Source : http://health.asiaone.com/Health/Women%2527s%2BMatters/Skin%2BDeep/Story/A1Story20100118-192620.html

When news broke that a man had died following a liposuction operation, chills went down Ms J.P. Lee’s spine.

The mother of two, in her mid-30s, had liposuction done on her abdomen recently at Reves Clinic, the same clinic that property honcho Franklin Heng went to.

“I felt that I was dying after the procedure, and had to be pushed in a wheelchair, in a semi-conscious state, to the car to be driven home,” said Ms Lee, who spent $5,000 on Vaser ultrasound-assisted liposelection.

It was more painful than giving birth, she said.

For the rest of the week, she had to get her family members to help her up and down the bed and resorted to wearing adult diapers since going to the toilet was a pain and a chore.

The first day after the surgery, she could not urinate and almost fainted in the toilet.

“I felt miserable,” she said, adding that she went back to the clinic daily to change the dressing over the incisions.

Healing took a month. During her check-up, her doctor asked if she wanted to do the same for other parts of her body, but she said no, for fear of being unable to cope with the pain again.

“My advice is liposuction should be done in a hospital with after-care of at least three days in hospital.”

Her husband did not want her to go for the surgery, but gave in. She ended up taking a month of leave from her sales job and stayed home because she was conscious of wearing the compressed garment that “made me look pregnant”.

The 1.6m-tall Ms Lee has since gone from 58kg to 52kg, but attributes it to her loss of appetite during her recovery.

This article was first published in The Sunday Times.