A mother was left to feel like an "absolute freak" on her wedding day after a breast enlargement operation went badly wrong. Reporter JOLENE HILL hears about the dangers of plastic surgery ...

SANDY Young wanted breast implants after having children so she would look her best when she married long-term partner Vince Young.

After much thought, in August last year she booked into the Sloane Hospital in Beckenham for the £5,500 operation which would see her grow from a 36C to a 38D.

But following a successful operation she developed MRSA and within four weeks the superbug had eaten through her left breast.

Just two days before her wedding, concerned doctors were forced to remove the implant.

The mother-of-two was left wearing a padded bra on her big day so her chest would not look lopsided.

She said: "It made me feel an absolute freak on my wedding day."

Mrs Young of St James Lane, Greenhithe, says she thought hard about the operation for years.

She said: "I didn't enter into it lightly and I wanted to feel better about myself. My body had changed after having children."

Mrs Young had the operation on August 25 and while she was there a tube in her left breast fell out onto the floor.

Although denied by the hospital, which says it has had no cases of MRSA and Mrs Young could not have caught it there, she says this was reinserted by a nurse who neither changed the drain nor washed her hands.

Mrs Young was discharged on August 27 but she felt ill three weeks later when she took her daughters, aged 12 and 14, to school.

The 43-year-old said: "I felt really poorly, I ached all over and was so cold, like a bad case of flu."

Two days later, she woke early in the morning to find fluid leaking through the scar tissue of her left breast.

Within a week, she found her breast had gone black and the bug seemed to have eaten through her scar as the implant was coming out through it.

She was diagnosed with MRSA and advised to go to the A&E department at St Thomas's Hospital.

The lettings manager said: "It was humiliating. I had to explain in front of a line of people why I was there.

"I was taken to a side room with a notice on the door saying I was infected."

Her implant was removed three days before her October 1 wedding and Mrs Young says she looked "horrific" for her big day.

On November 22, she had an operation at St Thomas's Hospital to replace the implant but by February this year she was still in pain.

She believes it was because doctors used an implant which was the wrong shape and size.

Then in April this year she was readmitted to St Thomas's for a third implant which she believes will be the last.

Despite having her health back Mrs Young wants to warn others to be aware of how dangerous plastic surgery can be.

She said: "I know so many people who have had this operation done without problems but I would never go through it again. It was horrendous."

IMPLANTS: THE FACTS

Silicone gel breast implants were invented by plastic surgeons Cronin and Gerow in the early 1960s.

In the mid to late 1980s experiments showed silicone gel implants could cause cancer in rats but there is no proven link with cancer in humans.

The implant is made of an outer layer of firm, elastic silicone, but may be filled with silicone gel or salt water (saline).

Breast implants leak in around 10 percent of women.

This usually starts six or more months after surgery.

Breast implants have to be replaced after about 10 years.