Aussie woman's $100,000 medical nightmare as alarming travel trend booms
Kim Edwards, 45, claims much of Turkey's cosmetic surgery industry is 'fraudulent' after her horrific experience which saw her 'rotting' teeth fall out.
A woman is urging others to avoid going to Turkey to get popular cosmetic procedures after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars there, only to rush home and need emergency assistance after her "teeth fell out".
Sydney woman Kim Edwards, 45, had done extensive research on available treatment in Turkey, a country well known for its established cosmetic surgery industry, before flying out last year. She paid a large sum to get dental veneers, a facelift and other minor treatments but quickly realised the results weren't what she had hoped or paid for.
"I ended up with bridges which you can't clean and when I got back they were infected," the woman from Sutherland Shire told Yahoo News. "It was about a month after I returned that I was like, this isn't right. Things take time to settle and heal but they hadn't even touched my nose and my teeth, this is gross, but I could smell them rotting."
Woman was eating lunch when 'full block of teeth' fell out
After reaching out to the medical team in Turkey for assistance, she claims they told her "nothing was wrong" with the cosmetic work they had performed and instead simply "wiped their hands" of her. Edwards attempted to persevere with daily life until she was eating a meal one day.
"That's when I was eating lunch and a full block of my teeth fell out. I was so shocked because I had not seen underneath my teeth, how damaged and shaved back they were," she said.
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Aussie dentist confirmed teeth were 'massacred'
Due to the damage, Edwards had to go to specialist clinic Dental Boutique Sydney where the doctors told her that her teeth had been "massacred".
"When we took off the bridges, we saw that the teeth underneath had been massacred. They had removed so much natural tooth structure. In Australia, we would never do that type of procedure," Principal Dentist Dr Ben Hargreave said.
Edwards had no other choice but to spend more money to get the issue fixed, confirming to Yahoo News she's easily spent upwards of $100,000 on her teeth alone and feels cheated — initially paying well above the cheap "Turkey standards" of treatment price in the hope of avoiding this very fate.
"I wanted to pay more to make sure I was getting the best treatment. I didn't want to go to a backyard butcher," she said.
Trend of 'irreversible damage' from dental work overseas
The cosmetic surgery industry in Turkey has been booming in recent years as tourists from all over the world travel there to receive treatment at affordable prices. Hargreave said there has been a surge in the number of Aussies going overseas to get cosmetic surgery, only to come home with their mouth in a much worse state.
"We're seeing an alarming trend of Australians having extensive, unnecessary crown work done overseas. This often results in irreversible damage to healthy teeth and gums," he said. "We urge Australians to prioritise their long-term oral health over short-term savings. What seems cheaper initially often results in extensive, costly repairs back home. We strongly advise against overseas dental tourism."
Despite admitting her teeth are now in a condition she is pleased with, which took an entire year to repair, Edwards wants others to learn from her mistake, calling out the industry as a "fraudulent black market".
"I was just so naive about the whole situation. Stay in your country and get it done where you can have a follow-up, where people are held accountable for what they've done because when you're overseas and people are home, they wash their hands [of it]," she said.
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