Plastic surgery in South Korea is now so good that people travelling home afterwards need CERTIFICATES to prove who they are

When people go under the knife for plastic surgery they hope to come out of the operation looking a bit different and a lot better.

They usually do not, however, anticipate looking so different that they are unrecognisable.

However, some of South Korea’s plastic surgeons are so talented that they are leaving their patients with an unexpected problem, it has been claimed.

Plastic surgery in South Korea has become so successful that some overseas patients are struggling to get through passport control on their way home after the operations

Those who have flown in from abroad to have the operations are, in some cases, so transformed that they are struggling to get through passport control on the way home,

Kotaku reports.

According to Korean sites Onboa and Munhwa, some hospitals have resorted to handing out ‘plastic surgery certificates’ to patients to enable them to get home.

These certificates are said to include the patient’s passport number, the name of the hospital they were treated at and the length of their visit to South Korea.

The theory goes that these certificates can smooth their path through passport control.

While hospitals have been aware of the problem for a number of years, it is said to be becoming an increasingly common issue.

In 2009, 23 Chinese women are said to have struggled to return to China from South Korea after undergoing surgery.

Some hospitals in South Korea are now offering 'plastic surgery certificates' to smooth patients' paths through passport control when they no longer look like their passport photos

Women who've had plastic surgery in South Korea often end up with larger eyes, higher noses and thinner chins

The women were stopped at passport control because they were noted to have bigger eyes, higher noses and slimmer chins than were shown on their passports, China Daily reported.

After careful checks had been carried out, the women were allowed into China but they were all advised to renew their passports immediately.

'After they took off their huge hats and big sunglasses following our request, we saw them looking different, with bandages and stitches here and there,' Shanghai Hongqiao Airport officer Chen Tao told China Daily.

'We had to compare their uncorrected parts with their photos very carefully,' he added.

Some women are having to renew their passports after surgery so as to have a new photo included

South Korea is rapidly becoming the home of plastic surgery and people there have the most cosmetic procedures per head of population, according to global figures released last year by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons.

Indeed, one in every 77 people in South Korea now goes under the knife or needle in a bid to improve their looks.

Shockingly, some 20 per cent of women aged 19 to 49 in Seoul admit to going under the knife and one of the most popular procedures involves reducing excess skin in the upper eyelid to make the eyes appear bigger and more 'Western'.

It is believed that the rise of the country's music industry is behind the boom, and many patients visit clinics with photos of celebrities, asking surgeons to emulate American noses or eyes.

DM