A mum has claimed her lips were left looking like a baboon's bum after an allergic reaction to filler left her in hospital.
Lauren Evens had her lip filler topped up last week, but before long she realised they were starting to swell more than was normal.
She claims they swelled to six times their normal size and even put pressure on her airways, causing her to dash to A&E at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
Lauren, 29, said: "My lips looked like a baboon's bum. They went around six times bigger than their normal size. It was very painful.
"I went into anaphylactic shock. My neck started to swell which meant my airways started to close."
After she arrived at A&E Lauren was given antihistamines, which did little to bring down the swelling.
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"They basically rushed me into resus and injected me with adrenaline and that worked," Lauren said.
"My lips were really sore and I felt a bit sick. At first I was fine in A&E. I couldn't close my mouth and was struggling to talk quite a bit but then the nurses rushed me through to resus and I couldn't really talk at all."
The trainee beauty therapist, who has been having lip filler for four years, said she has it topped up around every six months.
She claims she only had less than 1ml of filler injected at her most recent appointment - something she'd done many times before.
Lauren says her story is proof that, no matter how many times you've had filler injected, you could develop an allergy at any time.
Recalling her terrifying experience, she said: "I had the lip cream on and she [beautician] did them and they were fine but about an hour later they started to swell up and they went huge.
"I went to A&E and there was a huge wait. I was waiting for about six hours and they started to go down because I had some antihistamine.
"I fell asleep and they woke me up to give me some more antihistamine and they said that they were getting bigger and bigger. It was scary."
Lauren said she went into A&E at around 10.30pm and didn't leave hospital until the following afternoon.
After being sent home with antihistamines, she said the swelling subsided after three days. But nearly a week on she's still in pain.
Lauren said: "I've had a lot of lip filler and treatments before and had it previously around four weeks ago and didn't have a reaction.
"It's unexplained as to why this happened. Apparently at any age and at any point you can develop an allergy to something.
"I won't be getting lip filler again anytime soon. I want to have the allergy test to see exactly what I'm allergic to, the thought that it could happen again is very scary.
"I don't know if it was the filler or the numbing cream.
"I get lip fillers for a confidence boost, I wouldn't tell people not to get them done if they want to get them done but I'd say be careful and it's more the fact that an allergy can come on at any time."
