Luscious lips, lifted jaw, more harmonious nose… Promises of cheap injections for aesthetic purposes abound on social media. Amateurs offer to perform, for a cost up to three times lower, injections that are supposed to be performed by a professional.
This clandestine practice is exploding. The reports made to the National Council of the Order of Physicians doubled between 2022 and 2023, going from 55 reported cases to 103. This would be just the “tip of the iceberg”, as Nathanel Edery, plastic and aesthetic surgeon, explains on BFMTV.
The latter periodically receives victims of these failed acts in his office, which require correction by a professional. “We see them more and more frequently. Personally, once or twice a week. Among my colleagues, it’s more or less the same,” he says.
Necrosis, risk of losing sight
These patients (much more rarely patients) come to the office when they face complications. When “it’s probably a little late.” Cardiovascular problems, artery affected during the injection, necrosis… The consequences sometimes require a “partial amputation of the injected area.”
As Catherine Bergeret-Galley, general secretary of the national aesthetic surgery union, points out, the list of risks associated with these practices is extensive. “Risk of blindness, loss of vision, loss of an eye, necrosis of the nose, lips, certain extremities,” the specialist lists before remembering that this is a “medical activity.”
Simple, economical and totally illegal.
Research by our colleagues at RMC highlights the ease with which teenage girls can come into contact with clandestine Botox and hyaluronic acid injectors.
“You just have to send them a message via Instagram and we will get a response immediately. It is very economical, we get prices three times lower than those of a surgeon. I, the one who visited, offered a 20 ml syringe for 150 euros , which really defies all competition,” explains Lucille Pascanet, journalist and author of an immersive study on this practice.
This public health problem is exacerbated by easy access to hyaluronic acid. Unlike Botox, it can be purchased without a prescription in pharmacies, a point communicated by the unions to the competent authorities.
For clandestine injectors, the risk is just as high. Two sisters, aged 25 and 22, were tried in Valenciennes on September 13, following combined complaints from at least 30 victims. The nicknamed “Dr. Lougayne” received four years in prison, three of which were suspended for “endangering others” or “illegal exercise of the medical profession.”
Source: BFM TV
