Don't Inject your Buttocks (or anything else) with liquid Silicone

The Orange County (California) Register is reporting the death of a 22 year old California woman following illegal silicone injections to her buttocks (link here).

It's a tragic story. Combine the ingredients of a young, uneducated patient with an unlicensed practitioner working in a non-medical setting, and add injections with some adulterated, non-medical-grade liquid silicone material, possibly mixed with other unknown substances. Bad news.

Just like the recent death of the former Miss Argentina under similar circumstances, pulmonary complications, due to the embolization of the injected material to the lungs, are believed to be the cause of death.

Other than retinal detachments and certain other specific ophthalmologic issues, I'm not aware of any legitimate (FDA-approved) cosmetic use for silicone injections. Long term problems caused by liquid silicone injections can be extremely difficult to repair. Just don't do it. Even if it "seems like a good deal".

Proven ways to improve the shape of the buttock area include:
1) liposuction of the waist, hips and thighs to shape the area;
2) fat grafting to the buttocks;
3) FDA-approved solid silicone buttock implants;
4) lower body lifting surgery.

Currently, there is no FDA-approved injectable material for large volume soft tissue augmentation.

Six New Jersey Women get Industrial Silicone Injections...and big problems.

Here's a story from CBS News - it belongs in the "You've got to be kidding me " file. These women had buttock injections from a bogus MD in a hotel room. With bathroom-type silicone caulking. In large volumes. This story did not end well.

Astute (no pun intended) readers of this blog should recognize several "red-flags" already.....


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Women Hospitalized After Fake Silicone Injections: 6 Individuals Thought They Were Improving Their Curves But Ended Up Getting Tumor-Like Infections Instead


J-Lo and Kim Kardashian have curves women would kill for. This may have been the shapely image six New Jersey women were trying to achieve when they got injections from bogus medical providers to enhance their behinds, but instead ended up in hospitals with severe tumor-like infections.

"The product used was, first of all, not manufactured with the intention to inject into the body," Dr. Steven Marcus of NJ Poison Control told CBS station WCBS-TV.

Health officials believe bathroom caulk may have been used in the injections. It's made from silicone and used to seal cracks in tubs and tiles in bathrooms.

Poison control officials said the women were lucky to be alive. "You could inject this into a vein, and then that substance floating in your bloodstream could damage your heart, your brain, you could have a stroke from it," Marcus said.

The women, five of them from Essex County, apparently got the injections in motel and hotel rooms. The Board of Medical Examiners was investigating to see if they all got it from the same unlicensed provider.

"I was thinking about doing that," for a more plump buttocks, said Joan Sorbino of Newark, but she's thankful she didn't. "Very scary," she said.

"If you have somebody whose entire buttock is injected with this material, you occasionally will need to do a fairly radical incision as if it were a cancer," said Dr. Mark Granick, chief plastic surgeon at University Hospital. "Plastic surgeons don't inject large volumes of anything in anybody. It's just not safe. You can have a buttock implant put in. Some doctors will do that, and buttock implants are also well-tested and relatively safe, although they do have a separate set of complications," Granick said.

With any kind of procedure, you should always check with the American Society of Plastic Surgeons to make sure your surgeon is legitimate.

(Dr. Fiala's note: In addition, only FDA-approved, medical-grade products should ever be used for any kind of injection. In general, for buttock augmentation procedures, I recommend fat grafting techniques or appropriately designed and approved buttock implants.)