Hospitalized after heart-shaped lip surgery at spa

A 24-year-old woman (Hanoi) came to the Department of Plastic Surgery, Hanoi Medical University Hospital, with her entire lips and lower face swollen. Her lips were deformed, asymmetrical, and had a lot of dirty white pus and were severely infected. Three days earlier, she had had her lips cut into a heart shape at a spa.

The girl learned about the heart-shaped lip cutting service at the spa through an advertisement on social media. Seeing the beautiful advertisement image, the spa owner also posted pictures of himself at a hospital to “prove” its reputation, so she trusted and contacted the spa. The heart-shaped lip cutting service fee is 14 million VND, but the spa offers customers a 50% discount, making it only 7 million VND.

When she came for surgery, the girl was surprised to learn that the spa was located in an apartment building, and all services were performed there.

After the surgery, seeing that the lip area began to swell, become infected and painful, this person looked into it again and was "shocked" to learn that the spa owner had only finished high school and had no expertise in cosmetic surgery.

Doctors believe that the cause of the patient's infection may come from the unsanitary spa environment and the surgeon's lack of expertise.

In this case, doctors cleaned the pus from the wound and used a combination of strong, broad-spectrum antibiotics to treat the infection and prevent it from spreading to the face.

Currently, the wound on the lower lip is wide open, deeply sunken, and cannot heal on its own. After the wound infection is treated and stabilized, about 10 days later, the doctor will take the next step of suturing the wound.

The patient's entire upper lip area is infected, swollen, and tense, requiring further treatment and monitoring. However, according to the doctor, the risk of the girl's lips becoming deformed is inevitable, and now the patient's cosmetic surgery has become much more complicated.

Recently, the Department of Plastic Surgery, Hanoi Medical University Hospital has continuously received cases of complications due to minor surgery and cosmetic surgery at spa facilities.

“There are days when we receive several cases of botched eyelid surgery, or complications after filler injections, or skin necrosis after liposuction. The common point of these cases is that they are all performed at spas, and the people performing the surgery are not plastic surgeons, and do not even study medicine, only finishing high school,”Dr. Hong shared.

Doctor Hoang Hong recommends that women should research carefully before going to a beauty salon and should not believe in the advertising clips that are rampant on the internet or rely solely on the advice and experience of others.

In case you want to perform minor surgeries, surgeries, or cosmetic interventions, you need to find reputable, licensed addresses, such as hospitals/medical clinics. According to regulations, spas are not allowed to perform bleeding interventions.

The people who perform these interventions must be plastic surgery specialists, instead of people who have only studied spa for a few months or have studied nursing at intermediate or college level, or "amateur" doctors who are not specialized in the field.