Why Do All the Doctors in the US Have Negative Opinion About Butt Injections Fillers and the Doctors in Latin America Do Not?

Hi there-

The simple facts are that only in the United States for doctors work under the constant threat of being sued for doing their best for their patients. Regardless of your politics, this is one of the principal reasons that the cost of healthcare in the United States is as high as it is as well...

Outside of the United States, and particularly in South America, because doctors do not fear the legal consequences of performing procedures with unproven safety records (or worse- dangerous ones such as these), many of them feel more free to do whatever patients want...

As a Board Certified Plastic Surgeon, my goal is always to keep my patient safe and to achieve as close an outcome to her goals as possible. While there is no doubt that the safe options for buttock enhancement are more expensive than having some quack inject your butt with some wierd substance in his office, you should know that the many patients I have seen who have had this done would pay ANYTHING to be able to go back in time and not do it (or to be able to have it removed).

 

Although I can never speak for other physicians, I do know a couple simple rules about "fillers" (other than your own fat) for buttock augmentation. 1) If using a real filler (product) other than cheap silicone, it is cost prohibitive in the order of $100,000.00 & 2) There is a high risk of infection when injecting such high volumes of fillers, again other than your own fat.  Best of luck...RAS 

In America, unless the FDA has approved something for human use, an ethical doctor can not inject it. If he does, and there is a problem, the patient can sur him and they will usually win. In other countries, no one sues, because the doctors do no carry malpractice insurance and the legal system is different. If you get injections in another country and have problems ten years later, you will never find the doctor, and good luck having your problems cared for. Ask all the people with rock hard breasts and buts from silicone injections.

In the United States a key factor in deciding on a particular therpay is patient safety. There are many treatments outside the U.S. which are being performed, including the use of various injections into the buttocks which can have serious health consequences. There are many instances, even in the U.S., where buttock injections using various materials have been performed illegally and which have resulted in deaths. The use of silicone and PMMA can have serious complications and should not be used. These complications can be immediate or can occur at a later date. You want to have a treatment that is successful and safe. The best and safest treatment for buttock enlargement is the use of fat transplantation.

The reason for not adopting a filler to the buttock in the US other than fat, dermis fat graft and buttock implant, is because of safety.

there is no filler that is safe to inject in large quantities to the buttock with reasonable safety and price.

The standards in latin America may be different

Great question. First, there are no absolutes in Medicine - we should never use "ALL", always, never, etc - there are always exception. Second, I would venture to say that NOT "all" South American surgeon were polled, as you state, doing so would be a very expensive polling task, but the Internet has provided you with a collection of those who ACTIVELY MARKET such injections.

Assuming that the level of training and experience between American Plastic surgeons and "ALL" South American supporters of Silicone - PMMA - Hydrogel and WHATCHUMIGHTCALLIT buttock injections is equivalent (a point I will not concede), what separates us from them?  This point is VERY hard for me to concede - a ferocious 99% unfair medico legal system of hungry, never wrong personal injury lawyers. While all humans are flawed, some much more than others and succumb to doing things which are ethically reprehensible, these doctors ARE punished and put out of business by our corrupt and omnipresent legal system. If we do stupid things to our patients we will be sued out of existence. In South America they do NOT have such a legal system. As a result, while a LOT of great surgical techniques and innovations come from great South American surgeons , unfortunately, so do a lot of crappy results in human experimentation by poorly trained and unethical physicians.

If you believe that American surgeons are that stupid and inexperienced and want to play the South American lottery - that is definitely your choice, as poor as it is.

Peter A Aldea, MD