's to show that something was there. And many, many papers now have shown that bacterial contamination, especially bacteria that produce biofilm, biofilms like plaque on your teeth, it can interact with the fatty acid in the breast tissue called oleic acid. It causes an oxidative reaction. And everybody who's listening, so oxidation, a lot of oxidation, is what uh after exercise, buildup of lactic acid and everything makes us sore. So the more you build up oxidative stress, the more your body has to detoxify that and break it down. So this is an ongoing signal to the body, and we we believe strongly that that represents why more and more patients have symptoms because this oxidative reaction is happening. Now, the byproduct of it is called, in this instance, oxy lipin tinhome. So it's a lipin, the the oleic acid is the lipin, the lipid, and it's been oxidized. Now there's families of those, but let's just focus on that one. That one was shown to be elevated in patients with more symptoms of breast and plant illness or systemic symptoms, whatever we're going to refer to it as. So now you have more of a cause and effect relationship. So you have bacterial contamination, you have this oxidative type reaction, you have a biomarker you can check, and it's elevated in patients with more symptoms. I don't know that we need more substantial evidence than that to understand that that's a problem. I've always explained to patients, anybody, cancer or cosmetic, getting a device placed for reconstructive purposes, that it can get infected. So I think we would all agree that that's a problem. That's a real, you know, problem. So the reason then that I do capselectomy in every case is for that reason, right? If I didn't do a capsolectomy, then I would just basically, in one out of three patients, be leaving a problem. So the other uh issue is say a uh a capsule contracture or a rupture or something where the shell is breaking down. So those are very specific instances where the body can react to it. And interrupt me if there's something you want to ask about about any of those situations. But the way I think about it is you put the device in, the device has a shell. Within the shell are a host of chemicals and heavy metals and things like that in the development of that shell. Over time, those can come off, and that debris can stick into the patient's scar capsule. So each of us is born with a set of receptors called T cell receptors, and they determine our tissue from foreign tissue. And that's how you get an immune response. So it's not really a big stretch of the imagination to then think, oh, your body recognizes that as foreign. So as those little particles come off, your body recognizes that and can react to it. So if there's a rupture, if it's breaking down, it's called gel bleed, all these different kinds of uh things can happen. I had a patient, Lauren Bostick, who was using a barrel sauna at 200 degrees Fahrenheit routinely, and she was basically causing chemical leaching out of the implant into her system. So think of leaching. The probably easiest way to think about it is uh the water in a plastic water bottle. If it's overheated, the plasticizer, the phthalate, can then leach into the water and you drink it, and then you elevate a phthalate level in yourself, which causes endocrine disruption. So there's all sorts of ways to get these things uh in our bodies through exposures, through what we eat, drink, breathe, apply to our skin, or have implanted, if you want to think of it that way.

Dr. Tabatha 9:57

So well, you you just blew my mind, Robert, because everybody thinks sauna is so healthy and so essential. And you know, we get a lot of women who have autoimmune conditions and they think like, let me just go in the sauna more. So, wow, I've never thought about that before. Would you recommend women with implants don't even do sauna?

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah, so I got accused of an ethics violation of this because uh Lauren Boslick, my patient and and I said, you know, she was melting her implants. When in fact she was not melting them, but she was causing leaching out of the implant. That's the proper scientific term. So leaching, right? Just as we describe with the water bottle. So I tell everybody the same thing. If you um are feeling bad after a sauna session, then I I think uh Dr. Barber and I would agree you're probably having a Herzenheimer type reaction and you should not participate in that and get that you know further checked out. So I just tell people to be cautious and listen to themselves. Like usually they're far more in tune with what's going on than than I could ever be. So I I have everybody just exercise caution with that. And if somebody wants to uh have surgery with us, I just have them stop doing sauna. And then um, after they're done with a period of uh work with my team uh with detox, then we will re- will reintroduce that depending on what type of surgery they had and how they're doing.

Dr. Tabatha 11:25

Wow. Okay. Well, you just changed everything for me because I did a light therapy session that was like the setting was deep tissue repair, like getting as deep and heavy as possible. And I was so wiped out for three days after that, and I have implants. So this is like completely registering in my brain and making sense because I couldn't make sense of why I was struggling when I just went through this healing situation or so-called situation. So, wow, thank you for that gift today. Yeah, that's a great gift. Because I tell people about leaching all the time. We really need to up-level how we're taking care of our temple. I used to treat mine like a garbage can, I will just be honest. And I'm not okay with that anymore. So this is one of the most important things to me, is that I'm taking high-quality supplements that are actually doing what they say they're doing, and I'm getting my money's worth, and I'm not making my body worse by putting the wrong stuff in it. So let's talk about Hormone Tame Essential Multivitamin, because even though it gives you all the vitamins and minerals you need, there's extra goodness in there, isn't there? I think you have a bottle sitting next to you. Tell us about Hormone Tame.

Sauna, Leaching, And Detox Pitfalls

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Hormone Tame is five products in one. Um, if you listen to the the other episode, one of the things that we talked about is oftentimes, you know, women are just people we're taking a lot of supplements. And the nice thing about a lot of the um supplements that we have here at Fast of Faith is that they're they're just so consolidated, where you could take this and you are basically taking five products. So, yes, this is gonna be a multivitamin, but there is so much more. We actually kind of refer to it as a multivitamin on um steroids. One of the key things that this is gonna be helping is your mitochondria. All you need to know is that they are responsible for so many systems and processes in your body. The reason that we need supplements is because we're just supplementing areas that we just can't really kind of get with our food. So we're filling in those gaps. And so Hormone Tame is inviting the body to just fill in all of those gaps. So you gotta fill those gaps, and hormone tame it will help to do that.

Dr. Tabatha 13:48

So, what do you think is the biggest thing that women are coming to you that they're not understanding or that you wish they knew?

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Um, I think many times I get patients and they come in different um you know stages of life with different, you know, either problems or or work they've tried to do to to overcome maybe they don't feel well and they don't quite understand that, and they've you know, now Dr. Barber, there's a lot of folks seeking functional care, uh holistic care, and they're they're dissatisfied with traditional explanations or lack of explanations about problems.

SPEAKER_04 14:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

So I get a lot of um fragmented care. So they may have seen a nutritionist, they may have seen uh a chiropractor, they may have seen acupuncturist, they may have seen all these different types of folks. And I actually had a lady argue with me about uh how her her naturopath was was taking very good care of her and she wanted to continue with her um but have surgery with us. And I said, Okay, um then I would just ask the naturopath how many times they've taken care of a patient after surgery for breast and plant illness and problems like you're describing because I would guarantee they haven't taken care of many of them, and this is basically all I do. So uh the patients are coming kind of from an informational standpoint is very fragmented, and partly because of what's happening on platforms where I've been almost deplatformed on certain stages that used to be very good to help educate patients. Because all the videos I've ever made for anybody are really just about education to help people better understand a problem. So the the way to think about it a third of the patients will say that third that was infected, if I just explanted them or removed the devices with the scar tissue and everything went well, they would probably do pretty well. Not need a ton of extra care. If in fact the caveat is genetically they could detoxify well, like they pick their parents right, they eat right, they have an environment that's less toxic. And I know this triggers a bunch of people, I don't give a shit. So basically, what you put in your body and what you put on your skin dictates a lot of what I see. And the more garbage you use, the more you don't think about what you put in your body, the worse you're gonna feel. So you need to be super critical about everything that goes in and on your body. And then, you know, in that second group of patients who I I do the removal and all the things, maybe it takes them six, nine months and they're still not feeling quite right. And then there's a group, the last group, the group that used to drive me absolutely baddie because I couldn't understand it. A year later, they'd come in and they'd be like, I still feel bad.

SPEAKER_04 17:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

And I was like, Oh my god, what is going on? I have no idea what's happening. So basically, uh, you know, I've always been curious about genetics. And long story short is there's a very specific genetic archetype for this problem. You have to have really poor detox pathways genetically.

Dr. Tabatha 17:24

Well, I'm that person, so I I understand. Like once my inflammation starts, I can't turn it off. I can't detox through the liver, I don't glucuronidate, I don't methylate, I don't sulfate. So it's like I can really get into this spiral and end up in the pit just trying to work out and exercise and do basic things. So I relate to this woman so much, and I want to hear some hope from you today that there is hope for this one-third.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Well, that's why. So the the thing with that group is um, and we submitted another IRB to write a paper um just about the genetics, and compare it to a study done by Eric Topel out in California at the Scripps Clinic on what he called the welderly population, people who lived, I believe, into their seventh, eighth, and ninth decades with no chronic disease. So you'd have to think that those people have really good detox pathways.

Dr. Tabatha 18:20

Right.

Genetics And The One-Third Who Struggle

SPEAKER_01 18:21

And they live in, you know, community and they stay active and all those other things that are important, obviously. But if you'd have poor detox pathways, I don't, I don't care how great your community is or how well you eat, it's still gonna be a challenge, as you know. So that in itself is a huge factor. So if you don't have a good glucuronidation pathway, like you mentioned, you have a problem with GSST and GSTP1. If you have a poor antioxidant pathway, which means your SOD-2 uh enzyme is gonna be low-level functioning, your methylation pathway, which 36% of the population doesn't methylate. Well, I don't, you don't, it's fine. And then finally, you know, vitamin D metabolism uh is critical to immune immune health. And basically, 83% of our patients on audit have SNPs or mutations in each of those pathways. So there is the genetic archetype of the problem. And all you do is combine that with where you grew up, what food you ate growing up, what work you did, uh, you know, that gives you basically how you feel. And then when you get in the sauna and you are at a high temp, like you said, for a period of time, you can't control what's coming out.

unknown 19:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Your body can't, it's not efficient enough to deal with that problem. So for you specifically, you would be the person who'd better take a very strong binder before you get into something like that.

Dr. Tabatha 20:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

And you shouldn't do long runs. And if you feel bad, I I think my clients, and just like you, they're very motivated, very driven, and they will torture themselves to in the hope that they feel better.

Dr. Tabatha 20:17

Right. I know, and that's what we preach on Fast of Faith is you gotta stop hustling and grinding your way into health. Like that's not how you feel better. It just like digs the hole deeper. So I I hope that every woman on here understands the importance of it, but that it's not everything, that it environment plays a huge part. But I would love you to talk about the the bacteria you were talking about. This concept is, you know, really interesting. There's a biofilm that can be, you know, building up around these implants, and it's a bacterial infestation that's happening. Is there any relation to our gut microbiome or our skin microbiome or anything like that? Like, how do we tackle these biofilms?

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Yeah, so there's when you look at the studies, there's two bacteria predominantly involved: staph epidermitis and cutie bacterium acnes, which are skin bacteria. And, you know, people want to know how this got on their implant. And so the the the three ways, the most common ways things happen are if someone were to hand a surgeon in the operating room an implant and that staff member had opened the package and somehow contaminated it. The next would be the surgeon somehow contaminates it on placement, either by uh a break in technique or touching the skin or whatever. There's all sorts of precautions that make those first two almost nil. Right. Right? Everything's double packaged, everybody changes gloves, there's all these protective ways. Is to put a device in to limit skin contact because you don't want to touch the skin.

Dr. Tabatha 22:04

Right. We used to say in the OR, we do it the same way every time. Like we'd all say it as a group. Because you you want to keep those procedures intact. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

And the orthopedic surgeons are probably by far the best at this. I mean, they wear spacesuits and the draping and all the stuff because they're putting in joints, and that's to save you, you know, uh to keep you so that you're mobile, right? Losing the ability to walk uh is is a a terrible consequence. So they you they probably are the the most extreme example of that in in in my uh history of working with surgeons. So those are two really like low that that's such a low probability. Yeah. So the third, and this is the one that's probably a little confusing, so we'll just explain it. So bacteria gets in the bloodstream. So you get what we call bacteremic. And so how did the bacteria get in there? Well, uh a urinary tract infection is a very common way to get bacteria. A cut on the skin that gets inflamed, not necessarily infected, is a way to get bacteria in your bloodstream. Acne that you pick.

Dr. Tabatha 23:25

Oh yeah. Chewing your fingernails.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

So you got respiratory tract, mucosal surfaces, skin, your GI tract. I mean, it's no surprise that people get problems. And Dr. Barber, I think that the biggest issue is if you showed up to my office with a big red swollen breast, everybody would know what was wrong. But because this gets in the bloodstream and then attaches to a device in an occult manner, it's not an obvious problem. But once those bacteria build up, and so biofilms are just colonies or like little villages of bacteria, and they can produce a little coating that makes it hard for your body to deal with them. And then once they're interacting with your tissues, so I think there's this misconception about the scar tissue your body builds. Your scar tissue doesn't build an impervious nuclear bomb shelter. It's a very it's a it's a collagen sac. And if you looked at it, it would be like something that was knitted, and you stretch it apart and you can see right through it.

Dr. Tabatha 24:39

Right.

Bacteria Sources And Capsule Realities

SPEAKER_01 24:39

So you there's signaling between the bacteria and that fatty acid in the breast tissue, like we talked about. So that creates the oxidative reaction we talked about. That leads to that biomarker oxy dioxylipentinome, which downstream causes all sorts of things that leads to symptoms. So the buildup of those two bacteria by those mechanisms we talked about, that all makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 25:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

I don't think any of that's that hard to figure out. Now, there is uh our paper that set the incidence at 29%. There's a a paper that came out from Denmark last summer that I saw uh and it talks about how I think about it, and so I guess follow along here. So your body recognizes something as foreign if it's not genetically identical.

unknown 25:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

So if you had a genetically identical twin, Dr. Barber, any organ could be transposed between the two of you and not need any drugs.

unknown 25:46

Right.

Dr. Tabatha 25:47

Because I'm not gonna reject it.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

You would be genetically identical. And then if you were a non-identical twin, you would need drugs. And if it was a cadaver kidney from your partner, you would need drugs. The Denmark study showed that implants are being rejected like a cadaver organ. So that means it's not just a T cell response that leads to a breast implant associated lymphoma or an aggravated immune response. It is actually acting like you put a cadaver kidney there instead of a breast implant. And so it's building up plasma cells and B cells in addition. So you're having an egg a rejection response, if that makes more sense.

SPEAKER_04 26:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

So it's not just a foreign body response. So it's more of a rejection response. And I say that because it's always been thought it's just foreign body. But in patients who remain symptomatic because their capsules were left in, it makes much more sense to me that that is part of the problem. Because any of the debris that your T septal T cell receptors sensed and saw and reacted to is still there. Any gel that was left in from a rupture device that was taken out in the office under local, which I've been told is being done in the United States, which seems farcical, uh that's another way to have an ongoing immune response. So I've had people fly in from other places in the country who had uh capsule remaining, and one of them in particular had ruptured devices taken out under local in the office.

Dr. Tabatha 27:30

I hope that women, I mean, some of this is going to go over their head because it's really heavy in the medical stuff, but it it needs to be talked about, and women need to understand that it's not just you feel bad and we think it might be happening. Like you're doing research on this. The science is clear, like what's happening at a cellular process level. And I hope that women are feeling seen and understood today by hearing this because I know a lot of women get dismissed. Um, so I'm excited to talk about your Sharp method because we need to figure out how to help that third of the patients that just can't have X-plant surgery and feel better. So tell us what that looks like when they come to you and work with you. You're their surgeon. Like you have a whole team that helps them, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Yeah, so it was really for that third. Um, because I uh I mean, you've known me a fair amount of time. So I'm always very curious about and and want to solve whatever the problem is. So the problem became not such a difficult surgical problem, but more of a recovery problem. So the Sharp method, the book I wrote, is really about prep preparation to enhance recovery. So instead of getting someone out a year who still doesn't feel well, is not responding properly, we want to do all the upfront prep evaluation. And so currently we do genetic testing to look at the detox pathways, like we mentioned, as well as evaluate other metabolic issues. We look at a total toxicity test that's a urine test, so it's a very non-invasive test. You know, genetics is saliva, toxicity tests. We use vibrant wellness for total toxicity burden testing. And try to see, after a glutathione challenge, what everybody has in their system that could be contributing to uh problems. I'm sure you're not gonna be surprised about this. I find a lot of people have a lot of trouble with mold and a lot of trouble with glyphosates. Um if you're from certain regions of the country, you've been exposed to more and more herbicides and pesticides. I don't want to indict a specific state, but there's plenty of that to go around. Uh where I grew up, the groundwater was bad, and that's a common problem. So there's a lot of arsenic in people's systems. And then there's all sorts of random things I can't explain that they're like, how did I get that solvent or that you know chemical in my system? Like, I don't know. Like, but you know, when someone doesn't feel well, and I think it's really important that we leverage all the available resources, not just what we were taught, but what's really available. So genetic testing is by far to me the most underutilized thing, you know, probably outside of the tox test, that you know, I expect everybody who comes to see me not to be anemic, not have renal disease, not have hepatic problems, not have, you know, uh a cardiac issue because you you can't otherwise you better have had all that looked at before you ever show up to see me.

Dr. Tabatha 30:50

Yeah. I like that you said that. You're not trying to like just, you know, get patients for a quick grab. This is like we need to rule out everything else and realize that this is the actual problem. So I I love that you said that.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

Well, then we combine it with a gut test. Everybody knows about gut testing at this point. It's been talked about the microbiome, you know, all those things, Dr. Barbara, just snapshots, right? I've done like, I don't know, 10 microbiome tests myself just to try to determine which, you know, uh seems like the best for us to use, and we've you know settled on using a gut zoomer currently, which seems to help us get enough information and we combine that with some other uh food sensitivity testing, people are really unaware of what stimulates them in their diets. So you have to educate them that way. And then uh if someone were to come to us for a fat transfer, and that's a whole separate topic, but I look at DEXA scans now because in the advent of GLP1 agonists and the lack of understanding around body composition, it's really important that people understand, especially women, their bone density, lean muscle mass, and their body fat, not to create a um I I'm trying to get people to understand where they are. Like I'm not Harry, I'm not Harry Potter, right? I'm not a magician. So I need to know as much about you specifically so I can explain what you should be either aware of or not aware of. Like you'll you'll hear that fat transfers don't work, right? This'll this will be talked about a lot.

Dr. Tabatha 32:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

So, okay.

Dr. Tabatha 32:42

And this is to replace the the implant that you've removed to give some volume back to the breast in case we don't realize.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

We'll give two scenarios. So one is a fat transfer can be used in different areas of the body just to augment or enhance that volume, right? So everybody's probably heard of the Brazilian butt lift right, so a bigger butt.

SPEAKER_04 33:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

I've never had anybody come on and say, hey, Dr. Whitfield, I have a lopsided ass, can you fix my butt? Right? Because you put fat in someone's butt, a lot of it, and it works. If you put a little bit of fat in someone's face in the right place, deep, not superficial, it typically heals. Because the blood supply in the face is really rich. The lymphatic drainage is really great. But somehow, Dr. Barber, the breast is an enigma. We can't figure out how to do the breasts. But it's really not that complex. We'll just break it down very simply. For your butt, you need a half liter per butt cheek, 500cc, to make a difference. For the chest, not the breast, because we don't put fat in the breast, because that'll make a cyst, or a mammogram problem, or an ultrasound problem, or MRI problem. We put it beneath the skin and above the breast. We don't put it in the pocket where I take an implant out of if I'm doing that. So all this is to be said, like, why do you think there's a difference, right? The fat in the face is the place where you put the least amount. The breast, the next compartment, you know, if you want to think of the chest breast area, that would be the next available space, but it's smaller, it's limited. And then you have the butt, which is by far the biggest volumetric space you could put fat into. So I I don't want anybody to be unrealistic, but I also don't want you to live in fear of something not working or something going away. Here's what you need to know if you get a DEXA scan and know what your BMI really is, and you maintain your BMI after a fat transfer or you bump it up a point, not to become um unhealthy or anything like that, maybe you're lifting weights, maybe you're adding, you know, lean muscle mass, whatever. What you don't want to do is overtrain and create a caloric deficit because that will affect your fat transfer. If you drop your BMI, you will lose more of your fat transfer. That's what the data is.

Dr. Tabatha 35:15

You're gonna burn off that fat. Those cells are gonna shrink. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

So everybody has their window into how this works, right?

Dr. Tabatha 35:24

Yeah.

The SHARP Method: Prep To Recover

SPEAKER_01 35:24

I know how to do the case. I've done several thousand of them. I'm not the problem. I take fat from one place to another. I use the best available tools, plenty of experience. The thing that keeps changing is the patient. So the patients that I want to under, I just want the patient to understand, like, you have to be accountable for what you want, right? If you want a fat transfer, you can't take a GLP one, you can't do HIT, HIROX, cycle, marathon running. Those sound stupid if you want a fat transfer. Just so everybody's listening. You can walk, you can lift weights, you can do Pilates, you can do yoga, all sorts of things you can do. But if you want to do high-intensity interval training, you should not get a fat transfer, not one by me. That's a waste of time. I won't go.

Dr. Tabatha 36:08

Well, I would think that women would understand that because I hear that all the time. Like when women are trying to lose weight, they always say, Oh, I lost it in my breast, but not where I want to lose it from. It's like that's always the first place to go. So that makes total sense to me. Yeah.

unknown 36:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

I mean, it's not hard when you just like take a step back and think about it. Like nothing I say is cryptic. It's all very straightforward.

Dr. Tabatha 36:35

Well, I think it's also really important to tie in the emotional piece of this and maybe even the spiritual piece, because this is fast of faith, because a lot of women made decisions to get implants maybe 20 years ago or more, and they feel a lot of guilt, a lot of shame around this, and then they go to doctors who can't really help them and they make them feel worse. So I appreciate your no-nonsense attitude and the fact that you're like, we can help you. Um, but do you see women have issues going through this emotional transition of acceptance during this process? And do you guys address that or have resources for that?

SPEAKER_01 37:21

Yeah, it's the hardest part, Sarah. I talk to patients a lot about self-work, and we've worked with different providers to try to get a better handle on resources for them. Everybody's very different, Dr. Barbara. They need different help. And um, I've actually turned it back to them and said, you, I don't know which thing works best for you. If it's EDMR, if it's talking to uh a psychologist, I don't know what's going to be the best for that individual. But I tell them all they need to do. We all need to do self-work, but this is something that you definitely have to concentrate on. You have to have a supportive loved one, family, spouse, um, as well. And then I think, you know, I try to offer, like I said, the simultaneous fat transfer. I'm one of the few people in the country that will do that because I feel extremely comfortable running the short method pre-op and really defining and setting up a patient for success. I don't think it has to be a um such a puzzle to figure out, right? If if you think about what we discussed, all right, does the patient actually have enough body fat to do this? Like the DEXA scan is pretty objective. It's the most objective thing I could use. I don't want an in-body, I want a DEXA because I want you to know your bone density, I want you to know your lean muscle mass and body fat. That just helps you right there, especially in the GLP1 days. We need to know that. And then it becomes a much easier conversation.

Dr. Tabatha 39:00

Yeah.

unknown 39:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

Then I can say, all right. Yeah, go ahead.

Dr. Tabatha 39:06

No, I just think that's really helpful. And I hope for any woman listening, like we can absolutely help you with the spiritual piece and the emotional distress that comes from that. And I just want to encourage anybody listening, like, we're all messy Christians, we're all just messy humans, and we need to know that nothing that we have done um declares death over us. Like, there's always help, there's always a possibility for renewal and restoration. And I want women to understand that, yes, you probably need someone like Dr. Whitfield who is gonna help you with these medical pieces, and that is okay. But we also do need to not be afraid to just say, you know what, maybe I made a decision that wasn't the best for my body, but I didn't know at the time. I made the decision under like different circumstances, and that's okay, and we can make new decisions now. So I'm just appreciative that you are addressing this because it is a huge problem, and so many women don't get it taken care of because they feel shame or they've been told this is just how it's gonna be. You made this poor decision, now you have to live with it. And I'm here to say, no, you don't. That's not okay. Like you deserve to feel amazing, and let's figure out how to get you there. So is there anything else that you really want to share with the listeners today, Dr. Whitfield?

Testing For Toxins, Mold, And Gut Health

SPEAKER_01 40:41

There is. I think there's a lot of folks that feel, like you said, shame or regret about that, and then folks that um um for whatever reason afterwards don't feel well. Like I want everybody to understand, like that should not be the case. Yes. Everything we're discussing today should be able to be taken care of with programming and understanding of the problem at a much higher level.

SPEAKER_04 41:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

And surgery alone does not solve this problem. I just sort of say that again. Surgery alone does not solve this problem.

Dr. Tabatha 41:16

Yeah. It solves a big part of the problem, which I appreciate. But yes, thank you for saying that because we are a body, mind, and spirit, and we have to address all three. And if you don't believe that you can heal or get well, you just actually will not heal and get well. That is the truth of it. Your mind will win every time. So um, as you're working on recovering and restoration physically, we need to start to renew our mind mentally and get help with that. So, where can people find you? I know that you've been banned on YouTube. That is a whole nother discussion. It's super frustrating because your videos are so educational and helpful, but you have a podcast, right? I know that you are educating women in that way.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Yeah, so I'll announce this first. I've started our own community on circles. You can go to my domain, drrobertwitfield.com, or my uh my store, D-R-R-O-B-S-S-O-L-U-T-I-O-N S, Dr. Rob Solutions. Each of those will have ways to either see the videos I've done or join that community privately where I will not be censored for telling the truth.

Dr. Tabatha 42:30

Awesome. We will have those in the show notes for sure. That will be super helpful. Oh my goodness.

Ashlee 42:36

Oh, yeah. Is there anywhere that they can go specifically for the sharp meth method?

SPEAKER_01 42:43

Yeah, on either of those domains, there are uh opportunities to participate in the uh sharp method. Thank you for bringing that up. So before, the only way you could participate and get that programming was to be my patient and have surgery with me. What we've done is opened it up to a group, and I have two functional practitioners running programming for patients uh all over the United States.

Ashlee 43:07

Oh, I love that.

Dr. Tabatha 43:08

Yeah, so thank you for making that available. That's so awesome. Okay, I want to speak to the woman listening. You are like, oh my gosh, this is speaking to me right now. I want you to understand that there is hope, there is support, there is wisdom. Give yourself some grace and remember Mark 923. All things are possible who believe. So you are not just supposed to be here and struggle and get through life. Like you are actually supposed to heal. That is how your body was created to function, to heal, and to thrive. So believe bigger for yourself, ladies, and just know that God is doing incredible work through Dr. Whitfield. And there are people out there that can help you. You don't have to stay stuck. That's the whole point of this podcast. So go out, be Christ's hands to serve this week, but don't give up hope. Keep looking for answers. We got you. Thank you, Dr. Whitfield.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

Thank you for having me on. Really appreciate it.