A North East doctor is calling for tighter regulations in aesthetic procedures, which include ant-wrinkle injections and lip augmentations.
Dr Steven Land, an A&E doctor at the Royal Victoria Infirmary and owner of Novellus Aesthetic Clinic in Newcastle, warns the procedures can cause blindness and disfigurement if they’re not carried out correctly.
Dr Land is pushing for aesthetic practitioners to be regulated, as there are still many non-medical practitioners in the UK, which is not only impacting on patient’s looks but also impacting on the NHS, as many people do not know where to seek professional help when things go wrong or are abandoned by poor practitioners.
He says “People need to be extremely careful about which practitioner they use. Working in A&E, myself and my colleagues are seeing an increasing number of patients coming into A&E with aesthetic complications administered by untrained or poorly trained practitioners, many with no medical background. Aesthetics should only be practiced by qualified doctors, dentists and nurses. It can involve injecting some of the world’s most potent neurotoxins and potentially artery blocking fillers into areas of the face that contain many important delicate blood vessels.”
In the UK, non surgical cosmetic treatments are worth nearly £3bn and remains an unregulated practice. The most popular procedures are injections into the face. Botulinum toxin, or botox, relaxes the muscles to reduce wrinkles while dermal fillers plump up and fill out the face.
In 2013, the UK Government commissioned a review into cosmetic procedures. It warned that although dermal fillers were “a crisis waiting to happen”, they were only covered by the same regulation as ballpoint pens and toothbrushes.
A prime example of unregulated practices is from a patient’s of Dr Land, who’s told of her horror after her botched lip augmentation went horribly wrong, resulting in lumpy, distorted and painful lips.
Beth Cowan from Co Durham had always wanted fuller lips and booked a practitioner in her local area. She visited the practitioner’s base, within a hairdressers, in February 2017, where she was seen by the practitioner in the back room of the salon.
Having seen positive reviews on the practitioner’s Facebook page, Beth shrugged off her doubts and proceeded with the treatment, beginning with numbing cream being applied to her lips. She was then ushered back into the salon waiting room to wait for the numbing effects to set in.
Upon being taken back into the room, the practitioner did not wear gloves, nor consulted Beth on the procedure, didn’t go through her wishes and expectations, but simply injected the filler.
Beth Cowan says “ I was in and out of the treatment room within 5 minutes, which at the time, I presumed was the usual timescale. It felt like I was on a conveyor belt with other patients waiting. Having never had any aesthetic treatments previously, I had nothing to compare to. I was informed I could wear make up and could consume alcohol, although my lips had swollen immediately and were quite painful.
One month later, Beth returned for the top up filler she was advised about at the initial appointment. A further 0.5mls were injected and the lumpy, distorted lips developed very soon afterwards.
Beth says “ I thought what I was experiencing was fairly normal and just presumed they would settle down. “
By June 2017, the painful, lumps were still as obvious as ever and at this stage, she contacted the practitioner, who became very defensive, accusing Beth of going elsewhere and initially trying to blame Beth for the problems before trying to force the blame on another procedure elsewhere. Beth admitted she had sought advice with another aesthetic clinic, who advised her that this was indeed a botched lip augmentation, however, no further filler had been added by any other practitioner. At no time did the practitioner show any concern, ask Beth to revisit for a consultation or offer to refund her.
At this stage, Beth decided to visit Dr Steven Land at his clinic.
Speaking about Beth’s initial visit, Dr Land says “Unfortunately, Beth’s case is not uncommon. I see several patients a month, both in the clinic as well as occasionally in A&E, who have experienced bad procedures at the hands of unscrupulous practitioners. When I first saw Beth, I did a full medical consultation and it was obvious that she need to have the previous treatment corrected.”
“There were a number of lumps all over the lips, worse in the upper lip. The shape of the lip was poor, too large and uneven.”
Dr Land found that the filler had been injected in the wrong place, some too close to the surface and some too deep. Despite the fact 5 months had passed, the poor results and damage were still obvious to an expert eye.
Dr Land said: “It is shocking to see how someone can inject a lip so badly, endangering a young person’s looks, yet these procedures still go unregulated.”
He gave Beth strategically placed injections of Hyalase (a medication that dissolves filler) to remove the existing filler and two weeks later applied a correction treatment using high quality dermal filler, using his cannula technique – specifically designed to be safer and smoother and reduce the amount of swelling and bruising and reduce the chance of lumps.
Immediately her lips finally began to look natural again. However, Beth is still left with a tiny lump that she may have to live with forever.
Dr Land says “Untrained and unqualified individuals lack the background anatomical knowledge to avoid complications as well as the ability to treat patients should complications arise. Worst case scenario these poor practitioners could cause death of the lip tissue or even permanent blindness”