After browsing pictures online and getting advice from a friend, Lauren Smith of Palmdale, California, decided a Brazilian butt lift would be right for her.
She found a clinic based in Mexico with many positive reviews from satisfied customers, sealing her decision. He would save $15,000 in surgical costs by having the procedure done there, as opposed to having it done in the United States. With $5,500 in cash strapped to her waist, she traveled to Tijuana for the procedure in May 2018.
But two weeks after the BBL procedure, Smith said, her stomach began to swell and she felt excruciating pain. He underwent emergency surgery in the US after serious infections.
“It took me a long time to recover, and even now, I still have problems,” Smith, 30, said.
Smith is one of them 22,000 people in the US who have undergone one of the fastest growing plastic surgery operations, fueled by celebrities and social media influencers. BBL procedures involve transferring fat from other areas of the body, such as the abdomen, to the buttocks and thighs.
But his death Shacare Williams, an Indianapolis mother who ventured to the Dominican Republic for the procedure in April, has explained the risks the procedure can involve. Its popularity has inspired some seeking a less expensive means of achieving an improved body shape to pay for substandard care in the US or to venture into other countries such as Mexico, where the standards for the industry are not that high. Innocent results among some patients have left them regretting not screening professionals enough or not going under the knife at all.
Dr. Daniel Del Vecchio, a plastic surgeon with offices in New York, Boston and London, said the procedure is not inherently fatal. Instead, he said, some providers’ greed and lack of training about the procedure, as well as the risks some patients are willing to take, can contribute to deaths and medical complications.
His research finds that deaths from Brazilian butt lifts can be dramatically reduced with better techniques and surgical instruments. He said he performs a maximum of three such procedures a day, but that not all plastic surgeons apply the same level of restriction.
“Now, a typical BBL takes two to three hours to do,” Del Vecchio said. “If a surgeon does seven cases a day, that means he’s awake 21 hours, or someone else is doing part of the operation for that person.”
But safety improvements for the procedure are taking hold, and the death rate is expected to decrease over time, according to a 2021 report published by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons shared with NBC News.
Meanwhile, Del Vecchio proposed new U.S. safety guidelines for Brazilian butt lifts at a cosmetic surgery symposium in February, including the number of procedures surgeons can do per day.
While any cosmetic procedure has potential risks, there are ways patients can prevent themselves from putting themselves in a dangerous situation when getting a Brazilian butt lift. Dr. Arturo Ramírez-Montañana, a board-certified plastic surgeon and chairman of the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery’s global research committee, said the surgery should be performed in a high-quality facility by a board-certified surgeon who follows proper safety protocols. This involves injecting fat only directly under the skin away from the muscles. This reduces the chance of fat embolism, which often leads to death.
After spending more than $7,200 for BBL surgery and post-operative care from a board-certified plastic surgeon in Miami, Raina Wright of Dayton, Ohio, said she can see uneven results on her body. He is considering getting another procedure from a different doctor to compensate.
While there are those like Wright and Smith whose experiences were not what they bargained for, some patients are satisfied with their results. Like Wright, Javon Royster, 25, traveled to Miami from Sterling, Virginia in 2020 for BBL surgery. After researching for a year, she found a board certified plastic surgeon known for delivering natural results. In total, he said he spent $10,000 on the procedure and recovery costs.
“We’re both satisfied,” Royster said. “He certainly understood the mission.”
Before the surgery, he said he felt anxious about reducing his body mass index to qualify for the procedure, while also avoiding homophobic criticism from others about his decision.
He said he thinks most observers think men who have the procedure “want to be women. Actually it’s not like that. I just feel like if I’m going to do this, it’s going to make me happy.”
Smith still experiences pain related to complications from her surgery, but she said it’s less frequent. She also said she tried to contact her surgeon, whose identity she is not sure, but was unable to speak with him immediately after the procedure. Instead, the surgeon’s coordinator suggested that she return to Mexico and receive a hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber, which is used to treat infections, which she refused to do.
The company, Bella Bodiez, has not responded to a request for comment from NBC News.
Despite the challenges she’s faced, Smith said, she doesn’t regret the surgery and said she knows the pain is just something the doctors who treated her in the US said she “had to deal with for the rest of her life.”
“I’m happy with the results,” she said. “So I don’t regret taking it. I’m just sorry for the lack of information I had and how sorry I was for being so naive about it.”
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CORRECTION (May 9, 2022, 12:30 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misspelled the last name of one of the people who received a BBL procedure. It’s Javon Royster, not Foyster.