Friday, 15 November 2013
A dangerous trend has seen more than a dozen women in Venezuela die from botched plastic surgeries involving injecting synthetic silicone into their buttocks.
At least 40,000 women in the South American nation have undergone a procedure where they have a gel-like substance called a synthetic biopolymer shot into the butt cheeks.
As opposed to a silicone implant, the synthetic substance flows like an injection and spreads uncontrollably through tissue, leading to deformities and sometimes death.
The original operation cost the equivalent of $800 (£498). Days later, she started feeling an intense pain. She has learned to live with it, as she has with stinging criticism from her family.
‘I ask God and the Virgin for forgiveness so I can get out of this. This is no way to live,’ she said, her eyes clenched shut.
Astrid de la Rosa, who underwent the same procedure only to see the gel migrate to her lower back and hips, created a support foundation in 2011.
It is called the ‘No to Biopolymers Foundation’ and has recorded 15 deaths so far from complications resulting from this beauty enhancing technique.
The foundation has knowledge of 40,000 people who opted for the procedure, and the number is growing even though in November of 2012 the Venezuelan government banned the use of use of stuffing-like materials such as the synthetic biopolymers for aesthetic purposes.
The authorities have brought charges against some doctors and beauticians who continue to offer the service.
‘There are even recent cases of parents who give their daughters the biopolymer butt and breast treatment for their 15th birthday and now they regret it,’ said De la Rosa.
The original operation cost the equivalent of $800 (£498). Days later, she started feeling an intense pain. She has learned to live with it, as she has with stinging criticism from her family.
‘I ask God and the Virgin for forgiveness so I can get out of this. This is no way to live,’ she said, her eyes clenched shut.
Astrid de la Rosa, who underwent the same procedure only to see the gel migrate to her lower back and hips, created a support foundation in 2011.
It is called the ‘No to Biopolymers Foundation’ and has recorded 15 deaths so far from complications resulting from this beauty enhancing technique.
The foundation has knowledge of 40,000 people who opted for the procedure, and the number is growing even though in November of 2012 the Venezuelan government banned the use of use of stuffing-like materials such as the synthetic biopolymers for aesthetic purposes.
The authorities have brought charges against some doctors and beauticians who continue to offer the service.
‘There are even recent cases of parents who give their daughters the biopolymer butt and breast treatment for their 15th birthday and now they regret it,’ said De la Rosa.
The polymers migrated to muscles between his ribs, tightening his thorax and limiting his breathing. He’s been flat out in bed for two years.
‘I cannot do exercise. I cannot run. I am a living dead man,’ said Guerrero.
With his artificially toned up muscles, he said, people shun him in hospitals and treat him as if he were HIV-positive.
He went to one of two doctors known to be offering a technique to try to rid people of the stuff they pumped into themselves.
One is a Caracas plastic surgeon named Daniel Slobodianik. In the waiting room of his office it is standing room only.
He says that since 2011 he must have seen about 400 patients with this problem.
The legion of walking wounded in his clinic includes: a 60-year-old woman who can barely move she is in so much pain; two cousins who had the procedure done at the same time and while not yet smarting, are scared by what they are hearing; and a woman who is trying to get pregnant and is worrying what the silicone in her body might do to a fetus.
