Mum ‘fortunate to be alive’ after botched Turkey beauty surgical procedure triggered organ failure nightmare

Aimee Carr said the “horrific” pain felt “worse than childbirth” after paying £3,000 for a breast uplift and implants

A mum was told by intensive care unit nurses that she is ‘lucky to be alive’ after a botched cosmetic surgery operation in Turkey left her fighting a life-threatening illness. Makeup artist Aimee Carr from Manchester endured “horrific” pain that she says felt ‘worse than childbirth’ after spending £3,000 on a breast uplift and implants in July.

After having three children, the 29-year-old wanted to “treat” herself to the surgery to regain her confidence. Speaking on today’s (September 22) episode of Good Morning Britain, Aimee said that as soon as she woke up from the surgery, she experienced awful pain.

Aimee said she researched for over a year and spoke to more than 40 clinics before making her decision. “I actually changed my mind a couple of times,” she said. “And then I settled on the one that I settled on just because there was a lot of UK aftercare, apparently.”

She also claimed the surgeon was highly well-known. Susanna said: “And much cheaper than having it done in Britain?” In the UK, a combined breast uplift and implants procedure, known medically as an augmented mastopexy, typically costs between £7,500 and £13,000.

Aimee replied: “Yeah, and that was obviously another factor because I don’t really like spending money on myself, so I prefer spending on my kids. So, I was like, ‘Well, this is one treat to myself’. It was three times the cost in the UK. And, I’d seen some surgeries from Turkey that had been amazing. I’d seen surgeries from the UK that hadn’t been so good.”

Susanna asked: “You realised something was wrong very quickly after you woke up from the anaesthesia, didn’t you? What happened?”

Aimee explained: “Well, I was getting really bad pain, mainly. And I was like, ‘Well, I’ve just had a painful operation. Maybe it was just more painful than I imagined.’

“It was more day one post-op, like the day after when I’d gone back to the hotel, it was sort of increasing, and I started feeling really unwell, and I was getting a fever and feeling really dizzy and sick and stuff. But the pain was more of a thing because it was increasing, increasing, increasing. It got to the point where I thought it’s worse than childbirth, like this is horrific pain.”

Recalling just how bad it was for her, Aimee said: “I couldn’t stand up, I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t do anything for myself – even opening toothpaste was hard for me, it was really bad. I thought, ‘Surely people wouldn’t get this surgery so often if it was this bad?'”

Aimee described the sensation under her skin felt like a crackling and even likened it to “bubble wrap”. She said: “When I was pressing my skin, I could feel it and you could hear it.”

Susanna explained how, at one point, Aimee thought she was going blind and at another point, woke up in a pool of blood. While at the hospital, Aimee said she lost her vision temporarily, collapsed, and woke up in a puddle of her own blood.

Susanna added: “In fact, we’re told when you eventually called 111 and were told go into hospital here back in the UK, that you had contracted sepsis and your organs were in the process of potentially shutting down.”

Sepsis is a life-threatening medical emergency that can quickly cause organ failure if it is not treated right away. Sepsis happens when your immune system overreacts to an infection, causing widespread inflammation throughout the body.

Aimee said: “Yeah, so when I came back to the UK, obviously I was in extreme amounts of pain and I knew something was wrong but I just really didn’t want to use the NHS because it was something that I’d done abroad for one and it was elective. So, I just though I’m gonna just have to deal with this myself.”

Aimee admitted that it took her a couple of days before she actually decided that wasn’t really wasn’t right and how “something’s really not right”. Aimee said: “I was told by an ICU nurse that I’m lucky to have made the flight home and even alive.”

Susanna asked: “Are you well now?” Aimee said: “No, not fully. I’m much, much better. I’m still suffering the side effects. You can get, with sepsis, a thing called post-sepsis syndrome.”

What is post-sepsis syndrome?

According to Sepsis Alliance, post-sepsis syndrome (PSS) is a condition that affects up to 50% of sepsis survivors. It can affect sepsis survivors of any age, including children. Physical symptoms include:

• Difficulty sleeping, either difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep
• Fatigue, lethargy
• Shortness of breath, difficulty breathing
• Disabling muscle or joint pain
• Swelling in the limbs
• Repeat infections, particularly in the first few weeks and months following the initial bout of sepsis
• Poor appetite
• Reduced organ function, eg. kidney, liver, heart
• Hair loss
• Skin rash

Psychological or emotional symptoms include:

• Hallucinations
• Panic attacks
• Flashbacks
• Nightmares
• Decreased cognitive (mental) functioning
• Loss of self-esteem
• Depression
• Mood swings
• Difficulty concentrating
• Memory loss
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)