Rogue ‘beauty treatments’ claim victims from Salinas to Miami.

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Dr. Mary McQuade is a psychiatrist in Carmel. She’s treated plenty of patients with what’s called “body dysmorphic disorder,” a condition that tells the brain there’s something wrong with the outside of the body. It’s not unlike an anorexic who doesn’t see the skin and bones looking back at them in the mirror.

“This is not a new disease,” she says, “it’s just that more people have access to beauty procedures nowadays. There are those who will always see what isn’t there. They have one problem fixed, but it’s still not right. They still don’t feel whole or right, and they spend all of their time thinking and worrying about it.”

McQuade says people who are affected by body dysmorphic disorders enough to continue to abuse their own bodies, despite the risks, rarely get the help they need.

“Those aren’t the people who go see psychiatrists,” McQuade says. “A psychiatrist will tell them what they don’t want to hear. As far as they’re concerned, they know the truth, and a psychiatrist will never agree with them.”

Dr. Wells agrees. “We’ve grown into a society of people doing something they have no business doing. But they’ll do anything to be beautiful to themselves. The problem is they never get to that level of being satisfied.”

Another problem, Wells says, is that people will inject themselves over and over again without side effects or disfigurement and figure everything’s fine.

“They read the stories and they think, ‘Wow, thank goodness that wasn’t me.’ Or they have friends who do it and see that nothing has ever happened to them, so they figure it’s an OK thing to do. That’s all well and good until something does go wrong, and then they’re afraid to seek help, embarrassed by their decision to be injected by God-knows-what to begin with.”

For some, there’s no going back, and they’re walking around with caulking or cooking oils embedded in their skin. Wells says it’s rarely too late to fix things that have already been done.

“Look for the warning signs: redness, swelling, a boil or abscess. You may not see anything for a few hours, a few days, a few weeks, even a few years,” he says. “But eventually, it’ll creep up. And it has to come out.”

Once it gets that far, or even before it does, Wells says it can be dealt with. “We’ll get the silicone or whatever is in there out, and we’ll get that person back to square one where they were before they started injecting, and then we’ll deal with it.”

But the best bet, Wells says, is to get good treatment from the outset.

“People, in their desire to seek the fountain of youth, will agree to have all kinds of things injected that will not be to their long-term benefit. Think about what you’re putting into your body and what you want to get out of it.

“Start out with a licensed MD. Get referrals and think about what it is you’re asking. Do your homework. It’s called informed consent, and it’s called responsibility.”