I want to share my story about my experience with Dr Jaffer in hopes that my warning prevents this ever happening to anyone else. Let me preface by saying before seeing Dr Jaffer I was 100% healthy, fit and never had a problem with headaches in my life.
One year ago I went to see Dr Jaffer for Botox injections for a little refresh to my face after 2 kids at 39 years old. I had botox done previously 5 years ago on 6 separate occasions from a dermatologist downtown and loved the results. I went to see Dr Jaffer as we had now moved to Burnaby and the Heights Laser center is just down the road from our house.
When Dr Jaffer was administering the botox, a couple of the injections were extremely painful( they should not be painful) but didn't think much of it and paid my bill and left. The next morning I woke up with severe flu like symptoms ( nausea, fatigue, headaches) and a deep new wrinkle which formed vertically above my left eyebrow.
I was in 24/7 pain and no over the counter med would help. The wrinkle above my left eye continued to get deeper and I also developed spock eye above my left eyebrow as well as 5 other wrinkles on my face that did not exist before my injections with Dr Jaffer.
I discovered in a follow up visit with Dr Jaffer that he had injected 64 units of Botox into my face and he wanted me to come back and get even more to my forehead!! I took this information to the dermatologist that I had seen for my botox five years ago ( he has 25 years experience) and he said he would have given me max forty units. He also confirmed to me that botox injections shouldn't hurt in the places I had them done. I also called Allergan ( makers of Botox) and they told me 64 units for cosmetic botox injections was excessive for a 39 year old. After speaking with him, my friends who are my same age who get botox and from hours and hours researching, they are all getting around 30-40 units of botox max. Even 50 and 60 year olds I have spoken to are getting a max of 50 units for cosmetic botox!!!!! I had no major wrinkles, only a few fine lines before seeing Dr Jaffer. I trusted him to inject the appropriate amount correctly into my face, there was absolutely no need for such an extreme amount!!!
Despite a headache listed on the Botox black box warning label, initially Dr Jaffer had no idea what was happening to me. He said perhaps I was experiencing a headache because of my hormones changing from giving birth (which he later denied saying to my face) and that I was frowning in my sleep which was causing the new wrinkles. He kept telling me the symptoms would eventually go away. It wasn't until we pushed Dr Jaffer for further research and a visit to a Neurologist that we came to realize headaches are a side effect of botox in 8% of patients!!!
I have also come to learn that these new wrinkles that are on my face are due to muscle recruitment. Because I was so severely overdosed, this caused other muscles to over compensate for the paralyzed ones which have created these new lines on my face.
I filed a complaint to the College of Physicians and Surgeons and Dr Jaffer's response back was full of inaccurate facts & lies that I had to write a supplemental letter back to the College outlining all of the discrepancies!!!
One year later I still have the headaches. Thankfully the meds I am on prescribed from my neurologist help minimize the pain but I am not recovered yet. Although I have seen some slight improvement, the new wrinkles have still not gone away!!!
My first advice is this: ask yourself if you really need to do botox, I thought it was safe but after all the research I've done, there are a lot of side effects and you need to understand the risk. Second, if you decide to go ahead with any cosmetic procedure, my suggestion is go and see an experienced registered Dermatologist or Cosmetic surgeon and not a family doctor who opened a medi spa on the side for extra bucks!! read more
