A woman who spent over £5,000 on a “mummy makeover” in Turkey says she was left with a 50p-sized hole in her breast which smelt like “rotting meat” and has shared her harrowing tale of cosmetic surgery gone wrong.
Hoping to reclaim her pre-motherhood figure, Jade Tyler spent £5,300 on a series of procedures including a breast augmentation, tummy tuck, Brazilian butt lift, and liposuction at an Istanbul clinic. Suffering excruciating pain and bleeding after a nine-hour operation, she was assured by the clinic that her symptoms were normal and returned home to Braintree, Essex, only for her conditions to worsen dramatically.
Her ordeal worsened as her right nipple blackened and her breast developed a hole leaking foul-smelling fluid; no treatments proved effective, leaving medical professionals with no choice but to remove her right breast tissue and the implant.
For four unsettling months, Jade lived with asymmetry before receiving safer, smaller implants that paradoxically left her with the same C-cup size she initially had but now coupled with deep regret and the need for psychological therapy after what she described as an “But the whole thing was one big, agonising nightmare and I’m still not happy with how my body looks.”
Reflecting on her traumatic experience, Jade, who is currently a stay-at-home mother, expressed deep regret over her decision to undergo cosmetic surgery abroad: “After my last child, I was overweight, had a ‘mummy pouch’, and had saggy boobs. I decided I wanted to go to Turkey to get my old body back. But the whole thing was one big, agonising nightmare and I’m still not happy with how my body looks.”
“I wish I’d never done it. It felt so important at the time but I look at old photos and feel sad now. I see now that having a perfect body isn’t important – my message is to love yourself the way you are.”
Jade’s treatments in Istanbul would have cost over £20,000 in the UK, so she booked her operations, flights, and hotel for January 2024 and travelled with her teenage nephew, undergoing surgery on January 5. However, her breast implantation wounds began to bleed, and her right breast swelled. Despite being discharged and flying home, Jade sought help from a UK breast clinic due to her worsening condition.
She was put on a drainage pump to remove fluid, but the situation escalated, resulting in the removal of her entire breast. Jade described the horrific experience: “It got all green and yellow and my nipple was black. I was going to get my wounds re-dressed every week but it got worse. The bottom of the boob was dripping with fluid, and loads of pus started coming out. The skin began to split and then my breast tissue was literally falling out of the bottom. It was hell.”
“The smell was the most awful thing – like rotting meat – and nothing seemed to help. Several appointments later, they said there was a risk of sepsis and the implant needed to come out – along with almost all my breast tissue.”
Instead of regaining her pre-pregnancy figure and a full, perky bust, she was left with just one breast. Jade revealed that UK clinics refused to intervene due to the previous work done in Turkey. She was so mortified that she spent months padding her bra on one side with a prosthetic breast and wearing loose clothing to conceal it.
“The effect on my mental health was terrible – I felt so depressed,” she confessed. “Even doing the school run – I’d have to remember my keys, phone and fake boob.”
But it left Jade feeling so insecure she ran out of options – besides returning to a clinic operated by the same company that performed her surgery – to undergo another operation for a new set of corrective implants. “I desperately didn’t want to go back – but I looked down at my chest and thought ‘I can’t live like this'”she admitted. After travelling back to Istanbul on October 21, she underwent surgery to remove her existing implant and receive a new pair.
She was warned larger implants would cause problems again – so she had to settle for C-cup implants – leaving her the same size as she started. Jade now wants to use her experience to caution other women against going under the knife – and instead to “love yourself”.
“I was worried I would die at points throughout this journey.I knew there were risks but I thought it wouldn’t happen to me, until it did. The whole thing is one massive regret, I look back at my before photos and cry because I miss my old body.
“My message is just love yourself the way you are – I look back and realise getting the work done wasn’t important. I have my children and I need to be there for them – and I nearly wasn’t! I wish I had never gone in the first place – now I’m just happy to be alive.”
