Health menace: Botox horror or quick bucks?

Two women have filed a complaint with health authorities against a local clinic after a botox treatment left them with swollen red faces.

On June 19, the women went to the emergency unit at Rashid Trauma Centre because their swelling got worse.

Emma Cambell, 47, a British expatriate, said, "My face looked like a beehive. I had huge red lumps on my face and I couldn't move because of the pain. The doctor at the Trauma Centre told us this is not botox because it does not flare up like this. He said this is for business."

Cambell said she has taken botox injections for the past six years and never had any complications. "My friend and I have been going to the same doctor for all these years. But this time I saw her mixing three different bottles of botox. I enquired but she brushed off the subject."

Cambell said the doctor mixed the botox as she had insufficient botulinum toxin. "We inquired if she had enough botox, but we feel she didn't because otherwise she would not be mixing."

Afra Ali (name changed), 47, an Emirati, said, "Immediately after taking the injections our faces flared up. I looked like I had been battered. The swelling around my eyes was so huge I could barely see."

Cambell said, "She gave us some medication and returned our money. I asked her to give me the bottles as I wanted to get them tested, but she said she had thrown them away."

At the Trauma Centre, the doctors gave the women two antihistamine injections. They asked them to continue taking steroids but stop using the creme their plastic surgeon had prescribed.

The women paid Dh 1,500 each for the injections.