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BUM DEAL
I paid thousands for a BBL like Katie Price – I was left in agony, I still don’t know what was injected into my bum
Bonnie says the pain she experienced was worse than childbirth
WRITHING in agony, Bonnie-Louise Cooper was rushed through the A&E queues and into the nearest treatment bay.
Hallucinating as her temperature skyrocketed, Bonnie had no idea where she was or what was happening.
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Just 36 hours earlier the blonde hair beautician from Swanage had spent £1,500 on a 30 minute ‘lunchtime liquid BBL.’
The mum-of-one had five hundred millilitres of filler injected into her bum to give her a bum Katie Price would be envious of.
But her instant bum lift had left her with sepsis - leaving Bonnie fighting for her life.
Speaking exclusively to Fabulous, Bonnie, 26, says: “I’d be dead if my sister hadn’t called the ambulance and gotten me into hospital.
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“My little boy would have been an orphan all because of a liquid butt lift.
“The procedure took 30 minutes and left me with long-term tissue damage.
“I was in hospital for four days and off work for almost a month.”
Not such a safe option
Bonnie who is a beautician and is mum to four-year-old Kash says she decided to have a liquid BBL in the UK rather than jetting to Turkey as other celebs had done.
Most read in Fabulous
“I knew that Katie Price and other celebrities had procedures,” she says.
I flew to Turkey to get a BBL revision but woke up looking worse
“I was too scared to fly overseas to Turkey, I thought that opting for a clinic in the UK would be a safer alternative.
“My treatment was promoted as the ‘safe’, non-invasive alternative to the surgical Brazilian butt lift.
“But it was a huge mistake and I’m urging other women not to rush into the procedure like I did.”
The procedure, which Katie Price reportedly had to achieve her perfect derriere, had has grown in popularity in the last five years.
At the same time Save Face, a national, government-approved register of accredited non-surgical treatment practitioners says complaints about non-surgical Brazilian butt lifts have risen at an ‘alarming’ rate.
I always thought that giving birth was the worst pain I had ever experienced but labour was nothing compared to this
Bonnie Cooper
Save Face is calling for the procedures to be banned, while the Local Government Association has asked the government to take urgent action.
The standard surgical BBL involves the patient having fat harvested from their own body and re-injection into the buttock area.
A non-invasive liquid BBL uses a range of dermal fillers including hyaluronic acid which is injected into each buttock using a large cannula to add volume.
The liquid BBL is promoted as relatively pain free because the filler contains lidocaine, a local anaesthetic.
Non-invasive
For Bonnie it seemed like the perfect option.
“I didn't want to go overseas for a surgical BBL,” she says.
“I just wanted a little more shape and plumpness for my bottom.
“I've exercised and done thousands of bum squats over three years, and I still don't feel confident about my bum.
“I just wanted a confidence boost and a liquid BBL seemed like the perfect alternative. I was told I’d been in and out in less than an hour.”
Bonnie had the procedure done in Essex in November last year.
“I was told I was having 250 mils of filler injected into each buttock,” she explains.
“I was given some lidocaine, but I wasn't prepared for the pain of the cannula injection.
“I always thought that giving birth was the worst pain I had ever experienced but labour was nothing compared to this.”
Screaming in agony
Bonnie says the procedure was done in a beauty salon style environment and she was told to stand rather than lie down for the injections.
“I was in shock after the procedure,” she admits.
“I tried to put on a brave face. I was told I was likely to feel a bit odd because of the lidocaine.
“I asked if I should drive home and was told it was fine.
“That didn't make sense to me. I’d just had half a litre of filler injected into my bum.
“I wasn't given any after care instructions and was sent home without antibiotics and by the time I got home I was screaming in agony.
“I couldn't get out of the car and I started to vomit and fainted trying to get into my house.
“I rang the clinic and I was told that they would get antibiotics to me the next day and advised me to go to bed.”
Close call
Bonnie’s sister Lisa-Marie Hughes, 32, a stay-at-home mum, visited her that night, and had she not Bonnie might not be alive.
“She was screaming in pain,” says Lisa.
“Bonnie tried to get up to go to the toilet and fainted.
“My sister was making no sense and hallucinating. I knew she needed to go straight to hospital.”
Bonnie was urgently admitted to hospital and tests revealed she had sepsis.
She was given morphine regularly for the next four days and intravenous antibiotics to fight the injection.
“I had an emergency MRI scan, and it revealed the procedure had caused muscle damage,” Bonnie recalls.
Top surgeon reveals why the BBL is one of the most dangerous procedures ever
While a non-invasive BBL left Bonnie fighting for her life, surgical ones are even more dangerous according to one surgeon...
Mr. Mo Akhavani, Consultant Plastic and Cosmetic Surgeon at The Plastic Surgery Group, explained the procedure can be seriously risky – and why people need to choose their surgeon wisely.
Mo told The Sun Online: “I’ve been to Canada, the States and Brazil and met with the guys who pioneered the procedure – and I’ve learnt all the pitfalls and the things that shouldn’t be done.
“When you compare it [BBL] to other standard procedures it does have a fairly high complication rate – serious complications, even death.
“That’s mainly because of people who don’t understand what they’re doing with the fat.
“You have to be careful with where you inject it and how you inject it.”
With many searching for procedures to give them a bigger behind, Mo says that it’s important to avoid fillers – and that your own fat is the way to go.
He added: “Fat is the safest thing to do – it’s yours, it’s not foreign material, it’s not likely to be rejected.
“Permanent fillers, like silicone, are a definite ‘no no’ – there are too many complications such as infection, horrible cysts and unsightly scarring.”
Meanwhile, the jury is still out on fillers such as hyaluronic acid (used in lip fillers) – as they are not yet FDA approved.
Mo added that finding a surgeon skilled in liposuction and body contouring was also crucial for a good result.
He added: “If you don’t have enough fat to harvest then there’s no point really having the procedure.
“The second part is injecting the fat back in.
“You have to respect the anatomy of the buttock and how deep you go – if you end up injecting the fat into the muscle, because of its high blood supply, you can end up with serious problems and even cardiac arrest.
“This is avoidable if you [the surgeon] follow the safety procedures.
“If somebody injects fat into the wrong place and goes deep into the muscle, then the chances of the patient getting muscle necrosis – muscle death – and fat going into the vascular system (which you can die from) are increased.
“The advice now is stay superficial – stay above the muscle.”
“It was so serious I was given a referral to Salisbury Plastics for dissolving procedures.”
It took almost five days before Bonnie was well enough to be sent home.
“I had to take two different types of antibiotics for another month and was still on painkillers two months later,” she says.
“The antibiotics promised by the clinic never arrived and I was never told, despite asking what type of filler they used.
“The hospital tried to call the salon, but they didn't answer. It was awful.
“I felt like I’d been thrown to the wolves. I was left with no aftercare and no follow up.”
Lasting pain
Two months on Bonnie still has pain when sitting and continues to experience pain down her left leg.
“She had major swelling in left foot and calf after the Liquid BBL.”
“I rang the clinic and left messages,” she says.
“I know I agreed to the treatment but if I knew there was the slightest risk of sepsis I know as a single mum I would have reconsidered.
“My little boy could have been left without a mum.
“Just because you see the after pictures on social media doesn't mean it’s as simple as popping to the shops.
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“I want the procedure to be more regulated and those offering liquid BBL to be registered and follow stricter guidelines.
“I never want another person to go through what I did.”
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