A woman recovering from a traumatic dog attack faced further complications after a skin graft from her groin resulted in pubic hair growing from her face.
In a preview this week for US reality show Botched, Crystal Coombs explains that she was left with a disfigured face after a brutal pitbull attack at the age of nine.
At the time, plastic surgeons repaired the injury with a skin graft from her groin. But as an adult, it resulted in pubic hair growing on the patch of skin.
"[The surgeon] suggested the skin graft, take it from the groin. They did the surgery and then the hair started growing," Coombs revealed to Botched surgeons Dr Terry Dubrow and Dr Paul Nassif.
"Literal pubic hair...I don’t believe that the doctor mentioned that I would grow pubic hair out of my patch."
Dr Dubrow expressed difficulty in understanding why surgeons had repaired the wound with skin from the groin "because there’s so many [better] places".
“They could’ve done the back, the abdomen. You obviously wouldn’t do the armpits.”
Coombs said she had tweezed the pubic hair patch for several years, but as a new mother wanted it fixed.
"At first it didn’t affect me. Since having my daughter, I really started to get conscious of it,” she explained.
"She's six months, and I’m worried about the kids she'll go to school with … I don't want her to be teased."
Dr Dubrow said Coomb's case is "actually deceptively very complicated”.
"That skin graft is very close to critical anatomic structures like the nose, the cheeks, and the eye, that if altered, even a little bit, can change the entire shape of the face, and look very deformed."
The full episode aired Monday night in the US. According to Metro, the resulting surgery was a success. The doctors implanted a space filler to stretch Coombes skin in order to remove the groin skin and close the gap between her facial skin.
Coombs had to endure the implant for a month while getting saline injected through a port to keep stretching her skin, but in the end had just a thin scar and no pubic hair.
"So now, my face is finally smooth, symmetrical and pubic hair-free."
Botched airs in New Zealand on E! (Sky channel 14) weekdays at 10.30pm.
