Undercover at a one-day Brazilian Butt Lift course, an ITV News investigation reveals the alarming rise in the dangerous cosmetic procedure happening in the UK
Louise Moller was a 27-year-old hairdresser in pursuit of an hourglass figure made famous by celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Katie Price.
Two months on from her non-surgical Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) surgery, she still has an open wound that needs to be dressed by nurses twice a week.
But the reality is Louise is lucky to be alive. She’s one of a growing number of incidents of liquid BBL treatments going wrong.
Having been surrounded at work by the latest beauty trends and treatments, Louise is open about the cosmetic work she’s had done before.
“I’ve had fillers done before in my lips, and some of my friends have had this (liquid BBL) filler done.
“I didn’t know there was any risk, I thought it was a safe procedure, that’s why I decided to go with it.”
She saw an advert online from Lift Aesthetics in Essex offering filler injections in the buttocks for just under £1,500. The clinic has been endorsed by Katie Price who got her own liquid BBL done by them.
Louise booked in and when she arrived, was surprised to find out that her procedure would be carried out by a company called Non Surgical Clinic Essex Ltd.
If you’ve experienced complications after a cosmetic surgery procedure, please get in touch at investigations@itv.com
She took photos of the treatment room as she became concerned about poor hygiene and infection control.
Louise also claims that the risks of the procedure were not fully explained to her.
“I got told this procedure was not painful, it’s definitely painful.
“It felt like like a stabbing pain, and then I got a shooting pain. I screamed and said that really hurt, and then when I left the pain wasn’t going away.”
In the hours after the procedure, Louise experienced redness and heat coming from her left buttock.
She contacted the clinic and was sent antibiotics, but her body temperature continued to rise, and she began vomiting. A doctor at the clinic told her she had been injected with air bubbles and an infection.
“They’d blocked the blood supply to my bum so obviously my skin tissue started to die.
“He said I had got sepsis and he needed to operate in 20 minutes, otherwise I wasn’t going to be here any more.
“At this point he couldn’t tell me what he was going to cut off.”
Four days after her filler injections, Louise collapsed in an ambulance taking her to hospital, where a surgeon revealed what had happened during her liquid BBL appointment.
While in hospital, Louise had an operation to drain the abscess and remove the tissue from her butt cheek. That treatment continues two months on.
“Obviously I nearly lost my life. My mum nearly lost her little girl. Hunter my son nearly lost his mum,” Louise said.
“It’s not just a procedure, it’s a huge life impact on someone it can cause. If it can happen to me, it can happen to someone else.”
In the end, her nonsurgical procedure left her needing surgery.
Responding to comment Lift Aesthetics said: “This procedure was not completed by Lift Aesthetics. The treatment was completed by Non Surgical Clinic Essex Ltd, yes, in a room rented from Lift Aesthetics.”
Non Surgical Clinic Essex Ltd told ITV News Louise “is one of our clients, not Lift Aesthetics – we currently rent a room from them to complete treatments.”
They said “Louise Moller did not follow aftercare advice,” a claim which Louise refutes, and that she signed a consent form, and that “she was happy to go ahead knowing there are risks to this procedure”.
Louise is taking legal action, but ultimately in the pursuit of perceived perfection, she found the opposite.
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