Mum who got 'liquid BBL' procedure hospitalised in agony 'worse than childbirth'
A mum claims getting a "liquid BBL" in a hotel room led to her being in hospital for a week with sepsis and left with black holes scarred across her bottom.
Monique Sofroniou booked an appointment with what she believed was a reputable practitioner to further enhance her bottom non-surgically after undergoing a 'Brazilian Butt Lift' the year before. Excited at the prospect of getting her dream look, the aesthetician spent £3,000 to have one litre of filler injected into each bum cheek, a treatment popularised by Katie Price.
But the 30-year-old's excitement soon turned to horror that evening on 15 September 2022 when her temperature soared, she started vomiting and her bum became swollen and bright red. The following morning she was rushed to Stoke Mandeville Hospital A&E in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, for a week but on returning home the skin turned to black and began to ooze out the filler.
The mum-of-one developed sepsis and since has discovered the practitioner had used non-dissolvable silicone, rather than hyaluronic acid which is typically used for fillers. Now Monique is sharing her ordeal, which she described as 'worse than labour' in a bid to encourage tighter regulations around the infamous procedure. Monique, from London, said: "After the procedure I was really lightheaded, then that night I woke up and was being sick everywhere.
"I felt so ill. I had a temperature of 41 but I was shivering, freezing cold. I was being sick all night. My bum was swollen and very red around the area where you could see where the filler was. It was just getting redder and redder. I went to hospital and stayed in for a week on an antibiotic drip, but after I just went home with oral antibiotics.
Baby boy has spent his life in hospital as doctors are 'scared' to discharge him
"It just continued to get worse and worse to the point where I woke up and there were bumps of blisters with fluid inside them. I didn't want to look at it, it made me feel sick. It was really burning to the point where I had to have ice packs on it, but even to put the ice pack on it where it was touching was agony. It was burning and stinging.
She was rushed to Stoke Mandeville Hospital A&E in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, for a week but on returning home the skin turned to black and began to ooze out the filler (Kennedy News and Media)
The mum-of-one developed sepsis and has since discovered the practitioner had used non-dissolvable silicone (Kennedy News and Media)"It was the worst pain I've ever been through in my life, and I've had childbirth." Monique booked the procedure on the recommendation of a friend, assuming it would be at a reputable salon. However she claims that she was only given the address of where it would be done the day before the procedure - and was walked by the couple to a nearby hotel.
Monique said: "I thought filler would be a less invasive procedure, it's not supposed to be dangerous. I didn't know it wasn't going to be done in a clinic. When I got there they met me [at the address] and walked me to an opposite hotel, I thought, 'oh this is a bit weird' I do think I probably should have walked out at that point and been like 'no' but because I knew quite a few people who had been there before I just thought it'd be fine."
Monique had the filler injected in an hour-long procedure and now claims doctors have told her they had used silicone which is unable to dissolve. This started a three-week cycle of GP and hospital visits where Monique developed sepsis and underwent painful procedures to try and extract the filler. Monique said: "A surgeon syringed some of the stuff out to see what it was.
"I was crying in agony while he was doing it, I said 'it's too painful, you've got to stop'. I went home with a plaster on it where he'd put a tiny little hole in one of the blisters - it was filler mixed with blood. The next morning when I woke up, where he'd put the hole in to syringe some stuff out, the skin had collapsed in on itself and [the whole area] had gone nearly black. It was awful, I didn't even want to look, I felt sick. It was so abnormal, I thought 'oh my god, what is going on?'.
Monique went through a three-week cycle of GP and hospital visits after she developed sepsis (Kennedy News and Media)The surgeon said he thinks it was likely down to the fact that a high volume of this filler was put in and there was no room for it to go. That filler just needed to come out somewhere to the point it caused my skin to die, there was too much pressure on the skin. "They didn't tell me it wasn't dissolvable. If they did, I'd never have had it done." Monique says she's been left with permanent scarring and hopes in the future that the procedure should be banned - or at the very least have tighter regulations around it.
Monique said: "I'm quite a strong person, even though I'm fuming I know there are other people going through a lot worse. "I'm not after sympathy but I just want to spread awareness because I think it needs to be more regulated. I don't think it will be banned but personally in my opinion I think it should be banned.
"No matter who carries it out or how it's regulated, the procedure itself is so high-risk so it's not worth it. Thankfully it's a lot better now, it's not hard anymore. There's just the scars really. I'm quite thick-skinned. I'm grateful it didn't turn out to be any worse. I'm probably going to get a tattoo to cover it."
The Government-approved register Save Face reported that 214 complaints have been made about non-surgical BBLs and breast augmentations since 2022, with 87% of these complaints requiring treatment at a hospital. They also stated that in 100% of cases the procedure is being carried out by non-health care professionals and so are now calling on the government to ban the 'liquid BBL'.
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