Nikita Morgan, 31, from Dublin, Ireland, is warning others not to trust TikTok advice after her £635 eyelid lift left her with blood pouring from her eyes. The saleswoman travelled to Düsseldorf, Germany, in November last year for the blepharoplasty, a procedure that removes or repositions excess skin around the eyelids. She described the experience as "traumatising" and far from the stress-free encounters she had seen online.
A Painful Procedure and a Difficult Journey Home
Expecting the procedure to be similar to Botox or lip fillers, Nikita said it was incredibly painful. She was left to board her flight back to Ireland with bleeding eyes. "I was trying to navigate security in the airport and I couldn't see anything. Every time I tried to look up or to the side, blood was pouring down my face. It was like I was crying blood," she said. "I thought what am I doing here, over a small piece of skin on my face?"
Nikita said hooded eyes run in her family and she had always thought hers looked "very heavy", prompting her to ask her mum as a child if she could cut the skin off. In 2024, she came across TikToks of other people having a 'bleph' and "went down the rabbit hole". She looked into having the work done at clinics in Dublin but was quoted an average of £3,385 (€4,000) - an amount she would have spent years saving up for. Instead, she went on the waiting list at a clinic which was thousands of euros cheaper. Eventually, she contacted the business in Germany and was given a consultation within a month, at a cost of £635 (€750).
Consultation and Surgery Day
Nikita said: "People on TikTok were saying it only took a week before they went back to normal. When I had the online consultation, my surgeon asked why I wanted it done and asked me to show them the excess skin. The whole thing was only about 10 minutes start to finish. I was given a date and I booked the flights for the same day as I'd seen people do that online."
"I really thought by everybody on TikTok it was going to be a breeze. They said you're numbed and that it was so quick. I went into it expecting it to be grand. I've had Botox, my lips done and I've got loads of tattoos."
Nikita and a friend, who was also having the procedure done, flew to Dusseldorf on November 19, 2025, on the first flight of the day. They enjoyed their time in the German city before Nikita's appointment at 3pm.
Recovery and Warning to Others
She said: "I started to get a bit nervous on the bed but the surgeon marked off how much excess skin I wanted off on my eyelids and got me to check it. She injected my first eye with the needle to numb me and I leapt off the bed. I winced because it's so foreign injecting your eyelids. I don't think the second eye was done enough as I could feel it dripping off my face. I told her and she said it was fine."
Nikita said when the surgeon went on to the second eye, she could feel all the burning and smell it, adding: "I was squirming on the bed and she was pushing down on my eyelids. The pressure was mental." The Irishwoman received stitches and steri-strips on her surgery site and said the whole procedure was over in less than 30 minutes. But she was left in agony and on the verge of passing out.
She said: "I couldn't see but I couldn't close my eyes - they were glazed over. I had an ice pack on my eyes but my whole face was on fire. I ran into the bathroom as I was so nauseous over the smell. The pressure of gagging was hurting my eyes." When she returned home after the surgery, Nikita said she slept for a day and was totally housebound for five days. Nikita stressed while she is happy with the overall results, others should look beyond people's experiences on TikTok to really understand what the procedure involves.
She said: "Don't listen to everything on social media and take it as gospel. You see real people with real experiences - it might be that for some people but also it might not."
