A woman was terrified her lips would "burst" after an allergic reaction to filler dissolver left them looking like "humongous sausages".
Adriana Thomas said her friend even compared her to the giant-lipped character Fungus from Disney 's Pixar film Monsters Inc after the disastrous procedure.
The 26-year-old had been getting lip filler once or twice a year over the previous seven years but wanted to start from scratch and get the filler dissolved.
She says she has never suffered a reaction to filler and so expected that getting it dissolved would go smoothly as well, especially since she didn't have a reaction to the patch test.
But after the dissolver was injected into her lips she says she felt them swelling immediately and within minutes they had quadrupled in size, leaving her hardly able to talk.
The lash artist is now sharing shocking photos of her extreme reaction in October 2021 to warn people about the risks that come with dissolving filler.
Adriana, from Brisbane, Australia, said: "I went to this really big fancy cosmetic clinic and I had originally gone there to get them topped up because it had been about six months since I had them filled.
"I was speaking to the cosmetic nurse about the fact that I didn't really like the shape of my lips.
"I'd been to a different cosmetic clinic previously and they had made my lips quite ducky - it was just too pouty, like sticking out and the filler had migrated above my lips as well.
"She suggested that we dissolve the filler and start fresh so I was like 'yeah that's fine, we can do that'.
"She did a patch test on my arm just to make sure I wasn't allergic to it - she injected the dissolver into my arm and there was literally no reaction at all.
"So we went ahead and she put it into my lips and I could just feel them start swelling and getting bigger and bigger."
Adriana said the nurses were trying not to laugh.
"I just remember seeing the cosmetic nurse's face, she was giving me a weird look and I was thinking 'what is going on?'", she added.
"She called in some other nurses to come have a look and I could tell they were trying not to laugh and just knew something was wrong.
"They asked me to get up and have a look in the mirror. I looked in the mirror and screamed - I looked ridiculous, I just couldn't believe what I was seeing was real.
"My lips were probably like four times their normal size. They were humongous.
"I looked like a cartoon character. It was one of the scariest things I've ever seen. I didn't know it was humanly possible for my lips to swell to that size.
"I joked to my friends and said it's like I have sausage lips - like two big sausages, that's what it looked like.
"My friend actually said 'you look like Fungus from Monsters Inc.' and I was like yes that's what I look like. It was pretty bad."
As Adriana's lips continued to swell, she says the cosmetic clinic nurses began considering calling an ambulance or administering an EpiPen due to the severity of her reaction.
But they opted to try giving her an antihistamine tablet first which calmed the swelling enough that she was sent home after an hour and a half and told to check in again later.
Within 24 hours the swelling had completely subsided and she was left with just bruising for the next week.
Adriana said: "I could tell they were getting a bit worried. They asked me to come into a waiting room and came back ten minutes later to see if the swelling had gone down.
"It hadn't - it just kept getting bigger and bigger by every minute.
"I could feel my skin starting to stretch and I was so afraid my lips were going to burst - it felt like my skin was ripping apart.
"It was very uncomfortable and tight - I could barely talk, there was no movement in my lips and when I tried to drink some water it just dribbled out of my mouth.
"I called them back in and said 'this is getting worse, is there anything you can do for the swelling?'
"They said 'you're having a really bad allergic reaction so we might have to call an ambulance or give you an EpiPen but if you want we can give you an antihistamine and see if that helps at all'.
"So I was like 'okay let's try that first' - they gave me an antihistamine and it took about an hour and a half for the swelling to start going down."
Adriana said she started getting lip filler at 19 years old due to always "loving the look of bigger lips" compared to her naturally "thin" lips and admits that once she started it was "hard to stop".
She then consistently got them done once or twice a year depending on the type and thickness of the filler she went for each time.
She had one millilitre of filler each time for seven years before deciding to dissolve them and start fresh and has since had just 0.5ml of filler reinjected to build a more subtle look.
Adriana admits that she did not expect the dissolving procedure to be so painful or the shocking reaction that followed and now hopes to warn others to do their research about cosmetic injectables.
Adriana said: "I've never had any trouble with filler so I was like 'what harm can dissolver do?' but I was wrong.
"I'd say definitely do your research and look into it - I didn't do that and I wish I had.
"Definitely assess your pain limit because I didn't know how painful it was going to be but it was probably one of the most excruciating things I've ever done in my life.
"Make sure you go to the right place and that you've seen the cosmetic nurse's work."
