WALB.com News, Weather and Sports for Albany, Valdosta and Thomasville. Leading the way for South Georgia. | Online Botox treatments could prove harmful
Member Center:
(NBC) - Every year, more than 9 million women turn to injectable fillers to help them look younger. But they're costly - often more than $500 a treatment.
To save money, some people are buying products online, a move that ended in disaster for one woman who didn't want to be named. She bought industrial strength silicone online for $10 and injected it into her own face.
"If it's injected improperly, it can cause skin defects and problems that sometimes can be permanent," Dr. Jeffry Riopelle, a cosmetic surgeon, said.
You can easily buy injectable fillers like Restylane and Juvederm online without a prescription.
"Definitely as prescription medication and it's only available to physicians," Riopelle said.
Unfortunately, there's no way to know if you're getting the real, sterile and safe product.
"Products that aren't pure and are not what they are supposed to be when they're put it sometimes can cause serious infections, and in some patients as we've known in the past, can actually even cause death," said plastic surgeon Dr. Matthew Mingrone.
One patient even obtained Botox on her own.
"I've also had someone bring me a product one time and ask me to inject it, and I had no idea where they got the product, and I was not about to inject something I didn't purchase myself," said Riopelle.
Even if you get lucky and order the real product, remember, doctors train for years to learn how to safely inject it.
Fillers aren't the only medical products you can easily buy online. Want to buy a silicone breast implant? How about IV bags or an Epipen?
Problem is you don't know what dosage is in the device.
"Putting something like that into your body for a bee sting at a dose that's meant to stimulate the heart could have serious ramifications, could put the heart into a ventricular fibrillation or another arrhythmia that would be life-threatening," Mingrone said.
Online medical products may be cheap but they can come at a very high cost.
The FDA recommends against buying online from companies you don't know.
©2009 NBC. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
gives you a choice about whether to receive telemarketing calls at home.
Check out a business or charity, or file a complaint.
operates the world's largest product testing and research lab.
works to prevent fraud, deception, and unfair business practices in the marketplace.
