- A mom of two who flew to Turkey for a cheap cosmetic procedure is warning about risks of medical tourism after she says she’s left with painful scars and eyes that won’t close
- Joanne Law, 56, returned to Turkey after a successful gastric sleeve surgery; however, the second procedure, a face list, left her with eyes that don’t close and painful scars
- Law says she wants to “scream to other girls and say don’t do it,” sharing that now she’s too self-conscious to leave the house
A mom of two underwent a facelift after a 100-lb. weight loss left her with “wrinkly” skin — but she’s now struggling with eyes that won’t fully close and painful scars from a clinic she now calls a “butcher’s shop.”
Joanne Law first flew to Turkey in February 2023 for gastric sleeve surgery, which she’d said was a success, helping her lose about 100 lbs.
Medical tourism to Turkey is booming, as people fly there seeking plastic surgery, hair implants and more — at a cheaper price tag than you’d find in Europe or stateside. So Law, 56, booked a return trip to the same clinic where she’d had her gastric sleeve surgery for a face, neck and eyelid lift, along with fat grafts, as she said the weight loss left her “wrinkly.” Law paid approximately $6,500 for the procedures; According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, a facelift alone can cost $11,000.
On this trip, however, Law said the clinic’s operating room was like something out of a “horror movie,” according to The Daily Mail.
“The procedure was around the back of the hospital in a basement. It frightened the hell out of me, it was awful,” says Law, who hails from the English city of Manchester. “There was an old-fashioned bed screen separator. Someone was being operated [on] on the other side.”
After the surgery, she says “there was no aftercare” — and recovery was “horrendous.”
“I’m really deflated because my sleeve was such a success I thought I was going to look like something straight out of a Snapchat filter,” Law says. Instead, she says her eyes don’t fully close, and she’s left with painful scars behind her ears.
“When it’s windy out I just can’t see, my eyes fill with tears,” Law explains. “My eyes are so dry so they need to tear up to be protected from the elements. When I get tired, the bottom of my eye droops. You can see one of my eyeballs more than the other.”
The scars, she says, are “still painful” and look “like a five-year-old’s done it.”
“One side of my scars is different from the other, as if two different people were stitching me up for quickness.”
The clinic told her the scarring was normal, she said, and advised her to wait 12 months for them to heal; now she says they stopped replying to her emails.
“The fat graft made me look like a cartoon character, it’s changed how I look. It just made my face flat and weird,” says Law, who won’t leave home without makeup on. ‘I don’t like going out of the house.”
She says she’s sharing her story to warn others about the lure of cheap overseas procedures, saying, “I’ve been so frustrated, I want to scream to other girls and say don’t do it.”
“That hospital is a butcher’s shop.”
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