“Juvederm Paralyzed my Smile”

I had juvederm injected in the upper left lip/vermillion ONLY to even out with the other right upper lip/vermillion. I had three injections a few months apart. After the first two injections a slight ball formed above the lip line. Eventually the ball smoothed down to a slight mound above the lip line. Initially I just thought the small sphere-like ball was just swelling. And/or I thought it might be the juvederm material that migrated above lip line. In either case, my understanding is that both swelling and juvederm ARE TEMPORARY ISSUES so I was NOT concerned. Why would I be? THESE TWO ISSUES ARE BOTH TEMPORARY!

...with the third injection a ball that formed was HUGE and I developed severe hematoma, extreme pain, bruising and tremendous swelling. My lip was hanging way down!! I immediately called my dry’s office spoke to nurses since he was in procedures. They said it was normal and it’s just swelling and I should ice it and massage it ….I informed I could not massage it, it was too painful so I made an appointment to see my dr again as soon as I could get in his schedule within a few days. My Doc saw the ball, swelling and bruising and said it was normal and that my lip would recover..my lip hung down but I had to be patient until all swelling went away. It took about two months before the huge ball ultimately smoothed down to a slight mound above my lip line…I thought all was well!!!Read more »

One year later I smiled in the mirror and could not see the upper left teeth of my smile ! this really bothered me because I could not figure out why!! I DO NOT have a habit of smiling in the mirror so I NEVER noticed my smile was disfigured until then and I did not connect it to the previous traumatic juvederm injection until I saw a photo of myself shortly thereafter. When I looked at the photo I saw my face as a whole and could see not only was my smile disfigured but the position of my lip looked just like it did after the previous traumatic injection one year prior ( I have photos that I compared).…I immediately went back to my original Cos Derm and he told me my deformity had nothing to do w the juvederm injections...THAT MADE NO SENSE TO ME I HAVE PICS BEFORE AND AFTER JUVEDERM ...went to numerous plastic surgeons, Neuro Docs, internal medicine doc, numerous cos derms, wrote numerous emails to docs all over the country and even spoke to several researchers of HA fillers and anyone I could find to figure out what caused my smile to be disfigured …what exactly might have happened to me !! Finally my neuro doc confirmed after an EMG and nerve conduction study I have permanent paralysis upper left smile/lip...also did MRI of brain and NOTHING is pressing on my 7th cranial facial nerve. No tumor and NO stroke occurred …Also took a Lyme disease test and it was negative for that …since Lyme can cause facial palsy…however all my docs said I do not have bell’s palsy OR any other neuro disease.

Could it be the injection hit my angular/facial artery that runs along the upper lip ? or was I so overfilled that the juvederm pressed on my nerves/facial artery ? could it be the juvederm material was attacked by my own body as a foreign object in an attempt to isolate the juvederm material ? could it be that the juvederm material literally ate out my nerves ? since I have recently found out that juvederm is made from Strep C bacteria found in horses (i.e., Strangles disease) and is a gram positive killed bacteria that is being injected into the human body ….

Please if you have a similar story contact me. If any doctors reading this have had similar cases please contact me I would much appreciate it ... Thank you.