Hairdresser Louise Moller wept as she told how she was 20 minutes from death after having a liquid BBL.
Last November Louise, 27, had been following in the footsteps of many keen to chase a figure made famous by celebrities such as Kim Kardashian. But after having the procedure in an Essex clinic, she ended up having emergency NHS surgery to save her life and enduring months of having a dressing changed by nurses twice a week.
She told ITV: “I got told this procedure was not painful, it’s definitely painful. I screamed and said ‘that really hurt’. When I left the pain wasn’t going away.” In the hours after the procedure Louise experienced redness and heat coming from her bum. She contacted the clinic but was sent antibiotics. Her temperature continued to rise and she started vomiting.
Four days after her filler injections she collapsed and was taken to hospital where the surgeon told her she had been injected with “air bubbles” and she had an infection.
She said they told her the clinic “had blocked the blood supply to my bum so my skin tissue started to die”.
In tears she told ITV: “He said I ‘have sepsis’ and he needed to operate in 20 minutes or unless I wasn't going to be here no more. At this point he couldn’t tell me what he was going to cut off.”
A surgeon was also reduced to tears after he was shown footage by ITV X of the training given in the UK to those wanting to perform so-called ‘non surgical’ Brazilian Butt Lifts.
The cosmetic procedure is traditionally when surgeons inject fat into the bottom. But now instead of fat, hundreds of millilitres of filler is injected instead by beauticians up and down the country.
ITV X went undercover at one clinic, carried out in a semi-detached house in London, to expose the training given to those wanting to perform a non surgical BBL. Dr Paul Bagley, with 40 years experience, was horrified as he watched the video and said: “The environment is totally unacceptable…some of them have gloves on and some don’t.
“It’s probably one of the most horrible videos I’ve seen, that’s just horrible.”
He gasped as he saw a syringe sticking out of a patient’s left buttock cheek “totally unattended”.
Last year Save Face launched a campaign calling for a ban on high-risk liquid BBL procedures saying they were a "crisis waiting to happen". The previous Government carried out a consultation but it was paused because of the election. Campaigners are calling for non-surgical cosmetic treatments to be licensed.
Plans looked into include the implementation of a traffic light system which would see non-surgical cosmetic procedures categorised into red, amber and green ratings, according to risk. You would only be able to perform amber and red rated procedures if you have the correct licence.
Britain’s Backstreet Surgery Scandal is available to watch on ITV X from Thursday, November 14th