How Cosmetic Fillers can Destroy your Looks

Afrik Update

Health

By John Naish

They can turn skin blue and lumpy, leave you blind, and experts warn they could be a bigger scandal than faulty breast implants

'The burning sensation to my face was intense, I had constant diarrhoea, felt drowsy all the time and had impaired vision in my right eye,'

           

Restylane, the most popular filler, has been used in 16 million treatments worldwide since it was launched 16 years ago. Unlike Botox, which reduces wrinkles by paralysing muscles, fillers add volume to skin thinned by ageing,  giving a fuller, more youthful effect. But while Botox is legally regulated, the law treats fillers as harmless.

In the U.S., they're regarded as medicines and only six types are approved for use by professionals - on prescription only. In Britain, there are more than 100 types, which can all be injected without prescription by anyone, anywhere - whether they have specialist training or not. 

Now a host of problems are emerging. Medical evidence shows they can cause health issues including blindness, facial collapse, herpes, rheumatic disease and blue-tinged flesh.

Last month, a survey by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) revealed that in the past year around seven in ten surgeons had seen patients complaining of complications from dermal fillers, and over the past three years the number of problems with some fillers has tripled.

A staggering 98 per cent said fillers should be treated as a medicine.Mary, who had never had any cosmetic procedures before, had her filler injected early in August last year, a fortnight before her wedding to Christopher, 38. 'Botox didn't appeal to me - I didn't like the idea of having a toxin injected into my face,' she says.'Dermal fillers sounded safer and more natural, as they're made from hyaluronic acid.'Hyaluronic acid is found naturally in the human body and many temporary fillers use a synthetic form.'While injecting filler around my right eye, I understood he'd hit a vein with the needle and that the area would bruise,' Mary says. She wasn't too worried, until she woke that night in agony. 

'My face was burning - it felt like someone had thrown acid over it,' she says. 'Over the next 48 hours I also developed flu-like symptoms, vomiting and diarrhoea, felt disorientated and developed redness on my cheeks and neck.'Horrified, she returned to the clinic where, she says, she was told the problem was probably a very rare allergic inflammatory reaction.She  was given a course of steroids and antibiotics, but the symptoms persisted. 

Marie Adams, left, as she usually appears, and right, as she looked after the filler surgery

Then, only a week before her £6,000 wedding ceremony, the vision in her right eye became blurred and she rushed to her GP. The doctor suggested it might subside by the time she had completed the course of antibiotics and steroids in five further days. But nothing improved. 'My longed-for wedding day was overshadowed by the fact I was so ill,' she says. 'The night after, my sister had booked us into a hotel as a gift, but instead my husband had to take me to Chelmsford A&E because I couldn't see properly out of my right eye.

'Fillers can be divided into two main groups; temporary ones made from hyaluronic acid, which is eventually absorbed into the body, and more permanent ones made from other materials that can remain in the body for many years.Temporary ones are less dangerous, but with most the effects last between three months and a year. 

Experts warn that all dermal fillers can induce serious and potentially long-lasting adverse effects.Permanent filler can shift from its injection site to other parts of the body. Doctors at the University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust described a case earlier this year where a woman was sent to them complaining of a swelling on her forehead.

 Doctors discovered that a transparent permanent filler gel she'd had injected between her eyebrows a decade ago had migrated across her head.Some patients can develop a chronic 'foreign body' reaction where the skin attempts to seal off the filler in a fibrous capsule causing lumps. Stephen Hamilton, a London-based consultant plastic surgeon, has witnessed disfiguring damage caused by wrongly injected fillers.

'Every kind of procedure intended to alter your appearance needs careful thinking about - it should not be something you do during lunchtime, or because you are lured by discounts,' says Dr Alex Clarke, of Royal Free Hospital's department of  plastic andre-constructive surgery.