'Lip injection wrecked my health'

Plastic surgery can be no laughing matter

Tighter regulations for doctors practising cosmetic surgery privately are being drawn up by the government in a bid to prevent patients being left in agony by incompetent surgeons.

The National Care Standards Commission is to be introduced in April.

BBC News Online spoke to one woman who fell foul of the current lax controls.

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Margo Cameron, 47, from Glasgow, had liquid silicone injected into her lips 12 years ago, unaware that it was unlicensed for that purpose.

She said: "I had naturally very thin lips, so I always had to use lip liner to try to thicken them out.

There's no way I would have risked my health if my doctor had warned me that there was serious side effects associated with the treatment

Margo Cameron

"My fiancé offered to pay for me to have collagen injections in my lips for a wedding present.

"I picked a surgeon in Harley Street, London, thinking that was the most reputable medical place to go.

"After six months of collagen injections in my lips, however, I decided to give up the treatment, as it was too painful having a big needle injected in my lips every month and my lips looked the same as they were before."

On the advice of her surgeon Margo swapped to having liquid silicone injected in her lips to try to broaden them out permanently.

Cancelled wedding

However, the surgeon failed to warn her that silicone was not licensed to be injected in the lips, as it had potentially dangerous side effects.

"The surgeon jokingly said that the only side effect I could suffer was that as I got older I might have a wrinkly face but would have permanently luscious lips, which of course suited me fine."

But two months after the silicone treatment had finished, Margo started suffering from a range of debilitating symptoms which she had no idea were connected to the silicone treatment.

She told BBC News Online: "After the six months of treatment, I started suffering from chronic tiredness.

"I went from a very energetic person full of life, to one with no energy at all. But I had no idea what the cause was. I had to put my wedding off I was so ill."

Doctors failed to diagnose the problem. She moved to the States where her family lived so that they could look after her.

Poor health

Over the next couple of years Margo's health continued to deteriorate.

She was constantly tired, she suffered from severe joint pains, night sweats, and she had no appetite.

Her vision was often blurred and she suffered from a severely itchy scalp and her hair started falling out.

While she was in the US she found out that many women who had silicone treatment suffered similar symptoms to her due to an immune reaction to the silicone in their body.

"Up until then I had no idea that the silicone could be to blame for my health problems because I'd never been warned that it was dangerous.

"But in the US many doctors knew that silicone could trigger an adverse response from the body's immune system which resulted in debilitating health problems.

'It was a shock'

"I was shocked to find out that the health problems which were plaguing me had been triggered by the liquid silicone injections.

"There's no way I would have risked my health if my doctor had warned me that there was serious side effects associated with the treatment.

"I just trusted him because he was a doctor in Harley Street. How I have lived to regret that."

The British Association for Aesthetic and Plastic Surgeons has welcomed the new guidelines.

However, spokesman Michael Barratt feared they would not go far enough.

He said: "We welcome tighter controls on cosmetic surgeons to weed out incompetent doctors, but we are concerned that the new rules may fail to tackle surgeons currently practising who are insufficiently qualified to carry out some cosmetic surgery."