Japanese spa injection blinds Vietnamese woman

The 30-year-old woman from Ha Tinh Province in central Vietnam suffered drooping eyes, dizziness and nausea, after spa employees injected 0.5 cc of fillers into her forehead.

Her legal name has not been released.

Despite having been given antidotes, her symptoms did not significantly improve. She went back to the place, but doctors there advised against any medical intervention. She was told to come back again a month later.

The next day, her eyes became red and inflamed, and she was no longer able to see clearly. Over the next few days, her pain intensified, and her cornea became inflamed and filled with blood. She did go to the spa for treatment, but her condition did not subside.

She got worried, and so flew back to Vietnam to go to an eye hospital. She was later transferred to the Viet Duc Hospital in Hanoi, six days after the injection.

Nguyen Hong Ha, head of the hospital’s plastic surgery department, said on Thursday the woman was nearly blind when she checked in: she could not decipher any shapes or anything else on her line of sight other than mildly being able to differentiate between light and darkness.

“This is a case of severe complications caused by the filler injection, which led to the eyes’ blood vessels being damaged, causing the loss of sight in her right eye,” Ha said.

The woman then received treatments to reduce pressure within her eyeballs, along with antibiotics. Diagnosis revealed that her retina may be entirely necrotized.

Doctors said she came to the hospital too late, missing the best window of time for her eyesight to be restored. Using different techniques, the patient can keep her eyes intact, though her eyesight is now unlikely to return.

“Keeping the eye and allowing it to move around like normal, without the drooping condition, would help retain appearance,” Ha said, adding that the patient can now move her eyes slightly upon doctors’ request.

Nguyen Thi Huong Giang, a doctor who was part of the operation, said people injecting fillers without appropriate medical expertise, may accidentally inject into the blood vessels surrounding the eyeballs. The vessels may then be blocked, which can lead to blindness.