Kerry Katona having surgery after nose collapsed from drug use
Kerry Katona shared a heartfelt video on Instagram last week detailing how years of drug use had left her septum damaged, but that she’d been reluctant to get it fixed before now, as the damage had been a “reminder” for her to never try narcotics again. Now the 43-year-old star, who first shot to fame as a teen in the pop group Atomic Kitten, has done a dramatic U-turn and decided to have the procedure done.
Recalling the tearful moment doctors made an offer to fix the issue, Kerry told her 825,000 followers: “[The doctor] went, ‘Your nose is collapsing’, so he said, ‘Do you want us to fix it for you?’ “I started crying because it’s a massive 360 from where I was to where I am now, and I think, ‘Wow wow wow, okay – I’ll get it fixed.”
She had been at Pall Mall Medical to discuss the possibility of an eye lift when doctors told her: “Your nose is collapsing.” The procedure, known as septal perforation repair, will involve taking cartilage from Kerry’s rib to create a graft for her nose, and the results are not just cosmetic, but can also transform ease of breathing.
Using cocaine can cause the blood vessels in the nose to constrict, depriving the lining of oxygen and making it incapable of supporting the cartilage underneath. This causes a septal perforation, which can then lead to the nose collapsing, as has been seen in Kerry’s case.
“I actually have a hole in the middle of my nose [as] cocaine softened the cartilage,” she previously confirmed. She has been drug-free for more than a decade, but unfortunately the damage cannot be fixed by stopping cocaine use alone, and surgical intervention is suggested.
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However, Kerry previously told OK! Magazine that she’d opted out of the surgery for a long time, believing the perforation was a symbol of why she needed to stay clean.
“I got offered to get it fixed years ago and said I didn’t want it. When they asked why, I said, ‘It’s a reminder to myself that if I ever touched a line of coke again, it could all collapse,'” she explained.
During that toxic time in her life, the troubled star admitted she’d regularly indulged in three-day drug binges and would barely eat, after turning to narcotics as a “coping mechanism”.
Heartbreakingly, she revealed she’d had a hunch her habit could kill her, but hadn’t wanted to leave behind her friendships with people who shared the same lifestyle.
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“Walking away from cocaine wasn’t a problem – it was walking away from the people… to walk away from the people whom I thought I loved was hard,” she told the aforementioned publication.
“Sometimes I think, ‘God, what would have happened to me If I hadn’t become who I am now?'” she exclaimed.
“Even if it almost did kill me, I would’ve died so much sooner if I hadn’t stopped.”
Now Kerry will receive both her originally intended eye lift and her nose repair surgery on the same day, in a procedure expected to take eight hours – but the nervous star is glad she’s taking the plunge after 14 years of sobriety.
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