So, Nelly, you've had this procedure, too.
I had my breast reduction about seven years ago,
and I was a HH cup.
Right, so you're quite a petite frame as well. Yeah.
So I felt like I was very out of proportion.
We actually have a picture of you. Oh, yeah.
It was before. Get ready for these.
They are very big. They are very big.
So when I found out what breast reduction surgery was, I booked
to see a surgeon that week and I had the surgery the week after.
So I really went in hard and fast.
That's very quickly, to go from consultation to surgery. Yeah.
What happened after your surgery?
So it was about four or five days after surgery,
I felt what I can describe as a ping under my left boob.
I wasn't supposed to, but I took off all the dressings
to have a look at what had happened,
and it looked like a stitch had popped and my breast was bulging
through this hole in the bottom of my boob.
We have a picture of that, too. You have that? We do.
That's flesh coming through.
Yeah, that is breast tissue under there.
And it was pushing and it was hurting, because you can see my skin
is trying to hold itself together but not quite winning the battle.
Yeah. That was terrifying.
What did you do then?
I shouted for my mum.
We called the surgeon straight away and he saw me, I think,
either that day or the day after.
And he said, "It's actually nothing to worry about."
It was quite a common thing to happen.
But then, I think it was only a day or two after that,
I started to feel these pings everywhere, at every corner and
every crease around my nipples, under my boobs, the sides
and the centres - just ping, ping, ping! -
almost all day, every day.
And that opening had happened everywhere.
Every single line and crease and where the skin
had been sewn back together. And so what did your surgeon do then?
He suspected that my body was rejecting the internal stitches.
So I was left with just open wounds over both breasts
and they were getting bigger every day.
We thought the best thing to do would be to remove
all these stitches and just start again, basically.
But he didn't want to operate again,
and he said the only thing he would really do for us was to let
them heal and it would take a while,
but that's when you can then look at scar revision,
because I was going to be left with really significant scars.
So I then spent the next eight months healing these open wounds.
I had to go to hospital three or four times a week to get
redressed, which was painful enough as it was.
So I spent a long time just trying to recover from what my body
had kind of done. So that was eight months. It's a long time.
And then came the scars. So the scars were much bigger than what
we'd seen there. Much bigger.
Much, much, much bigger. Yeah.
That's the scars, that's healed. Wow!
They really did get a lot bigger.
Yeah.
So, two or three years ago, I found a surgeon who would do scar revision
surgery, so that was two operations to cut out those scars.
And today, I'm still healing.
Still healing?
Yeah, I mean, my scars are still pretty significant.
But I've done what I can do now.
You just can't know how your body will heal.
It can react the way mine did,
or you could heal perfectly in a matter of weeks.
I just got really unlucky.
Have you got questions for Nelly?
Regardless of all that happening, are you more comfortable
with how your boobs are now or how they were before?
I'm happier now.
For me, the size they were before was really taking away
all quality of life.
I was just so cripplingly self-conscious.
Yeah. So, even though that's happened,
that's been my life for the past seven years... You don't regret it.
..I'm still happier now, yeah.
We've got a stat, actually, from the survey that's relevant to that.
So it was 62% of people surveyed felt that cosmetic surgery is fine
in principle but were worried that it could go wrong.
I mean, are the risks really that big?
I think you're very unlucky.
Yeah, that's very unusual for that to happen, actually.
I think, you know, another interesting statistic
for this particular operation is it has a very high satisfaction rate.
The important thing is to be well prepared for it.
And that's really where the consultations come in, when you go
to see the surgeon.
There's lots of really good guidance on websites such
as the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and
Aesthetic Surgeons, or the British Association of Aesthetic Surgeons.
They've all got guides on there about what the potential risks are,
what the aftercare is like, what your recovery
will be like. It's all there on the website.