Ep. 32 - Breast Implant Illness and Explant Surgery: One Patient's Journey Through Symptoms, Revisions, and Recovery

Dr. Tim Sayed speaks with Rachel Blogg, a licensed psychotherapist and athlete who spent roughly three and a half years navigating breast augmentation, multiple revisions, capsular contracture, implant malposition, and eventually explant surgery before finding relief from symptoms she hadn't initially connected to her implants at all. Rachel's account moves through the full arc — from her original decision to augment after breastfeeding two children, to a series of escalating complications including bottoming out, repeated capsular contracture, and an unsanctioned implant exchange that left her significantly asymmetric and heavier, unable to exercise, and experiencing joint pain severe enough that she underwent four separate trigger finger surgeries that, in retrospect, may never have been necessary.Dr. Sayed contextualizes what Rachel experienced — biofilm theory, the mechanics of under-muscle placement and restricted breathing, and why complete capsulectomy matters in explant surgery — while being careful not to overstate what the evidence currently supports about breast implant illness. Rachel describes symptom resolution that began in the recovery room and continued over the following years: finger pain gone, hair regrowing, thyroid levels stabilizing, and twenty-two pounds lost without changing her approach to diet or training.The conversation turns honestly toward the psychological dimension — radical acceptance as a clinical concept, body image work, the role of a supportive partner, and why Rachel, a DBT therapist herself, waited a full year before pursuing her final surgery. The episode doesn't resolve the broader debate around BII, but it doesn't need to. What it offers is one carefully observed account of what recovery from implants can actually look like.Contact Dr. Tim Sayed:Phone: (858) 247-2933Email: [email protected]: timsayedmd.comInstagram: @timsayedmdYouTube: @TimsayedmdFacebook: Tim Sayed MD