The former race car driver got breast implants in November 2014 when she was 32.
Danica Patrick is feeling "amazing" after having her breast implants removed. One week after the 40-year-old former race car driver took to Instagram to reveal her decision to remove her implants, she appeared on Good Morning America to discuss her reason for getting them in the first place and share why she's being open about having an explant now.
In her initial Instagram post, Patrick revealed that she got her implants in November 2014 when she was 32.
"I did it 'cause I wanted to be more perfect. What's perfect, right? I wanted the whole package. I wanted to have it all," Patrick explained on GMA. "I felt like I was very fit and I thought, 'Well, but I just don't have boobs.' It's, like, what's having it all? What is that?"
In 2018, though, Patrick began experiencing some concerning health issues. "I noticed that my hair was not as healthy and was breaking off. I also gained a few pounds and had no luck losing," she wrote on Instagram.
Two years later, Patrick wrote, "the wheels came off" entirely.
"I had cycle irregularity, gained more weight, my hair wasn’t looking healthy at all and my face was a different shape (weird I know)," she wrote, adding that she experienced symptoms including "weird perspiration," dry scalp, and dizziness, and was tested for such things as hypothyroidism, severe leaky gut and low estrogen in an effort to figure out the cause of her symptoms.
Eventually, Patrick came to believe that she was suffering from breast implant illness.
"It's usually that their bodies have this kind of chronic inflammatory response to this thing, this implant, so your body's fighting something just like if it had an infection," Patrick's doctor, Dr. Shaun Parson, told GMA of people with the illness. "I have seen too many times people get better after you remove their implants, and I think we have work to do to try to figure out why."
Within hours of having the surgery, Patrick began feeling better, she shared in her Instagram post.
"My face had more color and less dark circles... my face started producing oil again, I could take a 30 percent deeper breath into my chest already, and I had so much energy when I woke up," she wrote.
As for why she decided to share her journey with the world, Patrick told GMA, "I thought to myself, 'I want to share this if it makes a difference.' Because I've tried so many different things to feel better, to look better, all the things, and nothing worked."
The decision to have her implants removed, and to be open about her experience publicly, is something Patrick credited largely to age and maturity.
"Life is a series of lessons. I think that age does play a role. I think becoming more mature, becoming more confident, having more life experiences, and really realizing that, no matter what you do, it's all an inside job," she said. "My journey's not even over. This is week one... There's going to be tons of testing that still happens. There's going to be physical changes, on the inside and outside, that I'm happy to share. I'm going to want to share with people."
RELATED CONTENT:
