I went to Turkey for a nose job – I was left with a hole under my ear
The mother of a child paid £7,000 to travel to Istanbul for a facelift, nose job, accommodation and flights
A mother claims she had a hole under her ear after traveling to Turkey for cosmetic surgery.
Sharon Maxwell, from Ayrshire, Scotland, visited a clinic in Istanbul last October to have a facelift and rhinoplasty.
However, the 39-year-old says the clinic instead performed a skin lift – a procedure in which the skin is pulled back to tighten the face – and did not give her a nose job.
The hairdresser and Airbnb host, who is now campaigning for more awareness about the dangers of going under the knife abroad, claimed that medics had not sutured her wound correctly then.
Miss Maxwell also shared with MailOnline the horrors she saw during her journey in the nameless clinic.
These included patients with recurrent infections for weeks who were unable to leave the clinic, as well as patients with breast implants protruding through their skin.
Miss Maxwell went to Turkey last year after her resident surgeon in Lithuania, where she’s had nine separate procedures since 2015, refused to give her a nose job, telling her she didn’t need one.
She paid £7,000 to travel to Istanbul for a facelift and nose job. The amount also covered her accommodation and flights.
Such procedures can be much cheaper abroad than privately in Britain.
Sharon Maxwell, 39, from Ayrshire, Scotland, has told MailOnline how she went to Turkey for a facelift and a nose job but instead witnessed a host of horribly failed jobs that resulted in some people nearly dying on the table and went home with implants gaping out of their breasts
Despite the horrific bruising and painful swelling, Miss Maxwell says they never gave her a nose job and she looked the same as when she went in
Miss Maxwell said, ‘I’m here [the hotel[ about three in the morning and was picked up at half past five to go and get it [the procedure] finished. In total I was there for two and a half hours.’
She added, “I had my anesthetic down the hall. I didn’t know they drugged me. They never told me.’
Miss Maxwell claims that the surgeons did not perform the requested rhinoplasty because she looked the same as before the operation.
And she says the surgeons gave her a “skin lift” instead of a facelift — a treatment that pulls back the skin but also redistributes fat and tissue in the face and neck.
Miss Maxwell says the procedure left her with a ‘hole’ under her ear where the medics couldn’t stitch her up properly.
She told MailOnline: ‘They did nothing, they cut me open and did a skin lift on the side of my face and left me with a hole in the back of my ear.
“They didn’t take on any muscle or anything. I felt no pain when I woke up and the rhinoplasty was definitely not done.
“I was breathing really well and they wouldn’t take the plaster off or show me my nose until I got home.
“It looked exactly the same as it was, there’s no change.”
The mother of a child said she arrived around 3am and was on her way to recover at the villa two and a half hours later
Cosmetic procedures in Turkey are often done at bargain prices compared to their UK counterparts. Turkey and UK prices are from multiple websites (model is a stock photo)
Miss Maxwell’s transformation in 12 years after spending thousands of pounds in multiple European countries
Here, MailOnline describes some of the most notable differences in some cosmetic procedures in the UK and Turkey
Miss Maxwell claims social media luxury experience is not reality and chef’s cooking was ‘disgusting’
Miss Maxwell was also appalled by her accommodation, which she shared with five girls and likened to a ‘prison cell’ serving ‘disgusting’ food.
She claims that influencers, who advertise the clinic in their social media posts, are being housed in “amazing” villas with private chefs.
And during her time at the clinic, she says she witnessed other women undergoing similarly substandard care.
Miss Maxwell said, ‘A girl was only 21, but her parents didn’t know she was there.
“She needed at least five blood transfusions and she said she felt like she was about to die and asked them to call her mother, but they didn’t.
“They didn’t have her blood type, they left her for hours and she thought she was going to die. She had a rare blood type and they never had.
‘I met her in the taxi [which was taking them to their villas]. She’s been there for weeks.’
A patient became so unwell that she was not allowed to fly home while Miss Maxwell was in the clinic, she claims.
Miss Maxwell said: ‘There was a girl from Germany and she got very sick. She was not allowed to go home.
“She’s had liposuction, abdominoplasty, BBL [Brazilian Butt Lift] and her breasts. She kept getting infections and she also needed blood transfusions.
She explained that she only went to Turkey because her regular surgeon in Lithuania did not want to operate on her nose. Miss Maxwell, pictured here with bruises from another surgery, said recovery after plastic surgery can be a painful process
The hairdresser and Airbnb host is now campaigning for more awareness about the risks of going abroad
“There was another girl and she came from London and was very sick and we tried to see her in her room but we never saw her again.”
Another woman was left with a breast implant that started to peak between her breasts after she returned home to the UK.
Miss Maxwell said, ‘She [the clinic] told her she could fly it back but then it got worse and worse and everything [the implant] started hanging out.
She went back and had it fixed. I’m okay with it now, but she’s still not happy about it.’
Miss Maxwell claims the clinic informed her that her surgeon was subsequently fired.
She said: ‘I think they overbooked him with a lot of surgeries. He did to me what he did to everyone else, which was half the job or none at all.
“Every girl there paid for what they wanted and was talked out of getting something cheaper.”
She said the care provided was “absolutely shocking” and the women go in and out of the surgery “like a revolving door.”
Miss Maxwell is now campaigning online to raise awareness of the dangers of going abroad for surgery and urges anyone considering it to do their due diligence. As a result, many women turn to her for help and guidance.