SURGERY ADDICT: ‘I had baby oil injected into my lips’
Mum-of-one Kerry Miles knows the dark side of fillers only too well
odel Kerry Miles M was horrified when dodgy filler – which she now suspects was actually baby oil – left her lips swollen, and resembling raw meat.
Now, she’s urging women to think carefully before going under the needle and to research practitioners thoroughly.
Kerry, 35, a model and promoter from Chelmsford, says, “Within a few hours of leaving the so-called clinic my lips blew up. They’d become so swollen, I thought they were going to burst. I barely left the house for three weeks until they’d gone down.”
GRUBBY CLINIC
Kerry wanted plumper lips to give her a more youthful appearance. She explains, “I just picked the first clinic that popped up on Google. It had good reviews, and the practitioner said she had 14 years of experience.
“But when I got there, it was a rundown house, and there was just a collapsible, grubby-looking bed in the conservatory. There was even a dog running around. The woman wiped my lips with a baby wipe, and mixed the filler up in a bowl, before injecting it into my lips. Looking back, I should have run out of there, but I didn’t know any better.”
Within a few hours, Kerry noticed something was wrong.
She says, “My lips were bumpy and uneven, and I noticed some of the filler was leaking out. I was in a lot of pain and it felt burning hot. I phoned her to complain, but she told me that I wasn’t drinking enough water, and that I should be massaging my lips to get them to the size and shape I wanted.”
But soon, Kerry’s lips had swollen to twice their size. “It was awful,” she remembers. “I felt so stupid, and I was too embarrassed for anyone to see me.”
NIGHTMARE
Since then, Kerry has spent years trying to correct the damage. She explains, “It’s been a nightmare. I’ve had more filler, to try to hide the lumps and bumps I was left with, but it didn’t work. In the end I had to have all the filler removed. It didn’t dissolve like normal filler because it was a mixture of substances and was injected incorrectly.
“When it was taken out, I was told that the filler appeared to have been mixed with some kind of baby oil. I couldn’t believe it.”
But incredibly the horrific experience hasn’t put Kerry – who’s also had Botox, vampire face lifts and a nose job – off having lip fillers again.
“I still have lip fillers every four months because they make me feel young and beautiful. I model myself on Barbie, so I get procedures to look like her. But I would advise people to do their research. I even do a background check, calling up previous hospitals and clinics the practitioner says they’ve worked at. But most importantly, trust your instincts. If you go to a clinic, and it doesn’t feel right, just leave. It’s not worth it.”
❛LOOKING BACK, I SHOULD HAVE RUN OUT OF THERE, BUT I DIDN’T KNOW ANY BETTER❜