A mother-of-two is warning young women about the dangers of lip fillers, after botched injections left her with a “beak-shaped” mouth and caused her lips to disintegrate.
Nicole McManus, 30, admits she was “addicted” to the procedure, which is designed to add volume and shape to the lips, having undergone it regularly for a decade.
But two weeks after her most recent treatment in June, Ms McManus, from Lancashire, noticed her lips were “swelling up” leaving the stay-at-home mother embarrassed to leave the house.
Desperate, she found another practitioner who was horrified by the state of her face and told her that her lips were necrotic (death of body tissue or cells).
Nicole McManus had 1ml of filler injected into her cheeks and lips before her 30th birthday party in June.
The mother of two had been using filler and anti-wrinkle injections for the past ten years without any problems, but these injections caused her cheeks to swell and eventually her lips.
Ms McManus has since had all the filler in her lips and cheeks dissolved, but feels the cosmetic procedures have left her “deformed and ruined”.
She said: ‘I just wanted to do it to feel a bit better about myself. Then it became an addiction. I would say I was addicted. You look at yourself and think I’m just going to get a bit more.
‘I had been using this professional for over a year and had no problems until June when everything started to go wrong.
“I wanted to look brighter for my 30th birthday, so I waxed my cheeks and lips, but then they both swelled up a few months later.”
Horrified by her bloated appearance on her birthday, she refused to let anyone take photos of her.
She said: “I didn’t want any photos taken of me. I didn’t take any that day.”
Desperate, she found another practitioner who was horrified by the state of her face and told her that her lips had gone into necrosis – the death of body tissue or cells.
Worried about a possible infection, she went back to her doctor, who advised her to go to the hospital, where she was told that part of her cheek would have to be cut away. But two weeks later, her lips were also swollen.
Noticing the complications, she returned to her doctor, who informed her that the filler had been injected into the wrong part of her lips and cheek, and told her she needed to go to the hospital.
She said: “I went to the Royal Preston Hospital because I was so worried and they thought it was an infection.”
Doctors had to cut off part of his cheek to prevent the infection from spreading further to his face.
She returned home with a course of antibiotics, but soon noticed that the swelling on her lips was getting worse.
“I could barely drink,” she said. “I texted the nurse begging her to help me. She didn’t apologize or care, she didn’t care.”
“I was in a lot of pain. It felt like I had been beaten. My lips were very swollen. I was very embarrassed to leave the house. My upper lip looked like a beak.”
Ms McManus then visited another doctor who told her her lips were starting to “rot” due to an infection.
“She saved my lips. She told me I might have lost them to necrosis (tissue death). My lips were starting to rot away.”
After taking a course of antibiotics, Ms McManus visited another doctor who told her her lips were starting to “rot” due to an infection.
Ms McManus says her lips were left “deformed” and she regrets having the filler.
Necrosis (the death of body cells or tissue) can occur as a result of many cosmetic treatments, but is most commonly associated with the injection of dermal fillers.
If filler is accidentally injected into a blood vessel, it can cut off the blood and oxygen supply to the tissue, causing it to die and eventually fall off.
A 2019 survey by VICE UK of around 51,000 young people aged between 13 and 24 found that treatments such as lip fillers are becoming more common.
More than half said they considered procedures such as lip fillers to be comparable to getting a haircut or manicure.
Ms McManus says her lips were left “deformed” and she regrets having the filler.
She said: ‘My lips have been left deformed. They are still bruised weeks later. They have made me a mess, I hate talking to people because of the way my lips look. They look horrible.
“Think twice before getting filler. I should have appreciated my natural look. I regret what I did because I ended up with this.”