A woman who spent $15,000 on
black-market butt injections that nearly killed her, is dedicating her
life to saving others from the same fate. Vanity Wonder, 30, says she is lucky to be alive after becoming addicted to using illegal silicone shots to increase her hips and behind.
Appearing on the latest episode of TLC’s My Strange Addiction, she gives advice to fellow addict Karmello who has filled her buttocks with two litres of liquid from illegal injections, taking it from a size four to a size ten.
Karmello, 23, from Detroit, Michigan, admits to
having had 54 injections to her buttocks and plans another 36 to get her behind to the
perfect size. The mother-of-one was unhappy with her figure and started with the injections three years ago.
Despite her
determination to increase her behind the medical way, not one of the
injections have been performed by a plastic surgeon. Instead
she gets them on the black market from a woman she often meets in a
hotel, spending thousands of dollars on filling her body with unknown
liquids.
In the disturbing episode of the TLC show Karmello’s friend Vanity Wonder,
author of book Shots Girls who herself spent over $15,000 on illegal
butt and hip injections, tries to warn Karmello of the risks.
Vanity, who nearly died after
contracting an infection from a shot, tells her she needs to stop the dangerous practice.
But it is not until Karmello's sister Jennifer also
pleads with her to stop for the sake of her four-year-old son, that she
visits plastic surgeon Dr Anthony Youn.
Dr
Youn shows her an x-ray of her buttocks and hips and points out that the fat is
'sponge-like' and warns her the next injection could kill her. After she has seen the images of her behind, Karmello decides to fight her addiction and stop the injections.
