She tried to find the pharmaceutical fountain of youth — and ended up “aging” irreversibly.
A Russian architect underwent a questionable beauty procedure — because her boyfriend told her she looked old — and wound up with horrifying results, as seen in a shocking video showing her alarming transformation.
“My face shrank like in mummification,” Svetlana, 37, told East2West of the affliction, which occurred after she heeded her cosmetologist’s advice to take a controversial new Russian drug.
Unfortunately, the remedy had the effect of “irreversibly aging her 10 years.”
“My skin sagged like a rag, the face completely departed from the skull,” she said of the cosmetic catastrophe. “The connection of the skin to the skull, the so-called ligaments of the face, disappeared.”
Svetlana sought the unorthodox operation because her then-boyfriend repeatedly told her — supposedly as a joke — ” ‘You’re old. I’ll find myself a younger model’ ” she said.
Determined to improve her looks, Svetlana went to a surgeon last March who advised her to remove old gel implants with injections of Longidaza, a Russian drug purported to treat everything from pulmonary problems to COVID-induced breathing issues. The manufacturers claimed it had cosmetic applications as well. The multifaceted pharmaceutical had been greenlit this year for use in many Western countries, Russia’s NTV reported.
The surgeon assured Svetlana that the Longidaza would break down excess gel under the skin beneath her eyes, East2West reported. She also received other treatments as well, including having gel injected into her cheeks and undergoing a procedure in which she received both enzyme and hyaluronic filler.
That evening, Svetlana went to the mirror and saw that her face had begun to change.
“The skin under my eyes dried up and literally fell through,” the horrified plastic surgery patient recalled. “In the morning, the volume of dried tissue under the eyes increased even more.”
“The skin under my eyes dried up and literally fell through.”
Svetlana
She added, “Rapid changes were taking place, every hour my face was altering.”
Within three days, the skin encircling her eyes was completely dried out.
The doctor reportedly offered to alleviate her side effects by injecting more gel as well as administering more of the new drug. This time around, she didn’t charge Svetlana for the treatment.
While the fillers eased Svetlana’s pain, it didn’t mitigate her complications, which got so bad that surgeons and ophthalmologists warned her vision would be permanently damaged.
“As if you were killed, you decompose — and see it every day in the mirror,” rued the poor woman about the aesthetic Armageddon. “It’s like your face is melting and you can’t stop it.”
Along with the physical symptoms, Svetlana’s social life deteriorated as well.
Her boyfriend dumped her following the botched surgery, and she subsequently became a “recluse.”
“I shut myself away,” lamented the aggrieved gal. “Everyone asked what happened to me, why I didn’t look like myself, what was wrong with my eyes.
She even “stopped leaving the house so as not to scare anyone.”
Svetlana said COVID masks helped conceal her scars, although she also wore large dark glasses and a cap to further hide her disfigured face.
Determined to get to the root of her facial fiasco, Svetlana searched the doctor on the web and found that she wasn’t alone in her affliction.
She subsequently reported the incident to the Russian Investigative Committee, where a medical exam confirmed her worst fears.
Doctors reportedly told Svetlana that the “drug has corroded your face, it is irreversible,” she said. “Even after (restorative) surgery, it will be a completely different face, and the skin will not be completely restored.”
The Russian Investigative Committee has since launched an investigation into the case, which has so far come up empty.
Her cosmetologist, who is contesting her claims, was even caught on camera saying “Go and prove I injected you with Longidaza.”
I “stopped leaving the house so as not to scare anyone.”
Svetlana
Svetlana has used her predicament as a cautionary tale about the shadiness of the cosmetic industry and the fetishization of female looks that perpetuates bad beauty practices.
“You can’t blindly trust doctors, even with many qualifications,” she urged. “You need to love yourself and watch Instagram less, and not listen to people who say: ‘You’re getting old.’
“Better to grow old with dignity and do nothing with your face.”
This isn’t the first time a seemingly simple beautification procedure has gone horribly awry.
In June, a UK woman narrowly avoided losing her nose and mouth after contracting a voracious flesh-killing disease from a botched filler operation.
