A daycare worker has issued a stark warning to those considering breast surgery, after an operation to “enhance” her breast resulted in a fatal infection that caused blood to “spurt” from her breasts and left her disfigured beyond belief. for life.
Paige Harvey, 21, had long been “desperate” to reduce her double-K cup size due to crippling back pain and unwanted attention from strangers.
She said a breast reduction would stop her size 8 from looking “ridiculous” and help her pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a paramedic, which involves physical work that could be hampered by chronic back pain.
However, hours after the operation her wounds opened, leaving her “in a pile of my own blood.” Despite this, she was discharged by the private clinic which had charged her £8,000 for the procedure.
Paige Harvey described her size K breast as “ridiculous” and hoped a surgical reduction would improve her quality of life.
She developed an infection that caused her breast tissue to “eat itself” and rot, leaving her with permanent scars and an unsightly lump protruding from her armpit.
“Three years later and I still have to go to the hospital,” Mrs Harvey said.
‘Now I have a golf ball-sized swelling in my armpit and the doctors don’t know what it is: it’s hanging from my bra in a bulge.
“I paid to get down to a D cup, but now I’m an H cup, so the surgery was a waste of money.”
Harvey says her naturally large chest has been a handicap for a long time.
‘I would have to wear a size 14-16 top even though I was a size 8. I was quite small, but I had a huge chest.
‘A bra would cost £60 because I had to make it specially. I had a 30 inch back but my chest was absolutely huge, I looked ridiculous.
“They were heavy, my back hurt and my skin ripped underneath (them).”
Ms Harvey claims she suffered open wounds that shed blood when she returned home from hospital.
The teenager suffered fat necrosis, when the oxygen supply to fat cells is cut off, causing the tissue to die.
The attention her bust attracted was “the wrong kind.” “I didn’t want to wear granny sweaters to a night out, but I had to because there would be comments.”
Ms. Harvey did her research and settled into a private clinic, where she signed up for surgery on October 7, 2021.
But shortly after completing the operation, he began to notice some red flags.
‘Approximately two hours after surgery I was discharged. They called my mother to come get me, but I was high as a kite.
‘I first realized something was wrong halfway home from the clinic after surgery.
‘My mom started crying, I asked her what was happening (I looked down) and she was in a pile of my own blood. There was blood dripping through my clothes.
Ms Harvey’s mother called the clinic to express her concern, but was told they had to return home.
‘My whole chest was black and blue from all the bruising and the bottom was quite red. Half my nipple was gone due to the infection,” said Mrs Harvey.
The trainee paramedic was left with a lump under her armpit as a result of damage to fat cells within her breast.
After a follow-up appointment at the clinic a week later, where the staff changed his bandages and said everything was fine, he began to feel unwell.
He checked his wounds and found that they were oozing and bruised, so he asked the doctors for antibiotics to combat the infection.
However, the medications had no effect and the infection continued to “devastate” both breasts, “eating away” the tissue.
“I was getting sicker and sicker every two weeks,” he said. ‘I had a temperature, I was sleeping 16 hours a day and at one point the doctors thought I was about to go septic.
‘My whole chest was black and blue from all the bruising and the bottom was quite red. Half of my nipple is gone due to the infection.’
Mrs Harvey said her concerns were “not taken seriously”.
“They kept telling me I was fine. One of the times I started crying and the nurse said, “I think you feel a little sorry for yourself.”
Ms Harvey asked to reduce her cup size from a K to a D, but complications from the operation meant she was left with H-sized breasts.
‘I came back again (because of the infection) and they asked me if I had my hands, implying that it was my fault I had an infection.’
After 30 boxes of antibiotics over the course of a year and changing her bandages weekly, Mrs. Harvey still felt like her body had been “butchered.”
Six months after surgery, she discovered a hard lump the size of a golf ball in her left breast and was referred to Borders General Hospital in Melrose, Scotland, where it was discovered she had fat necrosis.
Fat necrosis is a noncancerous lump in the breast that develops from dead or damaged breast tissue.
Ms Harvey said: “It’s smaller now, but three years later if I wore a top without a bra you could see the grape-sized bulge through my clothes.”
Now, her breasts have healed but are “lumpy” due to keloid scars and she still suffers from swelling under her armpits.
Mrs Harvey believes she was treated “disgustingly” by clinic staff. She said: “I was very sick and they insulted me all the time.”
Three years on, she has pleaded with those considering breast reduction surgery to push for NHS treatment if possible.
“If you can get it on the NHS, do it because you know you will be looked after,” she said. ‘Companies just want the money. In my case, anyway, that’s how it was.
