Emotional disorder syndrome after cosmetic facial injection

Abstract

There are a number of patients who develop severe anxiety or depression after receiving facial cosmetic injections. We presented a 32‐year‐old woman who developed frequent panic, tension headache, tachycardia, shortness of breath, and sleep disorder for a year after the injection of hyaluronic acid on her forehead and glabella. Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed multiple flaky and slightly longer T1, slightly longer T2 signals on the anterior frontal white matter. However, the patient's brain MRI scan 5 months before the injection showed no such performance. The patient was asked to consult the psychiatrist and was diagnosed with anxiety disorder. We name such phenomenon by Emotional disorder syndrome after cosmetic facial injection and assume that there are three major reasons for the emergence of this syndrome. One reason may be that emotional disorder is caused by the mental state of the patient. The second reason to explain the emotional disorder might be the frontal lobe syndrome caused by the frontal embolism during the filler injection. Another reason may be leukoaraiosis, a brain white matter change which may cause depression and anxiety.

Cerebral Embolism as a Result of Facial Filler Injections: A Literature Review

“…These patients sometimes presented with neuropsychiatric symptoms only, such as emotional or mood changes, memory disturbance, or asymptomatic lacunar infarction, which was seen only on imagings. 8 , 13 , 37 , 39 Therefore, we speculate that the incidence of FICE may be much higher than that reported in the literature. We also noticed that the recognition of the onset of cerebral embolism symptoms was affected or delayed by the type of anesthesia used.…”

Attitudes towards cosmetic surgery among women in China and the Netherlands

“…Like all medical practices, cosmetic surgery is related with numerous potential undesirable consequences, such as cardiac complications, nerve damage, and infection [ 5 – 7 ]. Though a certain amount of evidence has supported that cosmetic surgery could produce psychosocial benefits [ 8 – 10 ], there were also studies showing a post-operative development of psychological problems (e.g., [ 11 , 12 ]). Hence, cosmetic surgery seekers should cautiously and thoroughly consider and weigh the potential health risks that are not justifiable on health grounds but will be merely taken for aesthetic reasons; however, this is rarely observed among cosmetic surgery patients [ 13 ].…”

Say no to the knife!

“…Cross-culturally, societies have many strict requirements of women's appearance (e.g., Levine & Chapman, 2011;Swami, 2007; and physical appearance is recognised as a desirable trait of feminine identity (Rohner & Rasmussen, 2012). Relatedly, beautiful women are perceived as being more competent (Verhulst et al, 2010) and superior in accessing social resources (Mafra et al, 2020;Powell-Hicks, 2011;Wang et al, 2020); for example, they receive more and better employment opportunities (Powell-Hicks, 2011;Steinfield, 2014), have greater chances to be promoted to higher socioeconomic status (Chiu & Babcock, 2002), receive higher social popularity and perceived credibility (Haas & Gregory, 2005), and are superior in mate selection (Hinsch, 2013;Kocsor et al, 2011;Yang, 2011).…”

“…In line with these theories, some may consider female physical attractiveness as a tool through which women are able to compete with one another for social desirability and status (Dubbs et al, 2015;Mafra et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2020); meanwhile, the female body is considered a "project" that must be "fixed" and worked on throughout women's lives (Brumberg, 1997). Based on this belief and to buffer against the unpleasant feelings induced by negative body image, women may be motivated to improve their appearance satisfaction via multiple ways.…”

“…Therefore, appearance enhancement via cosmetic surgery may be considered as deception . Relatedly, having a beautiful appearance enables women to enjoy superiority in multiple aspects of life (e.g., mate selection, job application; Dubbs et al, 2015;Mafra et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2020). Given that appearance enhancement via cosmetic surgery can result in benefits and some women may not be able to undergo cosmetic surgery due to financial incapability or other factors (Mayyasi, 2013), to surgically enhance appearance can be considered unfair (Vartanian & Fardouly, 2013).…”