Why the NHS should have paid for my saggy skin surgery rather than forcing me ... trends now
Hannah Thompson has a single word for what it took to get her size 10 physique: 'Hell'.
It was not the weight loss itself, though — because Hannah, 31, a beautician from Liverpool, had bariatric surgery on the NHS which was rapidly effective.
However, her weight loss left her with 'large' amounts of saggy, irritated, excess skin.
'My stomach sagged, my breasts were empty pockets that hung to my stomach and my arms had bingo wings,' she says. 'I had flaps of excess skin all over.'
Hannah Thompson had bariatric surgery on the NHS but her weight loss left her with 'large' amounts of saggy, irritated, excess skin
But Hannah found herself unable to get the surgery needed to remove the excess skin on the NHS.
'I was told it was "cosmetic" and they wouldn't help me,' she says.
After the pregnancy with her youngest child made the loose skin even worse, she ended up paying thousands of pounds to go to Turkey to have the surgery there.
It was a decision she now bitterly regrets. Not only did she wake from her 11-hour operation in unbearable pain, Hannah says she has 'permanent nerve damage in both arms'.
'I have pain down my arms like I'm being stabbed, and bad pins and needles constantly. I cannot even lift my arms to certain positions,' says Hannah, whose children are now aged 12, six and four.
Experts say they are seeing increasing numbers of cases like Hannah's, and are warning people who are considering weight-loss surgery to be aware of the potential downsides.
Around 70 per cent of patients who have bariatric procedures will need to undergo 'body contouring' surgery afterwards (i.e. removal of excess skin), says Mark Soldin, a plastic surgeon at St George's Hospital, South-West London, and previously chair of the body contouring committee at the British Association of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons.
A high percentage of these patients will develop complications, he warns. While most of these will resolve, he says, there are also stories such as Hannah's.
The mother-of-three had no idea what lay ahead before her bariatric surgery in 2016.
She'd gained weight after the birth of her first child, James, going from a size 14 to a size 28. At one point her weight reached 21st 7lb. At 5ft 4in, her BMI was above 51 and she was classed as 'morbidly obese'.
The beautician, pictured before her bariatric procedure, was unable to get the surgery needed to remove the excess skin on the NHS and paid thousands of pounds for treatment in Turkey
Dieting didn't work, and eventually she asked her doctor about having weight-loss surgery. At the age of 24, she underwent a gastric bypass — where a pouch is created at the top of the stomach, then connected to the small intestine to bypass the stomach.
'When I came to, I felt relief that at last I'd start losing weight,' says Hannah. 'I was warned about excess skin, but as I was young I thought it wouldn't be that bad.'
Hannah found 'the weight fell off' — indeed, she lost 12st in less than two years. But losing weight so quickly came at a price.
'I had lots of excess skin,' she says. 'I tried to hide it by wearing tight clothes. But the minute I took my clothes off, my skin would hang in flaps around my body. I felt awful.'
Excess skin is a common side-effect of substantial weight loss, as the once-stretched skin becomes 'deflated'.
A number of factors can contribute to this, explains Mr Soldin, including genes, age (younger skin is more elastic) and speed of weight loss (the skin is more likely to cope if weight loss is more
