Painful bruises on the nose, cheeks, forehead: Maria* saw her face completely transformed by an illegal injection of hyaluronic acid. This gel is used in aesthetic medicine to plump up the lips or smooth small wrinkles. It is very popular on Instagram, for example, where many users post before and after photos, sometimes with promo codes or discounted prices. These procedures attract an increasingly young public. The National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) alerted, Monday, July 11, to these injections when they are not performed by a doctor. “These practices carried out by non-doctors are dangerous and prohibited”, warns the Medicines Agency. These injections sometimes degenerate into serious side effects, such as burns, necrosis or loss of use of an eye.
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Maria is part of the forty victims identified since the beginning of the year by the health authorities. This 40-year-old mother of two is disfigured: almost a month after the injection, she can’t stand the sight of her face. “I don’t know what my nose looks like, because I haven’t been able to look at myself in the mirror for three weeks now”confides Maria.
I have a lot of stress. I prefer not to look at myself to try to stay calm.
Maria, victim of an illegal injection of hyaluronic acidfranceinfo
A tattoo artist recommended by a doctor injected him with the product.
She manages to convince Maria that the hyaluronic acid will correct her crooked nose. But, with hindsight, the forty-year-old says she had doubts from the injection: “I saw in his face that there was something that wasn’t normal.” Five minutes before the injection, the tattoo artist nevertheless explains to him that there is no contraindication. “She told me that any redness and bruises that there might be would go away quickly, not to worry”says the victim. “When I saw in the mirror that there were already bruises around my nose, she told me it was nothing and it would pass.” But two hours, then three pass, and the bruises spread to his forehead. “I saw that it was not normal and I wrote to him straight away.”
Over the next four days, the side effects become more and more worrisome. “Every day that passed, it was getting worse and worse. The second, the third day, it was the same. She [la tatoueuse] told me ‘it’s nothing, it’s nothing’. But on the fourth day, it was really extreme, I felt pressure on my eye.”recalls Maria.
It was then that she urgently consulted dermatologist Marie Serre. “Fortunately, I had the product in stock that can dilute hyaluronic acid”explains the doctor. “Indeed, she obviously had the artery that irrigates the left wing of the nose and the forehead a little clogged. She is saved, but we were very hot”, she says. Treated just in time, Maria will have to wait a few more months to regain her face.
*name has been changed