EXCLUSIVE: Woman left without nipples after surgeon bungled boob job so badly, her breasts started to ROT

                                                    

 Agony: Laura Damiani, 31, was left with necrotic nipples following a bungled breast operation

Boob jobs remain the UK's favourite cosmetic procedure, with 11,00 women going under the knife every year.

But as restaurant manager Laura Damiani, 31, found out, not every operation goes exactly as planned.

Ms Damiani was left in agony following a botched boob job and things got worse 14 days later when necrosis - a type of gangrene - set in.

After weeks of unbearable pain, her nipples had to be removed - leaving her self-conscious and her relationship with her boyfriend at breaking point.

'The surgeon made me feel very comfortable,' says Ms Damiani who had hoped to have her differently sized breasts evened up.

'He said the outcome was going to be fantastic and I had no reason to think otherwise. You go into it a bit blind.

'You have this sort of rosy outlook that everything is going to be fine. You hear things occasionally but you never think it's going to be you or your family and friends. That's just the risk you take.'

Initially everything seemed fine and Ms Damiani was told her breasts were healing normally. But suspecting something was wrong after the pain worsened, she insisted on a second opinion.

'I saw a second nurse and that's the first time I was advised that something was seriously wrong,' she says.

                     

Normal: At first her wounds appeared to be healing normally but they soon grew painful and infected

                      

                 Infected: Gangrene had set into the wound and her nipples turned black

Necrosis, the most common form of which is gangrene, sets in when part of the body suffers trauma or lacks blood flow.

Common causes include road accidents, bungled surgery and war wounds.

Diabetes and blood vessel disease can also cause gangrene to set in.

Symptoms include discoloured skin, usually blue, green or black, foul smelling discharge, numbness in the affected area, fever, confusion and persistent pain.

As the name suggests, necrosis kills off tissue cells and in extreme cases, can leave body parts literally rotting away.

Cases of gangrene or necrosis usually result in the amputation of the infected body part or, if it is caught early enough, an operation to remove the dead tissue.

If left untreated or if the gangrene is particularly extensive, it can be deadly. 

In fact, things were more than seriously wrong - they were dangerously so. Ms Damiani had developed necrosis.

Usually caused by severe trauma to cells, necrosis causes tissue cells to die and results in parts of the body quite literally rotting away.

In Ms Damiani's case, it was her nipples that had succumbed and before long, she found herself back in hospital.

'I'd never heard of necrosis before,' she says. 'I was very scared.'

Shockingly, the surgeon who bungled the operation proved less than sympathetic. 'He said: "Oh this happens but it has not happened to me in a long time",' remembers Ms Damiani.

Despite the surgeon's ministrations, in the end he was forced to cut away all of the infected parts of Ms Damiani's breasts.

'Basically, what he did was remove the whole areola and nipple so I was left with just raw skin on my left breast,' she says.

'I realised that my breasts would never be the same again and I wasn't going to have the outcome I had hoped for.'

Left with no nipples and uneven breasts, Ms Damiani became depressed and was left so self-conscious, she couldn't even bear to be touched by her boyfriend Wesley.

'I was in a really bad way,' she remembers. 'Everything seemed to be going really badly. I suffered from depression for a while. I still am. I'm still on antidepressants. 

'I didn't want to do anything with Mum. I didn't want to go out. I didn't want to meet friends. Sex was non existent for about six months and it's still suffering now.

'A year and a half down the line, I still feel really ugly. We were literally on the verge of breaking up. It was really hard.'

                     

Healed: After three more operations and 18 months of suffering, Ms Damiani is finally back to normal

But despite her past experience and fear of going under the knife, Ms Damiani has finally taken action to fix her ruined breasts and has had another operation, this time with surgeon Paul Harris, to mend the damage. 

Two operations, one of them nipple reconstruction, later and she says she is finally learning to enjoy life again. 

'Now I'm feeling absolutely fantastic,' she says. 'Already I've taken steps to feeling more confident about myself, to getting my life back on track. 

'It's a huge relief not to feel bad about myself anymore and to feel self-conscious. I never thought I would get to this point. 

'When I look in the mirror now, I see a completely different person. I see someone who's happy, who's confident in their skin and I'm not afraid to show myself anymore. 

'Before I was always hiding and now I feel I can show myself again.'