Getting butt lifts in Turkey as simple as reserving a manicure

Doctor Semih Yildiz is strikingly good-looking, with thick black hair and a neatly trimmed beard. I stand earlier than him whereas he inspects my physique. He prods my abdomen, seems at my backside and my waist. He tells me to lean ahead and again. I really feel painfully nervous. I had met this man solely minutes earlier. After a few minute, he fortunately concludes that sure, I’m eligible for a ‘butt carry’.

Welcome to Istanbul, a spot the place getting cosmetic surgery is nearly as simple as reserving a manicure. And one process that’s getting more and more standard amongst younger girls particularly is the butt carry, which guarantees a fuller backside and smaller waist, a glance popularised by Instagram stars just like the Kardashians.

Kim and Khloe Kardashian, alternatively, have at all times denied having beauty surgical procedure on their bums – though there was a lot hypothesis, together with current rumours they’ve had their implants eliminated.

Dr Yildiz works at Vanity Cosmetic Surgery Hospital (its motto guarantees ‘A Better You’) within the vigorous district of Uskudar, on the Asian aspect of the town.

The reception space is clear and smooth. There are shiny magazines on the desk, and a tv display screen exhibits slick movies of current sufferers gushing about their surgical procedures.

A person, most likely in his 30s, sits within the ready space with a feminine companion. He is sporting the tell-tale black headband given to sufferers after a hair transplant to cut back any swelling.

Vanity affords the buttock enlargement surgical procedure, typically known as a ‘Brazilian butt carry’ or BBL, as a part of a bundle at a 3rd of the worth that it might be within the UK, with taxis to and from the airport, and a minimal of 5 nights in a lodge.

As a part of the process, Dr Yildiz exhibits me how he can inject fats into my hips in addition to my backside to offer me an general rounder form. And if I’m nonetheless not happy with the scale of my posterior, an implant might be added at a later date.

My companion – a Mail on Sunday photographer – protests that I’ve an amazing physique already. ‘Yes, it is good – however she might be even higher!’ he replies. ‘It is sensible. She’s a perfect candidate.’

So a lot for my private coaching periods and cautious weight loss program…

In reception, an worker informs me that the soonest I can get surgical procedure is in a fortnight. She quotes me £4,600 (which incorporates airport transfers and lodge lodging), but when I pay a deposit now, she will be able to cut back it to £3,750 – a reduction of almost £900. At this level, I inform her I’ll want to consider it earlier than leaving the clinic.

I by no means deliberate on going by means of with the operation. I’m right here to analyze the booming butt carry business, as growing numbers of younger British girls flock to Turkey to get the search for a aggressive worth.

Last 12 months, the nation was set to overhaul France because the second hottest European vacation vacation spot for Brits, because of an enormous surge in ‘beauty tourism’.

This prompted the UK Government to replace its journey recommendation, warning that it was conscious of greater than 25 British nationals who had died following visits to Turkey for medical procedures since January 2019.

Earlier this month a British mother-of-three died after present process a butt carry op in Turkey.

Demi Agoglia, simply 26, turned sick hours earlier than she was resulting from return house to Salford following her process, which medical doctors had declared a hit. Her household mentioned that she collapsed whereas visiting the clinic for a check-up.

Ms Agoglia, who had given delivery to her son simply seven months earlier, was rushed into intensive care, however medical doctors had been unable to save lots of her.

Her heartbroken brother Carl, 37, has now warned anybody pondering of going to Turkey for surgical procedure to not ponder it. ‘Don’t do it!’ he wrote on-line. ‘It is tragic what occurred. We are simply in shock.’

A butt carry operation entails utilizing liposuction to take away undesirable fats from areas of the physique, such because the waist, abdomen, again and thighs.

Once collected, the fats is purified and injected to create a fuller-looking backside utilizing your individual tissues somewhat than implants.

Implants may also be used for sufferers who haven’t got sufficient fats to realize this – or who need an excellent greater behind. The fats has a greater likelihood of staying within the supposed spot whether it is injected into muscle – however that is the place the deadly danger lies.

If injected incorrectly into the muscle, critical issues can come up. Patients run the danger of struggling a fats embolism, when a few of the fats enters the bloodstream and blocks a blood vessel. If the blockage happens within the lungs, oxygen is prevented from getting into the bloodstream. If it occurs within the mind, it may well trigger a stroke.

Butt carry operations have the very best danger of loss of life out of all beauty surgical procedures. The process – which prices £10,000 within the UK – has a loss of life fee of a couple of per 6,000 surgical procedures.

Melissa Kerr, 31, from Gorleston in Norfolk, travelled to the Medicana Haznedar Hospital in Istanbul for a butt carry in 2019.

She died on the hospital on the day of the surgical procedure, after injected fats entered a vein and blocked her pulmonary artery.

Then there are different problems. Women might be left with scarring, deformities and critical pores and skin infections.

The NHS advises individuals to have two consultations with the surgeon treating you earlier than any surgical procedure, as this offers you a cooling-off interval, which is generally two weeks within the UK.

According to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS), the variety of these requiring hospital therapies within the UK after beauty surgical procedure overseas has shot up 94 per cent in three years – from 57 in 2020 to 111 in 2022. Procedures in Turkey accounted for greater than three quarters of those.

Dr Paul Banwell, a Harley Street plastic surgeon, says: ‘While there are lots of good surgeons overseas, there are some solely within the quantity of sufferers and other people will solely meet their marketing consultant for the surgical procedure itself. In the UK, there can be earlier than and after appointments and plenty of follow-ups.

‘I do know that lots of people are tempted to go overseas for cosmetic surgery as a result of it could be cheaper. However, I might urge anybody who’s contemplating this to please train warning.’ Yet some girls suppose it is definitely worth the danger. Klaudia, a 29-year-old admin employee from Essex, has had no fewer than 4 butt lifts.

On Instagram, she proudly exhibits off the physique she has paid for, with vast hips, a big bum and an impossibly small waist. Her foremost affect was – who else? – Kim Kardashian.

‘She’s nearly the right girl,’ she tells the MoS. ‘That’s what I needed to appear to be.’

Klaudia’s determine actually attracts consideration. She has caught individuals in public taking footage of her backside, even making enjoyable of her. But she insists she would not care.

‘I simply ignore it. Do what makes you content in life. Don’t do it for different individuals.’

Instagram appears to play a big function within the butt carry pattern, in additional methods than one. Turkish clinics – there are too many to depend – promote to potential shoppers on social media.

I contacted at the least a dozen clinics, and inside an hour had obtained a message from all of them through messaging service WhatsApp.

Typically, you might be requested to ship pictures of the physique half in query, and are requested cursory particulars about your medical historical past.

One clinic, Medaway, quoted me £2,030 for a butt carry, which was a 30 per cent low cost – however provided that I paid that quantity inside 15 days. The bundle included the same old airport transfers and lodging, in addition to a private translator, follow-up assessments, medicines, pre- and post-surgical nutritionists and a post-op check-up.

On Medaway’s web site it says: ‘All packages include a FREE session at our London clinic or through video name when you choose.’ I wasn’t provided one, although. I needed to ask for a session myself, which got here at a worth of £100 in Istanbul.

If you go forward with the operation, it lasts about three hours and requires a basic anaesthetic. For six weeks afterwards, sufferers should put on a compression garment and keep away from mendacity or sitting on their backside as a lot as doable.

Most surgeons think about an injection of 300ml of fats to be a secure quantity. However, many surgeons inject extra, conscious that not all the fats will keep the place it ought to and that some will disintegrate.

Dr Yildiz at Vanity tells me he can inject about 500-600ml into my backside. He insists I will not be left with scars, or they are going to be so tiny they’ll fade in a couple of months.

He didn’t reply once I later known as to query the therapy.

Dr Aamer Khan from the Harley Street Skin Clinic in London, nevertheless, says that scarring can take wherever from six months to 2 years to fade.

Across city, I head to a clinic within the Levent neighbourhood, some of the costly districts within the European aspect of the town. ‘This space is the Harley Street of Istanbul,’ beauty surgeon Dr Resat Altug Aktas tells me, once I see him for a session. I ask what number of butt lifts he is accomplished. ‘After 13 years I finished counting.’

Bald and bespectacled, he initially comes throughout as heat and approachable. And after a fast examination of my physique, he agrees that I’m appropriate for a butt carry.

He may give me a flatter abdomen and make my hips rounder. When I ask if I can get a extremely large backside, he replies: ‘In my opinion, a really large butt is just not as enticing. I do not do large butts. I’ve colleagues who try this. But not me.’

He quotes £3,400, with £600 additional for lodge lodging, in addition to printing out a consent kind so I can learn concerning the doable unintended effects. I ask him if I can give it some thought and he says there isn’t any stress. But I can get surgical procedure as early as February.

Husband and spouse Gizem and Orhan Ayan, who run a cosmetic surgery brokerage agency in Antalya, take care of French shoppers coming to Turkey for surgical procedure.

When I inform them I can guide a process after one session they sound shocked. They advocate having three to 4 consultations beforehand. ‘It’s a really crucial topic. It entails your well being on the finish of the day,’ says Gizem. ‘It’s not a vacation.’

Orhan provides: ‘For us, it isn’t about making plenty of cash. Of course, there isn’t any such factor as zero danger in something. But we need to cut back it as a lot as doable.’

I’m going again to Dr Aktas and ask him if it is regular to have only one session.

The tone of his e mail in response is much less pleasant than he initially appeared. He says that he solely informed me I used to be ‘appropriate for surgical procedure’ due to my present medical historical past and basic well being.

He provides: ‘However, if there’s a drawback in your blood assessments or different assessments to be carried out within the hospital, it’s not doable to have this surgical procedure.’

But some medical doctors, as in Klaudia’s case, do not supply a session in any respect. Before she had her first operation 5 years in the past, she solely despatched footage of her physique and so they booked her in for surgical procedure – costing £9,000. Though she was proud of the outcome, the surgeon provided her a free operation in a 12 months’s time if she promoted his clinic on social media. The second operation was one thing she in the end regretted. ‘I used to be utterly deformed. My bum was droopy and I used to be left with scars.’

Her surgeon initially insisted that it was simply post-procedure swelling and would repair itself. But when it did not, and he or she complained once more, he turned aggressive. ‘This is your bum, that is what you appear to be!’ Klaudia recollects him saying.

Left feeling depressed, Klaudia needed to wait almost two years to pay for it to be mounted. This time, she went to a surgeon really helpful by a buddy who had had a butt carry operation in Turkey.

She was a lot happier with this surgeon, who largely did corrective work, but additionally eliminated extra fats from her abdomen and the aspect of her waist. She determined to have a fourth operation after gaining weight and feeling unhappy with the way in which she regarded. So she went again to the identical surgeon in Turkey who gave her ‘extra hips and extra fats on the prime [of my bum]’. Now, she’s thrilled along with her new physique.

Eileen, a 29-year-old occasions coordinator from London, has additionally had two butt carry operations in Turkey – the primary in 2019 and one other in 2021 to get a ‘extra snatched waist’.

Initially, the process gave her a lift of confidence. However, it has affected her relationships with males. ‘They simply have a look at your physique, not at how good an individual you might be,’ she informed the MoS. ‘They have a look at you want they need to unwrap you.’

As Klaudia and Eileen’s instances present, surgical procedure can usually be addictive, with sufferers hardly ever stopping at one operation.

‘People lose perspective of what they appear to be or ought to appear to be,’ says Harley Street’s Dr Khan. ‘If anyone coming to us requests a butt carry we are going to get them psychologically examined first and get them some counselling.’

After seeing these surgeons, I catch myself analyzing my physique greater than earlier than, to see what I can enhance. I attempt to snap out of it. With the proper workout routines and weight loss program, I can enhance my well being naturally and safely. But it isn’t as simple for weak younger girls who’ve psychological well being points and physique dysmorphia.

And some, like poor Demi Agoglia and Melissa Kerr, have paid for his or her insecurities with their lives.