A woman who underwent a new treatment to get rid of her acne scars has claimed it left her with second-degree burns all over her face.
Melia Nielsen from Grimsby, Lincolnshire underwent the £75 microneedling procedure — which uses tiny, sterile needles to puncture the skin — in July.
However the 24-year-old finance worker was forced to rush to A&E when the ‘entirety’ of her left cheek swelled and became ‘a horrible purple’.
Doctors reportedly confirmed it was a chemical burn and was forced to endure months of ‘soreness’ and has been left with a ‘huge scar’.
She is now speaking out to urge others to ‘make sure to thoroughly research, have consultations and choose your skincare wisely’ to avoid suffering the same fate.
Melia Nielsen from Grimsby, Lincolnshire, had been visiting a clinic for months to receive chemical peels while battling her spots before she tried a £75 microneedling procedure to treat her acne scars
But the 24-year-old was forced to rush to A&E when the ‘entirety’ of her left cheek swelled up and became ‘horrible’ and ‘purple’
Ms Nielsen shared the horrifying photos documenting her ordeal on social media and claimed the burns were the result of ‘incorrect methods by the practitioner’, who had allegedly only completed a two-day training course.
Ms Nielsen said: ‘I wanted to feel confident without makeup. Now I’m in an even worse position because I’ve got a huge scar across my face instead of just a few spots.
‘I was going to the clinic for chemical peels and stuff to clear acne. We were moving onto microneedling to help get rid of the scarring.’
She explained that she had already had one session before and she ‘was perfectly fine’. But at the second appointment the procedure ‘wore’ her skin away.
Ms Nielsen said: ‘While she was doing it she was going over and over that same area to a point that it actually wore away the first one or two layers of my skin. So then it was essentially raw skin.
‘At the time she never said anything about it but I was actually bleeding. She only said five or six days later over a message that she’d noticed that I was bleeding quite a bit.
‘Because I was bleeding she was cleaning the area with, I don’t know if it was a toner or something, but it burned that brand new, raw skin.’
Ms Nielsen recalls being asked if she was okay by the clinician and said that the procedure was ‘stinging’.
‘Afterwards there was a little patch in the middle where it wasn’t red, it was white. She just said to me to keep an eye on it and don’t use anything harsh on it,’ she added.
‘By the time I’d driven home, that patch of my face was weeping. I was like “surely this isn’t normal”. I was panicking the night that it happened. I washed it with water and didn’t put anything on it.’
When Ms Nielsen got home she started to message the clinician pictures of her burned skin, but claims her messages were ignored.
The following day Ms Nielsen messaged to say she was going to A&E because she had a chemical burn and the clinician replied straight away.
Screenshots of messages appear to show the clinician blaming Ms Nielsen for the burn and asking ‘you haven’t gone on any medication or changed any products at home?’.
Later messages also appear to admit the clinician noticed her skin was bleeding during the treatment and that she felt ‘terrible’.
When Ms Nielsen got home she started to message the clinician pictures of her burned skin, but claims her messages were ignored. The following day Ms Nielsen messaged to say she was going to A&E because she had a chemical burn and the clinician replied straight away
Screenshots of messages appear to show the clinician blaming Ms Nielsen for the burn and asking ‘you haven’t gone on any medication or changed any products at home?’
Later messages also appear to admit the clinician noticed her skin was bleeding during the treatment and that she felt ‘terrible’
Microneedling involves a device covered with hair-fine sterile needles being passed over the skin.
The tiny punctures are believed the stimulate the healing process and improve the skin’s texture.
Products applied during or immediately after microneedling may also be absorbed more readily, advocates of the procedure claim.
A chemical peel removes the top layers of skin using a solution, allowing the skin to grow back smoother.
Although redness and bruising can be a side-effects of both these treatments, this should clear up within a few days.
A&E doctors told Ms Neilson she had suffered a chemical burn.
‘By the time I was in hospital, it had stopped weeping but it was wet to touch. It was really, really swollen. It was pretty much the entirety of my cheek all the way up to near my eye,’ she said.
She was given a water-based cream to treat the burn and told to apply it every hour for 10 days.
Ms Nielsen claims doctors confirmed it was a chemical burn and was given a water-based cream to treat the burn and told to apply it every hour for 10 days
She says she endured months of ‘soreness’ and has been left with a ‘huge scar’ putting her off getting any more cosmetic treatments
s Nielsen had been visiting the clinic since November 2023 and admitted she was ‘upset’ by the clinician’s lack of ‘accountability’ for her injury.
‘The thing that upset me the most was that I’d been going to her for seven to eight months and gotten to know her really well,’ Ms Nielsen said.
‘As soon as she eventually did reply she was just trying to basically say that it must have been something that I’ve done.’
However, Ms Nielsen is adamant that the burns were not caused by any products she used herself and added that any skincare products she used were recommended by the clinician.
The customer admitted she regrets getting the £75 cosmetic procedure as she ‘didn’t really need it’ and it will ‘never fully go away’ leaving her struggling to apply makeup.
Ms Nielsen said: ‘It’s made me realise that I actually didn’t really need it and I’ve first hand seen how things can go wrong. I wouldn’t ever want to risk going through that again.
‘I suffered from hormonal acne. I just wanted to get to a point where it was clear and I didn’t have to keep piling makeup on to try and cover it. I wanted to feel confident without it.
Although her skin is healing she is now speaking out to urge others to ‘make sure to thoroughly research, have consultations and choose your skincare wisely’ to avoid anyone else suffering the same fate
‘It was painful. It was so sore for weeks. It was itchy, it was swollen, it was horrible.
‘Even now if I rub my finger over it now it’s a completely different texture to the rest of my face. It’s never fully going away.
‘The girl who did this to me did two days of training and was allowed to put needling tools and chemicals on people’s faces.
‘I just want people to go to somebody who might have a little bit more experience or even actually have proper thorough consultations and stuff to avoid anything like that happening.’
