Buying the butt of your dreams in 2018 seems almost as common as getting Botox these days, and if you’re willing to forgo going to a board-certified plastic surgeon and take a gamble on illegal booty shots, even faster and cheaper. But what about removing your new derriere when it’s no longer in fashion?

K. Michelle had enough of her purchased ass-ets due to health concerns and had “Betsy” as she nicknamed her rear, removed at the top of the year. “My butt is so big that my legs are not holding it,” she said about her decision. While the R&B songstress was back on tour in no time after surgery, such is not the case with all butt enhancement removals. Fitness-preneur Jenelle Salazar Butler, a.k.a. @GetBodiedByJ, opted for a similar surgery after getting illegal butt shots back in 2010.

The wife and now mom of three runs a successful business where she promotes self-love and a healthy lifestyle to her 729K followers, and the silicone she had injected into her bottom all these years ago seemed like a thing of the past. Except it wasn’t. It was starting to creep into her life affecting her health, and after having her son last July she decided it was time to get them removed. 

Jenelle was able to undergo surgery in January after being featured on The Doctors, but her journey was only just beginning. Unlike K. Michelle, her post-op recovery has been a nightmare that she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy. She used her platform on social media to document the graphic process and warn women against butt enhancement, especially done illegally, in the first place.

“So many women do it but they do it in the dark. Then they don’t tell anybody that they’ve done it and they like it for a while but then they start having problems a year or two or three to five years later, and have to figure out a way to remove it. It’s really you know the worst thing that you can do to yourself because it’s illegal and you really don’t know what they’re injecting into you. It can be dangerous—women have died, lost limbs, went into comas,” she tells BET.com exclusively.

“I didn’t know any of this when I did it. Had I done my research and been more vigilant in looking into what I was doing and what all these other women were doing, that I was looking up to in a sense, I would’ve never done it myself. If I would’ve had a 'me' telling me the dangers and telling me not to do it, I wouldn’t have done it, you know?

"So, I’m trying to be that voice and that person for those women out there that are contemplating going the back alley way, because they don’t have enough money to go get a fat transfer.”

"If I would’ve had a ‘me’ telling me the dangers and telling me not to do it, I wouldn’t have done it, you know?"

Well, it’s working. Ever since chronicling her heartbreaking (and did we mention VERY graphic?) recovery on Instagram and YouTube, her DMs have been blowing up with women from all over asking for advice on butt shots or removals. Although Jenelle’s "before" booty shot pics look like some women’s "afters," she can relate to the same insecurities many of these women are going through. Back in ’10 she had just had her second child and had a boyfriend who worked at strip club surrounded by larger than life booties every day.

“I always had a butt, I always had hips, I just didn’t have a bubble butt so after going through postpartum depression and just being unhappy with life and myself, I thought that I needed more. You know? Even though he never said that I needed more. I actually had talked to him about possibly doing it and he always said no but when you’re in that mind frame, nobody can tell you anything,” she explains.

“My friend was like, ‘Hey, I’m going to go get my butt done do you want to come with me? Here’s the guy’s number, this is how much it’s going to cost and let’s do it together.’ And that’s how it kind of was. Girls were going and getting them done together in groups. They were having parties.”

For nine butt shots in each cheek that took no more than 30 minutes to inject, Jenelle is paying the price today. Although her removal surgery bill was footed by The Doctors, she had done research prior and was expecting to pay a total of $20,000 to $25,000 for the procedure, as well as the flight and hotel, since she would have to fly out to the clinic's location.

There’s not only the financial aspect to consider, but within the first 24 hours after surgery she blacked out three times and had to be rushed to the emergency room for three blood transfusions. And to give you a better idea of Jenelle’s post-removal life, not only have her days training in the gym come to a halt, she can’t drive or even sit down, and for the first four or five days she wasn’t walking at all. Now she walks slowly.

"I have to pee standing up. They have this women’s pee cup that allows you to pee while you stand up...I can’t do anything. I can’t hold my baby. I have to lay on my stomach, sleep on my stomach and eat on my stomach. I have to do everything on my stomach. Sometimes I can like turn the top part of my body to the side, you know, and just kind of like lay on the front part of my hip to play with my baby and stuff like that but I can’t like lay on my back.”

Jenelle’s journey isn’t over yet. She’s still going through it, and depending on how her wounds heal (she has two holes in her butt that need to be cleaned twice a day), she may have to go under the knife again for more reconstructive surgery. 

She encourages women still interested in butt enhancement to do it the right way (i.e. implants or fat transfers) and to do their research on vetted platforms like RealSelf.com. And for those seeking a more natural way to increase the cheeks, check out one of her booty building programs! “My programs work, that’s all I can say people love them. I’ve always promoted eat clean, train dirty. You have to eat right at the very bare minimum or your body will never change. I don’t promote butt shots, just my booty programs.”

Despite it all, she stays positive as much as she can and continues spreading her message of self-love so that other women don’t go down the same path for their big booty dreams and wind up living her nightmare.