In a bizarre story, a woman addicted to plastic surgery has admitted to injecting cooking oil into her face in an attempt to plump it up. According to the Telegraph:
Amazingly, she found a doctor who was willing to give her silicone injects and, what's more, he then gave her a syringe and silicone of her own so she could self-inject. When her supply of silicone ran out Hang resorted to injecting cooking oil into her face.
As Hang's notoriety spread she was featured on Korean TV. Viewers seeing the report took mercy on her and sent in enough donations to enable her to have surgery to reduce the size of her face. During the first procedure surgeons removed 60g of foreign substance from Hang's face and 200g from her neck.
After several other sessions her face was left greatly reduced but still scarred and disfigured.
And it would seem that even Hang can now see the damage she has done; she now says that she would simply like her original face back.
This woman obviously has a major case of BDD. The problem with this psychiatric condition is that most people who have it don't think they do. In medical terms, we call it "lacking insight" into their condition. This causes them to be resistant to undergoing psychiatric treatment for it. When I've tried to encourage patients like this to stop undergoing plastic surgery and maybe get counseling instead, they usually don't listen to me and go to the next plastic or cosmetic surgeon down the street. Often that surgeon is willing to operate on them, and the unfortunate cycle continues.
Oh well. I try.
Click here to view a segment on BDD that I did on the Montel Williams show.
Thanks for reading.
Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:
