Woman is left blind in one eye after dermal filler injections caused her face to swell

COSMETIC fillers are becoming more affordable and more accessible, but for one woman a simple procedure turned her world upside down.

Carol Bryan visited her cosmetic surgeon to have dermal fillers in her face but it went horribly wrong, according to The Sun.

She was injected with two different fillers, combined in a syringe, in an area she shouldn’t have been and her face was left swollen and disfigured.
The reaction was so bad it left her blind in one eye and Carol said she contemplated taking her own life as she hid from not only her family and friends, but her own reflection in the mirror.

She told the The Independent: “I felt like I had the head of an alien, my forehead so heavy that it fell and covered my eyes so that I could not see unless I taped or held up my forehead.”
But Carol, from Florida, was no stranger to cosmetic procedures, having used Botox since she was in her late 30s.

In 2009, when she was 47, she decided to try fillers after cosmetic doctors told her she had lost the volume in her forehead and cheekbones.
It was a decision she would live to regret.
She hid away for three years until her daughter intervened and convinced her to move to Los Angeles to seek help.

Then, corrective surgery on her forehead damaged her optic nerve and caused her to go blind.

She said: “The pain of the corrective procedures is not quite describable. Then, years later, with the multiple surgeries to my face, each one was just as painful as the one previous.
“To anyone reading my story, I hope they will understand first that they are beautiful just as they are and deserve to be loved. Our collective perspective on beauty is so flawed that it is increasingly rare to meet someone who sees his/her own beauty.

Now, Carol is using her experience to help others struggling with disfigurement in her role as director of Face2Face Healing.
The organisation helps people emotionally and physically adapt to disfigurement after all medical help is done.

Carol wrote in her testimony to the organisation: “I have done so well at overcoming many challenges and now I can help others.
“I think that this focus and feeling will help me along my continued journey.
“I would love to be able to participate through Skype in your support group meetings when you get that set up.”
This article originally appeared on The Sun.