Sometimes doctors are forced to employ extreme measures to save a patient's life: measures that we might turn our nose up at if we weren't in pain or close to death. Indeed, some of their methods can be frankly stomach-turning. Just think of doctors who use maggots to chew their way through rotting and necrotic tissue for example. But recently a mother-of-two and make-up reviewer was forced to utilise a host of blood-sucking leeches to save her nose after botched cosmetic surgery.
For her 40th birthday, Shari Manchon decided to get a nose-job, but developed a post-operative condition known as "polly beak" which made her nose look deformed. But things didn't get truly serious until she caught a sinus infection, which filled her nose with blood and pus.
"I was trying on a dress and looking in the mirror when, suddenly, I realised that the end of my nose had changed colour completely," Shari stated. "It went a very deep purple, almost black, which I later discovered was due to a lack of blood circulating. Then when I touched it, I realised that it was ice cold and rushed out of the store straight away, ringing my doctor ... It was absolutely terrible. And I was too embarrassed by the whole ordeal to tell friends the real reason why I was ill."
Desperate to avoid the cartilage of her nose from crumbling off, Shari consulted renowned plastic surgeon Dr Donald Yoo at his Beverley Hills clinic, California. Dr Yoo suggested that they used leeches to kick-start the blood into circulating through her nose properly again.
"When he first brought it up, I thought, ‘There is no way I’m letting a blood-sucking leech anywhere near my body.'" Shari stated. "My husband, who is a general practitioner, said that I might as well try it. All the old, bad blood which was stuck in there turning it black had been sucked out by the leeches, and clean fresh blood was flowing in its place. I had been really worried about it. I was thinking that I may not be well enough to host a load of small children. But in the end it was completely fine – no one noticed a thing about my nose."
She added: "I was nervous, but I thought to myself, ‘You’ve got yourself into this situation girl, you’re going to have to get yourself out of it somehow! Irina was very nice and made me feel relaxed. I felt a tiny prick as the leeches attached themselves to my skin, but then it was fine. They start out small and then they grow and grow, as they start to effectively get drunk on your bad blood ... Within a minute, I was completely calm. They seemed to have this property which made me feel very relaxed, very rested – it’s amazing."
As a result of the icky procedure, Shari's nose has returned to normal, her blood is flowing normally, and her sinuses have cleared. I guess it just goes to show that sometimes you have to go through some pretty gross stuff for the sake of your health.
