Anti-aging injections of cosmetic fillers under the skin around the eyes and forehead can lead to ischemic retinal edema and irreversible blindness.

Injecting fat, collagen or special cosmetic products under the skin for facial rejuvenation is an extremely common procedure and is fairly safe, with side effects usually limited to bruises or swelling of the skin. FDA has approved fillers only for the middle parts of the face, for example, around the mouth, but doctors often use them for correction of wrinkles around the eyes and on the forehead.

When injected in the area around the eye, the fillers may accidentally get into small blood vessels on the face, and find their way into the eye's artery and block its blood supply. During the occlusion of the central retinal artery or its branches the forecast is unfavorable: in 50% of cases the visual acuity is reduced to 0.01, and in 10% it causes total blindness because of the subsequent atrophy of the optic nerve.

As Fox News reports, ophthalmologist Michelle Carle and her colleagues from Retina Vitreous Associates Medical Group in Los Angeles dealt with three cases, when patients applied to them after losing vision of one or both eyes as a result of facial rejuvenation procedure. One of their patients was a woman in her mid-40s. She had received an injection of bovine collagen and a dermal filler product called Artefill to remove her forehead creases. After the injection was complete, she opened her eyes and could not see with her right eye.

Another patient, a man in his 30s, visited the doctors after he lost part of his vision in his left eye, following an injection of a gel called hyaluronic acid. In the third case a healthy woman in her 60s experienced severe loss of vision after receiving fat injections around her hairline.

According to professor Carle, though such complications are rare, they should always be taken into account.

"We recommend that blindness or significant visual loss be added as a risk when discussing these procedures with patients, because these are devastating consequences," said Carle.