KatLimHLC
New Member
Risks
The woman claimed that she would hear strange sounds, like castanets, when she tries to close them. Dr. Allan Wu, a cosmetic surgeon who was not the one who performed the procedure, thought that the woman was only imagining things.
But he was shocked at what he found out after assessment.
Based on Dr. Wu’s evaluation the woman has a swollen eyelid which drooped severely it just appeared shut.
He performed a surgery along with some of his colleagues, and after six hours of surgery they removed bone fragments from the area. These had been growing inside the flesh around the woman’s eye. The strange sounds that the woman had been hearing upon closing and opening her eyes were actually bones grinding against bones.
The reason that was pointed out was the fairly new cosmetic procedure that the woman, whose identity remains undisclosed, underwent three months earlier. It was a face lift which uses adult stem cells taken from the patient’s abdominal fat.
The doctor who performed the surgery injected the area around her eyes with mesynchymal stem cells. These cells are actually undifferentiated which means that they could turn into any tissue such as fat or cartilage. And in this case it transformed into bones.
But what turned the stem cells into bones is the calcium hydorxyapatite filler that was injected along with it. This mineral directed the stem cells to become bones which was really a surprising discovery for the doctors who did the repair.
These types of cosmetic procedures are becoming more common and much preferred because it is deemed to be much safer compared to synthetic fillers. Since it lacked FDA approval, this means that it went untested.
Even though stem cells hold a lot of curative benefits, extensive research still needs to be done in order to fully understand when used in certain procedures.
The woman paid $20,000 to learn this lesson. Fortunately, reports said that she is now doing much better, but there is still a possibility that living stem cells are still embedded in her face. There is still that possibility that these could turn into bone or any body part at any time in the future.
This is a wakeup call to those who may be looking for more natural means to improve their looks, and yet settling for ones that are not yet fully understood.
It may be a common perception that since it comes from your own body, it will be perfectly safe. To some extent this can be right, but there still needs to be more research done on these areas to guarantee these claims. Anything invasive still holds a certain amount of risk even if it involves your own tissues.