When fillers go wrong - what happens next?
Hood investigates a worrying trend that’s emerging across Scotland, as women are exposed to the dangers of cut-price aesthetic treatments…
The demand for aesthetic treatments has increased exponentially, with thousands of women, including high profile celebrities, using non-invasive injectable treatments, to enhance their features or boost their self-esteem. From BOTOX® to dermal fillers, women and men have been inspired to make subtle changes (or ‘tweakments’), to help them look and feel their best, at any age.
But along with increased demand, unfortunately has come increased risk. Unbelievably, it’s currently legal for untrained, unqualified practitioners to inject patients – meaning that anyone from your plumber to your hairdresser could inject you, cause significant harm, and face no consequences. And despite what you might be led to believe, your beauty therapist is not adequately trained to inject you either.
Scotland was one of the first countries to craft legislation around the practice of aesthetic medicine, but according to leading Scottish healthcare professionals, the system is failing patients at an alarming rate. A consultation has been put into place, searching for solutions to change the legislation, but doctors across the country have been calling for this action for many months, campaigning for the laws to be amended and making the practice of administering injectables illegal for anyone except trained doctors, nurses and dentists, in clinics registered and regulated by Healthcare Improvement Scotland.
Hood spoke to Dr Nestor Demosthenous, one of Scotland’s leading aesthetic doctors, about this worrying trend. Dr Nestor recently issued a letter to Jeane Freeman MSP (Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport at the time of going to press) imploring the government to implement urgently-required changes, such is his concern at the current state of affairs.
“The Scottish medical aesthetic community as a whole is gravely concerned with the legislation as it stands,” Dr Nestor tells us. “The current system effectively allows non-medics to inject their clients, with who knows what, putting them at serious risk of harm. Aesthetic medicine, like any medical procedure, carries a risk of things going wrong with possible complications including allergic reaction, anaphylactic shock, infection and even blindness. In my opinion injectables should only be administered by a medical professional.”
For Dr Nestor, corrective procedures have long been one of the most common reasons for patients visiting his clinic, looking for him to dissolve and correct filler administered poorly and unsafely in establishments such as beauty salons, or even in the patient’s own home.
“Unfortunately, we see far too many non-medic practitioners taking to social media seeking advice when they don’t know what’s gone wrong,” explains Dr Nestor. “It’s horrific to see, patients in pain and at real risk of permanent damage.”
“However, if I were to treat patients outside of a regulated and registered clinic, I would be sent to the Procurator Fiscal,” says Dr Nestor. “Meanwhile, an air steward, beauty therapist, plumber, anyone without any medical training, can inject someone in the back of a van or a hotel room, completely legally, and then patients have to undergo painful and stressful corrective procedures when it goes wrong. It fails to make any sense – how can this be allowed to continue?”
If you are considering making a change in 2020, and trying out aesthetic medicine for the first time, remember injectables are not cheap, and they shouldn’t be: you are paying for the training, experience and expertise of a healthcare professional, to treat you in the safest way possible and give you the most appropriate and effective results.
Don’t reduce your safety to what’s cheap or convenient – aesthetic treatments are medical treatments and should be treated as such. You wouldn’t let your hairdresser give you a blood test, after all.
How do you spot a deal that’s too good to be true? Do your homework – you can’t put a price on your health…
Cut-price deals, special offers and voucher-site bargains are all tell-tale signs; it’s usually rare for professional medical clinics to offer large discounts or special offers
Any offer of ‘sharing syringes’ with friends for a discount should be instantly avoided, as this poses a huge health risk and is extremely unethical
Procedures such as the ‘Brazilian butt lift’ and breast augmentation using fillers are extremely unsafe and not commonly found offered by a health professional, so if your practitioner is offering these, exercise caution and steer clear
If you’re invited to a BOTOX® party, decline the RSVP
If your practitioner of choice hosts treatments anywhere other than a clinical environment, do not book in
Do your research on your clinic and practitioner – look up reviews, ask around friends, and ask to see paperwork, proof of qualifications, testimonials and case studies from patients. Any reputable clinic will be happy to provide this