Reality star Deavan Clegg wants others to learn from her mistakes when it comes to getting lip fillers.
In a new Instagram post shared Thursday, Clegg, of 90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way, detailed her recent health scare, which was the result of getting her lips injected with an “untested product” in Korea, claiming the damage was so bad that her lip was “dying.”
“In Korea I decided to get lip fillers before doing research,” she started the post, which included before-and-after photos of the botched job. “The product they injected had not been tested. I went to a professional.”
However, the results weren’t what she expected. “My lip was so swollen and injected incorrectly,” she said. “I had damage so severe that my lip was dying.”
While she doesn’t discourage anyone from getting lip injections to “feel beautiful” she urges the importance of doing research ahead of time and finding a doctor who specializes in it. “I searched hours on what to do and couldn’t find anything so I want to help girls who are going or went through this,” she said.
She ended up taking the advice of fellow 90 Day Fiance star Larissa Lima and going to Heather Rohrer at the Center for Aesthetic Medicine & Human Performance to help undo the damage. “Heather saved my lip from dying,” she claimed.
How safe are lip fillers, really?
Keep in mind that for the most part, lip fillers are relatively safe when they are done by a trained professional, using FDA-approved products. According to the FDA, “most side effects associated with dermal fillers occur shortly after injection and most go away in less than two weeks.”
However, other countries don’t impose similarly staunch regulations, which is why we hear so many horror stories occurring abroad. “There are many fillers that are produced around the world, including in China, Korea, Japan, Europe, South America and North America. The FDA only tests and studies a small percentage of these,” Michael Hall, MD, an aesthetic surgeon who oversees the Hall Longevity Clinic in Miami tells Health. While they aren’t legally available in the United States, some practitioners still end up using them.
“Some of these companies are not providing the best quality of production and these materials can be potentially harmful if they are not segregated correctly and sanitized in a particular way.”
As a result, infection or inflammation can occur when these materials are injected—especially in the lips. Because the lips are highly vascularized (aka, have lots of blood vessels) in certain areas, “if a practitioner injects hyaluronic acid (HA) into the vascular system he or she can cause occlusion (the blockage or closing of a blood vessel) of those small arterials blocking blood flow and oxygen to the tissue causing death and damage to the tissue surrounding that blockage.” This is likely why Clegg described her lips as “dying.”
As for how the damage was undone, Dr. Hall explains that hyaluronidase, which works to dissolve the HA material injected in the face or lip, was likely used. “It’s often used three to four weeks after the initial injection has been botched and the material needs to be dissolved,” he explains.
Before getting any sort of medical treatment— even injections or other non-invasive cosmetic treatments— always do your research ahead of time. The FDA recommends that you seek a licensed health care provider with experience in the fields of dermatology or plastic surgery.
It’s also important to select a doctor who is trained to perform the dermal filler injection procedure. “Having filler injected should be considered a medical procedure, not a cosmetic treatment,” per the FDA “Ask your health care provider about their training and experience injecting dermal fillers in the face.”
As for Clegg, it appears she isn’t quite done talking about her ordeal yet. “I will be posting a lot about this journey,” she wrote at the end of her caption—so it seems we all need to stay tuned.
To get our top stories delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Healthy Living newsletter
Source: Read Full Article