Woman's DIY Plastic Surgery 'Nightmare'

July 20, 2009— -- You can still see the horrifying effects of botched plastic surgery on a woman who says "it's a nightmare that doesn't seem to end."

But in the case of the woman we'll call Mary, who asked that her real name not be used to protect her privacy, there is no doctor at fault. She only has herself to blame.

"It's very embarrassing that somebody would actually do this," she admitted. "Insane, I can't believe I did what I did."

In search of an inexpensive, do-it yourself version of a silicone injection she had gotten from a doctor to smooth a scar, the Midwestern mother injected her lips and face with silicone she purchased over the Internet.

At first she thought she'd hit the beauty jackpot.

"I actually felt pretty proud of myself. I thought this is a cheap way to go, it looks good," she said. "This one Web site had it for $10 for a bottle."

But within 24 hours those desired results quickly turned into a before and after nightmare.

"By the following day it was just completely inflamed my whole face and the area that you can see in the cheek was very raised and very infected," she said. "It expands, it's like rubber and your own collagen is forming scar tissue around it…it just looked like horrible blisters."

The silicone procedure was nothing new to Mary. For nearly $1,000 a plastic surgeon had injected it into her face once before to help fade a scar from an accident. But what he used what medical-grade silicone, and what Mary purchased wasn't medical grade and was labeled as a personal lubricant.

"At the time I thought it would be okay," she said. "I thought most of it would come out of the face and the lips and very little of it would actually stay in there. I never dreamt this would happen."

Mary acknowledged she thought it would be alright to inject herself with silicone because she'd seen a doctor do it.

"It's only a select few people who can afford to have this done," she said, citing the expense of treatments such as Botox and wrinkle fillers like Restylane and Juvederm. "That's hundreds of dollars every time you have it done and it's not permanent. Who can afford that?"