A woman whose top lip swelled to four times the normal size after having fillers, was told she could have died.
Rachael Knappier, 29, from Leicestershire, appeared on This Morning alongside cosmetic surgeon Dr Tijion Esho who said that she was 'one of the lucky ones' and her injuries could have been 'life ending'.
She revealed how she had attended a 'botox party' where a beautician promised to fix her 'biggest insecurity' by injecting filler into her top lip, and paid £220 for the treatment.
But she woke up in the night with a searing pain in her lip, and told a stunned Rochelle Humes and Rylan how doctors laughed at her when she rushed to the hospital as her lips had swollen up to four times the normal size.
But it was no laughing matter, as the beautician had pierced an artery in Rachael's lip, an injury which had caused a blockage in her lip.
It could have resulted in her losing her lip, or even her life.
Ms Knappier previously had Botox in her forehead and once had a small dose of filler in her top lip to even out a bump she has had since she hit her face against a door as a teenager.
Although she planned on getting her lip 'topped up', she did not intend to have the injection at the party until the beautician pointed out the bump on her lip - which Ms Knappier calls her 'weakness'.
Knappier calls her 'weakness'.
She admitted: 'She told me she could fix it. She told me she'd seen so many girls like that before.
'You've got someone telling you they can fix your biggest insecurity and I didn't really ask any other questions.'
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This combined with copious amounts of alcohol persuaded Ms Knappier to have the procedure.
'There was fizz and cake and it was a bit of a conveyor belt with girls sitting in the kitchen waiting their turn with local anesthetic cream on their faces,' she told The Sun.
After the injection, Rachael went home, but woke up in the night with a burning sensation in her lips.
She found her lips had swollen to four times the normal size, and were touching her nose.
She revealed: 'The pressure and the burning sensation in my lips were unbelievable.'
Rachael rushed to hospital, and said that the nurses 'laughed at her' as they'd 'never seen anything like it before.'
'I'm telling them, I'm having an allergic reaction, but then three doctors confirmed she had had the filler injected into her artery.'
Calling her 'one of the lucky ones', Dr Tijion Esho said that often times if beauticians or non-medical professionals didn't know what they were doing, the filler could block the artery and would kill the cells.
He went on:' You can lose tissue - the nose, the side of the face,the lips.'
'She's very lucky it was identified as this, as many times it happens people have life ending injuries from this.'
Three days later, Ms Knappier was left screaming in pain while doctors injected her lips with a dissolving agent.
Three months on and with her lips almost back to normal, Ms Knappier said she will never attend a Botox party again and just assumed people who inject fillers have been to medical school.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
