Number 7 Raluca Crisan 38-year-old Romanian woman Raluca Crisan was
the victim of a nightmarish cosmetic procedure, in 2013, after the doctor whom she’d expected
to conduct a Botox procedure allegedly injected her with snake venom. Crisan had the jabs below
her eyes and in her lips but, within seconds, felt a searing sensation in her face. She was
admitted to a local hospital, in the central town of Alba-Iulia, with severely deformed features.
She had massively swollen bags under eyes which had become so inflated that they nearly blocked
her vision while the woman’s lips were also frozen in a permanent pout. Crisan told a media outlet
that her face was fully paralyzed for 8 months to a year. She was no longer able to laugh or cry,
the latter complication stemming from the fact that her lacrimal glands had been paralyzed thus
requiring her to permanently use pharmaceutical drops. After roughly two years of medical
procedures, she was still able to only use about 70 percent of her face muscles. In the aftermath,
Crisan took legal action against her surgeon, 47-year-old Adrian Oancea. Snake venom, which
has a similar nerve-blocking effect as botulinum toxin, has been used as a replacement in cosmetic
procedures. However, whereas most professionals would introduce minute quantities of it
into a cream and apply it to an area of skin, Oancea was suspected to have injected it directly.
As reported by Crisan’s lawyer, officials from the ministry of health determined that the substance,
which was traced to a Chinese provider, hadn’t been approved for use in Romania.
Oancea, who denied responsibility, was suspended from his position at the Alba County Hospital
and the authorities raided his private practice as well. It’s unclear what legal repercussions the
disgraced surgeon faced for the botched procedure. Number 6 Rachel Knappier
At the end of August, 2018, UK woman Rachel Knappier went to a Botox party at a friend’s house
and had an enhancement that went horribly wrong. 29-year-old Knappier, of Leicestershire, had
previously visited a highly-qualified aesthetics nurse and had Botox injections as well as filler
in her top lip to even out a bump. She described the feature as one of her greatest insecurities,
acquired in her teens when she was accidentally hit in the face by a door. Knappier was due for
a top-up and the beautician visiting her friend’s home had come highly recommended. Botox parties
were a growing trend at a time with those seeking the procedure typically having drinks and relaxing
while a beautician, whose qualifications often went unchecked, performed the injections. Looking
back on the incident, Knappier remembered waiting her turn in the kitchen along with what she
described as a “conveyor belt with girls”. She’d only wanted the Botox but, after a few glasses of
Prosecco, accepted the beautician’s offer to have filler for her bump done as well. Within hours,
her lips massively swelled up and she began feeling pressure and intense pain. Knappier
facetimed the beautician, whom she subsequently learned had been released from jail earlier
that year, and the woman told her to go to the ER because she was having a life-threatening allergic
reaction. Doctors examined Knappier but found no evidence of anaphylactic shock and recommended
filler dissolvers. After she’d left the emergency room, Knappier’s top lip split as tissue
had begun rotting away. The woman had urgent treatment at the Consultant Clinic, in London,
where she also learned that the beautician had accidentally injected the filler into an artery,
thus causing necrosis. Within three days of having excruciatingly painful filler dissolving agent
injected into her lips, Knappier began to recover. Number 5 Belinda Hale
In 2018, former beauty guru Belinda Hale, of Surrey, England, revealed how a Botox injection
she’d underwent roughly three years prior had permanently changed her life. Hale, whose
client list once included musician Lisa Maffia and stars from the reality show The Only Way Is Essex,
had been using Botox regularly since the age of 35. In April of 2015, she underwent an injection
which had reportedly been far more painful than anything she’d felt before. The woman, then in her
mid-40s, felt unwell immediately but it wasn’t until the following morning when the extent of
the damage was fully revealed. She couldn’t open one of her eyes and half her face was lopsided.
A few days later, her condition worsened as she began experiencing severe exhaustion, tremors and
difficulty in forming coherent sentences. Doctors failed to identify her health issue and the
woman searched for more answers on the Internet, eventually coming upon a forum where users talked
about Botox poisoning. She immediately recognized her symptoms and a doctor would later tell her
she had the most severe case of Botulism he’d ever encountered. Botox is derived from the
Clostridium botulinum bacterium and essentially works as a nerve blocker. While considered safe
in small doses, the toxin can spread to other areas of the body and cause Botulism,
a potentially fatal illness. Sufferers become extremely fatigued and, in cases such as Hale’s,
unable to fully control their muscles, thereby experiencing difficulty in swallowing or even
breathing properly. Years after developing the illness, Hale, a mother-of-two, still struggled
to leave her bed on some days and was fitted with plastic mouth guards to reduce the pressure on
her nerves so that she could swallow. According to updates on her situation, the former beauty
expert planned to open an animal shelter with her husband, who’d become her primary caregiver.
Number 4 Nikita Kimberly In the fall of 2021, a young woman from the
Netherlands shared her botched Botox procedure, which left her with crooked facial features,
on social media. 21-year-old Nikita Kimberly had recently gotten the work done to prevent
a muscle from contracting when she smiled. She described that the muscle “was working a bit
too hard” and caused a dent in her chin which she found unappealing. Kimberly got lip filler which
reportedly went as planned but the botched Botox injection completely altered her face. Her smile,
which by her own admission used to be symmetrical, became crooked. The young woman also reported that
she suffered a lisp because, since her control of the muscles around the mouth was reduced,
she was biting her lip when talking. In light of her mishap, she urged her followers on TikTok
“Don't get Botox, please…lip fillers, fine, but don't get Botox, please.” Others on the platform
assured her that, as it typically is the case with Botox, the effect would wear off. In December of
2021, three months after the incident, her mouth was still crooked but she claimed to no longer be
bothered by it. In a more recent Instagram photo, from early 2022, it seemed that Kimberly’s smile
had regained its symmetry. Number 3 Stephanie
In 2021, a TikTok mother took to the social platform to share the shocking consequences of a
Botox injection. The user, identified by her first name as Stephanie, posted a clip with two starkly
contrasting pictures. The first, captioned “Before Botox” showed her regular smiling appearance while
in the “After Botox” one that followed she had a maniacal expression on her face, the upper part of
which had been locked into what was likened to actor Jack Nicholson’s signature eyebrow arch.
Her forehead appeared to be completely frozen, devoid of any wrinkles typically associated with
the muscles she was engaging. Stephanie explained that the Botox mishap had occurred roughly two
years prior. The injection had been performed by a dentist friend of hers, whom she’d trusted to know
the face’s muscular alignment. However, the friend injected too much of the age-defying serum
into her forehead leaving her with Nicholson’s trademark furrowed brows. Stephanie admitted to
have slightly exaggerated the look for comedic effect but remarked upon the reality of her
plight by saying her face didn’t “pair well with Botox”. A number of users, however, were quick to
point out that the responsibility rested less with the serum and more with her friend’s competency.
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comments section below. Number 2 Terry Brazier
In 2015, British pensioner Terry Brazier went to the Leicester Royal Infirmary for an operation
that involved, among others, the use of Botox. Doctors at the hospital mixed up his chart and,
while chatting away with staff members, 70-year-old Brazier failed to notice that
he was getting the wrong operation. Instead of a cystoscopy plus a Botox bladder injection,
Brazier was actually given a circumcision. Since he was under the effect of local anesthetic, he
didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. While subsequently commenting on his initial
reaction to the mishap, the pensioner would remark “it was a real surprise”. The medical director
of University Hospitals Leicester released a statement in the aftermath profusely apologizing
for the mistake. Brazier, who’d gone in “for some Botox” but was left circumcised, was given a
compensation of over $26,000 for the mix up. Number 1 Whitney Buha and Jessica
A 2022 New York Post article pointed to Botox as the most sought-after non-invasive procedure of
2020. Although it’s considered highly effective towards temporarily eliminating wrinkles,
injecting the serum does come with risks. Pain, bruising and flu-like symptoms are among the
side effects to have been reported but the most poignant consequences usually occur when another
facial feature is frozen in place along with the targeted area. Such was the case of 34-year-old
Instagram influencer Whitney Buha who, in 2021, shared the dramatic aftermath of a Botox procedure
with her over 60,000 followers. Buha, from Chicago, Illinois, had had the serum injected
into her forehead, eyebrows, and upper lip. After noticing that her left eyebrow wasn’t lifted as
high as the right, she went back to the clinic where she’d had the work done for a touch-up.
Three days later, as per her description, she woke up looking like the Batman villain Two-Face.
She had a dropping left eyelid, a rare Botox-associated complication called
ptosis, while her right eye was bulging. The woman, who provided her followers with
daily updates on her drastically-altered face, was recommended even more Botox to mend the issue.
Buha didn’t name the clinic responsible for the botched procedure but admitted that,
while she wouldn’t be using the same facility, the experience hadn’t put her off Botox. Similar
to Buha’s mishap was that of TikTok user Jessica. In 2022, she posted a photo to the platform of her
with a wrinkle-free forehead but with a drooping right eye, as a result of the nerve-blocking serum
migrating to it. Her video, the caption of which read that she was among the 1% to suffer
ptosis from Botox, was viewed and shared thousands of times within just two days
of her uploading it. Fortunately, much like Buha’s, Jessica’s condition was only temporary.
Thanks for watching! If your face froze in one position for an undetermined period of time, would
you rather have a permanent frown OR a permanent smile? Let us know in the comments section below!