Genevieve Padalecki explains why she had her breast implants removed: ‘It just didn’t feel right’

Genevieve Padalecki is opening up about having her breast implants removed.

The 42-year-old, who's married to Supernatural star Jared Padalecki, shared the story of her enhancement for the very first time during an appearance on the Bathroom Chronicles podcast. While she recalled experiencing some shame about having gotten implants in the first place, she's felt compelled to speak out after recently getting them removed because of how she believes they impacted her health.

Her decision to get the implants was inspired by a "shift" she experienced in her body around the time she turned 40. "On one hand you don't care what anyone thinks, but you're like, I miss what I used to look like a bit," she said. "And I wanted to build on my appearance and just feel good and I got consults to get breast implants."

The mother of three — Odette, 6, Austin, 9, and Thomas, 11 — credited breastfeeding her children for the change in her breasts's appearance. She worked with a trusted doctor to determine if implants would be the best decision for what she wanted to achieve and said that her goal was to maintain a natural appearance.

"I had many, many consults and would go back and forth and then I finally was like, you know what, I want to look good for me. I want to experience what that feels like, what that looks like and I did a lot of research on it and I was aware of the pros and the cons," she said.

Padalecki revealed that she was rather secretive about the enhancement when she had it done a year and a half ago. She even "struggled" with the decision because it seemed contradictory to her work in sustainability. The way that she felt about her appearance after the fact, however, felt worth it.

"I felt great and I felt very sexy and they were the exact same size as my breasts used to be before breastfeeding and so it just didn’t feel that different," she said.

Around six to eight months after the surgery, she began to feel differently.

"I noticed some changes in my body that didn’t feel quite right," she said, noting that limited physical capabilities was what she noticed first. "I’m a big runner. I love to run, I love exercising, it’s something I’ve done my whole life to cope and deal with stress. And when I say running, I mean like I ran the Boston Marathon a couple years ago, I like long distance. I just need to like get it out and sweat it out. So, I noticed that when I would get on the treadmill or I would go outside and I would jog, I couldn’t do it for more than like two or three miles before my body would just be like, no, we’re done. And that was like, super weird to me."

Padalecki explained that she didn't think too much of it right away — "well, maybe I’m tired today," she'd say. She also didn't consider that it correlated to the implants.

"This goes on for quite a while to the point where I’m like, 'I can’t run, this is weird.' And then I started getting some weird pains in my joints and I would wake up with joint pain where I would flex my fingers and they would hurt," she explained. "I could power through these symptoms, but it was enough where when I went to my checkup with my doctor and I said, 'It’s really weird these things are happening and I can’t run all of a sudden and my joints are really painful,' and she’s like, 'Let’s talk about this.'"

A breast exam revealed that Padalecki's lymph nodes were inflamed, as she felt was the case throughout most of her body. "It just didn’t feel right," she recalled. "I just didn’t want to get to a place where it got worse."

After consulting a couple of doctors about her situation, she decided to get her breast implants removed.

"What is pretty profound is that two weeks later, I ran six miles," she said. "I haven’t done that in at least a year. I have zero pain and my brain fog — which I started getting more brain fog — is like at a minimum. So is it related?"

Breast implant illness (BII) is not an official medical diagnosis (the actress was hesitant to diagnose herself considering the lack of research around BII) but it is acknowledged by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. BII is a collection of physical symptoms, ranging from chronic pain to brain fog and many women have their experiences, including Danica Patrick and Victoria Beckham.

And while Padalecki doesn't want to discourage other people from doing what feels best for their bodies, she said this was "the right decision" for her. "I feel very different. I feel in my body, I feel like my body is not inflamed. I feel normal, I feel like I can move the way I used to be able to move," she said.

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