Illegal fillers can leave devastating results

Illegal fillers can have devastating effects on a patient’s body and can be extremely hard to try to correct any resulting disfigurement.

Click the image to find out more about this patient who had illegal filler injections. Image courtesy of Dr. John Martin.

At his South Florida cosmetic surgery practice, John Martin, M.D. sees more than his fair share of patients who have had illegal filler work done.

“For better or worse, I’m becoming known for taking care of these patients,” Dr. Martin says. “It's slow-going and very difficult. Once you've seen a couple, then a lot start coming in and getting referred by other patients.”

Dr. Martin will be discussing his experience with treatment of illegal fillers and the complications that come with it at the 2014 Vegas Cosmetic Surgery and Aesthetic Dermatology meeting in June.

“I think especially for people who don’t see this, it’s really kind of fascinating and disturbing what's being injected into people and the complications they can have including people dying from this,” Dr. Martin says. “Especially in South Florida, we’ve had a rash of complications and death as result of illegal fillers.”

Many of the patients Dr. Martin sees have had illegal fillers in the form of high-volume biopolymers and industrial-grade silicone injected into their face - usually the cheeks and marionettes - and buttocks.

Click the image to find out more about this patient who had illegal filler injections. Image courtesy of Dr. John Martin.

“I think as the incidence of illegal fillers increase, people have to know what can they do to help the people who have had it done and also create some educational venues within their community to warn others about the dangers of having this done,” he says. “You really have to get some education to let people know that this is not what you want to be putting into your body.”

Dr. Martin will be presenting on this topic at 9:48 a.m. on day three (June 20) of the Vegas Cosmetic Surgery meeting.

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VCS 2013:

Did you miss last year’s meeting? Get caught up on what happened by reading our VCS 2013 coverage and watching videos from our panel discussion about fillers and neurotoxins.