Most of us thought the worst thing that to happen after getting fillers was a few days of puffiness and then acting like you always had that pout! But now doctors are warning that new scans reveal a risk that takes the concept of “beauty is pain” to another level.
If you know of dermal fillers, you’ll probably know them as the injectable hyaluronic acid shots that have now become maintenance of sorts for a whole bracket of people, no matter what their financial background is. It’s sold as an easy way to plump and smooth skin, especially areas like cheeks, temples, lips, jaw, and nose. And while people know about swelling and the occasional over-filling situation, researchers say there’s a danger nobody warned us about!
Doctors from the University of São Paulo in Brazil have examined ultrasound scans of 100 patients whose facial filler injections went wrong. They discovered a serious medical concern: nearly half of the scans showed no blood flow to small facial vessels. In one-third of patients, the blockage reached major arteries.
Fillers are usually successful in defining an area of your skin, but in rare cases, they can cut off blood flow beneath the skin. And when arteries shut down, healthy skin can die too. In some patients, blocked blood flow caused blindness, strokes, and permanent facial tissue loss.
Warning over cosmetic face fillers as scans reveal new details of risks https://t.co/wq01dmW46E
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) December 3, 2025
The complication is vascular occlusion, which happens when filler is injected into or too close to a blood vessel. Lead researcher Dr Rosa Sigrist presented the findings at the Radiological Society of North America’s conference, per the BBC:
“If injectors are not guided by ultrasound, they treat based on where the clinical findings are and inject blindly (..) But if we can see the ultrasound (..) we can target the exact place where the occlusion occurs.”
Her team recommends using ultrasound during filler injections to map blood vessels and reduce risks in high-risk areas like the nose and between the eyebrows. Plus, Nora Nugent, president of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS), also supports ultrasound in standard practice. She says mapping blood vessels will give us “valuable information ahead of treatment.” She wishes to limit aesthetic injections to medical professionals.
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BRITISH ASSOCIATION OF AESTHETIC PLASTIC SURGEONS (BAAPS). #BAAPS2024 #PlasticSurgery pic.twitter.com/zeVF5R7Vqx
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And the scientific literature backs it up, too, by the way. A 2024 peer-reviewed study published in Scientific Reports documented catastrophic filler complications causing retinal artery occlusion, sudden blindness, cerebral stroke, and, in the worst cases, even death. Many of those happened when inexperienced injectors filled zones that social media encourages us to have work done in.
So if you’re putting something inside your face, it matters who puts it there and how they do it.
NEXT UP: Woman Shares Bizarre Side Effect After ‘Lip Flip’ Cosmetic Procedure
