Misadventures in lip augmentation.

"Pop star Pete Burns revealed today he is suing his plastic surgeon for "wrecking his career and life".

Burns, singer with 1980s pop band Dead or Alive, has had several cosmetic procedures on his face and is suing a Harley Street surgeon for an estimated £1million over a botched attempt to remove lip implants.

In an exclusive interview he told the Standard he looked like he had been "mutilated with a Stanley knife" after surgery to correct the original problems left his top lip hanging off...

Burns said: "It has taken away my life and my career. I saw doctors in London who said the only option was to amputate my lips. I was suicidal."

In 2000 Burns went to Dr Maurizio Viel at the London Centre for Aesthetic Surgery to have a lip implant removed.

But instead of having the original implant taken out, he was injected with a filler called Evolution and then later with another called Outline.

Despite complications, Dr Viel persisted and injected more of the substance - only for the problems to escalate, causing swelling, blisters, discharge and lumps.

Eventually the singer was left so disfigured he could not eat normally, could only drink through a straw and did not leave his house for months."

Lip augmentation is still a proceedure that has risks. Lip amputation?

 
In Park City, we perform a lot of fillers, but in any normal situation, we avoid the permanent ones like Silikon 1000. There are docs that use this stuff like it was apple juice just because it's cheap and they can charge more for 'permanent fillers'.

It's not always just the cost or how much you can make. Putting a patient at increased risk just to save money or charge more for a treatment is not ethical behavior. 

Hat tip: Plastic Surgery 101