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A French man took his own life after his beard transplant in Turkey was botched by an estate agent posing as a surgeon, his heartbroken father claims.
Mathieu Vigier Latour travelled to Istanbul in March for the transplant, which cost him €1,300 – a fifth of the price of having it in France.
But the treatment saw him lose 1,000 grafts of hair, while having 4,000 transferred from his head to his face.
Following the operation, the business student’s beard was left irregularly shaped, growing at an unnatural angle and ‘hedgehog’ like, his father said.
In addition, Latour, 24, suffered burns after the procedure and was having trouble sleeping due to the discomfort.
Mathieu Vigier Latour after his botched transplant in Istanbul, which was performed by a real estate agent posing as a surgeon
Latour before his operation. The student tragically took his own life after the procedure left his scalp permanently damaged
The treatment left the French man’s beard irregularly shaped and growing at an unnatural angle
He later discovered that the man who performed his transplant was not in fact a qualified surgeon, but an estate agent, the Telegraph reported.
As a result of his botched operation, Latour fell into a ‘vicious cycle’ and suffered from dysmorphic disorder, a condition in which people obsess about defects in their appearance.
A Belgium specialist who was attempting to correct the procedure said his scalp would never recover in the patch where the grafts had been lost.
He ended up taking his own life three months after going to Turkey for the transplant.
Latour’s father is now campaigning to improve awareness about the risks of seemingly inexpensive health tourism.
He said it would be ‘a tribute to Mathieu’ if his son’s shocking experience could help prevent similar tragedies from happening again.
- For support, call Samaritans for free on 116 123 or visit samaritans.org
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
