This Plastic Surgery Alternative Comes with the Risk of Disfiguring ‘Face Dots’ and Even Facial Paralysis
Is getting fillers really as risk-free as they say?
Fillers are a popular way to adjust your appearance without going under the knife for plastic surgery, but that doesn’t mean it comes without risks. As an article in the National Library of Medicine points out, filler’s increased usage correlates to an increase in both the variety and frequency of side effects. Then, there’s the prevalence of unregulated procedures, unqualified injectors, and substances being used in ways they aren’t approved for.
As a result, people are ending up with side effects that some admit make the procedure not worth the outcome. Another article in the National Library of Medicine details the specific side effects that some people had as a result of facial filler, and those effects range from mild (such as granulomas—called face dots—and swelling or redness) to severe (such as blindness, partial facial paralysis, and necrosis).
Fraud and Scams are Rampant in Beauty
Every procedure comes with risks, no matter how minimally invasive it might be. The problem with facial filler is tied to a problem that the cosmetic and beauty industry has been seeing that’s difficult to solve effectively: fraud.
Ideally, only people who are qualified to perform procedures would be the ones performing them, and even that doesn’t mean you won’t end up with side effects, like this woman who got vascular occlusion from 0.5 ml of lip filler.
However, the allure of cheaper options and procedures that promise results that seem too good to be true can lead to problems the same way that leaving the country for cosmetic surgery can, as this woman found out when she had plastic surgery and woke up one kidney short.
Wonny on YouTube covers trends on Chinese social media, which shows the prevalence of fraudulent beauty procedures that go unpunished because the clinics simply close and relocate, or perform procedures exclusively in hotel rooms, making tracking those involved difficult at best.
These trends that Wonny covers include a video about an injection gun used in hotel rooms or sold through WeChat that injects a mix of fillers, resulting in “face dots” and even facial paralysis in the search of skin that appears impossibly smooth.
The Doctors of YouTube Weigh In
To give a better idea of the problems in Wonny’s “bubble face” video and what’s going on medically to cause issues like involuntary twitching, potential blindness, and swelling that refuses to go down, Dr. Gary Linkov, a board-certified plastic surgeon, goes over Wonny’s video to provide information about the substances being injected and the side effects being reported from them. The short answer is that the substance being used as a filler isn’t meant to be used internally. When it’s used, it’s applied externally.
These videos with Dr. Linkov, or other doctors who chime in, usually include reminders to dig into the people you’re going to hire for any procedure. As you’ll find across social media’s unhappy procedure recipients, it’s better to be thorough and pay extra than risk your health for beauty.
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