Well, wherever there is money to be made, there are sure to be con-men and con-women who will take advantage of people who may not know any better or who are desperate to get something for a dramatically reduced price or without doctor’s approval, so they can rope people in by appealing to their inner bargain hunter or by simply swindling them into thinking they are a credentialed person. It’s no different when it comes to plastic surgery. It’s not as common here in the US as it is in other countries where illegal cosmetic surgery is out of hand, like Mexico and Brazil, but it’s still something that needs to be dealt with swiftly by authorities because it truly is a life or death situation.
This story is out of the US, New York more specifically, where a woman wanted to get silicone injections into her rear end and thighs (I know, most of us want to slim those down, but some cultures view a shapely figure with lots of curves and a high waist to butt ratio to be very attractive – see cellulite treatments for information on how you may be able to slim down these parts). She began going to a woman a few years back to receive the injections, which would dissipate with time, so she would have to keep going back to keep up the appearance.
Silicone is not legalized to be used for injection into body sites as an enhancement tool, and there are also other thick liquids that are currently being used, illegally, by people who are either licensed or completely unlicensed (it’s illegal either way, but definitely more dangerous when performed by those with no credentials since there is probably a technique used that should not be).
The reason is that it can migrate to other areas of the body, because it is a free floating liquid, and because it should not be used in the body that way, whereas other injectables like restylane and juvederm are ok for that because they have minimum migration risk, and if they do migrate they are generally an inert, unharmful substance to the human body. The woman in New York had gotten these silicone injections for a few years with no incidence, but her last injection proved to be her last.
She contracted an embolism in her lung from the silicone migrating which is actually a fairly rare occurrence, but I’ve read about it happening in foreign countries where this kind of illegal enhancement is very common, which is where the silicone (or some other material) attached itself into the lung, causing complications. The FDA says that if it receives the complaints, it can prosecute those that are using this as a cosmetic surgery filler illegally, but many times these incidents go unreported, either because they aren’t caught, or because the treating doctor did not report it (doctors are not required to report this).
The people who illegally perform these procedures typically get around to patients by word of mouth, and it is particularly popular right now in the Latina and transgender community, where buttock and thigh and breast enhancement is popular but the population segment cannot afford the traditional legal surgeries or procedures to get what they want. Like I had mentioned before, although this silicone treatment is dangerous, the complications are actually fairly rare, and abuse is underreported, so it’s very difficult to catch the offenders unless (unfortunately) someone dies that has received care.
