Continued
“I was in a dreadful state”, says Sefi. “I was so scared and I left his surgery in floods of tears."Although there was a slight improvement to the shape of my left breast, it was still much harder and lower than my right and I had a funny gap in my cleavage. My boobs looked like an odd pair. Yet when I mentioned this to the surgeon, he just said it was all my imagination. He was very dismissive "it was clear he wanted to wash his hands of me.

Understandably, Sefi's confidence hit rock bottom. "I'd hated my breasts before, but now I was distraught. I couldn't bear my boyfriend to see me without my clothes on.

I went to see my GP, but he warned me that even if I was eligible for treatment on the NHS, there was no guarantee I'd end up with a surgeon who specialised in breast operations and I could easily end up worse off.

By now I'd noticed signs of my right breast beginning to harden. I felt desperate, deformed and abandoned. What made it worse was knowing I only had myself to blame. But after three years of trying to get help, I resigned myself to living with my body as it was."

Then, earlier this year, Alberto, Sefi's boyfriend of five years, came to her rescue. "He knew how miserable I was and suggested he took out a loan to pay for a private operation to repair the damage. I just threw my arms around him."

Sefi set about finding a doctor to perform the surgery. "I went to see at least a dozen surgeons. Some were unwilling to do the operation because I had not been their patient, and others were totally unsympathetic."

Then Sefi heard about Angelica Kavouni, a Harley Street surgeon, who specialized in breast operations. "The first time I went to see her I immediately felt she understood me. Perhaps being another woman, she could relate to what I'd been through.

"Angelica told me she could insert implants below the muscle, rather than above, which would make them less likely to encapsulate. She did warn me, though, that I'd be in a lot of pain after the op, and my breasts would take a few weeks to settle down into a normal shape."

Undeterred, Sefi went ahead with the new procedure, costing £4,500, in February this year. When she came round, she was horrified to be told that the original implants had leaked "probably as a result of the Spanish surgeon trying to break up the hardened tissue."

I was extremely lucky that the breast hadn't become infected", says Sefi. "Instead, once the initial swelling had gone down, my new boobs were in great shape."

Sefi is delighted to have finally resolved her problems, though the scars of what happened will haunt her for some time to come.
"I'd advise anyone considering surgery to think long and hard before deciding to go ahead. Also, it's probably fair to say you get what you pay for. My problems started months after the op, and I needed a surgeon who was close at hand and totally committed to aftercare. A cut price deal is very tempting, but it may end up costing you a lot more in the long run."

Back to News Cuttings