Katie Piper is resting after having surgery on her eye, due to complications from the sulphuric acid attack she endured back in March 2008.

The mother-of-two, 37, is blind in one eye as a result of the attack but had to have her healthy eye operated on due to further complications.  

A spokesperson told MailOnline: ‘Katie is recovering well in hospital after an operation on her right eye, the eye which still has sight.  

‘She is currently resting to minimise the threat of infection and to ensure a quick recovery. Katie thanks everyone for their care and warm wishes.’ 

Katie has now endured more than 350 operations since the attack and just a couple of months ago, she had to endure an operation on her blind eye. 

Her most recent procedure took place in her birthday.  

Stefan Sylvestre Lynch, 31, carried out the attack on Katie on the orders of her obsessive ex-boyfriend Daniel Lynch.

He co-ordinated the pre-planned street assault outside her north London home in Golders Green.

Sylvestre was sentenced to a minimum of six years in prison in 2009 over the horrific assault and was set for release in June. 

Lynch was subsequently given two life terms behind bars, while Sylvestre served six-years of his own sentence, before initially being released in 2018.

After being re-admitted to prison in November 2019 following a string of car thefts, a parole board panel ruled that he can go free again.

Model and TV presenter Katie had to wear a mask after the attack and needed 40 operations to treat her severe burns in a long and painstaking process which included pioneering surgery which completely removed the damaged skin from her face and replaced it with a substitute. 

In July 2019, 12-years after the attack, she had further surgery to cauterize the blood vessels in her left eye. 

In her heart-rending victim impact statement in the aftermath of the attack, Katie said: ‘When the acid was thrown at me, it felt like I was burning in hell. It was an indescribable, unique, torturous pain.

‘I have lost my future, my career, my spirit, my body, my looks, my dignity – the list goes on.

‘All I am left with is an empty shell. A part of me has died that will never come back. This is worse than death.’ 

Since the ordeal Katie has thrived, featuring on numerous TV shows, including a 2009 documentary about the impact of the attack.

She has also featured on the hit BBC show Strictly Come Dancing, and launched the Katie Piper Foundation to raise awareness for other victims of burns and other disfigurement attacks and injuries.

The post EXCLUSIVE: ‘She went blind for a few days’: Katie Piper undergoes surgery on her healthy eye due to complications from 2008 acid attack – and has now had over 350 operations appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

(Reuters Health) – When transgender people undergo sex-reassignment surgery, the beneficial effect on their mental health is still evident – and increasing – years later, a Swedish study suggests.

Overall, people in the study with gender incongruence – that is, their biological gender doesn’t match the gender with which they identify – were six times more likely than people in the general population to visit a doctor for mood and anxiety disorders. They were also three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants, and six times more likely to be hospitalized after a suicide attempt, researchers found.

But among trans people who had undergone gender-affirming surgery, the longer ago their surgery, the less likely they were to suffer anxiety, depression or suicidal behavior during the study period, researchers reported in The American Journal of Psychiatry.

Surgery to modify a person’s sex characteristics “is often the last and the most considered step in the treatment process for gender dysphoria,” according to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.

Many transsexual, transgender, and gender-nonconforming individuals “find comfort with their gender identity, role, and expression without surgery,” but for others, “surgery is essential and medically necessary to alleviate their gender dysphoria,” according to the organization. (bit.ly/2WEn9Lg)

While the new study confirms that transgender individuals are more likely to use mental health treatments, it also shows that gender-affirming therapy might reduce this risk, coauthor Richard Branstrom of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm told Reuters Health by email.

Branstrom and colleague John Pachankis of the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Connecticut found that as of 2015, 2,679 people in Sweden had a diagnosis of gender incongruence, out of the total population of 9.7 million.

That year, 9.3% of people with gender incongruence visited a doctor for mood disorders, 7.4% saw a doctor for anxiety disorders, and 29% were on antidepressants. In the general population, those percentages were 1%, 0.6% and 9.4%, respectively.

Just over 70% of people with gender incongruence were receiving feminizing or masculinizing hormones to modify outward sexual features such as breasts, body fat distribution, and facial hair, and 48% had undergone gender-affirming surgery. Nearly all of those who had surgery also received hormone therapy.

The benefit of hormone treatment did not increase with time. But “increased time since last gender-affirming surgery was associated with fewer mental health treatments,” the authors report.

In fact, they note, “The likelihood of being treated for a mood or anxiety disorder was reduced by 8% for each year since the last gender-affirming surgery,” for up to 10 years.

Transgender individuals’ use of mental health care still exceeded that of the general Swedish population, which the research team suggests is due at least partly to stigma, economic inequality and victimization.

“We need greater visibility and knowledge about challenges people are confronted with while breaking gender and identity norms,” Branstrom said.

Dr. Joshua Safer, executive director at Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery in New York City, told Reuters Health by email, “If anything, the study likely under-reports mental health benefits of medical and surgical care for transgender individuals.”

Safer, who was not involved in the study, said the fact that mental health continued to improve for years after surgery “suggests (surgery provides) extended and ongoing benefit to patients living according to gender identity.”

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