A mother-of-three has been left blind in one eye after a $13,000 partial facelift.
Dian Keller, 70, and from Florida, had surgery in February after being inspired by friends who looked ‘excellent’ after their own procedures.
But when she woke up from the three-hour op, the marketing expert was plunged into a world of pain that felt like ‘someone had poured kerosene into my eye and set fire to it’.
Once a regular gym-goer and pillar of her Florida community, Ms Keller has now transformed into a hermit spending almost all her time indoors.
‘My quality of life is destroyed,’ she told DailyMail.com. ‘I can’t really go out, I can’t see, I’m still walking around in constant pain — and now I have all these other medical bills.
‘I love to dance, I used to entertain a lot and see friends, but now I can’t and that is really upsetting me.’
In the days after the surgery, she could see nothing except occasional bright lights out of both eyes.
The vision in her left eye has now been mostly restored, but in the right she can still only make out vague shapes — and has to wear a bandage to cover its appearance.
It is not clear whether she will ever fully regain her sight.
Ms Keller — whose case was first revealed by WSVN-TV — said that since the surgery she has also lost all feeling in her forehead and the top of her scalp and that an incision has reopened, but that these problems pale in comparison to those with her eyes.
Doctors say that her vision problems were caused by her skin being pulled ‘too tight’ during her procedure, leaving her eyelids unable to close.
This caused the cornea, the outer layer of the eye, to dry out and develop ulcers, distorting her vision.
Some doctors also suggested that a chemical may have been spilled into her right eye during surgery, causing problems with its vision.
Ms Keller is set to have another surgery in September to help her eyelids close again.
She estimates she may rack up up to $60,000 in medical bills because she has had to go out-of-network to get care.
Ms Keller is planning to sue her surgeon, but is so far yet to find a lawyer to pick up the case.
Her surgeon was Dr Carlos Spera, who has three clinics in Broward and Miami-Dade Counties.
Online, he describes himself as a ‘beacon of aesthetic excellence’ and ‘top plastic surgeon’ who provides ‘outstanding outcomes’ for patients.
His website adds: ‘As a seasoned professional and a licensed physician in Florida, Dr. Spera brings his comprehensive expertise to Miami’s plastic surgery scene.
Plastic surgeries have surged in popularity in the US in recent years for their promise to make people look younger naturally.
A record 26million cosmetic tweaks were carried out in 2022, the latest year available, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), up 19 percent from 2019 — amid the surge in Ozempic use and social media.
Ms Keller says she booked with him to have a temporal brow lift, a common op popular with 40 to 60-year-olds used for minimizing loose skin by making an incision on each side of the hairline and lifting the outermost third of the brow and forehead.
She specifically chose this procedure because it was less invasive than the full brow lift, which involves lifting all the skin in this area.
It also differs from the partial — or mini — facelift, used to address early signs of aging by slightly lifting the skin in the lower face. It is commonly done on patients aged 30 to 40 years old.
But when she woke up, Ms Keller said: ‘I was in constant agony, I was completely blind and I freaked out.
‘I was screaming and reaching into the air, and I was feeling my face. I couldn’t close either of my eyes.
‘And I felt my eyebrows, they were almost all the way up to where your hairline is. And I was in a lot of pain.’
Ms Keller says she believes her surgeon performed a full browlift on her rather than the temporal surgery — or mini browlift — that she asked for.
She was picked up by a friend, and immediately rushed to nearby doctors — who she credits with ‘saving’ the sight in her left eye.
Since then, she has also reached out to several doctors for advise including Ivy League professionals who all said her initial surgeon had been ‘overzealous’ with the skin tightening.
Describing the impact on her life, Ms Keller added: ‘I now have a lot of difficulty with small things.
‘I can’t cook — the fumes trigger this whole cascade of events with my eyes. I can’t use fragrance, I can’t use fans. Too much air-conditioning is no good, too much heat is no good.
‘My eye just starts to tear uncontrollably. Honestly, I feel like I could have done a load of laundry with the amount of tears coming out of my eye.’
She has also been diagnosed with corneal dysesthesia, pain triggered by nerves in the cornea — which can trigger feelings of burning, aching, boring, or hot poker-like fire in the eye.
It is caused by dryness in the eye, often linked to direct injury to the eye from a foreign object or chemical exposure or an infection.
All hopes are pinned on her surgery next month, which will hopefully allow her eyelids to close again.
Ms Keller says she has repeatedly reached out to Dr Spera since the surgery, but that he either has not replied or has refused to offer her help.
In one case, she was driven to his surgery and sat in the waiting room for three hours waiting to see him before having to leave. She could hear him in the surgery at the time.
But he previously told WSVN that he ‘did not operate on her eyelids’ and that he ‘asked her to come back for follow-ups’ and offered her another follow up last week for post op evaluation.
Ms Keller opted for her surgeon because she had had an upper bletharoplasty with his colleague before and was pleased with the results.
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