I was injected with BEEF gelatine ‘Botox’ by bogus doc and nearly died of anaphylactic shock – The Sun

"He said, 'no pain no gain', so I gritted my teeth," Marcelle recalls.

He was right about the pain – a  sensation like cigarettes being stubbed out on her face – but it was nothing compared to what followed.

Over the next few hours, Marcelle, from Poole, Dorset, suffered anaphylactic shock – an agonising allergic reaction so severe that she could have died.

Shocking enough, but only later did she learn the full horrifying truth: her face had been injected with beef gelatine by a man who had no medical qualifications whatsoever.

Melin’s callous actions – for which he has now been jailed – have left permanent damage.

Five years on, dog behaviourist Marcelle, 65, cannot move her mouth properly and often suffers debilitating pain above her eyes.

It’s a hefty price to pay for someone who only wanted to turn back the clock a few years – and one reason she is speaking out to back Fabulous's Had Our Fill campaign, calling for tighter regulation on the Botox and lip filler industry.

Bogus doctors 'given free reign'

Marcelle admits she barely gave the process much thought and had done no research when she decided to try Botox for the first time five years ago, at the age of 59.

"It felt like everyone was having it, including celebrities, so it never crossed my mind that there were dangers."

She made her first £300 appointment with a local salon in 2013 but was then told the girl she had booked was working from home.

Marcelle assumed she had a home salon. Instead, when she arrived it was to an ordinary detached house on an estate.

"I was plonked in a chair in a pretty manky kitchen," says Marcelle. "Alarm bells started to ring but I am very trusting, so I pushed them to the back of my mind."

Brow injection caused 'excruciating pain'

On his arrival self-styled doctor Ozan Melin reassured Marcelle she was in safe hands.

"He arrived in a BMW and he had a professional-looking silver box, so I assumed he knew what he was doing," Marcelle recalls.

Melin didn’t ask a single question before pulling on his rubber gloves and producing a thick needle from his metal case.

"It looked like a dog vaccination needle and I remember asking whether he was going to use a fine needle.

"He replied that he would do it ‘really fast’ so that my brain didn’t register the pain."

The 15-minute procedure in which Marcelle was repeatedly injected around her jowls  – the area she had said she was concerned about – was painful, although Melin reassured her it was ‘completely normal’.

"He then said if it didn’t work, he would do a free top-up," she recalls.

"Over the next few days apart from bruising there was no change so I went back for the ‘top-up’."

This time, she decided to have her brow done at the same time and paid an extra £100.

Blinded and almost killed

As he prepared to make his second round of injections, Melin told Marcelle that he was a fully qualified plastic surgeon, who trained in America.

"Then he started injecting and this time the pain was excruciating," says Marcelle.

By the time she got to the car her forehead was swelling up – and as the evening wore on her face continued to blow up at an alarming rate.

"My face became so puffy and blistered, I could barely see," she says.

"My husband said we should go to the hospital, but I was too embarrassed and worried people would think it was self-inflicted."

Instead, Marcelle sent a picture of her face to Melin and asked if she should seek medical help.

"He replied that it was perfectly normal and advised me to take ibuprofen and put a warm flannel on my face," she says.

Unable to sleep, a petrified Marcelle stayed up all night struggling to breathe.

"By the morning I was in so much pain my husband drove me to the GP," she says.

"The practice nurse took one look at me and sent me to A&E. She said if I hadn’t had my husband with me she would have called an ambulance it was so urgent."

On arrival, Marcelle was whisked into a resuscitation unit and told she had had anaphylactic shock which could have been fatal.

"My blood pressure was off the scale," she says.

Had Our Fill campaign

Britain's Botox and filler addiction is fuelling a £2.75billion industry.

The wrinkle-busting and skin plumping treatments account for 9 out of 10 cosmetic procedures.

50% of women and 40% of men aged 18 to 34 want to plump up their pouts and tweak their faces.

Fillers are totally unregulated and incredibly you don’t need to have ANY qualifications to buy and inject them.

83% of botched jobs are performed by people with no medical training, often in unsanitary environments – with devastating results. 

Women have been left with rotting tissue, needing lip amputations, lumps and even blinded by botched jobs.

Despite the dangers, there is no legal age limit for dermal filler, which is why Fabulous has launched Had Our Fill, a campaign calling for:

• fillers to be made illegal for under 18s
•  a crackdown on social media sites plugging fillers
• a Government-backed central register for practitioners with accredited qualifications

We're working in conjunction with Save Face and are backed by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH), British Association of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (BAPRAS) and British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS).

We want anyone considering a non-surgical cosmetic treatment to be well-informed to make a safe decision. 

We’ve Had Our Fill of rogue traders and sham clinics – have you?

Tests reveal filler was beef gelatine

After five hours hooked up to a heart monitor and receiving intravenous medication, Marcelle was discharged with a strong cocktail of antibiotics, antihistamines and steroids – although not before doctors had raised doubts about what she had been injected with.

"The consultant said he’d never seen a reaction like that to a licensed brand of Botox," she says. "He also raised doubts about whether the man I’d seen was actually a doctor."

Back home, Marcelle’s face remained swollen for three weeks.

"I looked like I’d had a stroke," she says.

Marcelle contacted the General Medical Council (GMC), who confirmed they held no record of an Ozan Melin.

She reported the incident to the police who, upon investigation, discovered other victims who had suffered similar reactions.

Shockingly, tests revealed that Marcelle had been injected with a substance made with unpurified beef gelatine.

In 2018, Melin was found guilty of two counts of Grievous Bodily Harm without intent and sentenced to four years in prison, although that was subsequently reduced to two years on appeal.

Save Face

Save Face is a Government-approved register of accredited non-surgical cosmetic practitioners.

They inspect every practitioner and clinic listed on their register against a stringent set of standards.

Each practitioner has been vetted to ensure that they are:

• A registered healthcare professional
• Appropriately trained
• Able to recognise and manage complications
• Insured
• Using safe products
• Working from a safe and hygienic environment

To mitigate the risks associated with poorly injected treatments carried out by untrained and unscrupulous providers visit www.saveface.co.uk. 

'No remorse'

"He has shown no remorse about what he did to me – he told police that I had an allergic reaction to my dog," she says.

"He couldn’t care less about what he’s done. I now feel like such an idiot letting him near my face."

Even today, her face has not fully recovered from Melin’s butchery.

"The muscles either side of my mouth were permanently damaged so my mouth doesn’t move in unison when I speak," she says.

"He also damaged the nerves over my eyes so I frequently get horrendous sinus-like pain."

Her self-consciousness is one reason she turned to Save Face, using them to find a recommended practitioner to administer corrective Botox.

"This time it was a completely different experience," she says."It made me realise how little I knew."

Ashton Collins, director of Save Face says: "Marcelle placed her trust in someone she thought to be a qualified surgeon [but] unfortunately, was exploited and lied to and paid the ultimate price.

"We were able to contribute to the court case that led to Ozan Melin’s conviction which was a monumental breakthrough in holding rogue practitioners to account."

Now Marcelle, who is one of their patient safety ambassadors, is urging anyone considering any cosmetic treatment to do their research – and the government to clamp down on rogue practitioners.

"It’s too late for me – but I don’t want anyone to suffer like I did," she says.

Source: Read Full Article