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*Treatment results may vary
Round 1 was a success before and after pics
Looking back at these pictures from 2 years ago I can see that my skin was perfect. Even though I was unhappy with the final 1st round results, I'm now battling with scars and disfiguration from a second round BBL in the Dominican Republic. I went to the best BBL doctor in the US for the 1st round and I was better off keeping my slightly asymmetrical/ subtle butt enhancement results versus trying to fix my hips and getting botched in the DR. I thought that I was in good hands with the doc in the DR and she was also reputable and highly acclaimed but CIPLA ( the hospital facility that she operates out of) has faulty and dated equipment. I was told by her staff that the reason the results from the same Dominican doctor vary so much is due to the messed up equipment in certain surgery rooms within the hospital. Depending on the room that the doc is assigned for the day, the results will be negatively impacted by damaged equipment. I also think my doc has a few assistants that do the actual work for her ( there is no way you can perform a two-hour surgery on 8 girls a day) and her assistants do not have the same skill level. It's been a nightmare- and I'm lucky to be alive :( Ill post before and after pics of my 2nd round BBL in the DR that included chin & arm lipo which left me disfigured. These are pictures of the good results from the 1st round.
Hi ladies, I am going to share my BBL journey,...
Hi ladies,
I am going to share my BBL journey, expose how I was botched and how my road to recovery has been in order to inform you on the risks, educate you on how to prevent these risks and possibly save your life. I had a first round BBL in Florida and It went really well. I read, researched and followed my doctor’s instructions on pre- and post-recovery. The secret to post BBL recovery to retain transferred fat cells is Chlorophyll drops- you can find them at any health food store for $10 or less. They oxygenate the blood and that is what the fat cells need to survive. I am a healthy, non-smoker, with no blood related or health related issues. My complications in the 2nd round were due to medical malpractice and you should know the warning signs/ things to look for to prevent this from happening to you.
1st round Pros:
• Tummy was smooth ( no lumps, looked perfect)
• Butt looked natural
• No complications
• Had lymph drainage massage 3Xs a week
• Recovered in 6-8 weeks
1st round Cons:
• I didn't get enough CCs of fat transferred because I asked the doctor to make me look natural
• I didn’t get my upper back/bra line lipo'd (essential for apple shapes & those that gain weight in their upper body)
• I tried to make my butt bigger through gaining weight- bad idea
• My skin on butt was darker & butt was hard (I had a small tight butt before so the fat didn’t soften for a long time)
• My butt & hips were uneven- genetically my butt was this way before surgery & doc tried to make it more symmetrical but one hip collapsed in the healing process and the fat cells did not live. Over time it became more noticeable.
First Round Gripes: The issue after a BBL is the post-operation weight gain. You spend the first two months in pain and restricting your movement in order to recover and protect transferred fat. If you are not careful then you will gain weight-fast. Especially since you probably were eating like crazy to gain weight before the BBL SX so that you can transfer more fat- old habits die hard! After surgery, the weight you gain will occur in areas that weren’t lipo’d (due to scar tissue that forms where the doctor used the cannula to suck the fat out). It’s hard for fat to grow where scar tissue is but it can happen. If they leave too much fat it creates lumps- if they take too much fat- it creates lumps. That’s why plastic surgery is just as much of an art as it is a science. I tried exercising to get rid of the stubborn back and re-grown belly fat but that only made me loose fat all over- especially in my butt. That is when I decided to get a 2nd round. My goal was to even my hips, remove back fat and double chin (remember that I mentioned that weight gain will accumulate fat in odd places after lipo). I waited a year between rounds to make sure that I didn’t damage the transferred fat cells (too many CCS in one round and/ or a premature 2nd round can crush the transferred fat cells and result in fat necrosis which looks like lumpy and hard tumors in your butt- no thanks.
Second Round in Dominican Republic Experience: The second round I had surgery in the Dominican Republic. I tried to go back to my original BBL doctor in Florida. Although he is world renown- he claims that he doesn’t specialize in hips and that it what I wanted evened out. Despite that, I still booked with him and when he didn’t have the dates I wanted, I researched Dominican Republic doctors that were world renown as well. They weren’t much cheaper since a 2nd round with my original doc was the price of a 1st round in the DR with a new doc ( they don’t honor 2nd round prices with new patients). They had the dates that I wanted so I booked and caught a flight a few weeks later. I had to carry thousands of dollars’ worth of cash for the remaining cost (minus the deposit) and I didn’t arrive with a buddy or SX sister. Just me. I was assigned to a recovery house- it was dingy in décor, poorly lit, and the food was meh but it was clean and the nurses tried their best to care of the girls. Some spoke English but most didn’t- this was critical for my complications as they were unaware of how to help me and the doctor was too busy ignoring me post-surgery to help. Once she realized the severity of my situation she tried to cover it up. But I’ll get into that later.
Day of surgery, I had a bad feeling. Cipla- the hospital was nasty, looked dated and old. Despite that- the place was booming. Looked like a slaughter house for cattle. So many girls were there that they didn’t have enough seats for them in the waiting areas. The doctors that collected my vitals to clear me for surgery were beautiful and glamorous. I kept telling myself celebrities and famous IG models have come here to look amazing so it must be a safe place for surgery. Morning of surgery, there were 8 girls scheduled for BBLs that day. I was wondering how one doctor could treat 8 girls in one day since the BBL surgery takes approximately 2 hours ( per person) to complete. The doctor came in to asses me and she looked distracted and distant. She rushed through the consultation, marked me up based on what I requested (with the help her translator since she doesn’t speak English) and left the room. The whole consultation process was less than 5 minutes. My first doc took at least 20 mins talking to me. I was not comfortable with the rushed pre-operation consultation and said a quiet prayer in hopes that I could trust her. I told myself that she was a professional that did thousands of SXs- so things should go well… even writing that last line feels like the precursor to a horror story and it was.
I woke up post-SX and the aide ( a young Dominican girl) that I paid to stay at the hospital with me helped me order juice and pain medication through my IV, kept me company and even helped me use the bathroom- God bless that sweet girl. My friend in the USA Whatsapp called me (a free international calling app) to check on me and she expressed her concerns about CIPLA as a hospital. She googled it and cases multiple of death and medical malpractice popped up and freaked her out. I ignored her concerns since I was already there and already had the SX and I thought she was just being negative. The doctor came by in the morning to let me know that I ALMOST DIED ON THE OPERATING TABLE- I literally lost so much blood that I needed TWO BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS to live. She couldn’t explain why. All the blood remaining in my body was going to my head and heart. I was worried about blood transmitted diseases and they assured me that the blood was tested at the harvesting time and again before transfusion. My body took well to the transfusion. The following day, my skin in my abdomen and back turned purple then black. I tried to reach the surgeon (I was scheduled to be in DR for a week post-op) and she was unavailable. The nurses called and sent pictures to her via text and she informed me that I needed to go to an oxygen chamber and gave me a prescription for a random gel (Venosimil) that was supposed to help. Honey- let me tell you, this oxygen chamber was a scam. They charged $100 US per treatment and they didn’t even use pure oxygen in the tank which would have saved my skin. Thank God they didn’t though – Pure oxygen chambers are designed to help repair the body and accelerate healing through oxygenating the body to regenerate skin tissue, muscles, circulate blood and repair arteries. If there was 100% oxygen in these chambers ( as advertised) then it would have been highly combustible. Body lotion, plastic or any metal can cause you to catch on fire in the chamber. And since these machines create a pressurized atmosphere in the tank (equivalent to being 50 ft below sea level to help accelerate the effects), if you catch fire they can’t just open the tank immediately to save you- otherwise you will die. That is similar to being under water as a deep sea divier and rushing to the top of the water after being submerged under 50ft? Google this –its fatal. These dummies allowed me in there with jewelry and arnica lotion- oh gawd…
Since it wasn’t real oxygen it didn’t help. I went for my follow-up apt with the doc assistant 3 days post SX and my condition was worse. I didn’t know then that I had full tissue necrosis- my skin died all the way to the muscle which is a rare side- effect of lipo. My injuries were caused by over-aggressive lipo (the whittled tiny waist look that is coveted) that cut off the arteries and capillaries in my abdomen & back so my arteries were unable to deliver blood to my skin & muscle tissue (so it died). The last day I was supposed to be in DR-I finally had the chance to see the doctor. She didn’t inform me of the details of my condition but mentioned (in Spanish through her translator) that my situation was more severe than she thought. She poked me with a needle in the blackened areas of the skin and no blood came out. That’s when she knew it was severe and started crying. She refused to let me go back home to the states that day. I worked in the medical industry at the time and contacted my physician friends and sent pictures. They immediately diagnosed me and told me to get stateside ASAP! The Doctor in the DR wouldn’t clear me to fly home. She insisted that I should relocate to DR indefinitely so that she could treat me with the gel and fake oxygen. She said if I go back to the US they will “take away my skin”. In the wound care world- removing dead, blackened skin is called debridement and is required for wound healing. Dead skin prevents new tissue from forming and is also more susceptible to fatal infections. Given the large size of my wounds (spanning my entire trunk)- if they got infected I could have died. I begged her to let me leave since she was trying to hold me hostage. She even threatened to call the airlines to prevent them from allowing me to fly. I was SCARED. EXTREMELY TERRIFIED. I knew she did something wrong and she was trying to keep me there to cover it up. I eventually convinced her that I was flying home to my physician and I would be in good hands. I called a taxi (not the driver that the recovery house assigned me) and snuck off to the airport. I left my bags in the recovery house – I didn’t care about those belongings. I managed to catch an earlier flight the same day- it was a miserable long flight home but I made it back alive. I literally had to sneak out of the country in fear of my safety and health.
I spent the next 6 months of my life in a real an oxygen chamber ( 2 hours a day), and getting wound care from a US based hospital. I was out of work (I was on FMLA due to this medical condition) and so scared my wounds would get infected (become septic) that I would die. I had a full trunk circumferential tissue loss. I had to get skin grafts/ reconstructive surgeries for the following year- I’m still getting reconstructive surgeries to this day. From here on out I will detail my journey to recovery. I will post pics from 1st surgery, second surgery, the wound healing process, skin grafting SX, CO2ablative laser scar treatments, intralesional steroid scar treatment to flatten raised scars and the scar ointment and peels that I am currently using to heal the skin and fade the hyperpigmentation ( dark scars). The cost for recovery thus far exceeds 75K of treatment- my insurance covered some and the rest is out of pocket costs. This has greatly impacted my love life- I still wear a waist trainer 24/7 except when showering (wound pressure helps with raised scars and it covers my scars) and I won’t allow anyone to see me naked. I battle with depression (I am a natural optimist and pretty upbeat before this situation) but I’ve surprisingly stayed strong enough to get through recovery, start a new job and try to appreciate my life even more despite the fact that I’ve been disfigured. Arms look botched and lumpy, stomach and back is severely scarred and lumpy-especially can see the scar tissue when I raise my arms, and my chin looks as though there was no lipo (no noticeable difference from day one even after “swelling went down”). If any of these things have happened to you or someone that you know- you are not alone. If you know anyone who was botched and has full tissue skin necrosis- then send them to my page so that I can help them.
I am going to share my BBL journey, expose how I was botched and how my road to recovery has been in order to inform you on the risks, educate you on how to prevent these risks and possibly save your life. I had a first round BBL in Florida and It went really well. I read, researched and followed my doctor’s instructions on pre- and post-recovery. The secret to post BBL recovery to retain transferred fat cells is Chlorophyll drops- you can find them at any health food store for $10 or less. They oxygenate the blood and that is what the fat cells need to survive. I am a healthy, non-smoker, with no blood related or health related issues. My complications in the 2nd round were due to medical malpractice and you should know the warning signs/ things to look for to prevent this from happening to you.
1st round Pros:
• Tummy was smooth ( no lumps, looked perfect)
• Butt looked natural
• No complications
• Had lymph drainage massage 3Xs a week
• Recovered in 6-8 weeks
1st round Cons:
• I didn't get enough CCs of fat transferred because I asked the doctor to make me look natural
• I didn’t get my upper back/bra line lipo'd (essential for apple shapes & those that gain weight in their upper body)
• I tried to make my butt bigger through gaining weight- bad idea
• My skin on butt was darker & butt was hard (I had a small tight butt before so the fat didn’t soften for a long time)
• My butt & hips were uneven- genetically my butt was this way before surgery & doc tried to make it more symmetrical but one hip collapsed in the healing process and the fat cells did not live. Over time it became more noticeable.
First Round Gripes: The issue after a BBL is the post-operation weight gain. You spend the first two months in pain and restricting your movement in order to recover and protect transferred fat. If you are not careful then you will gain weight-fast. Especially since you probably were eating like crazy to gain weight before the BBL SX so that you can transfer more fat- old habits die hard! After surgery, the weight you gain will occur in areas that weren’t lipo’d (due to scar tissue that forms where the doctor used the cannula to suck the fat out). It’s hard for fat to grow where scar tissue is but it can happen. If they leave too much fat it creates lumps- if they take too much fat- it creates lumps. That’s why plastic surgery is just as much of an art as it is a science. I tried exercising to get rid of the stubborn back and re-grown belly fat but that only made me loose fat all over- especially in my butt. That is when I decided to get a 2nd round. My goal was to even my hips, remove back fat and double chin (remember that I mentioned that weight gain will accumulate fat in odd places after lipo). I waited a year between rounds to make sure that I didn’t damage the transferred fat cells (too many CCS in one round and/ or a premature 2nd round can crush the transferred fat cells and result in fat necrosis which looks like lumpy and hard tumors in your butt- no thanks.
Second Round in Dominican Republic Experience: The second round I had surgery in the Dominican Republic. I tried to go back to my original BBL doctor in Florida. Although he is world renown- he claims that he doesn’t specialize in hips and that it what I wanted evened out. Despite that, I still booked with him and when he didn’t have the dates I wanted, I researched Dominican Republic doctors that were world renown as well. They weren’t much cheaper since a 2nd round with my original doc was the price of a 1st round in the DR with a new doc ( they don’t honor 2nd round prices with new patients). They had the dates that I wanted so I booked and caught a flight a few weeks later. I had to carry thousands of dollars’ worth of cash for the remaining cost (minus the deposit) and I didn’t arrive with a buddy or SX sister. Just me. I was assigned to a recovery house- it was dingy in décor, poorly lit, and the food was meh but it was clean and the nurses tried their best to care of the girls. Some spoke English but most didn’t- this was critical for my complications as they were unaware of how to help me and the doctor was too busy ignoring me post-surgery to help. Once she realized the severity of my situation she tried to cover it up. But I’ll get into that later.
Day of surgery, I had a bad feeling. Cipla- the hospital was nasty, looked dated and old. Despite that- the place was booming. Looked like a slaughter house for cattle. So many girls were there that they didn’t have enough seats for them in the waiting areas. The doctors that collected my vitals to clear me for surgery were beautiful and glamorous. I kept telling myself celebrities and famous IG models have come here to look amazing so it must be a safe place for surgery. Morning of surgery, there were 8 girls scheduled for BBLs that day. I was wondering how one doctor could treat 8 girls in one day since the BBL surgery takes approximately 2 hours ( per person) to complete. The doctor came in to asses me and she looked distracted and distant. She rushed through the consultation, marked me up based on what I requested (with the help her translator since she doesn’t speak English) and left the room. The whole consultation process was less than 5 minutes. My first doc took at least 20 mins talking to me. I was not comfortable with the rushed pre-operation consultation and said a quiet prayer in hopes that I could trust her. I told myself that she was a professional that did thousands of SXs- so things should go well… even writing that last line feels like the precursor to a horror story and it was.
I woke up post-SX and the aide ( a young Dominican girl) that I paid to stay at the hospital with me helped me order juice and pain medication through my IV, kept me company and even helped me use the bathroom- God bless that sweet girl. My friend in the USA Whatsapp called me (a free international calling app) to check on me and she expressed her concerns about CIPLA as a hospital. She googled it and cases multiple of death and medical malpractice popped up and freaked her out. I ignored her concerns since I was already there and already had the SX and I thought she was just being negative. The doctor came by in the morning to let me know that I ALMOST DIED ON THE OPERATING TABLE- I literally lost so much blood that I needed TWO BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS to live. She couldn’t explain why. All the blood remaining in my body was going to my head and heart. I was worried about blood transmitted diseases and they assured me that the blood was tested at the harvesting time and again before transfusion. My body took well to the transfusion. The following day, my skin in my abdomen and back turned purple then black. I tried to reach the surgeon (I was scheduled to be in DR for a week post-op) and she was unavailable. The nurses called and sent pictures to her via text and she informed me that I needed to go to an oxygen chamber and gave me a prescription for a random gel (Venosimil) that was supposed to help. Honey- let me tell you, this oxygen chamber was a scam. They charged $100 US per treatment and they didn’t even use pure oxygen in the tank which would have saved my skin. Thank God they didn’t though – Pure oxygen chambers are designed to help repair the body and accelerate healing through oxygenating the body to regenerate skin tissue, muscles, circulate blood and repair arteries. If there was 100% oxygen in these chambers ( as advertised) then it would have been highly combustible. Body lotion, plastic or any metal can cause you to catch on fire in the chamber. And since these machines create a pressurized atmosphere in the tank (equivalent to being 50 ft below sea level to help accelerate the effects), if you catch fire they can’t just open the tank immediately to save you- otherwise you will die. That is similar to being under water as a deep sea divier and rushing to the top of the water after being submerged under 50ft? Google this –its fatal. These dummies allowed me in there with jewelry and arnica lotion- oh gawd…
Since it wasn’t real oxygen it didn’t help. I went for my follow-up apt with the doc assistant 3 days post SX and my condition was worse. I didn’t know then that I had full tissue necrosis- my skin died all the way to the muscle which is a rare side- effect of lipo. My injuries were caused by over-aggressive lipo (the whittled tiny waist look that is coveted) that cut off the arteries and capillaries in my abdomen & back so my arteries were unable to deliver blood to my skin & muscle tissue (so it died). The last day I was supposed to be in DR-I finally had the chance to see the doctor. She didn’t inform me of the details of my condition but mentioned (in Spanish through her translator) that my situation was more severe than she thought. She poked me with a needle in the blackened areas of the skin and no blood came out. That’s when she knew it was severe and started crying. She refused to let me go back home to the states that day. I worked in the medical industry at the time and contacted my physician friends and sent pictures. They immediately diagnosed me and told me to get stateside ASAP! The Doctor in the DR wouldn’t clear me to fly home. She insisted that I should relocate to DR indefinitely so that she could treat me with the gel and fake oxygen. She said if I go back to the US they will “take away my skin”. In the wound care world- removing dead, blackened skin is called debridement and is required for wound healing. Dead skin prevents new tissue from forming and is also more susceptible to fatal infections. Given the large size of my wounds (spanning my entire trunk)- if they got infected I could have died. I begged her to let me leave since she was trying to hold me hostage. She even threatened to call the airlines to prevent them from allowing me to fly. I was SCARED. EXTREMELY TERRIFIED. I knew she did something wrong and she was trying to keep me there to cover it up. I eventually convinced her that I was flying home to my physician and I would be in good hands. I called a taxi (not the driver that the recovery house assigned me) and snuck off to the airport. I left my bags in the recovery house – I didn’t care about those belongings. I managed to catch an earlier flight the same day- it was a miserable long flight home but I made it back alive. I literally had to sneak out of the country in fear of my safety and health.
I spent the next 6 months of my life in a real an oxygen chamber ( 2 hours a day), and getting wound care from a US based hospital. I was out of work (I was on FMLA due to this medical condition) and so scared my wounds would get infected (become septic) that I would die. I had a full trunk circumferential tissue loss. I had to get skin grafts/ reconstructive surgeries for the following year- I’m still getting reconstructive surgeries to this day. From here on out I will detail my journey to recovery. I will post pics from 1st surgery, second surgery, the wound healing process, skin grafting SX, CO2ablative laser scar treatments, intralesional steroid scar treatment to flatten raised scars and the scar ointment and peels that I am currently using to heal the skin and fade the hyperpigmentation ( dark scars). The cost for recovery thus far exceeds 75K of treatment- my insurance covered some and the rest is out of pocket costs. This has greatly impacted my love life- I still wear a waist trainer 24/7 except when showering (wound pressure helps with raised scars and it covers my scars) and I won’t allow anyone to see me naked. I battle with depression (I am a natural optimist and pretty upbeat before this situation) but I’ve surprisingly stayed strong enough to get through recovery, start a new job and try to appreciate my life even more despite the fact that I’ve been disfigured. Arms look botched and lumpy, stomach and back is severely scarred and lumpy-especially can see the scar tissue when I raise my arms, and my chin looks as though there was no lipo (no noticeable difference from day one even after “swelling went down”). If any of these things have happened to you or someone that you know- you are not alone. If you know anyone who was botched and has full tissue skin necrosis- then send them to my page so that I can help them.