The Daily Mail is reporting that Laura Smalley's problems started at the age of 12 when she was diagnosed with acute anxiety, insomnia and obsessive compulsive disorder. By the age of 15, these problems developed into a what is known as body dysmorphic disorder, a mental illness in which people become obsessed with perceived physical flaws or imagined ugliness.
Smalley became convinced that her only recourse was plastic surgery. After working weekends and saving as much money as she could, by age of 18 she saved up enough money to afford her first procedure from a local clicnic that handles plastic surgery in NJ - lip enhancement.
"It was the first step into a world that would almost destroy me," she told the Mail.
She began to have regular injections with fillers known as Perlane and Restylane, which lasted up to six months. So obsessed with looking like anyone but herself, she began to go on a monthly basis.
"At first, the procedure helped. I looked a little less like me and therefore felt a little more confident. My lips were a little tender but I was satisfied that I looked different from how I had before.
"As they got bigger and bigger people around me started to express their concerns, especially my parents who were really worried. But my distorted perception of myself prevented me from being able to see what they saw."
After suffering a breakdown that required treatement with anti-psychotics for her increasingly obsessive behavior, she decided to try a permanent filler in order to spare herself the expense of repeated treatments.
"I came across a product named Bio-Alcamid which claimed to be safe, long lasting and easy to remove should the need arise," she said.
The product was anything but. Derived from acrylic acid, Bio-Alcamid is injected in liquid form but quickly becomes a permanent "prothesis" inside the body. The body does not reabsorb the filler the way it does with other products. The product is typically used to treat lesions and emaciated AIDS patients.
Smalley received three injections with Bio-Alcamid at the age of 20.
At first, she was delighted with the results, but her lips soon became bigger and more swollen.
"My lips were stiff, immobile and painful. I couldn't move them naturally and it started to change the way I spoke. They were like two, overfilled sausages."
Wherever she went, people would stare at her and make unkind comments. She was barely able to leave the house and began to fantasize about running away to a place where no one would know her or criticize her looks.
In May of that year she quit her job as a financial researcher and fled to Guatemala where she volunteered at an animal shelter where people were more accepting of her strange appearance.
That's when the hard lumps began to form beneath the surface of her lips and she knew she needed medical attention.
She returned to the UK and began to see Dr Shaun Cummings of a London-based private clinic who told her the product should never have been injected into her lips. Although he tried to remove the Bio-Alcamid, her lips became infected. She had to be hospitalized because the filler was causing tiny tumors known as granulomas to form on her face. A surgeon was eventually forced to cut the product out of her top lip in an invasive three-hour surgery after suspected septicaemia - blood poisoning - was diagnosed.
She was left with a huge incision, stitches, and large indentations where tissue had to be removed from her face. She has since endured six grafts to reconstruct her top lip but has no feeling in that area because the nerves were severed during the surgery.
Sadly, the filler is still in her bottom lip and another deadly infection could result at any moment. The only problem is that she can't afford to have it removed.
"The product is still in my bottom lip and could cause another infection at any time but I can't afford to have it removed and I'm not sure I could go through another operation after the last one," she said.
Smalley recently went back to the doctor who put the Bio-Alcamid in her lips to beg him not to use it on other people.
"He denied ever having put the product in my lip saying he had put it around my mouth and it had simply migrated," she said. "I could not believe he lied to my face. He simply blamed the product, which he no longer uses."
According to the Mail, Polymekon, the Italy-based manufacturer of Bio-Alcamid, claims the drug has only a one percent rate of complication and insist it does not migrate. It blames most of the problems such as Smalley's on the improper application and techniques of the surgeons who are injecting it.
In the meantime, Smalley is urging people them not to make the same mistakes she did.
"I hope to warn other people of the potentially devastating effects of permanent fillers which left me hospitalised," she said.
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