A British woman says she is stuck in Turkey after suffering serious complications from botched cosmetic procedures, including two bouts of sepsis.
28-year-old mother of one Cennet Lo flew to Bodrum in April to undergo a tummy tuck, liposuction and a Brazilian butt lift.
Four months later, she is still recovering in Turkey from a cosmetic procedure that went dramatically wrong.
Speaking to ITV News, Lo remembers waking up in the middle of an operation.
“I remember waking up, holding my head up and seeing liposuction being performed on my stomach.”
A British woman says she is stuck in Turkey after suffering serious complications from botched cosmetic procedures, including two bouts of sepsis
Cennet Lo, 28, recalls the trauma of her failed cosmetic surgeries in Turkey
Lo flew to Bodrum in April to undergo a tummy tuck, liposuction and Brazilian buttock augmentation
About two weeks after her surgery, Lo explained that her pain became worse.
She flew back to the UK and had to go to hospital twice, but eventually had to fly back to Turkey on May 20 after being told her surgeon needed to take corrective action.
“I was afraid to go to sleep because I really thought I was going to die,” she said.
Since she first went under the knife a few months ago, Lo has had to undergo four major surgeries to clear up skin infections.
But even the corrective surgeries cause problems for Lo.
She claimed that after developing sepsis for the second time, she underwent surgery to close the open wound, only to wake up to find that her surgeon had performed a completely new tummy tuck without her consent.
She also recalled having dead tissue removed from a wound without anesthesia.
“He started cutting into my stomach with no local anaesthetic, no pain relief, nothing. They had to hold my legs down, I had a woman holding my shoulders down,” she told ITV News.
But the horrific experience left Lo with more than just physical pain.
“There have been days when I was in so much pain that I didn’t want to be here.”
It comes after a British mother died after undergoing a Brazilian buttocks augmentation in Turkey, which she hoped would change her life.
Lo has had to undergo four major surgeries to remove skin infections
The horrific experience has left Lo with more than just physical pain
“There have been days when I was in so much pain I didn’t want to be here,” she told ITV
The number of complications in cosmetic procedures abroad is increasing
Kaydell Brown, 38, from Sheffield, paid £5,400 for a ‘mummy MOT’ – a package deal including a Brazilian butt lift, a tummy tuck and a boob job. The cost in the UK would have been around £15,000.
The hairdresser underwent the treatment on the morning of March 26, 2024 at Clinic Expert in Istanbul, but never returned.
Her 40-year-old sister Leanne, who was due to undergo the same operation, was heartbroken and fiercely criticised the Turkish clinic, calling it a ‘pop-up butcher shop that needs to close’.
Leanne claimed that after doctors told her her sister had died, she was given an envelope of money and booked on the next flight home.
“It’s like, ‘Too bad she’s dead, here’s your plane ticket,'” she told ITV.
Kaydell had hoped the surgery would get her life “back on track” after gaining weight from an ankle injury, her sister said
The number of complications associated with cosmetic surgery abroad is increasing.
According to the British Foreign Office, 28 Britons have died after undergoing cosmetic surgery in Turkey since 2019.
Meanwhile, the number of people requiring hospital treatment in the UK after cosmetic surgery abroad has risen by 94 per cent in three years – from 57 in 2020 to 111 in 2022, with 124 cases so far this year – according to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS), with procedures performed in Turkey accounting for more than three-quarters of procedures in the past six months alone.
The organization began “connecting the dots,” as BAAPS president Marc Pacifico calls it, two years ago when colleagues shared stories of patients who had complications from procedures abroad. “It became clear that these stories were not isolated,” he recalls. He started an online database where those affected could share their experiences.
“One of the basic principles of the best plastic surgery is whether you do the right surgery at the right time on the right person,” he says.
“We heard things like abdominoplasties on morbidly obese, wheelchair-bound diabetics who should never have been candidates for surgery. There were also a lot of absolutely horrible stories about aftercare — or the lack thereof.”