Dr. Whitfield's practice is built for the patients other doctors have dismissed — the ones whose symptoms are real, whose connection to their implants is measurable, and who are ready to do something about it.
You've probably had your bloodwork run more than once. You've been told everything looks normal. And yet you feel nothing like normal. Fatigue that doesn't respond to sleep. Brain fog that's gotten worse over time. Joint pain, skin changes, hair loss, anxiety, immune issues that no one can explain. You've done the research. You know what it might be. But the doctors you've seen either don't take BII seriously or don't know what to do with it.
You've likely seen multiple specialists. A rheumatologist who ruled out autoimmune disease. A neurologist who found nothing. A primary care doctor who suggested stress or depression. Each visit gave you another clean test result and no answers. Meanwhile, the symptoms keep compounding.
The connection between breast implants and systemic illness is real. It is measurable. It shows up in inflammatory markers, in immune activation patterns, in the bacterial biofilm we find at the capsule interface when we run the right tests. The problem isn't that nothing is wrong. The problem is that most physicians aren't looking in the right place.
Breast implants are not lifetime devices. The FDA has never approved them as permanent implants. The majority of patients will require at least one removal or replacement over the course of their lifetime. Patients come to this practice for five primary reasons:
The body forms a scar tissue capsule around every implant. In some patients, this capsule hardens, tightens, and causes pain, distortion, and deformity — a condition called capsular contracture. Grade III and Grade IV contracture requires complete capsule removal, not just implant removal, to resolve the problem. Replacing the implant without removing the capsule almost always fails.
Capsular Contracture →BII is a collection of systemic symptoms — fatigue, joint and muscle pain, brain fog, hair loss, hormonal disruption, immune dysregulation — that some patients develop after implant placement. The mechanism is now clinically documented: bacterial biofilm colonizing the inside of the capsule drives a chronic immune activation pathway that produces effects throughout the body. Removing the implant and complete capsule removes the source of that activation.
What Is Breast Implant Illness →Silicone implants can leak silently over time — without pain, without visible change, and without a positive mammogram. Saline implants deflate visibly when the shell fails. In either case, implant contents may migrate into surrounding tissue, and intact removal technique is essential to prevent further contamination of the surgical pocket.
Ruptured Breast Implants →Textured breast implants have been associated with two rare but serious cancers: Breast Implant-Associated Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma (BIA-ALCL) and Breast Implant-Associated Squamous Cell Carcinoma (BIA-SCC). For confirmed or suspected BIA-ALCL, complete intact capsule removal is the FDA-endorsed and NCCN-recommended surgical treatment. The capsule must not be opened during surgery — the capsule is the containment envelope for the cancer.
Breast Implant-Associated Cancers →Many patients choose explant for personal reasons unrelated to medical symptoms: preference for a more natural appearance, physical discomfort from implant weight causing neck, shoulder, or back pain, changes in breast tissue from pregnancy or aging, or simply a change of mind. These are valid reasons for removal. No medical justification is required, and this practice treats cosmetic removal patients with the same clinical rigor applied to every case.
When a breast implant is placed, the body forms a layer of fibrous scar tissue around it called the capsule. How the surgeon handles that capsule at the time of removal determines the clinical outcome. There are three approaches:
The surgeon removes the implant and leaves the surrounding capsule in place inside the breast pocket. The capsule is expected to shrink and dissolve over time. This approach is appropriate for patients with thin, healthy capsules and no BII symptoms, no rupture, and no cancer concerns. It is the least invasive option and appropriate for a narrow range of patients.
The implant is removed and the entire capsule is then excised separately — it may be removed in sections rather than as one unit. Total capsulectomy achieves complete capsule removal and is appropriate for most BII patients, capsular contracture, and cases where the anatomy makes intact removal unsafe. The clinical goal — 100% of the capsule removed — is identical to en bloc.
Total Capsulectomy →The implant and capsule are removed together as one single, sealed unit — the capsule is never opened during surgery, and nothing from inside the capsule contacts the surgical pocket. This is the most complete technique and the standard of care for confirmed BIA-ALCL, silicone rupture, and Breast Implant Illness.
The clinical case for en bloc in BII patients is specific: published PCR research from this practice confirmed bacterial contamination in 29% of breast implant capsules across 694 consecutive specimens — organisms including S. epidermidis and Cutibacterium acnes living in biofilm at the capsule interface. When the capsule is opened during surgery, that biofilm contaminates the pocket. En bloc technique prevents that entirely. For BII patients, complete intact removal is not a preference — it is the mechanism by which the immune driver is eliminated.
En Bloc Capsulectomy →Every capsule removed at this practice is sent for PCR-based molecular pathology — 16S rRNA gene sequencing — not standard histology. Standard culture testing cannot detect the biofilm-forming bacteria living in a sessile state inside the capsule. PCR identifies them with specificity. In the published 694-specimen study, PCR identified 103 distinct bacterial species. Standard culture would have found none.
This is not a standard offering. It is a clinical commitment to knowing what was inside your capsule — information that directly shapes your post-operative recovery protocol.
Every month your body continues reacting to the implants is another month of cumulative immune burden. This isn't a stable situation. It tends to worsen over time.
Ongoing immune activation.
Your immune system has been treating the implants as a foreign object since the day they were placed. That sustained activation has downstream effects — on your hormones, your gut, your neurological function, your energy systems.
Chronic inflammation that spreads.
Localized capsular inflammation doesn't stay localized forever. Systemic inflammatory patterns develop over time and become harder to reverse the longer they persist.
Toxic accumulation.
Heavy metals, silicone particles, and other compounds that have migrated from the implant capsule into surrounding tissue continue to accumulate. The longer the source remains, the greater the burden your body has to process once it's removed.
Bacterial biofilm at the capsule interface.
In our published research, bacterial biofilm was confirmed in patients with no signs of acute infection — chronic, subclinical, ongoing. Standard pathology misses it. PCR testing finds it. This is not a theoretical risk. It is a documented finding in patients who presented exactly like you.
The longer the source remains, the harder the recovery.
Energy returns. Not gradually, not partially — patients consistently describe a shift that begins within weeks of surgery and continues building over the following months. The fatigue that no amount of sleep could fix starts to lift.
Clarity comes back. Brain fog — one of the most debilitating and most dismissed BII symptoms — begins to resolve when the immune burden driving it is removed.
Inflammation that has been elevated for years finally starts to drop. Lab markers move. The body begins clearing what has accumulated. Systems that have been stuck — hormonal, immune, digestive — start working again.
What makes this surgery different is not just what is removed, but how. Dr. Whitfield uses en bloc capsulectomy to remove the implant and the entire surrounding capsule as one intact unit. He sends that capsule to PCR pathology — molecular-level testing that identifies bacterial biofilm and other findings that standard testing misses entirely. And the SHARP Method recovery protocol is integrated from the day you first make contact, not handed to you as an afterthought on the way out.
Standard explant removes the implant but leaves the capsule behind. En bloc capsulectomy removes both as a single, intact unit — nothing is disrupted, nothing is left inside. This is the surgical standard Dr. Whitfield holds himself to on every procedure, because partial removal means partial results.
Every capsule is sent for PCR-based molecular pathology — not standard histology, but DNA-level bacterial identification. This is how we find the chronic, subclinical biofilm that standard testing misses. It's also how we identify exactly what has been living at that interface, so your recovery protocol can address it directly.
Most surgical practices hand patients a recovery sheet after the procedure. Dr. Whitfield's protocol starts before surgery. The SHARP Method prepares your body in the weeks leading up to the procedure and guides recovery in the months that follow — because surgery is a starting point, not a finish line.
Dr. Whitfield has performed 2,000+ explant and capsulectomy procedures. He has testified before the FDA on breast implant safety. He has published peer-reviewed research on the pathological findings in explanted capsules. Patients coordinate travel from across the country and internationally because this level of specific expertise is rare.
Not every patient wants to be flat after explant, and that is a completely valid choice. Fat transfer to the breast uses your own tissue — harvested from areas where you have excess — to restore volume naturally after the implants are removed. There are no foreign materials, no new capsule formation, and no ongoing immune response. For patients who want reconstruction without returning to implants, this is often the right path.
“I had seen six doctors before I found Dr. Whitfield. Every single one told me my tests were normal. After my explant, my joint pain was gone within six weeks. My rheumatologist is still confused. I am not.”
Lisa, Georgia
“The PCR testing found bacterial biofilm in my capsule. No one else had ever tested for that. It explained years of immune symptoms that no one could diagnose. I finally had an answer, and a path forward.”
Karen, New York
“I flew from Seattle and I would make that trip ten more times if I had to. Dr. Whitfield treated me like an intelligent adult who understood her own body. He confirmed what I had suspected for three years and then he fixed it.”
Diane, Washington
Consultation slots fill weeks out. Patients coordinate from across the country and internationally — we have a process for helping you plan every step, including travel, timing, and pre-operative preparation.
2,000+ procedures. Patients from 40+ states and 15 countries. Virtual consultations available.