My Explant Surgery, Detox, and Healing from Breast Implant Illness
Four things before I begin my surgery story:
If you haven’t read my implant story, start here: I was a Silent Sufferer.
If you have implants, GET THEM OUT. I cannot stress it enough. And DO NOT go to just any surgeon — BE SURE to remove the capsules surrounding the implant so that you can get well. Please skip down to the bottom section of this post about En Bloc and Capsulectomy Procedure.
If you haven’t had your implants removed yet, DO NOT try detoxing. Even hot baths and sauna are not recommended with implants in, because the heat will speed up their breakdown in your body, making you sicker.
The detox information I share here is not just for people healing from breast implants. Detox is for everyone living on this planet right now. We are ALL exposed to glyphosate in our food and water, toxins from plastics, PCBs in our fish, aluminum and mercury from our vaccines, metals like lead inherited from our mothers. Many of our chronic diseases are merely our toxicity manifesting! Remove the toxin load, and begin to get well!
My Explant Surgery, August 31, 2018
Knowing that my implants were the source of my illness gave me a huge dose of courage and excitement about the surgery ahead of me. I had my sister Ellie take care of my children, and they all prayed over me, before Jeff took me to the surgery center. None of the kids knew what the surgery was about — they’re a little young for the topic just yet — but they had faith that Jesus was healing my symptoms. It is SO important to go into any surgery with faith in God’s healing power that is already within you.
We were cheerful with everyone we came in contact with, even self-conscious me with no makeup. I had met with the surgeon ahead of time, and turned down the anti-nausea patch, and turned down the post surgery antibiotics. I knew I would get IV antibiotics during surgery, and I wanted to spare my gut more havoc.
Going into surgery! The first time I’ve publicly shared a no-makeup picture of me!
The surgery took two hours. They removed the impants and capsules from beneath the muscle via En Bloc, having to scrape capsule off my ribs, and cauterize areas that bled. I woke up almost immediately, didn’t vomit like I usually do after surgeries, and quickly left to recover at home.
My implants were returned to me. They did not have any visible mold, and for that I was praising God. I had breastfed four babies with these implants in, and one of my greatest fears was that I had been feeding them from breasts containing black mold. I was already suffering from immense guilt that they had been exposed to this toxicity during my pregnancies with them.
I also didn’t fill the post surgery narcotic prescription — I think it is wise to avoid addictive pain medications at all costs. Instead, I took 15 grams (A LOT) of vitamin C every day for two weeks after surgery. Vitamin C helps prevent infection and speeds healing. It also aids in detoxification from the medications used DURING surgery, and helps clear the bowels which are slowed from anesthesia. I took a daily combination of different types of Vitamin C: liposomal, sodium ascorbate, and ascorbic acid. Because of the vitamin C, I had NO bruising or swelling at all.
Other than general soreness and the incisions stinging, and being frustrated that I had to sleep on my back, I was in GREAT shape for having undergone major surgery. In my entire recovery, I took only ONE regular-strength Ibuprofen for pain. That’s it.
For five days after surgery, drains hung from the incision area, collecting liquid that had to be emptied twice a day. The liquid that gathers can cause a hematoma inside the body, or can cause a new capsule to grow around the liquid, so you’ve got to drain that stuff OUT!
It took many days for me to muster the courage to look at my actual breasts. That was hard and unsettling. I’ll just say that it takes time for them to recover, to fluff back out, for the muscles that hold them to build back up. Things look pretty bad in the beginning. Initially, there was significant numbness too, but sensation returned in a month.
Jeff took over the meals, diaper changes, laundry and most parenting duties for four days, then I was slowly back at it. Within the first two weeks, I was getting Wesley out of his bed, lifting him in his highchair. At two weeks, I became overzealous and spent an entire day cooking up the last of our garden tomato harvest, and spent the whole night vomiting. I clearly overdid it — I had forgotten how much energy healing takes from the body!
Once past the initial surgery recovery, I expected a full and complete healing. But for four weeks, I had night sweats, and the lump in my throat became bigger, a thick phlegm took hold in my throat, and my gut was a mess. I didn’t know that my body was majorly detoxing both from the anesthesia AND from 14 years of breast implant toxins.
Healing Begins
But on the fourth week… I noticed my previous symptoms begin to vanish.
I noticed that I was having NO headaches. Before surgery, I would get a headache every cloudy or rainy day, and then often for no rhyme or reason, and the headaches would come with nausea. Gone. (And they haven’t come back! At all.)
The skin on my face started looking more healthy and alive and hydrated, with rosy cheeks. Even Jeff said I looked younger!
My hair stopped falling out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My eye stopped twitching!
When it rained, the mold in the air wasn’t bothering my lungs anymore! And my lungs stopped bothering me in general! I could breathe easily and well, just like I could when I was a teenager. (I feel like this one needs a round of applause and confetti!!!)
The lump in my throat vanished and the phlegm left too! This was actually one of the scariest symptoms, because it made me constantly wonder if the lump was a tumor. Praise the LORD it left.
When we visited the state fair and visited the animals tents, and everyone else was sneezing and coughing, my allergies were non-existent.
Then I noticed that the bloated belly I’d had that had been causing me daily discomfort was… gone. Random foods weren’t causing weird tummy reactions. I was relieved of the fear that food was going to kill me.
Before, I hadn’t even known that my being sweaty and overheated all the time had been implant related. Because when the temperatures stayed hot and muggy outside, I no longer felt like I was going to explode from heat. My body temperature now seemed like a normal person’s. An indoor temperature of 71 no longer felt stifling hot to me! AMAZING. I had felt overheated for 11 years.
I wasn’t feeling dizzy AT ALL anymore. I wasn’t feeling panicky anymore. My heart had stopped fluttering and skipping beats and racing. MIRACULOUS.
The human body is MORE than capable to heal itself when toxic substances are removed, and when it’s given proper nutrients. We give pharmaceuticals and the medical model far too much credit for something the body was designed to do without interference. Most of our suffering is man-made. My suffering was because of my decision to put plastic bags in my chest 14 years before, and I needed to bring my body back to its natural homeostasis.
Detox Rashes
About two months after surgery, I began getting chest and collarbone rashes coming up from the breast area, and they were unlike anything I’d had with the implants in! It was a red, bubbly rash, intensely itchy and burning, and when it would come on, my heart would race. There was no question that it was a toxic substance left behind from the implants, trying to exit my body! I never took any medications, and it would leave on its own. Twice a month (on days 8 and 21 of my cycle) it would come back. After three months of this, I asked my parents and sisters to pray for it to leave, and it did!
Along with this bizarre rash, my other post surgery new symptom was a strange smell coming from the breast area, like melted crayons. It was so strong and so odd, it was clear to me that it was remaining silicone melting out of the breast area. After four months of the smell, which was constant and requiring me to throw away my pajama shirts that had absorbed it, it finally vanished completely.
Remaining Symptoms
Some of my symptoms did not go away immediately, and some I’m still battling as I write today. Fourteen years was a long time for my body to fight the implants, and it’s taking time for my immune system to learn what it’s supposed to fight now.
And there is MAJOR buildup of infections, toxic metals, plastic chemicals, hormone disrupting chemicals, and just bodily overwhelm from this unnatural state of housing a foreign object for many years. Each organ of the body becomes clogged and sluggish, and thus many systems of the body tend to misfire.
My two remaining symptoms are: skin itching/random hives and Raynaud’s phenomenon. I can see clearly that there is more detoxing that needs to happen for me to heal. Here’s how I’ve been working to detox. Because, ya’ll, FULL healing is coming.
GAPS Diet
By far, the most important element of healing is diet. With implants, pathogens are allowed to take hold in the gut, and then the gut becomes leaky, allowing undigested food into the bloodstream and causing inflammation (symptoms of ALL kinds) throughout the body. The keys are to:
eat foods that rebuild the gut wall
eat foods that kill pathogens, and STARVE pathogens by not feeding them
eat living foods with friendly living microbes to add health back to the gut
eat nutrient dense foods, loaded with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, polyphenols, quality natural fats, protein and vegetable carbohydrates.
To accomplish this, the GAPS diet emphasizes lots of meat broths, sauerkrauts and other living vegetable ferments, healing animal fats, coconut oil, meat on the bone, raw milk yogurts/kefir, organ meats (which are RICH in vitamins and minerals), fish, eggs, organic non-starchy vegetables, fresh herbs (potent antiviral and antifungal properties!), nuts, raw honey (a superfood!), and some fresh fruit. Everything in its whole, fresh organic form — as pure as can be.
I cannot recommend the GAPS diet enough! GAPS Restricted Foods
GAPS does NOT allow foods which feed pathogens or which are difficult/slow to digest/gut damaging, like potatoes, sweet potatoes, arrowroot starch, sugar, maple syrup, grains (corn, rice, quinoa, tapioca, buckwheat, millet, wheat, barley, rye, etc), NO additives of any kind (preservatives, thickeners, synthetic vitamins, gums, emulsifiers), and only pastured organic healthy animals for meat. Nearly nothing from a box or can. The only pre-made things allowed are things like raw apple cider vinegar, coconut oil, olive oil, tomato paste, aged cheeses.
Most of us who had saline implants will be dealing with some sort of mold or fungal infections, because fungi thrive in the dark moisture of the saline implant. GAPS is very anti-fungal, because it is rich in foods which fight fungus: coconut, ACV, herbs. And it completely avoids foods which feed fungus: starches, sugar, kombucha, beer, GRAINS. Grains themselves are RICH in mycotoxins — in essence, grains are moldy.
GAPS Introduction Diet
In the beginning stage of the diet, you are allowed only broth, slow simmered meat, non-fibrous well-softened vegetables, and homemade sauerkraut/yogurt. My entire family did the intro diet for two full months, January and February 2019. (Check my instagram highlight titled GAPS INTRO). It was amazingly healing, with one child’s eczema vanishing, one child’s attitude and attentiveness improving, everyone’s sleep becoming deep and rejuvenating. It is a significant amount of work, but I highly recommend it.
After the Intro diet, I became able to eat several foods that I’d been sensitive to for several years! I started eating eggs again with no problem!! I can now eat avocado and apple and pear again without my mouth itching or tummy hurting! Do you know how cool that is?!
Overall body inflammation and gut pain goes down significantly, digestion normalizes, infections don’t stand a chance. After starting the diet in the beginning of January, no one in our entire six-person family got ANY illnesses, cold viruses, coughs, runny noses, nothing! It’s been four and a half months of VIBRANT health. Can you imagine what would happen to the pharmaceutical industry if everyone started eating this way? It would cease to exist!
Biofilms and Hidden infections
However, with an absolute PERFECT clean GAPS diet, my skin itching continued. I sensed that the infections in my body that were allowed to run house with the implants in could have formed strongholds called “biofilms” which can evade prescription antibiotics and antifungals. Infections such as Lyme and mold and viruses like Epstein Barr (or retroviruses from vaccines) can also hide and escape antibiotics, so they must be targeted from every angle.
So I’ve begun taking an herbal biofilm (and parasite) killer called Biocidin, which contains: Milk Thistle, Echinacea, Goldenseal, Shiitake, White Willow, Garlic, Grapeseed extract, Black Walnut, Beet, Fumitory, Gentian, Tea Tree oil, Galbanum oil, Lavender oil, Oregano oil.
Biocidin Drops
I take five drops three times a day with food. An hour or so after I take it, it begins killing biofilms and releasing them for removal. Then I take a binder that grabs them up so that they don’t cause unpleasant detox reactions, along with a HUGE amount of water. (I just finished my first bottle of Biocidin and am alternating monthly with Microbiome Master, below.)
I am now taking Microbiome Master three times a day with my meals. It has similar anti-fungal and anti-parasitic ingredients: garlic cloves, cinnamon, echinacea, oregon grape root, oregano leaf, pau d’arco, uva ursi, wormwood, black walnut hull, and reishi mushroom.
Microbiome Master
An hour after I take Biocidin or Microbiome Master, I will take a binder. (You don’t want to take a binder near food or supplements, because it will absorb those too!) The binder, called GI Detox contains Zeolite clay, activated charcoal, aloe vera, silica, apple pectin, humic and fulvic acids. These are great gut detoxification in and of themselves! They are effective at removing the herbicide glyphosate, which is pervasive in the US, and causing leaky gut in ALL of us.
G.I. Detox Binder
Additionally, I am taking Liposomal Glutathione each night before bed or before I go sweat in the sauna (more on that below!). Glutathione is the body’s master detoxifying enzyme, but it is low in certain people and is lowered by medications like Tylenol specifically! It helps pull metals out from bone and other hiding places, and is also a potent viral inhibitor. (As an alternative you can use NAC, which is the precursor to glutathione!)
Glutathione
I know glutathione is powerful because I started taking it just three weeks ago, and the first time I took it I woke up with the neck rash that had been gone for months! Detox reaction! The next day I woke with a headache! I have continued to take a teaspoon each night, skipping only the days I don’t sweat in the sauna.
Sweat Therapy
“Give me the power to create a fever, and I can heal any disease.” — Hippocrates
It’s imperative that the remaining toxins that have been released into the body from their hiding places MUST BE ELIMINATED through: sweat, BM, urine. So, once a day, about 3-5 times a week, I sweat in my Infrared Sauna at night, and then shower to remove toxins that have been excreted!
This is the Near-Infrared Sauna that I have from SaunaSpace. I put it in my shower, cover every surface with towels, and sweat for 30-40 minutes!
Sauna is excellent because the red light can penetrate several inches inside your body, heating internal organs where unhealthy infected cells can be targeted.
It also heats your entire body, revving up your immune system — basically a purposeful fever. And we all know that fever kills infections! And sweating has been proven to effectively remove metals and plastic chemicals like BPA from the body!
On alternating days, I do a hot Epsom salt bath, as hot as it can go, and fill the tub to my neck. You get the sweating, raised body temperature, and the extra benefit of the detoxifying magnesium in Ancient Minerals Bath Flakes.
This is the Kill-Bind-Sweat protocol, made famous by Dr. Jessica Peatross, MD, who I follow through Instagram! You kill the fungus/mold/bacteria/biofilm with herbs, you bind it with charcoal, and then you sweat it out in the sauna/bath or by exercise!
Fasting
I’m feeling amazing, except for itching skin that comes mostly around ovulation time in the month. I have found that the herbal Biocidin and microbiome master to be quite healing for my skin. My back-pocket answers that I haven’t tried yet are Fasting and hormone regulation like Ashwahganda.
With four young children at home, I find that I need to be on my game energy-wise, and can’t find the time to take off and be tired from a fast. If I can get a free three days where I have full-time help, I will attempt a water-only fast, to try to give my body a break from digesting, and allow it to throttle out remaining toxins.
Fasting has been used all over the world since the beginning of time as a body reset and detoxification, and a way to grow closer to God. I look forward to the day I can do it!
TIME
Healing isn’t always linear, and there can be forward motion, but then bumps in the road. I always welcome obvious detox reactions, because I know that SOMETHING is happening! When toxins come out from where they’ve been stored, the body will react and try to get them out! So negative symptoms can temporarily increase, like headaches, rashes, soreness, foggy thinking, digestive upsets, pain, grumpiness, dizziness. Some also call it a “healing crisis.”
Over time, we can turn off genes which were switched “on” by our toxic implants. Autoimmunity and even cancer are not things we have to accept as permanent parts of our lives. Genes are always switching on and off based on how we live — it’s called Epigenetics! We can turn off our negative symptoms! For many women, this just takes time for our bodies to recalibrate.
God is Our Healer
Someone asked me once why I put so much effort into diet and clean lifestyle if God is our healer. Why can’t I just believe God for healing and stop thinking about what I feed my body? The answer: God gave us brains for a reason! He gives us free will. I can use my brain to make wise choices in food and lifestyle that I know support health. He gave us herbs that kill pathogens, and He gave us foods which heal and rebuild the body! Alternatively, mankind distorts nature, and creates “foods” like GMO and corn syrup and food additives which definitively destroy the body over time — these do not honor God’s design.
But there IS a point at which thinking about diet and clean living is TOO MUCH, to the point of fear and obsession. Where do I draw the line? Where does personal responsibility end, and faith begin?
Right now, I feel I have maxed out my personal efforts and I’m not willing to go further. I will keep doing healthy organic whole real local natural foods and detox lifestyle. But for me, many of the overly restrictive diets (like low FODMAPS or carnivore or strict keto, or even long-term GAPS) will tip me into obsession. Diets that take over my entire thought life are a distraction from the real reason I’m here. If I were to think about food more, I would be living more to serve myself than to serve my God. I am at a point where I need the power of Jesus to restore me.
And for those of us who believe in Jesus, we do have within us the power that raised Him from the dead! We have healing power in Jesus’ name. We simply need to believe it and thank God for it. I believe that He has healed me and will continue it — will you believe with me?
“And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” - Matthew 10:7-8
“By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see.” - Acts 3:16
“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” - John 14:12
How I’m doing emotionally
If you would believe it, as vain as I am, I haven’t cried once about the loss of my large fake breasts. Not once. I’m not even sad. I only wish I’d been spared this ordeal, that someone had stopped me from ever getting breast implants in the first place. HEALTH is priceless compared to surface “beauty.” I hope I never go into any surgery again for the rest of my life, but especially not plastic surgery.
I feel like the real breastfed-four-babies me. My body and skin show a life very fully and gloriously lived. I’ve been blessed with children and a husband who loves me. Without breast implants, I can breathe easily, give great heart-to-heart hugs, and show my children how to honor God with my body.
“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.” - Proverbs 31: 30-31
The CRITICAL INFORMATION about Surgery
Find a surgeon who does En Bloc or Total Capsulectomy
After my last post many people reached out to me saying that they plan to explant their implants soon! Hallelujah! There are so many women suffering from breast implant illness, many more than you would ever guess.
Before you choose a surgeon to remove your implants, make sure you find one who will take them out via the En Bloc or Total Capsulectomy procedure. This means that the entire implant and capsule tissue are removed *together* and intact, through a somewhat large (about 3”) hole beneath the breast fold. This was a bummer to me, because mine were put in through a tiny hole in my armpit, and the idea of a new huge scar was depressing.
If the implant is silicone, it may be leaking or ruptured during surgery, and the silicone can then spill into your body, and that silicone is very difficult to remove, causing longer term healing. Keeping the implant within the capsule until it’s out of the body keeps all that toxic material wrapped up. And if the implant is saline, like mine was, the fluid inside may be contaminated with mold or bacteria, and again, you don’t want a smidgen more of that released into your chest.
The surgeon MUST remove all capsule material, or the body will continue to fight that tissue, and sometimes the capsule will migrate and start to wrap around other organs. The capsule itself usually houses many of the broken-down silicone particles from the implant shell, the many toxins released from the implants, and is often a place where infections are festering — sometimes even parasites. You want these OUT. Because my implants were placed beneath the muscle, my surgeon had to scrape them off my rib cage. If a surgeon is OK with leaving capsules inside you — run, and find yourself someone knowledgeable.
Here’s the list of surgeons that the Healing Breast Implant Illness by Nicole have recommended, and who do En Bloc procedure.
(The surgeon I used has been removed from the list, probably because someone had a bad experience with him, but he did a great job with me. You’re welcome to message me if you’d like to have his name. The only surgeon now on the list for Virginia does gender reassignment surgeries, and I personally didn’t feel comfortable supporting his business, as talented as he may be. There is also an excellent surgeon in Baltimore, MD that I would recommend!)
Ask the surgeon for photos of the implants with capsules still on, then photos of the capsules when implant is taken out of the capsule, and then be sure you take your implants home with you. I look at mine frequently, just in awe that I ever put those inside my body.
GOD BLESS your healing journey!
