What happened to patient from TV show Botched who had 'concrete from hardware store' injected in face
Warning: This article contains graphic imagery
There's been a host of memorable cases on E! reality show Botched, but Dr Terry Dubrow dubs his work on Rajee Narinesingh as 'one of his biggest successes'.
The transgender activist and actress, 59, called upon Dr Dubrow and his colleague Paul Nassif for help after undergoing a black market procedure in 2005 in which she was injected with 'literal concrete'.
Despite nearly a dozen other surgeons turning her down for treatment, Dr Dubrow went out on a limb for her and managed to work some serious magic, giving Rajee a new lease of life.
Advert
Ten years on from their first meeting, Rajee looks unrecognisable thanks to the reconstructive surgery she received.
As the celebrity plastic surgeon explained while sitting down on Paul C Brunson's We Need To Talk podcast earlier this month, Rajee attended a so-called 'plumping party'.
There, Dr Dubrow explained that an 'unlicensed provider' injected her face with 'illegal substances'.
"No surgeon would take her on"
Explaining what transpired from there, he told Brunson: "This woman, the madam, injected her with plumbing material, caulking material, literal concrete from a hardware store as filler - which looked, initially, good.
"After about four months, the immune system started to overreact and form a foreign body reaction called granulomas.
"She developed these huge masses made out of concrete and inflammatory tissue all over her face. And no plastic surgeon would take her on."
Rajee was left with 'huge, golf ball-size nodules' in the areas where she had received the dodgy jabs, which included her temple, her top lip, her chin and her jawline.
She previously told Truly that she was left feeling like 'a monster' and a 'sideshow circus clown' due to the disfigurement she had been left with.
Dr Dubrow explained that he was initially forced to 'turn her down' due to how risky medical intervention would be, explaining she was a 'cautionary tale' for others considering cheap procedures from unlicensed practitioners.
Revealing why fixing Rajee's face was so complex, he said: "[The concrete] goes from the upper portions of the skin, where the blood supply is, all the way down to the bone.
"So it's encompassing the muscle, the soft tissue, the bloody supply of the skin, the nerves.
"To remove it, you have to remove these entire concrete blocks and you're going to have giant holes...and its all going to die around there.
"In addition, it's quiet now, but if you go in and operate on it there's the great potential that you are going to over activate, or reactivate, the immune system and it will become a massive, inflammatory infected mass.
"So dead tissue, holes in face, much worse. No one would touch her. So we turned her down."
"Kids see me and scream"
But as he was so moved by Rajee's plight and 'felt terrible' about being unable to assist her, he ended up having a host of sleepless nights stewing over how he could possibly help her.
Dr Dubrow said: "She said to me on my way out off camera, 'I can't even go to a CVS or to a drugstore, kids see me and immediately either scream or point. I don't go to restaurants, I don't go to stores, I go nowhere'.
"I felt so bad for her, so I had an epiphany at 4am that I thought would allow me to fix her."
He realised that although he couldn't completely remove the substance from Rajee's face, he could significantly diminish the appearance of the nodules poking out.
"I thought, I'll get an orthopedic saw, lift up the skin and saw out the central two thirds, collapsing these masses," Dr Dubrow said. "And even though you might feel [the concrete], you can't see it.
"I took one out in her chin under local, just to see that her immune system wasn't going to overreact and it didn't. So I took her whole face apart and sawed them all out. She healed.
"Even three weeks ago, she sent me a text, and this was 9 years ago, saying: 'I just want you to know how grateful I still am for you'. So this is one of my biggest successes.
"Suddenly, she can join the real world, be a participating human being."
Brunson then surprised Dr Dubrow with a voice note from Rajee, where she gushed about how 'fortunate' she was that he took a chance on her.
"The work that you are doing is extremely transformative and I know that you have touched so many people's lives in wonderful uplifting ways, including my life," she told him.
"Because of you, I have so much more confidence to do what I do in this world. Oh my goodness, Dr Dubrow I just want to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you again.
"Thank you for being such a blessing to my life. On that note, you keep shining bright."
The plastic surgeon then teared up as Brunson praised him for carrying out 'life-changing' work with his surgeries.
Since appearing on Botched, Rajee went on to share her story on the likes of Anderson Cooper 360, Dr Phil, and The Doctors. She's starred in a number of films as well as forging a career as a musician, while she regularly shares updates on her social media accounts.
Don't you just love a happy ending, eh?
Olivia Burke