While butt plumping and thigh thickening may sound a little silly, and to some may even seem like a sure way to get the look they've always dreamed of, health officials are warning that it can be deadly.
As the problem continues to rise, New York health authorities warned on Friday that a quick beauty fix risks death from unlicensed practitioners offering oil injections to enhance prized body parts.
The city health department said silicone, petroleum jelly, castor oil, mineral oil or cod liver oil were among substances injected by unscrupulous practitioners.
"People who undergo these unsafe procedures hope to enhance their appearance, but the reality can be lifelong deformity and even death," said Doctor Nathan Graber, director of the city's environmental and occupational disease programme.
The health department said in a statement that side effects include "serious infections, nerve damage, respiratory and kidney failure, irreversible disabilities, disfigurement and death."
The department said it was aware of five cases in the last two years in which oil injections had been given to the hips, thighs, breasts and buttocks.
The department warned New Yorkers to avoid treatments done at home, in hotels or anywhere other than a licensed clinic.
"The use of oils to enhance body parts is risky under any circumstances," the department advised.
The most recent case where a Bronx woman died when a botched plastic surgery procedure that was intended to shape her thighs and buttocks went wrong.
Siordaliza Pichardo, 43, showed up at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center the morning of March 17, the day after the illegal procedure complaining that she wasn't feeling well, she told doctors. She was dizzy and had trouble breathing, she said, and had spent the previous night vomiting.
Pichardo died at the hospital the next day, just past 3 a.m., after doctors worked on her for more than an hour when she went into cardiac arrest, police said.
The autopsy performed on her was inconclusive, the medical examiner's office said.
But after further tests were conducted and police were consulted, the ME on Tuesday declared the case a homicide and concluded the mother of two died of a "silicone pulmonary embolism," with the silicone clotting in her lungs.
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