Sarah (00:15)
Welcome everyone and thank you so much for joining us for this episode of Health Talk by Doctors Health Press. My name is Sarah Cownley, nutritional therapist and I am your host to help guide you through the show here at Health Talk. We really aim to bring you varied in well-informed guests who have the knowledge and information that we know you, our listeners want to hear. Being able to enjoy life means living the healthiest life possible and we truly aim to bring you the discussions that can help you and your family overcome any health issues that might arise on our website at doctorshealthpress.com. We have hundreds or maybe even thousands of articles that can help keep you healthy and informed on the latest trends and alternative medicine and natural cures. We actually even have a really great daily e-letter that we send out for free everyday to keep our readers up to date on all the latest research and information on natural health.
Sarah (01:17)
Now, we have all at some point in our life felt ill and we know that when you’re sick, all you can think about is getting better. Well, our guest today knows that feeling all too well. Dr Katie Susse became interested in studying medicine while suffering from mysterious health symptoms only nine months after getting silicone breast implants at the age of 27. She had lived a very active lifestyle after retiring from nine years as a high school and collegiate all American wrestler, but then a sudden onset of systemic health issues suddenly seemed to appear overnight on her journey for answers. She turned to self treatment and that’s when she learned about heavy metal toxicity and the ingredients in silicone implants. Dr Susse began working to understand the long term implications of these exposures to the function of the body systems and overall vitality. She believes that there is actually over two dozen different ways that implants can make someone sick and the key to healing is proper removal, followed by bio individual analysis and support.
Sarah (02:26)
Today she works alongside an osteopathic doctor in Los Angeles to heal and rehab patients who have really suffered from debilitating exposures and to regain their normal functions and in some cases actually reverse the damage that has been done. Dr Susse, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us here today.
Dr. Susse
Hi. Thank you for having me.
Sarah
Now you have a very personal story behind becoming a doctor and focusing on the dangers of breast implants. So could you just go into a little bit about your history and how you got your health back to where you are today?
Dr. Susse (03:03)
Okay. Well, sure. And just, I’d like to start by saying I, I just removed my implants in January of this year. So I’m about six months post x plant and it’s not a straight shoot up. I’m definitely still in the detox and healing process. So yeah, after working out with this trainer, after getting implants I started to notice that I was a lot more sore than I had ever been in my life. And it felt different than normal workout soreness. There was an extra layer to it and I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. So I stopped working out and when I stopped working out I realized that the soreness and the pain I was feeling all over my whole body was still there. And that was kind of how things started.
Sarah (03:46)
So, I guess you could tell this wasn’t just regular soreness from working out. This was something different.
Dr. Susse (03:51)
Yeah, it was definitely something different. I had focal areas of, of just intense, almost throbbing pain in my, in my, the front of my leg, the shin area, my hips, my upper back, my traps, sometimes my jaw depending on what was going on. If I was under more stress or less stress. And then sometimes it would just hurt randomly for no reason when I wasn’t under stress. I also, at that time I would say my lifestyle was not the healthiest. I definitely wasn’t anywhere near close to as healthy as I am now. So, and, and that definitely took a toll too. I mean going out anytime I drink alcohol, anything like that, it would really push things over the edge.
Sarah (04:34)
Okay. And so when you started to have these symptoms, I’m guessing you went to a family doctor and what sort of tests that they put you through? What did they think maybe it was going on?
Dr. Susse (04:47)
Well, initially, I had a naturopath who I saw and she, we, she looked at my blood and she had some idea. She thought I was having some type of, like infection. She thought maybe it was the Lyme disease, so she referred me to an MD who specializes in Lyme disease. And you know, in those situations, I think that when you go sometimes when you don’t know what’s wrong with you and you go off to practitioners who specialize in certain things, sometimes when they have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And testing in general, it can be problematic because sometimes there’s, there’s errors and testing that you could say, hey, like we’re going to do these tests on you, but if you’ve had Lyme for a long time, they may or may not show positive results and it doesn’t mean that you don’t have Lyme, so maybe it’s a good idea to go ahead and treat for it. And in the Lyme world there’s a checklist of symptoms which look very similar to the symptoms of breast implant illness and many other diseases for that matter. So based on his, his, you know, kind of jumping to conclusions, we ended up doing, I did six months of doxycycline for, at any confirmatory line markers. So I kind of ended up going into this medical system. I was frustrated, I didn’t, I didn’t feel better. And that was when I started my own journey and decided to go to medical school to study functional medicine and preventative medicine and try to learn everything I could about pain management. And nothing and nothing really helped. I mean nothing helped until I removed my implants.
Sarah (06:26)
So I know in the beginning I had said, that you actually found out about the heavy metals being caused by the implants. Was Your light bulb moment that went off and you knew that would be it?
Dr. Susse (06:40)
Yeah, it definitely was. So I’m part of something that we look at in the world I call immune reactive triggers for some people who have autoimmune disease and they’ll, they know this if they go out to dinner and they eat at a restaurant where the server prepares their gluten free meal with latex gloves, they can sometimes go home and get a reaction after eating food prepared that was touched by latex because these synthetic chemicals in our environment, they caused the immune system to flare because of molecular mimicry to self tissue. And silicone is something that originally it’s derived from sand, but with all the chemicals that get put on it and the way it’s like cohesively crosslinked, it can cause a lot of immune reactivity. So one thing that I looked at over the years with myself was to try to see if I had autoimmune disease, if I had connected tissue disease. And there’s markers in blood that you can run for that to see if you have antibodies, but I, I didn’t have any antibodies so, I just thought, okay, probably the implants aren’t the best thing for me, but I don’t think that’s really causing all these problems. Right. But, it, yeah, in recent years, I started it or looked on the FDA website, found a list of heavy metals that are in the implants and, you know, they have arsenic and lead and platinum and mercury and aluminum and Barium. And that, that was a light bulb moment for me. Yeah.
Sarah (08:12)
I’m sure a lot of women that have implants don’t realize all of these metals that are, that could be lurking in their bodies.
Dr. Susse (08:21)
Right. And in addition to having these metals that are seeping out, potentially, I like to talk about, you know, when you think about people who are exposing themselves on purpose to drugs or alcohol, right? They have their period of time in the day when they’re considering them and then they have their period of, of the day when they’re sleeping at night, when they’re resting, when their liver is detoxing from them. Right. So you know, you can’t really drink alcohol 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You would just. People don’t do that, but when you have breast implants inside of your body, they’re leaching out chemicals and metals and so and potentially have silicon particles 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Your body never gets arrest, so when are you supposed to detox from them, if that make sense?
Sarah (09:08)
Wow. Yeah. I guess we. We never think of it that way, so that’s a great way to explain it.
Sarah (09:14)
When you finally realized that you did want to remove your implants, what was the next step? How did you go about finding someone that was on your same thought process about removing them and I’m wondering, did you need to find someone that had done this before with any dangers of removing them?
Dr. Susse (09:34)
Right. So my first step when I decided I wanted to remove them was I called the plastic surgeon who put them in and he used an incision.
Dr. Susse (09:44)
So when we talked about it, he said, yeah, it’s no problem. I can take them out. And then he told me, he said yes, I’ve had patients who were sick. I took them out, they felt better, and he said, okay. But also Katie, I’ve had patients who I took them out and they didn’t get better, you know, so this isn’t necessarily going to fix things. And I was like, yeah, yeah, okay, no problem. Um, then I didn’t worry search and I found out that there’s a really specific way that you’re supposed to remove the implant where the scar tissue capsule is in place around it and not disrupted. And that procedure is very difficult to do through a tiny nipple incision. So if you call your plastic surgeon and he’s saying, and, and you know, to be fair, I, I don’t, I didn’t want additional scars. I didn’t want a huge scar underneath my breast. So the idea of doing it that way was appealing, but it, it’s not really, I’m going to give you the proper and block procedure if you go through such a small incision. So just having a plastic surgeon say that to you, it makes you realize that they’re not actually skilled in that, in that surgery, if they’re going to recommend doing it through the wrong incision. Does that make sense?
Sarah (10:49)
For those that are thinking they want to move them, that’s something definitely to look out for, to make sure that your surgeon knows the proper way to remove them.
Dr. Susse (11:00)
Right. And to make sure that, you know, some women who have had implants in for many, many years, especially the old type of silicon that they used to use, it was more mobile so it would migrate more. And when you’re, when you’re removing it, that’s a concern because if you’ve ever been very sticky and it sticks to everything that it touches. So if you’re not carefully taking it out, it’s gonna go into tissues and then it can’t really get out. You can’t really get it out properly. It goes into your lymph nodes and then you have a very hard time removing it from the body, which means in a lot of cases the symptoms are going to persist because you’re not removing the root cause.
Sarah (11:39)
Is it just the silicone implants that are causing problems or our people safe with the saline implants?
Dr. Susse (11:48)
Yeah, so there are plastic surgeons now that are doing genetic screening for autoimmune predisposition and when they find this inpatient, usually they will recommend that the patients use saline instead of silicone because their belief is that the saline implants are less immunoreactive. However, that’s become a problem because the new saline implants now have a silicone shell on the outside of them, so their silicone filled with sailing on the insight. So in my opinion, those are not going to be a better choice for an autoimmune patient. Now the saline implants, you know you have a valve that gets filled with saline and that’s not exactly a perfect mechanism. So the women who have old saline implants, many of them are being removed from the body. They’re filled with mold which can or cannot seep out. They can cause a lot of inflammation and you and you have to imagine that you have this sort of ground zero of inflammation right on your chest is right next to your lungs, right next to your heart, right next to all of these vital organ. So I personally wouldn’t want a, have a fluid filled pathogen stack sitting right there.
Sarah (13:04)
Absolutely. Makes Sense. Now, what does the healing process look like after removing the implants? I know this is what you focus now on in your practice. If somebody comes to you after removing the implants, what’s the protocol or how do you help?
Dr. Susse (13:23)
Yeah. Okay. So that, that’s a really important thing. The first step is safely removing the implants and then recovering from the surgery. So there’s, there’s nutrition involved and having a healthy surgery in a healthy recovery, healing or incisions. And then after you kind of feel from that process, if you don’t do anything, your body will naturally begin to detox. But the way, the best way to, to help that help that along is by doing healthy things like eating tons of leafy green vegetables. If you get foods that are high in sulfur, like cruciferous vegetables, they’re going to naturally buy into your heavy metals and help them leave your body. You know, not putting the other bad things in your body, of course, if you want to do a water fast, that can be very beneficial. Any type of fast will help to alleviate. And then, people who are experiencing specific disease processes like autoimmune disease that may have been turned on by their silicone implants, they may be facing, a little bit more challenged and have to go with, with different strategies, but it’s very bio individually. So we’re looking at their gene mutations, we’re looking to support some of their negative at the implants caused and then supporting their specific biochemistry with the right nutrition.
Sarah (14:52)
Okay, now if somebody is still after hearing all of this, they still want implants, what would you suggest? Are there more natural ways maybe to enhance breast instead of implants or healthier versions?
Dr. Susse (15:06)
Sure. Yeah. So a lot of women now are choosing to do fat transfer, which is, a procedure that involves taking the fat from one area, I’m using liposuction, and then they are able to safely remove the implant, lift the breast and add fat from another part of their body. The concern with fat transfer is that sometimes it’s unpredictable if the fat will stay because you know, you gain and lose weight and you know, you go through that big procedure and then you, if in six months you lose the fat from your breast and you’re not going to be very happy about it. But, we’re making advances using stem cells, mixed with that which allows the fat cells to proliferate and, stay in the area for a better result. And you know, everything was stem cells now is, it was sort of frontier medicine and I think we’re going to see a lot of changes in the, in a good direction in the next, you know, year two, three, five years. So that’s great.
Sarah (16:08)
Last week on our podcast we had a doctor on who was actually telling us all about stem cells. So for our listeners who are quite sure what stem cells are, just go back and he’ll explain it all.
Dr. Susse (16:20)
Yeah. Sometimes people don’t have enough fat, so we’re using, exosomes which they take stem cells and separate. Did they talk about the exosomes last week? No. Okay. So exosomes are a portion of the stem cell that we’re experimenting with. We think it’s sort of the effective part, although with anything, you know, we separate it and then we realized, oh, it’s actually better together, so we’ll see how exosomes on ended up. But for now that there’s a lot of research going into this field,
Sarah
So, there are choices for women who, who still want to know an enhancement, but maybe don’t want all of the health issues that go along with the traditional implants.
Dr. Susse (17:06)
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Sarah (17:09)
So what other health issues could possibly be a byproduct of having heavy metals in the body? I know that I’ve read before that memory issues, maybe people have thought they’ve had Alzheimer’s, but really they’ve just got heavy metal buildup in their body.
Dr. Susse (17:27)
Gotcha. So, when you have these exposures to heavy metals, and what I wanted to mention earlier is that women who have breast implants, who have this, who had heavy, are being exposed to heavy metals every day through their own body, are not immune to getting additional heavy metals from their environment. So, people with a high, you know, fish and seafood diet, especially certain types of tuna fish can be very high in mercury. And in addition, there’s exhausted us environmental sources of heavy metals that we get, depending on where we live, your proximity to different, you know, coal mines or other, you know, plant, plant foods that are grown in pesticides or high end metal in, in chemicals and metals. So we’re getting exposed left and right. And when you have some people genetically are able to handle it better than others. So when you talk about autoimmune disease and silicone and the immune reactivity, that’s sort of a different thing than talking about heavy metal toxicity and for some people that they end up with both of those problems
Sarah (18:39)
And you had mentioned that chelation therapy is done to help get the heavy metals out of the body. Is that done through IV method or is it a prescription?
Dr. Susse (18:51)
Yeah, so I’m glad that you mentioned chelation because I am myself, I have not yet done a prescription based on DMPS or DMSA or EDTA chelation because my body felt too sensitive. So I sort of have been allowing the metals to naturally leave by using natural key leaders and, and sauna and red light therapy and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Because like I said, the body is very smart and it’s, once you remove the ground zero, it was going to naturally just start dumping them. And I think you asked before about brain fog and heavy metals, all of the places that these, these molecules can lodge in your body. So usually they go into the bloodstream and then your body will say, let’s just stick it in some tissues somewhere so that we can try to make sense of this. So it could be in your brain, it can be on your heart, and wherever it is, it’s affecting the Mitochondria, it’s preventing, it’s causing fatigue, it’s preventing the, the ATP cycle from effectively working to make enough energy, molecules of ATP, and some people that have certain gene mutations, that’s an enzyme that removes the oxidative, a free radical protocols that are created by the Mitochondrion cycle.
Dr. Susse (20:10)
So if you don’t have enough of that enzyme, you’re not going to be eliminating the, the byproducts of cellular waste. So the cell kind of, for lack of a better word, gets really polluted. And then you could have more cell death, which means even less opportunity to make energy. It also means less insulin receptors. So higher blood sugar. In addition, these metals, they can go and they can block insulin receptors, they can block hormone receptors, they can mimic estrogen. So you get all kinds of hormonal changes and yeah, some natural ways that you can eliminate metals, a lot of people who have very intense heavy metal toxicity and mitochondrial drug induced toxicities that they could tell you when they eat things like Cilantro or Corella, sometimes they feel a lot worse. They might have an increase in symptoms and increase in anxiety and that’s because some plant foods, we’ll, we’ll move around the metals, but they don’t necessarily relate them to remove them from the body. So if you start moving things around without flushing it, then you can feel worse.
Sarah (21:19)
Okay. That’s interesting. Actually, I wasn’t aware of that because I know before I’ve just heard everybody saying, you know, eat lots of Cilantro and, but that, that makes a good point that if you’re not pulling it from the body you’ve done, just moving it around isn’t gonna help.
Dr. Susse (21:36)
Right? So if you do want to use natural things like Cilantro and Chlorella, you have to make sure that you combined it with something on which will bind to it. Vitamin C will bind to it and help remove it. All your cruciferous vegetables, anything sulfur high in sulfur is going to help bind to the metals and then doing your natural detox process like, you know, going to the sauna. I’m drinking a lot of water. Another important thing to mention with metals is that people who have heavy metal toxicity are often very depleted in minerals in general and their specific minerals and vitamins that help with specific metals. But I was going to mention lead and a calcium. So if you have high lead, you can do calcium. If you have high cadmium unique link, have you have high mercury, you need selenium and so on.
Sarah (22:31)
Well, I was going to ask if there’s a certain set of symptoms that women should be looking for if they feel their breast implants could be causing health issues. But listening to you speak now, I’m guessing everyone is different. There’s so many various symptoms, right?
Dr. Susse (22:46)
Well, I think the big thing is going to be pain in your body and your joints and your muscles. For some people it could be chronic infection because, you know, downstream of having this, you know, these chemicals and toxic environment is having gut dysbiosis and dysfunction with the tight junctions in your, in your gut. So, sometimes like these things happen and, and in order and sometimes they happen out of order, but you’ll see that maybe you have some gut dysfunction and then you end up with an autoimmune process later on. You know, a weakened immune system, hormonal changes, anxiety is one of the main symptoms of heavy metals. I mean, I have a friend, another doctor who before he removed his, mercury fillings, he could barely drive on the freeway because he would get so anxious and freaked out by the other cars. And he was a young guy. He didn’t know why it was happening. But, after he removed his mercury fillings very safely, those symptoms went away.
Sarah (23:47)
Wow! That’s amazing. I know I’ve heard so many stories about mercury fillings and definitely there’s just so many different ways, I guess, that our bodies are being exposed to all these heavy metals and it’s just load upon load and I guess it’s our body gets to a point where it just can’t handle it anymore.
Dr. Susse (24:06)
Yeah. And especially when you’re not as good as you should be with your nutrition and your lifestyle, these things can compound over time and you know, we’re told that aging and it’s just, you know, it’s normal to not feel good anymore after you’re not a teenager. And I just don’t think that that’s fair. Like that’s not the life I want. That’s not the life I think anyone wants.
Sarah (24:31)
Absolutely. You don’t want to hear, Oh, you know, you’ve hit 40 is normal to have memory issues, right? It’s not normal!
Dr. Susse (24:41)
Oh, it’s not normal.
Sarah (24:43)
So we really need to listen to our bodies and really need to push to get tested if we feel that something isn’t right. So what do you suggest for those who have maybe gone to their doctor knowing there’s something wrong, but their doctor just pushes them away or maybe gives them a diagnosis that they feel just isn’t right?
Dr. Susse (25:01)
Yeah. So that’s a really good question. And I would say don’t try to convince somebody of something that they’re not on board with. I’ve made that mistake with some of my doctors over the years. Find a new doctor, you know, get on the Internet. There’s a really good Facebook page called healing breast implant illness by Nicole. She has thousands of members and they all, we all help each other and in a way that’s a, not for profit or anything, just there as a support group and there’s tons of doctors who are, I’m considered a, you know, recommended who are onboard, who understand and believe. I mean, to me it’s funny when, when doctors say that there’s no correlation between autoimmunity and breast implants because it’s on the FDA website. I mean, the companies who manufacture them have done studies where they, where they’ve found that there’s a definitive complicated link between the two. So, yeah, and you can, if you find a doctor who, who acknowledges these things, like just make sure that, that they know what they’re doing, you know, talk to their other patients, read their reviews, and so on.
Sarah (26:17)
Okay, perfect. I know personally, I can just think back to some forms I filled out from doctors. I don’t think there’s ever been a question on one that asks, do you have breast implants?
Dr. Susse (26:30)
Yeah. And I think that is really common. Let’s say you’re a woman who gets breast to get silicone breast implants and then a couple of years later you started having problems. Maybe you go to your, your, your general doctor, they say, Oh, maybe we should test you for some autoimmune connective tissue disease markers. Maybe they test you for it. Maybe they come back positive. You get, you get referred to somebody who treats and takes care of auto immune disease, and then they’re just like case closed. You have Hashimoto’s or case closed, you have Lupus, but that’s not, that’s not really that. You can reverse that it, but you have to remove the trigger. And no one’s thinking, oh well maybe it’s like your implants and then you just get attached to the diagnosis. Oh, I have this autoimmune disease and that’s what it is.
Sarah (27:17)
It goes back to them not looking for the root of the cause.
Dr. Susse (27:25)
Exactly, exactly.
Sarah (27:26)
Well Dr Susse, you’ve got such an amazing story to really take such a horrible experience that you went through and completely changed it around and become a doctor who can now help others that might be going through the same health issues. It’s really truly amazing. So if our listeners want to know more or maybe even make an appointment with you. They can find you on Instagram, is that correct?
Dr. Susse (27:51)
Yes, that would be the best place.
Sarah (27:53)
What is your name on Instagram?
Dr. Susse (27:55)
Oh, okay. So it’s Dr. Kayte
Sarah (28:01)
Well thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your story and I’m sure there are going to be many of our listeners out there who are really going to benefit from all of this information.
Dr. Susse (28:11)
Yes. Thank you for helping get the word out. I think this is a really important message and you know, we’re very lucky in this day and age with the Internet, we’re able to kind of share information, spread the word and give people support and hope because there is a lot of hope.
Sarah (28:30)
Absolutely. Well, thank you once again. Now, if you’ve enjoyed this episode and you want to stay up to date with more of the latest news from doctors health press, you’re definitely gonna want to go over and sign up for the Doctors Health Press e- bulletin now. This is the newsletter that I mentioned at the beginning of the show. It is our free daily letter and it’s really full of great alternative natural health advice and the best part is its delivered to your inbox each and every morning, all for free. Now you can sign up for the letter on our website at doctorshealthpress.com. We are also offering a pretty great promotion for those listening today. We are going to be offering our publications at a discounted rate, so our publications, are monthly newsletters that are really going to keep you informed about the latest in natural healthcare.
Sarah (29:25)
So just visit doctorshealthpress.com/podcastdeal to see the special offer. So that’s doctorshealthpress.com/podcastdeal, all one word to learn more about the offer and if you’ve enjoyed this episode today, also, don’t forget to give us a star rating, so if you’re listening on iTunes or Google play or any other platforms that allow you to give a star rating, please do so this, let us know whether you liked the episode or if we have something we need to work on. And it also let us know if we’re on the right track, if these are the types of subjects that you want to hear more about. So until next time, thanks again for listening. I’m Sarah Cownley reminding you that it’s never too early or too late to work towards being the healthiest version of yourself.
Sarah (30:26)
The information contained herein is for information and it’s not to be construed as a diagnosis, treatment, preventative, or cure for any disease disorder or abnormal physical state, nor should it be considered to substitute for medical care from your doctor on any matter relating to your health or wellbeing and prior to undertaking any health related activity consultant appropriate health professional. The opinions here in are exactly that. They are the opinions of our guests. Doctors Health Press and its employees are not responsible for medically unsupervised activities that could be harmful to your health. Results are not guaranteed and may vary from person to person.
Dr. Kayte Susse began her medical career after suffering from a mysterious illness just 9 months after getting silicone breast implants. Today she is a strong advocate of breast implant illness education and recovery.
