Plastic Surgery at the hands of Dr. Guessous
After the birth of my first child, I was unhappy with my body. I had severe stretch marks that extended about 3 inches (7.5 cm) above my belly button and covered my entire abdomen. Although my stomach was flat, I had loose, wrinkled skin. My breasts also had much excess skin. And after breastfeeding they were hanging like empty sacs. After doing some research, I did to choose to have elective plastic surgery to improve my feelings about my body. I wanted the following procedures:
Full tummy tuck (Abdominoplasty) Breast lift Breast Augmentation
Because I live in Morocco (although I am not Moroccan) I chose to have the surgery performed in Morocco. During the process of choosing a doctor I visited Dr. Tarek Fahmy, Dr. Salahdinne Slaoui, and Dr. Mohamed Guessous. I was not impressed with either with Dr. Fahmy or Dr. Slaoui. They seemed very unprofessional and I did not trust them at all. But for now, let me stick to the reason for this blog; I chose to have my chirurgie plastique with Dr. Guessous, at his clinique esthetique of Maroc in Casablanca.
When I first met Dr. Guessous at his office, he was utterly charming. He carefully looked at me. He seemed to understand what needed to be done. "The result will be fantastic!" he assured me. I felt comfortable with him. "All of this skin will be tight." He said."And if I have any problem?" I asked him."Then we will fix it." He said. "No problem."The price was agreed for the surgery. Everything had to be paid before I could leave the clinic. He was more expensive than the other doctors I consulted with, but because I trusted him, I was willing to pay more.So I scheduled surgery for one week later.
The night before my surgery with Dr. Guessous, I had a very bad feeling. I knew my decision was not well researched. I searched the internet for any more information about Dr. Guessous, but I found nothing but his own press releases. Oh how many thousands of times I have wished, since then, that I had found a page like this one here---to save me from one of the biggest mistakes of my life!
Immediately after the surgery, I knew something was wrong. I reached my hand down along my abdomen expecting to find smooth skin until my belly button (of course after a full tummy tuck, normally all the stretch marks that were above your belly button will be moved to below the belly button). However, imagine my shock when my fingers came upon stretch marks in the exact same place that they had been before! I was horrified. But I told myself to be calm. Perhaps Dr. Guessous had tightened the skin but the stretch marks had not moved. I couldn't possibly know my results just 6 hours after surgery. I would have to wait. With all the swelling and bruising, my abdomen looked horrible. I promised myself that I would not look at it again for 2 weeks. And so I went home. I was given absolutely no information. No discharge instructions. No information about how to care for my wounds, no physical restrictions, nothing. Dr. Guessous's follow-up the day after my surgery was literally 5 minutes...and he seemed irritated by any questions I asked.
The nursing staff at the clinic of Dr. Guessous where I had my surgery were completely incompetent. I was never aware of them washing their hands (even when they did a procedure on my room-mate right after me). One nurse sneezed on my incision while changing a dressing. Another nurse could not manage to insert a suppository (pain medication) properly into my anus.
2 days after I left the clinique esthetique of Dr. Guessous, my right breast began to throb horribly with pain. It was swollen to twice the size of my left breast. And there was a large dent underneath the breast near my incision. I became worried that I had some kind of infection. So I somehow managed to return to the clinic (although the pain was so severe I cannot describe it to you). When Dr. Guessous arrived at the clinic, he looked at me lying there miserable with pain, and said,
"Fantastic! Perfect result!"
I was surprised. "But what is wrong with my breast?" I asked. "It hurts so much!"
"Nothing!" He said. "It is perfect!" and he grabbed the swollen breast and squeezed.
I swear I almost fainted. I gasped and jumped away from him.
He laughed.
My friend who was with me said, "Stop it, are you crazy?! Can't you see she's in pain?!"
He laughed again and said, "She's only in pain because she wants to be in pain."
Hurt and shocked but still looking for an explanation to the condition of my breast, I said to him, "What is this dent that is here?" I pointed to the dent.
"Nothing. There is no problem. It is perfect. Beautiful." He said.
"Can you see what I am talking about?" I asked pointing again. "Are you looking at it?"
"There is no problem." Dr. Guessous said again. "My clinique is lucky we never have any problems."
Less than 5 minutes after he arrived, Dr. Guessous left. My heart sank. I realized I had put my body in the hands of a fraud. But still, I hoped I was wrong. I hoped that when it was healed, it would look better.
The more my body healed, the more apparent it became that my surgery was not a success. As the swelling went down, the skin on my abdomen became looser and looser until it wrinkled and hung down over my belly button. I looked like I had just had a baby, not an Abdominoplasty. My breasts were not symmetrical and the implant of my right breast hung out of place. One nipple smaller than the other. One breast lower than the other. Terrible.
After one month, I returned to visit Dr. Guessous. Again, Dr. Guessous proclaimed "Beautiful! Perfect result!"
He refused to look at me."Look at me!" I said pinching my loose wrinkled skin. "look at this! This is HIDEOUS. This is not a good result!"
We argued back and forth for awhile. Finally, he admitted that the skin was loose.
"But it is still swollen." He said, "Come back in three months and it will look better."
Dr. Guessous still refused to acknowledge that my breasts had any problem. When I left his office that day, I was so upset that I cried the whole way home. I felt violated with his hands grabbing me like I wasn't even human, like I was meat or plastic. I felt betrayed. I felt robbed. But for some stupid reason, some part of me still hoped and still believed that the charming wonderful Dr. Guessous would return in 3 months and fix it all.
4 months later, I finally had the courage to return to the clinique esthetique of Dr. Guessous. Before I went, I emailed his manager all of my feelings about my surgery, about my result. I basically begged her to help me. When I arrived at the clinic, I talked to her again. I showed her my results and I saw in her eyes a lot of sympathy (and that gave me more courage). After waiting 2 hours, Dr. Guessous came. The three of us (Dr. Guessous, his office manager, and I) met in her office. Finally, he agreed to re-do my abdominoplastie. Then right in front of me as if I was no longer there, he turned to his manager and said in French, "Look all this fuss she makes like it's some kind of catatrophe...and it's just a little skin!"
A little skin? But Dr. Guessous, I paid you all of my life savings so that there would be absolutely no excess skin. And after my tummy tuck I have enough extra skin for a whole other tummy tuck.
THAT, sir, is a CATASTROPHE!
My breasts, again, he tells me, are perfect. There is no problem. There is no asymmetry. I argued. I moved in different positions trying to make him see. Finally, Dr. Guessous started to admit that there was asymmetry BUT he can't fix it because "the implant is behind the muscle and that is where it has to be." There would be no fix for the breast. I was dismissed. Then he turned to his assistant, "Go ahead and schedule her surgery for the Abdominoplasty." And then he left. That's the moment that I realized that I would not let Dr. Guessous touch me with a knife again, if he paid me 1 million dollars.
The next day, I went to visit two other board certified plastic surgeons in Rabat. They were completely shocked at the results of my tummy tuck. They confirmed that I need another complete tummy tuck. Also, the immediately saw the asymmetry in my breasts that it took Dr. Guessous 15 minutes of arguing to see. They said that the reason my right breast was deformed was because the implant WAS NOT behind the muscle. It had fallen out! They said I need an echography done on my breast in order to see exactly where the implant has gone. Immediately, they saw that my left nipple is now larger than my right nipple. I did not have to convince them or argue.Everything that Dr. Guessous did, they assure me, can be fixed. The surgeries I now need are:
full Abdominoplasty nipple revision on my left breast replacement of my right implant complete revision of the pocket on my right breast
I hope this site will save at least one person from the same misery that I have suffered. You know, I never expected perfect results. In fact, in a way I was really prepared for there to be problems. But what I never expected was the horrible treatment that I got from Dr. Guessous. I completely trusted him. Putting my body and life in his hands was a huge mistake that I hope would never happen to another woman!