Orange County Register

The recession has created new temptations for people who are willing to put their health at risk by cutting corners on Botox and other injections.

Some turn to unlicensed injectors. Others inject themselves with substances that may or may not be Botox and Juvederm,  both of which are made by Irvine-based Allergan. Some examples:

• A woman died in New York last month after a cosmetologist injected her buttocks with silicone, which formed a clot in her lungs.
• Patients were hospitalized in Florida in February because of silicone injections by an unlicensed provider.
• A Wisconsin woman was selling gift packages of do-it-yourself Juvederm dermal filler on eBay this month, including a DVD on how to inject yourself.
• Allergan said it would take legal action in January to halt sales of Botox on eBay.

That’s a sampling of incidents recorded in an informal bad-medicine database by plastic surgeon Dr. Jason Pozner of Boca Raton, Fla. So far this year, nothing from California has shown up on his database, but it does include December’s charges against a Costa Mesa cosmetologist Tuyet H.T. Luong, who allegedly burned a patient while using a laser to try to fix a tummy tuck scar.

Plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Persky of Encino says he is “currently treating two models who have a substance in their lips that they were told was ‘European Restylane,’ but which has formed large unsightly lumps in their lips.

The material was injected by a supposed “doctor” in a New York City hotel room. Persky adds:

There is an increase of questions on the plastic surgery patient chat site www.RealSelf.com about the “ethics” of selling self injection products. What is the world coming to?

Among the scariest enablers of risky behavior: The inject-yourself, buy-your-own-injectables Web site botoxdepot.com (also known as DiscountMedSpa.com), which operates from an undisclosed location with a Texas area code, offering cheap versions of “exactily the same treatment that thousands of people are having every day and paying someone else to do it for hundreds of dollars more!”

Here’s an excerpt from the site’s customer forum for the product called variously “Freeze” and “Botoxin”:

I self injected for my first time today using the Freeze BT (botox). I have a little bruising under one eye for some reason - not sure if I used a different angle or what, but I attempted to inject symmetrically on each side. I am still completely nervous about the outcome …

I have a bruise under my left eye where I injected (probably wrong angle), and I am more sore than I’ve ever been after having the doctor inject my botox. I keep in mind that it was my first time ever giving myself injections, or anything to do with a needle. I have a small red dot - looks like a zit from one injection on my upper nose region (glabella).

Hazardous, low-cost injections of silicone into the thighs and buttocks are especially popular in the Northeast and in Florida, the New York Times reported last week.

Plastic surgeon Dr. John Di Saia of San Clemente recalls:

I had a patient as a plastic surgery resident many years ago who had his buttocks injected with mineral oil, but would not tell us who had done it. His rear would get infected and leaked infected fluids and had become so severe that he was admitted to the hospital for intravenous antibiotics.

He refused any attempt to remove the area for fear he would have “no buttocks left.” He was getting infected and draining fluids every few weeks for over a year after these injections.

“You get what you pay for,” says Dr. Christopher Zachary, chairman of the UCI Department of Dermatology. He adds:

Cosmetic Surgery is real medicine, and should be under the control and supervision of real physicians. Anyone who performs aesthetic procedures is going to induce (hopefully a small number of) complications from time to time. It is for this reason, when bad things happen, that malpractice insurance is in existence.

Non-physicians don’t carry medical malpractice insurance, and thus the public is unable to gain reasonable redress when they have suffered battery at the hands of the untrained and unscrupulous.

Related links:

• Cosmetologist accused of burning a patient while using a laser
• Doctors accused of botching breast implant surgeries
• Usher plastic surgery emergency
• Sunset Strip doc pleads innocent to using fake Botox
• Donda West Law is futile attempt to make plastic surgery safer
• Death of Kanye West’s mom sends message — be careful
• Surgeon denies blame for death of Kanye West’s mom
• Donda West’s plastic surgeon arrested on drunk driving charge
• Archive: When things go wrong

Slide shows:

• 60 needles, no Botox: The face of cosmetic acupuncture
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• Top celebrity slide shows of all time
• Botoxed beauties? — Brooke Shields, Jenny McCarthy, many more celebrities

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