HÀ NỘI — As Lunar New Year (Tết) approaches, many women are seeking to make themselves more attractive.

Some women choose cheap, non-invasive or quick beauty methods at spa facilities. According to medical doctors, improving appearance by unsafe methods at spas has many risks, and can lead to serious complications.

Wanting to be more beautiful for the Tết holidays, N.T.N, 30, living in central coastal Nha Trang City, went to a spa to inject 100ml of filler into each buttock. However, just one day after the injection, her buttocks began to show signs of pain and stiffness. The bruises appearing on the buttocks were getting darker and continuously draining pus.

The two buttocks were swollen, bruised and painful.

Worried, she urgently flew from Nha Trang City to HCM City for treatment.

Through clinical examination, doctor Nguyễn Phan Tú Dung, general director of JW Aesthetic Hospital, said that the imaging results showed that the filler had spread throughout the patient's buttocks to the pelvic area causing the buttocks to be swollen, hard and lumpy.

Her left buttock was hard because the filler had accumulated for a long time and there were many bruises with signs of infection while the right buttock if not treated urgently was at risk of gangrene, Dung said.

During five hours of surgery, the surgical team collected nearly two litres of fluids including filler, pus, necrotic tissue and many unidentified impurities.

Doctor Trần Trung Tín, a member of the surgical team, said that the hospital had never removed such a large amount of pus from a patient's body.

“The most difficult thing was the filler had crept all over the muscle tissue, forcing the crew to break each wall to suck out all the pus inside,” Tín said.

“Then, the patient would be intensively treated with strong antibiotics and placed on a machine to aspirate fluid and necrotic tissue from one to two weeks to hopefully resolve the abscess completely,” he said.

N said that due to the desire to have a round and attractive butt, but afraid of painful invasive buttock lifting, she went to a local cosmetic clinic to perform quick butt filler injections.

The facility’s staff just said that this is a Korean filler that makes the buttock be fuller immediately after injecting, N said.

Besides injecting unsafe fillers, many women also choose unsafe and fast methods of weight loss and fat loss by injecting fat-dissolving agents available at spa facilities.

Abdomen of a patient with severe necrosis following lipolysis injection. — VNA/VNS Photo

Doctor Phạm Thị Thanh Giang from the Skin Aesthetics Department of HCM City Hospital of Dermatology, said that recently, the department received a case of a 49-year-old female patient living in HCM City who had an abscess after two months of lipolysis injection.

The patient came to the clinic with the abdomen, hips and thighs appearing red, inflamed and purulent.

She then did a number of tests and was treated with a high dose of antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs, the doctor said.

The patient said that two months ago, believing an ad on Facebook, she went to a cosmetic facility in the city’s District 10 to inject a fat-dissolving agent.

At the facility, she was consulted by the staff to do a quick fat-dissolving injection process in just 45 minutes without pain.

“The staff said to me that I just need to apply an anesthetic and lie still, and the doctor would inject fat-dissolving essence in my body parts. After five to seven days, the fat would be eliminated through the excretory system and I would regain my slim figure,” she said.

The cost for this treatment was about VNĐ10 million (US$410).

However, one week after the injection, her abdomen, hips and thighs had many red, swollen, hard spots, causing terrible pain.

Wisely beautifying appearance

Doctor Giang said that at present, no fat dissolving agents have been licensed by the Ministry of Health.

Therefore, the agents that the cosmetic establishments used for patients are unsafe for people’s health.

In addition, spa facilities mix other ingredients that cause skin, nerve and muscle necrosis, which are serious complications, Giang said.

The treatment for complications due to cosmetic intervention, especially fat loss injection, is difficult. Patients need to be intensively treated and monitored for a long time.

Some patients who recovered after treatment could still relapse and have bad scars as a result, the doctor said.

The doctor recommends that the most effective and safest fat loss method still be changing diet and doing exercise.

To reduce fat safely and effectively, people should go to specialised hospitals for advice from doctors.

A fat dissolving injection at a spa has many potential risks, especially leaving permanent bad scars if complications occur.

According to doctor Dung, the demand for beauty improvement for Tết holiday is very high. Many women who want to avoid pain will often choose cheap non-invasive or quick methods at spa facilities.

However, people need to know that not all ads are 100 per cent accurate. In particular, unlicensed spa facilities often take advantage of this time of year to falsely advertise and deceive customers, Dung said.

JW Hospital has recently received many cases of cosmetic complications after attempts at unlicensed cosmetic facilities, and the rate of complications due to filler injections is always high.

Similarly, in the last months of 2022, plastic surgery units at the Dermatology Hospital, Hospital of Medical University of HCM City, Trưng Vương Hospital and Chợ Rẫy Hospital continuously received and treated dozens of complications caused by “express” beauty treatments.

Most cases of complications were carried out at unlicensed and unqualified establishments.

According to doctors, beautifying appearance is an essential need, especially for women.

However, women should choose reputable facilities where procedures are performed by medical doctors who use drugs and substances licensed by the Ministry of Health. — VNS