Cosmetic surgery is big business in the UK
and it's still a growing one.
People desperate to turn back the clock
handed over £2.3 billion last year.
A lack of regulation is a very big problem for the UK.
It produces devastating medical problems.
But many end up paying twice,
as they have to shell out for corrective surgery
when they end up with botched-up bodies.
You've got to know, when things are cheap,
you really get what you pay for.
Coming up, unsightly rippled breasts.
They look disgusting, and I just feel really self-conscious.
A trout pout stomach.
Absolute agony it was.
It's just like someone trying to stab you, with, like, a knife or a hot poker.
And a mutilated vagina.
This is so hard and lumpy
it's not, not a nice feeling at all.
In the UK, we can't get enough of nips, tucks, fillers and fakery.
In 2011,
an estimated 40,000 cosmetic surgeries were performed
and about a quarter of those were boob jobs.
But in their quest for bigger and better boobs,
more and more women are ignoring the risks of surgery.
They choose implants that are too big for their body
and end up with botched-up breasts.
In terms of implant selection,
it's the "wish-ues" versus the tissues.
It's about what you can have, not what you want.
37-year-old mum of five Paula Duncan from Hertfordshire
is one of the many who decide to super-size at their peril.
After five children, Paula's boobs had shrunk to a 32A
and she hated the way she looked.
I lost all my confidence,
and it just made me look into
what I could possibly do to correct it.
Paula opted for surgery but on a tight budget.
She chose the cheapest clinic she could find.
She's ended up with a botched-up body.
She's now got rippled breasts
caused by implants that are too big for her.
I noticed that they were changing shape,
and generally just looking deflated.
It did panic me quite a lot.
Paula's botched-up boobs have affected every area of her life.
I've been on antidepressants,
me and my husband's relationship's suffering, particularly physically.
You know he doesn't actually see me with no clothes on.
I've always got my bra on.
Yeah, you can tell her she's fine as much as you like.
But you know, she doesn't feel right in herself.
That has an effect on our love life,
the lovemaking doesn't happen as often as maybe it probably would of.
I wish I hadn't had a breast enlargement to start with
because I feel that actually they've made my problem a whole lot worse.
They look disgusting
and I just feel really self-conscious. I don't want anybody to see them.
Desperate to find out
if anything can be done to fix her breasts,
Paula's travelled to London to meet plastic surgeon
and expert in breast reconstruction Patrick Mallucci.
I think the main problem with you, is twofold.
Is, you've got an implant
which is a bit too big for you.
Right.
And you don't have enough
cover for that implant.
If we were going to try and improve upon this,
there are a few things I would do.
I would reduce the size of the implant
and I would put it underneath your muscle.
It's always about compromise.
They're not going to have the perfect body.
It's about improvement.
As a surgeon, you can only improve what lies before you.
Paula should have been told that the size of her implants
might cause her problems.
Patrick will give her smaller ones
in the hope that he can fix her botched-up body.
but just how small will he have to go
to try and correct Paula's rippled breasts?
Every year, more and more of us decide to go under the knife
in pursuit of the body beautiful.
But not everybody wants to pay the hefty price tag
for an operation in the UK.
Instead, more of us are opting to go
on scalpel safaris abroad,
where cosmetic procedures can be up to 81% cheaper.
But trying to save money
can end up being a costly mistake.
You're remote from your carers.
That's gonna be a problem if something goes wrong.
And of course, potentially, much more costly.
A lesson which 37-year-old
legal translator Mozafar Kakawisi
has learnt the hard way.
He'd always been self-conscious of his large nose,
but it was when a teacher at college referred to its size
that he decided he couldn't live with it any longer.
Well, it knocked my confidence completely.
You're already, you know, cautious about it
and then somebody tells you, in front of a whole classroom,
and then you just think, "That's it."
Hurt by the teacher's comments,
Mozafar decided to take drastic action
and get the tip of his nose remodelled.
In 2010,
he travelled to a clinic in Poland to have budget rhinoplasty,
but when he got there, alarm bells started to ring.
I noticed that the doctor had difficulties
explaining what the operation may involve.
Then, it was a problem
when I tried to explain what I wanted to do.
In spite of his reservations,
Mozafar went for his surgery the day after his consultation
and when he woke up he realised
he'd made a terrible mistake.
Having only asked for the tip to be reshaped,
Mozafar had been left with a completely wonky nose.
I remember being in pain,
straight away I could see the septum deviated.
At that point I knew that things had gone wrong.
I ended up with
a fractured nasal bone up there.
And yet the doctor is telling me
that he hasn't touched that.
The doctor denied any wrongdoing
and told him he'd have to wait nine months to see the full results.
But with his self-esteem at its lowest ebb,
Mozafar had lost all confidence in the clinic.
It has made me more conscious about
the way my nose is.
You just feel so alone and powerless.
I want my nose fixed
so that I could meet people without
worrying about the way I look.
Mozafar has now come to London
to see craniofacial surgeon Niall Kirkpatrick
and find out if his botched-up nose can be fixed.
There are some choices that you need to make.
And, fundamentally, the choices relate
to whether we build the nose back up higher,
to smooth it out, or whether we reduce it a bit further,
to smooth it out. OK?
There are pros and cons.
If we want to build the nose up,
then we have to find some tissue
from another part of your body. Obviously, there's some scarring.
In order to build up his nose,
Niall would have to take cartilage from Mozafar's ears or ribs
which would leave scars.
The alternative is to reduce his nose.
If we go down
the reduction mode,
the nose is not quite so big.
You have to tell me which,
in balance, is the preference for you.
I would love to go
- with the reduction method. - OK.
Which does not involve, you know, scarring with the skull...
and taking off my ribs or anywhere else.
OK. I think, that's a very reasonable option.
The next time Mozafar sees Niall
it will be in the operating theatre.
Plus, the woman with the botched vagina.
It hasn't been easy.
And how one man's surgical safari
to the Philippines ended in tears.
I actually paid someone to do this to me.
I gave someone money to put me in torture and disfigure me.
In London, mum of five
Paula's botched-up body is about to be fixed.
She is set to have surgery to repair the damage
caused by a bad breast augmentation.
A budget operation in 1998,
left her with rippled, disfigured breasts.
All because the implants used were too big for her frame.
I just feel that they look disgusting
and I don't want anybody to see them.
Paula is under the care of surgeon Patrick Mallucci.
He's going to replace the existing implants with smaller ones.
Patrick's first job is to remove the old implants.
He'll then create a pocket underneath the pectoral muscle
where the new, smaller implants will go.
Usually implants are placed on top of the pectoral muscle,
but, for petite women like Paula,
the best option is to cut a pocket underneath
and pull the muscle tissue over the implant
to give a smoother appearance.
Before insertion, the implant gets covered
in an antiseptic to prevent infection.
Not only have we downsized the implant,
but what's significant are the dimensions of the implant.
This one is much narrower than her original one,
which is simply way too wide
for her natural breast width.
Once the implant is in position,
Patrick discovers there's not enough muscle to cover it.
Putting Paula at risk of another rippled breast.
She's got quite a bit of implant exposure.
To avoid using an even smaller implant,
Patrick chooses to use a material called Strattice,
which is made of pig skin.
In time, Paula's own tissue will bind to it fully,
covering the implant.
At £1,900 a sheet,
this is a solution that doesn't come cheap.
This is our skin substitute.
It's known as an acellular dermal matrix
and we're going to use this to give us an extra little bit of support
over the implant, and to try and keep the muscle in place.
And that's the beauty of it, is that it stops being a foreign body.
With the skin substitute stitched in place,
it's time to close up.
I think she's got a much better implant.
It's more appropriate for her, it fits her,
and then you saw that piece of Strattice,
the acellular dermal matrix at the end,
just able to give us a bit of cover at the side which she was lacking.
So, I think a combination of all those things,
I'm hoping will stand her in good stead.
Paula now has significantly smaller breasts,
but has the reduction in size got rid of her rippled chest,
and left her with the smooth, pert boobs she desires?
Just how far would you go to get the perfect body?
If you're one of the 100,000 British people
that travel abroad each year to be nipped, tucked and sucked,
the answer is a long way.
But these budget operations are a risky business.
In a UK survey, 87% of NHS surgeons
said they've seen a rise in the number of patients with problems
resulting from plastic surgery abroad.
The surgeons involved with providing that sort of care
are doing it purely on a commercial basis,
they don't, necessarily, have a reputation to stand by.
And therefore, the patients are being sold operations
which aren't necessarily appropriate to them.
Patients like 36-year-old
Kent laboratory technician Michael Davies.
Michael has always been obsessed with his body image.
At the age of 18 he was a championship body builder.
Sort of, growing up watching action films
and, of course, I wanted the ideal action body.
And as a result, I was kind of like the local hero,
and that was a massive ego boost.
You just really felt like a celebrity.
But his celebrity status was short-lived.
In his early 20s, he ballooned to 20 stone
and for the next ten years
Michael fought a losing battle with the bulge.
In 2006, he decided to have liposuction
whilst on holiday in the Philippines.
It has left him with a botched-up body.
He was told he'd emerge with a six pack.
He's been left with a lopsided pouch of excess skin.
An abdominal trout pout.
But his problems aren't just physical,
the surgery left him with mental scars as well.
Absolute agony it was. That they go straight in,
and it's just like someone trying to stab you
with like a knife, or a hot poker.
Michael paid £1,000.
In the UK, it would have been three times that,
so he thought he was getting a bargain.
He was told it would be performed under local anaesthetic,
but they failed to tell him that after the initial shot of painkiller
it was up to him to ask for more should it wear off.
Only the first dose was included in the price.
All others would be at an additional cost.
It was extremely distressing, erm,
and I haven't shouted like that ever in my life.
But it didn't stop there.
Michael was in agony for the next two months
and, what was worse, he was left
with pockets of fat which he hates.
The finished result
is an absolute mess.
There's no two ways about it.
The skin's loose, it's come away.
So, I've either got fat left or baggy skin.
It's a total disaster, it really is.
Michael is devastated.
For the last six years he's hidden his unsightly tummy bulge
from his wife and it's affecting their love life.
He don't have the confidence to take his top off.
Even with me, he turns off the lights,
and he won't show it at all.
Since his botched operation,
Michael has done everything in his power to get back into shape
but no matter what he does,
he still can't shift his sagging pouch of skin.
What's really bad about this
is I actually paid someone to do this to me.
I gave someone money
to put me in torture and disfigure me.
With his confidence in tatters,
Michael has come to London to see if leading plastic surgeon
Paul Harris can help.
We need to do a full abdominoplasty. That's quite a big operation.
Quite a big tummy tuck.
And it does produce a scar that would be from here and here.
The lower we can place the scar the better that will be
in terms of being able to cover up with your underwear.
I think there is probably just about enough skin
to make it down to about there. And that's sometimes...
After his initial examination,
Paul has some reservations
about Michael's high expectations for the operation.
The unevenness that you see is there,
it is, but it's not that severe.
And we will end up with a less than perfect result.
There are some things this surgery will do for you,
and there are some things that this surgery will not do for you.
It won't be perfect, and that's for sure.
The next time Michael sees Paul, he'll be attempting to fix the results
of his previous botched surgery.
Over in North London, father of one Mozafar,
is about to have reconstructive surgery
to realign his wonky nose
caused by a botched operation in Poland.
It's to do with getting new confidence.
Basically, to get the old me back.
He's under the care
of craniofacial surgeon Niall Kirkpatrick.
So just marking out where I'm going to make my incisions.
There's been some rather poor incisions made inside the nose,
in not the optimal position.
I have to work around those.
Secondary rhinoplasty surgery is always much more difficult
than primary rhinoplasty.
You don't have all the materials that were there at the first time.
So, what we're doing is just very gently
peeling the skin away from the cartilage framework.
You can see now that the tip of the cartilage here,
on the right-hand side,
is three or four millimetres higher than the point here,
which is the opposite side.
By straightening up these cartilages, it'll make a big difference
towards getting the symmetry that... the tip of the nose that we need to get.
After removing any loose cartilage, Niall checks the shape of the nose.
So, you can see here, there's a ridge
of cartilage just there.
That ridge is what's contributing, if we take the skin back,
to that prominence there.
And that's what's making the nose look as though
it's banana-ing across in that direction.
When Niall is happy with Mozafar's new profile,
he sets to work on the tip.
I don't want the tip to be too prominent.
I'd rather have this tip a little lower,
because, by lowering it, it flattens the tip of the nose a little bit
and stops it looking quite like a little ball.
He then performs a graft,
using cartilage removed from the bridge of Mozafar's nose.
Once he's got the shape he wants, Niall uses a collagen sheet
to cover the wound to give a smooth finish.
In time, Mozafar's body
will produce its own collagen to replace it.
Well, that's really quite a nice nose now.
Happy with the results, it's now time for Niall to stitch up.
Obviously, patients do go abroad
hoping that they're going to get cheaper surgery, and I understand that.
They need to think very carefully about whether
they're going to get good quality surgery,
because if they do have major complications,
it's gonna cost them an awful lot more to sort out.
It's much better to see somebody who's going to be close to you,
can consult you properly before the operation.
So, you fully understand exactly what's in store.
And if there's a problem,
that surgeon will be able to look after you properly.
Just four days later, and Mozafar is back in London
to see his new nose for the first time.
It'll be a little bit swollen
and a little bit bruised at the present time.
And it looks lovely and straight.
I'm so relieved.
I am...
shocked.
You said I should expect
a satisfactory result.
I think you've exceeded my expectations.
Good, well, I'm delighted if we have.
Niall has rid Mozafar of his wonky lopsided nose,
instead giving him a perfectly symmetrical one.
Over six months,
it will gradually become more and more refined,
as the swelling goes,
and it will start to look better and better.
I'm really pleased about the way it looks.
Once the remaining stitches are removed,
the look of his new nose overwhelms Mozafar.
I'm starting to see the old me again.
I couldn't put it in words,
how happy I feel right now.
Mozafar's botched nose job has finally been fixed.
The UK's love of all things plastic
is resulting in a huge increase in botched-up bodies.
In 2012,
9,843 boob jobs were performed.
All have the op to look better,
and, in turn, feel better about themselves.
But as some are discovering,
sometimes you don't end up with either.
One-third will require further surgery within ten years
of their initial operation to correct problems.
And a whopping one in seven
will end up with a loss of sensation as a result of surgery.
The nerves often are interfered with,
they're stretched, they're tugged,
and that can either lead to a loss of sensation,
or, ironically, to a hypersensitivity as well.
Like 43-year-old mum of six Donna Cohen.
She's been left with a total loss of sensation in her nipple,
after a boob job in 2008.
She'd finished breastfeeding her children
and was desperate to do something about the appearance of her breasts.
Even though I'd had boobs in the past,
they sort of like just disappeared, every child I had.
And I just didn't have any confidence.
So, I decided
to have put back what I'd lost.
Donna decided to go under the knife at a local hospital.
She spent £4,000 on the operation
but she's been left botched up
with misshapen, painful breasts, and a numb nipple.
Right from the start Donna wasn't happy with the results of her surgery.
Because of the numbness I was disappointed,
to be honest with you.
But she went, "No, no that's fine. That could possibly come back.
That's fine," you know. "It's the normal thing."
But after a few weeks, the numbness still hadn't subsided.
And I'm still getting the pains,
so I did take this up with the surgeon who said to me,
"Right, OK, we'll redo it for you,
we'll replace the implant because it could be laying on a nerve."
Donna had a second operation in a bid to correct the problem.
But things have only got worse.
She has no sensation in her left nipple
and her right breast has been squeezed out of shape
by severe capsular contraction,
a condition where the scar tissue that naturally forms around the implant
thickens and hardens abnormally.
It affects me with relationships as well, you know.
I don't really want anyone coming near me.
I don't like the thought of being touched there, to be honest.
It's quite embarrassing. It makes me quite sad that,
you know, it's affected me so much.
I'm concerned about how uncomfortable I am
and the pains that I'm getting.
I'd like to just be able to have a normal life again.
Donna has travelled to London in an attempt to rid herself of the pain.
She's seeking help from plastic surgeon Patrick Mallucci.
The implants, once they start hardening, they don't get softer.
It's only going to get harder and potentially more uncomfortable.
- It is very uncomfortable. - So it needs to come out.
The one thing that you could do is you could say, right,
this one's fine we'll leave it well alone
and we'll just simply remove this,
and replace another implant in.
The other option would be to say right,
we're gonna remove the implants, replace them,
but also take this opportunity
maybe to lift and tighten the breast a little bit.
Before she can make a decision, Donna wants to know
if there's anything that Patrick can do about the numbness.
What about the sensation? I know I've got none there.
- Would I lose it on that one as well? - Well, the answer is, you might.
- You did on this side. - Will I ever get that back?
It's unlikely,
after four or five years, it's unlikely.
It's not the answer that Donna was hoping for
but she still decides to have both implants replaced
and her breasts lifted in the hope
that Patrick can correct her botched-up boobs.
Plus, easy does it when a tummy's tucked.
You could easily pierce through there into the abdominal wall.
And time's up for a botched vagina.
The one saving grace from the original operation
is that they have left something.
There's been an 87% increase
in people seeking help to correct surgery they've had abroad.
One of those botched-up bodies
is about to be fixed at the North London Hospital.
Michael from Kent is set to have surgery to repair his stomach
after having lousy liposuction.
In 2006, he travelled
6,500 miles to the Philippines,
where he endured a horrifically painful operation.
He wanted a six pack,
but he's been left with lopsided, sagging skin.
The physical scars might not look that bad,
but for Michael the mental scars
left by the painful operation will last a lifetime.
I actually paid someone to do this to me.
I gave someone money
to put me in torture and disfigure me.
Michael is under the care of plastic surgeon Paul Harris.
He plans to perform abdominoplasty, a tummy tuck,
which will tighten Michael's sagging stomach.
It's the operation he should have been offered in the first place.
Paul believes the Filipino surgeons were so keen to get Michael's money
they offered him a procedure that wasn't suitable for him.
Just performing liposuction is not going to get rid of skin excess.
In fact, it creates and worsens that problem.
So really it was the wrong choice operation for Michael.
First, he marks out the area he plans to cut,
to ensure a symmetrical result.
As I leave the stitches in
to mark my midline
for the end of the procedure when those two come together,
and I know that I'm not off to one side or the other.
Using his markings as a guide, Paul makes his incision.
Once he reaches the abdominal wall,
he needs to tread with caution.
For an abdomen, it's very important that you,
obviously, are aware of the different layers
because you can easily pierce through there into the abdominal wall
and then inside the abdomen itself.
So, it's very important that you know where you are
to stay inside the subcutaneous tissue.
Once he's cut through the subcutaneous tissue,
the fatty layer beneath the skin,
Paul isolates the belly button on a stalk,
which he'll re-use once the tummy tuck is complete.
Good. So, we've dissected all the way up now,
as far as we need to go.
Even without bending the table, you can easily get his skin down.
Paul removes two triangular pieces of flesh
before he starts to draw the wound together.
It's coming together with a good thickness of tissue beneath it.
It's slightly everting
which will flatten out once these stitches dissolve.
Now you can see the reasons for my stitch and my marks
so that I can make sure the midline's brought back together.
Once the wound is stitched,
Paul creates what's called a V-flap,
a V-shaped incision for Michael's new belly button.
Now, hopefully, I'm gonna make a hole here,
through this upper stretched skin, and we'll find the umbilicus.
I'm making a little tunnel now.
So, there we go.
Now pull that through and make an umbilicus.
As Paul puts in the final stitches,
the operation draws to a close.
For Michael we've removed
not a lot of weight,
just over half a kilogram.
And everything's gone very well.
Two weeks have passed since Michael's operation
and he's back in London to see Paul to check on progress.
If you'd lie down, we can have a look at the scar.
Yeah OK, no problem.
Well done, thank you very much.
Tummy button looks really nice.
Well, the scar looks really good, doesn't it?
There's no problems at all with that scar. And is it low enough for you?
It's absolutely perfect, it really is.
It's come up absolutely top.
I mean, the result's that I couldn't expect anything better.
It's absolutely perfect.
And especially with the belly button, he's done a fantastic job on that.
Still quite swollen following the surgery though isn't it?
Yeah, it's a little bit, sort of bruised underneath still.
Yeah. And of course, you haven't been doing all your exercise,
you were a very toned man,
you've lost bit of tone throughout the six weeks.
Paul has managed to rid Michael of his unsightly sagging skin,
leaving him with a flat stomach
and the confidence to face the world again.
Before his operation,
Michael refused to undress in front of his wife,
but all that's changed. His story's had a positive outcome.
It's made a massive improvement on my relationship.
I've just not got any hang-ups.
It really has made me happy.
In West London, 43-year-old Essex mum of six
Donna Cohen is about to have surgery to fix her botched boob job.
After breastfeeding five of her kids,
she wanted fuller, higher boobs.
But she's been left with uneven, painful breasts
and numb nipples.
It affects me with relationships.
It makes me quite sad that, you know, it's affected me so much.
Donna's surgeon is Patrick Mallucci.
In this operation,
he'll be removing the capsule and existing implants
and replacing them with new ones.
So, we're gonna start off by removing the implants on the good side,
that's gonna be the easy bit.
And then we're gonna concentrate
on taking the implant out from the right,
where we know she's got the capsule,
and that's the bit that's always trickier.
This sort of rather grey-white surface here,
but this is actually the capsule that you're looking at.
What I would like to do, ideally,
is to remove the whole capsule around the implant.
This is known as a capsulectomy.
Once he's cut the capsule away from the wall of the breast,
Patrick makes an incision in it and removes the implant.
This implant has been restricted by this tight and narrow pocket.
And it's amazing to think that actually, it's quite difficult to fit it back in.
With the old implants removed and the new ones in place,
he'll reshape the breast and remove any excess skin.
So, I'm just incising the...
new areola.
It is at this stage of a breast operation
where the surgeon has to tread most carefully.
One small slip of the scalpel
can nick a nerve, leading to a complete loss of sensation.
Alright, can we just ask you for a bit of tension?
Patrick carefully cuts around the areola
and then moves onto the skin above and below the nipple.
You'll see in a minute,
once we've moved that skin, how we move the nipple upwards,
into its new position,
and then we'll reshape the...
rest of the breast accordingly.
So, I'm just removing
some of this loose section of breast tissue
which is redundant,
and just causes a little bit of bagginess.
Patrick is removing the excess skin in the pattern of an anchor
because this causes the least obtrusive scarring.
Once he's lifted and tucked the breast,
he then sutures the wound shut
before repeating the same on the other side.
So, we're just gonna put the dressings on.
Donna's breasts have been lifted and augmented
and the operation appears to have been a success.
But just two weeks later,
the risks of surgery are underlined
when Donna is rushed to A&E having contracted septicaemia,
a life-threatening illness
that's caused by the body overreacting to a bacterial infection.
Five percent of patients develop unavoidable complications
following surgery and unluckily for Donna, she's become one of them.
I was contacted immediately by the team
and was able to get involved
and help guide them through her care.
I knew there was something seriously wrong.
And it was quite scary.
My boob was throbbing, absolutely throbbing,
and I didn't have a dressing on it, as such,
because it really hurt.
I just had like a pad underneath it,
along the stitch line,
and as I pulled it away,
it was just like a waterfall
of green pus, just cascading.
I took the implant out,
just a couple of days after that,
and luckily, I saw her just yesterday, she's doing really well.
Donna's experience may have been a frightening one
but it hasn't stopped her deciding
to go back under the knife once she's recovered,
to have a new implant inserted.
It's not changed my view on cosmetic surgery.
I mean, you're warned of all the complications that could happen.
You know, I wasn't planning on, or banking on, what happened to me,
which was a pretty bad infection, but it's just one of them things.
We'll be following her up closely, to monitor her progress,
and as soon as we feel that she's ready,
it'll be very straightforward just to pop it back in again.
There is no part of the body that has escaped our obsession with perfection
and that includes our most intimate areas.
Female genital cosmetic surgery is on the rise.
The number of labiaplasties,
a surgical procedure where the inner lips of the vagina are trimmed,
has increased fivefold in the last decade.
It raises concerns as to why people are requesting labial reductions.
You really need an understanding of the anatomy of the vulva,
and an appreciation of what you're doing, so that you don't remove too much.
Little is known about the long-term effects,
and a lack of regulation means many practitioners
are operating without proper qualifications,
leaving a trail of devastation in their wake.
As 36-year-old Sherri Lee Masson from Gloucestershire discovered.
Sherri was always unhappy with the look of her vagina.
She grew up believing it was abnormal.
One bit of skin was hanging longer than the other.
I've always thought that there was something wrong with me down there.
Sexually, I've always been embarrassed, you know.
It's like I've always got a cover,
and I've always been conscious about it,
and just shy really.
She wanted her labia trimmed but the surgeon completely removed it,
leaving her botched up.
Sherri then had filler injected,
in a bid to correct the damage, but it only made things worse
and she was left disfigured and devastated.
I just wanted to look neat and pretty.
When I realised there was something wrong,
I cried and I cried and I cried and I cried.
It hasn't been easy.
It really hasn't.
In December 2012,
after eight years of misery,
Sherri decided to get her vagina fixed.
She started a course of corrective surgery in Glasgow,
under the care of specialist surgeon John Telfer.
In the first operation, John removed a massive cyst,
filled with cosmetic filler from the wall of Sherri's vagina.
The procedure left her battered and bruised,
and with the wound needing time to heal,
she was sent away for nature to take its course.
Six months have passed and with the healing process complete
the time has come for Sherri to return to Glasgow,
to embark on the next phase of treatment with surgeon John.
That's well healed up again, there's no sign of that lump at all.
And the other side
there's couple of lumps. There's one at the bottom.
Yep, there's one there.
And there's another one there.
Cysts on the right-hand side will complicate matters a little bit,
just need to try and adjust the incisions
or the cuts that I make to take the cysts out
when we're trying to reconstruct the labia minora.
Certainly, I'd like to think we can make a significant improvement.
Sherri's hoping that her surgery
will finally correct her botched-up labia.
And after having her rippling, oversized breast implants removed,
will Paula's new downsized bust
fix her botched-up boob job?
Shall we just have a little look?
Sherri Lee Masson from Gloucestershire
is undergoing a series of operations in Glasgow
to repair her vagina,
mutilated as a result of botched up labiaplasty.
Six months have passed since the first procedure.
Everything's looking good, much better, I feel much better.
And I've healed pretty quick.
So, I'm really looking forward to
my second procedure of my reconstruction.
In this operation, surgeon John Telfer
plans to remove two cysts in the right of her vaginal wall.
and then start the reconstruction.
Cysts on the right-hand side will complicate matters a little bit
cos I'll just need to try and adjust the incisions,
or the cuts that I make, to take the cysts out
to fit in with the plans that I've got
for trying to reconstruct the labia minora.
That's the line of where her labia minora used to be.
You can see there's just a bit, this sharp cut off there.
In the original botched operation
Sherri had tissue harvested from other parts of her body
and cosmetic filler injected into her vagina to add volume.
This is so hard and lumpy.
It's not a nice feeling at all. It's just distorting everything.
The vagina has a plentiful blood supply
so John changes to an electronic scalpel to minimise blood loss.
First, he removes a string of fat and scar tissue
deliberately left behind by the last surgeon.
What we call a dermal fat graft,
so they've taken a strip of skin,
taken the top layer of skin off it,
and then buried it
to try and plump up the labia majora.
It's really rubbery, it's not normal.
Once removed, he sets about removing the cysts
full of cosmetic filler he discovered
in Sherri's pre-op consultation.
There you go.
That's the cavity of the cyst there,
a lot of the contents have come out now so it's fairly empty
and what I'm trying to do is remove the lining.
And then the unexpected happens.
That's another, that's an even deeper cyst.
30 minutes in, and John runs into problems.
Somebody wipe my face.
He's nicked one of the many blood vessels in the wall of Sherri's vagina.
There's this big cyst here,
but there's a great big blood vessel beside it.
Sherri's vagina is a bloody minefield.
One false move and John could cause serious damage.
Clip, please.
It's a slow, painstaking process,
but finally Sherri's vagina is free from the filler filled cysts
and with the bleeding stopped
John can at last move on to the reconstruction.
You can see that's just sort of blobby on that side there,
the other side's already started to come down.
I wonder if we can get any more length on it.
The one saving grace
from the original operation is that they left something
and not just completely removed all of this,
which is what sometimes happens.
With the operation finished, John injects a mixture
of short acting and long acting anaesthetic
into Sherri's vagina to help with post-operative pain.
I think the meter's about to run out on the anaesthetic machine so.
John has done all he can in this operation.
Now the healing process starts.
400 miles away in West London,
mum of five Paula
is about to have a post-operative check-up.
A fortnight has passed since her operation to correct breast rippling
caused by oversized implants.
She's back in Harley Street to check on progress with Patrick.
First comment I would say is that they fit you much better,
cos you remember how wide the other ones were,
and so you could see all that rippling and wrinkling.
That looks really nice and smooth
and they're settling and they're softening much more as well.
I'm really pleased because in somebody as slim as you,
you haven't got an ounce of extra fat for us.
You know, actually, this has turned out really well.
And I think also they just kind of suit you better.
Patrick has ironed out the unsightly creases in Paula's breasts
by replacing the outsized implants.
She's now got a beautiful bust
and as a result, her confidence back.
I feel like a new woman with these.
I feel that I can be undressed in front of my husband,
not have to worry about, "Have I got my bra on?"
They're so much firmer,
they're nice. They're not rippled, they're lovely.
Delighted with the results,
Paula is now looking forward to a bright future.
I feel like I've got the boobs of an 18-year-old again,
which is really nice.
I feel that they're still gonna be there when I'm 60, which will be lovely.
Several weeks have passed
and Sherri is back home in Gloucestershire and the healing process is well underway.
So far, so good. I'm healing really well
and I'm feeling really good.
John has rebuilt her labia
to fix the damage from a botched up labiaplasty.
I can just feel like a woman again,
not shy, not embarrassed.
It's really changed my life.
It's a chapter of her life
that Sherri is now very pleased to close.
Next time on "Botched Up Bodies",
cosmetic con, the boob job that never was.
After examining me, he told me
there wasn't an implant in.
Black market killer fillers.
The woman injected with bathroom sealant.
I felt like a monster.
Some sideshow circus freak.
And a nasty nose job that ended in disaster.
Horrifyingly, the tip of me nose was missing
where the surgeon had cut it off.