OFF HER CHEST
How ‘unlucky’ Charlotte Crosby was left with a ‘uniboob’ thanks to rare breast condition – before she went under the knife to fix it
The Geordie Shore star was born with symmastia, a rare condition that leaves women without a cleavage
LAST week, Geordie Shore's Charlotte Crosby sparked concerns among fans about her ever-changing face.
The 28-year-old, from Sunderland, has never shied away from how much surgery she's had in the past - but touched down in Brazil last Thursday with a VERY slimmed down nose and extreme lip fillers.
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However, it now appears that Charlotte's most extreme plastic surgery was actually the result of an unfortunate medical condition.
The reality star was born with symmastia, a rare condition that leaves women without a cleavage as the breasts move across the breastbone and merge together.
And while she had lived with it since developing boobs, and watched as her mum dealt with the disease, it was the "bad comments" that came after her TV fame that spurned her to have it corrected.
Thought to affect less than 200,000 people, symmastia is commonly associated with breast implants that have gone wrong - with 98 per cent of cases occurring after cosmetic surgery.
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For the remaining two per cent, it's an 'unlucky' malformation that, while being completely safe and having no side effects, causes cosmetic issues for many women who want to look 'normal'.
"It's something that I feel under-confident about, and I get so many bad comments about it," the TV personality told OK Magazine. "I was one of the few unlucky people to be born with it."
'What the f*** is wrong with her boobs'
Charlotte first revealed she had been thinking about going ahead with corrective surgery, a rare practice done by very few plastic surgeons, in 2017.
The repair operation involves making a split where the breast tissue meets, taking the tissues that have detached from the chest and finally, sewing them down.
Like other breast surgeries, the symmastia repair can be painful and can leave women out of action for up to eight weeks while their bodies repair - but Charlotte was willing to go through the pain.
"If a picture of me is online, people say things like, 'what is wrong with her boobs?', 'they're deformed' or 'they're stuck together' - just all these bad things," Charlotte explained to Heat Magazine.
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"It really limited what I could wear without people asking 'what the fuck is wrong with her boobs?'."
She continued in an interview with OK Magazine: "It's just known as a 'uniboob' - it makes you not have the gap in your cleavage, but I'd like to get it fixed."
It was the flurry of comments that made Charlotte consider the correction, and she was thought to have gone ahead with it by October 2017, with many fans noticing a change in her chest.
The Geordie Shore star hailed the operation as a boost to her confidence, having at last given her the 'two boobs' that she always wanted.
"I had the correction surgery" the TV star told OK in January 2018. "I had them separated into two boobs, and I'm more confident than ever."
What is symmastia?
Symmastia is when the breasts grow together, causing little or no cleavage between them.
If you have symmastia, your cleavage may present as:
- a web of skin, fat, and other tissue between your breasts
- an empty web of skin between your breasts
- an abnormal arrangement of collagen fibers in the breast tissue
There are two types of symmastia:
Congenital, meaning you’re born with it. This type is very rare.
Iatrogenic, or acquired. This type is a complication of breast surgery, but it’s also quite rare.
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'I feel great - no more worries'
Charlotte's operation was more complex than most, as congenital symmastia, the genetic type she was born with, means the surgery is more invasive.
Taking around four hours, while breast implant-related patients just have to be re-attached to match how their chest was before the symmastia, congenital patients have to be started from scratch.
Either way, sufferers normally see an empty web of skin between their breasts, a fold of fat or abnormal breast tissue removed - a feature Charlotte lovingly named 'Sebastian' before her operation.
And severity ranges internally from just the skin lifting off the chest to the entire muscle wall coming loose - which can also cause discomfort and serious distortion.
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After surgery, women are required to wear a thong-style bra that pushes on the chest bone for at least two months before the internal scars start healing.
For those where implants are the issue, the women are often advised to have them removed - but as this wasn't a problem for Charlotte, many fans have since speculated she had a boob-job at the same time.
"I didn't have implants put in," the star insisted in an interview with OK, in response to the rumours. "I feel great. I don't have to worry anyone about whether my boobs look strange."
Adding, while speaking to Heat: "They've all been stitched up underneath it's changed the shape of my boobs a bit - it's given them that lift."
It's not the first time that Charlotte has sparked rumours of going under the knife for plastic surgery, as fans took to her social media this week to post their worry over her 'swollen' face.
most read in fabulous
In other news, Charlotte sobbed after a furious row with boyfriend Josh Ritchie while holidaying in Brazil.
While the Geordie Shore star looked glum on the beach after shocking her fans with her 'swollen face', sparking concerns over more surgery.
And Charlotte was caught struggling as she left a boozy night out.
Charlotte Crosby sparks concern she’s had more surgery as fans beg her to stop going under the knife during Brazil trip
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