Brandi Glanville Says Breast Implants Caused Face Parasite

Brandi Glanville says she learned a really hard lesson about not maintaining her breast implants ... because she says a boob job she got two decades ago is behind her infamous facial parasite.

We got Brandi outside her doctor's office in Beverly Hills, where she praised Dr. Dorfman and Dr. Ariel Ourian, and and she told our photog her breast implants ruptured, leaked silicone inside her body and clogged her lymph nodes ... leading to a nasty infection that deformed her.

Brandi says conventional wisdom calls for breast implants to be swapped out every 10 years ... but she kept hers in for 20 years and paid the price.

InTouch Weekly reported her life-saving Feb. 3 surgery, citing a Daily Enquirer newsletter story.

The reason Brandi didn't swap out the silicone earlier ... "If it ain't broke don't fix it."

As a result, Brandi spent years trying to figure out what the hell caused her face parasite ... cycling through dozens of doctors before a sonogram unlocked the answer.