Update: DIY injections - ABC "20/20" expose

Television show "20/20" does an investigation on the do-it-yourself cosmetic injection craze and discount medspa.com in particular, and talks to some self-injectors who unfortunately had bad outcomes, who created difficult problems for themselves. Problems that are hard for any surgeon to fix....

(Link to video here)

Watching the video, it's shocking and quite scary to see the syringes of supposed fillers and other products, arriving from the "discount medspa" website with a home-made label, in a baggie. No official packaging. No holograms to indicate this is the "real stuff". No FDA-required package insert. No bar codes or lot numbers. Nothing. Just a plain syringe, an alcohol swab and a little paper label sitting in a baggie. The names of these discount products are not even remotely similar to what we use here in the U.S.A....who knows what ingredients are really in there.

And you are supposed to inject that into your face...? Crazy!!

Do-It-Yourself Botox Site Busted in Texas

This story from WFAA-TV in Dallas / Fort-Worth....

Undercover officers raided the home of a Mansfield (Texas) woman who they say was selling "do-it-yourself" wrinkle treatments.

Police confiscated boxes, computers and more at the home of Laurie D'Alleva. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott charged the woman with illegally offering prescription drugs -- including botulinum toxin (Botox) injections -- without a license.

The legal action also alleges that D'Alleva operated illegal Web sites to market her products. The state obtained a restraining order to keep her from selling the drugs and shut down her Internet sites, Discount Medspa and Ontario MedSpa.

The sites included video demonstrations of how to use the prescription drugs, along with customer testimonials about the results they were getting. Doctors caution that self-injecting or taking any drug without the authorization of a doctor can be harmful -- even deadly.

The state said D’Alleva falsely claimed that her membership in the "Texas Medical Council" authorized her to sell prescription-only products. There is no such organization. According to court documents, undercover investigators bought a “Newbie Starter Kit” from D'Alleva which contained the prescription Restylane in a filled syringe. They also purchased Dysport and Freeze, both of which contain purified neurotoxins, which are used for wrinkle-reduction.

Comment: I don't know what "Freeze" is - it's certainly not an FDA-approved Botox product. People must have short memories: remember the "Tritox" business in South Florida, where some self-injectors of a home-brew botulinum product ended up in the ICU on ventilators?

Don't self-inject. Don't use unapproved, untested compounds, just to save a few bucks.