A ‘butt lift’ from an illicit Philadelphia med spa sent a woman to the hospital with a raging infection

Ashley Martinez longed for the voluptuous buttocks of the music artists and reality TV stars she followed on social media.

She trusted a health-care provider who set up a beauty spa in the basement of an event lounge in Philadelphia and claimed to be licensed to do syringe injections. Martinez was promised a plump and firmer butt without surgery or recovery time for $1,250.

Martinez, 35, received six injections — three on each side — of a liquid that she was told was dermal filler containing hyaluronic acid, commonly used in cosmetic procedures to achieve a fuller look.

Two days later, she felt nauseous and began to vomit. Her feet became so swollen she couldn’t walk without limping.

A week later, Martinez awoke screaming in pain and feverish. The injection sites on her right buttock were red and hot to the touch. The left side was bruised with a hardened lump. Her teenage son helped her down the staircase at her Port Richmond home. They took an Uber to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital’s emergency department in Center City.

The four-day hospitalization in November was the start of a medical ordeal that has left her battling infection, and struggling to get state authorities to take action against an illicit provider who ran an underground med spa.

Dermal fillers are gel-like substances that can be injected under the skin to smooth facial wrinkles or add volume to lips and buttocks. They are legally sold to licensed medical professionals under brands like Juvéderm and Sculptra. The effect can last for months before the body absorbs it.

But Martinez fears that the liquid injected into her body was counterfeit or contaminated.

“I’m stuck with this stuff in my body — this foreign stuff,” Martinez said. “It’s frightening.”

She’s been in and out of Jefferson with infections since mid-November. A surgeon had to make deep incisions to drain multiple pus-filled abscesses.

Her situation isn’t uncommon. Illegal med spas using dermal fillers purchased off the internet’s black market have proliferated in the Philadelphia region and nationally, according to federal authorities tasked with protecting public health and enforcing U.S. customs law.

“Unfortunately, her case is certainly not the worst we’ve had,” said Michael Huffner, an acute care and trauma surgeon at Jefferson who treated Martinez. “We’ve had people very sick in the ICU from it.”

Martinez, who works the front desk at a dental office, said she reached out to The Inquirer to share her story in hopes of educating other women. She knows of at least one other woman who also suffered an infection after receiving buttock-augmentation injections from the same provider just five days after her own botched procedure.

“I can’t let somebody else go through this,” Martinez said.

The woman who did Martinez’s procedure, Nakiah Boyette, is a licensed practical nurse, or LPN, state records show. She ran her medical spa out of the basement of an event space called Très Luxe Event Lounge in a strip mall on Ashton Road in Northeast Philadelphia.

As an LPN, she’s not qualified to administer cosmetic injections.

Under Pennsylvania law, only doctors, physician assistants, advanced practice registered nurses or registered nurses can legally perform cosmetic medical procedures, such as injectable dermal filler.

Boyette also can’t legally purchase dermal fillers, which require a prescription under federal regulations.

Boyette, 35, advertised her dermal filler services under her business name, Très Rx Beauty, on Instagram, where she described herself as a “licensed nurse” and “aesthetic injector” and listed fees for various cosmetic injections.

She identified herself as the owner on Instagram and in public records.

Pennsylvania regulations say any business that performs cosmetic injection procedures is a medical practice that must be owned by a doctor or physician group.

She’s since taken down her Très Rx Beauty page on Instagram, which had 2,581 followers in November. Martinez provided The Inquirer with screenshots taken before Boyette removed her pages.

Boyette could not be reached for comment. The Inquirer left two messages at her business number. At a Northeast Philadelphia apartment, which Boyette had listed as her home address in state voter registration records, a woman resembling Boyette’s online photos who answered the door identified herself as Boyette’s sister and said she didn’t know anything about Très Rx Beauty or any clients who say they suffered infections.

The reporter handed her a letter seeking comment about the allegations and did not receive a response.

Both Très Rx Beauty and Très Lux Event Lounge were shuttered when a reporter visited earlier this month.

Martinez said she thought the med spa was legitimate. During an in-person consultation, she recalls Boyette talked about her nursing career and used medical jargon. Prior to booking an appointment, Martinez scrutinized before-and-after photos of what appeared to be satisfied customers on Très Rx Beauty’s Instagram posts, and she googled, “hyaluronic acid and butt injections gone wrong,” and found nothing alarming.

But even as she underwent the procedure, she felt uneasy based on her experience with a more extensive buttock-enhancement procedure a decade ago. Then 25, she had gone to a plastic surgeon who suctioned fat from her arms and stomach and injected it into her buttock. It cost about $6,000 and she had no complications, she said.

» READ MORE: Here's what you need to know before getting a nonsurgical cosmetic procedure with dermal filler

At Très Rx Beauty, Boyette told Martinez she injected 800 milliliters of dermal filler into her buttock for the same price she typically charged for 100 milliliters.

On her way out, Boyette handed her an “aftercare bag” with little more than a hairbrush and face mask inside.

About two weeks after her injections at Très Rx Beauty, on that November night on the way to Jefferson’s emergency department, every bump or pothole the Uber driver hit sent searing pain through Martinez’s body.

Doctors and nurses diagnosed her with cellulitis, a bacterial skin and tissue infection that can be fatal. They hooked her up to IV antibiotics and pain medication.

On her right buttock, Dr. Heffner made deep incisions to drain three pus-filled abscesses.

“I was screaming the whole time,” Martinez said. “All I felt was hotness pouring out of me.”

“It could have been life-threatening,” Heffner said.

After she went home, Jefferson arranged for a nurse to come to her house daily to clean the wounds.

The infection still came back two weeks later. She returned to Jefferson, where a surgical team attached a wound catheter to flush out fluid buildup and bacteria from her right side. The surgeon also aspirated a lump on her left buttock, medical records show.

“She’s had ongoing problems because it’s not just one injection in one spot,” Heffner said. “I can’t imagine what she’s having to go through.”

If the infections continue, Martinez said she may need major surgery to cut out and sanitize portions of her buttock area, which could require reconstruction.

Warning: graphic images below:

Fearful of the dermal filler that remained in her buttock, Martinez got home from the hospital and started calling legitimate med spas to see if any provider would dissolve it. That’s when she learned about another woman with a similar experience at Très Rx Beauty.

Five days after Martinez’s procedure, a 37-year-old woman from Mount Airy — Summer Mills — also went to Boyette for buttock-enhancement injections and suffered complications.

Mills said the low price should have been a red flag: Boyette charged $1,250 for 100 milliliters of dermal fill for a “nonsurgical BBL,” or Brazilian butt lift.

Legitimate med spas, run by doctors, typically charge between $8,000 and $10,000 for a nonsurgical Brazilian butt lift, depending on amount and brand of dermal filler.

Both women said Boyette told them the dermal filler she used was hyaluronic acid, a naturally occurring molecule found in the body.

Mills said Boyette assured her she was properly licensed and trained, describing her low price as a promotion to attract new clients. Still, Mills was taken aback when she arrived at the storefront with its “blacked out” windows and locked door.

“I walked in and it’s like a hookah lounge,” Mills said. “I’m like, ‘This is weird. I’ve been to a million and one med spas, and I’ve had plastic surgery — and I’ve never seen anything blacked out like this.’”

Boyette explained she owned both the event lounge and spa, Mills said.

“I thought, ‘OK,” Mills said. “She owns this building and she runs two different businesses out of it. Fine.’”

Mills, a city employee and mother of four, said about a week later, her injection sites had become inflamed with hard lumps.

She called Boyette, who faulted Mills for taking a hot bath that caused the bandages to fall off. She told Mills to return for an examination. While there, Boyette said Mills likely needed an antibiotic, but she couldn’t prescribe it.

According to Mills, Boyette instructed her to get antibiotics from a mom-and-pop bodega. Mills said she refused to do that, and then Boyette urged her to call a telemedicine doctor and report having a sinus infection.

“I did it while I was there. She’s telling me what to say,” Mills recalled. The online doctor prescribed Prednisone, a steroid.

When bluish blemishes later appeared, Mills said she went to Jefferson Flourtown Urgent Care, where a doctor prescribed antibiotics and advised her to ask Boyette what substance she used.

Boyette told Mills she used Genefill, a German-made product that is not FDA-approved in the U.S. She said she ordered it from Korea, Mills said.

Mills ultimately got a $1,250 refund from Boyette. She feels fortunate that her infection didn’t require hospitalization. She was so embarrassed that she hesitated to tell her husband, imagining what he would say.

“He’d probably say, ‘Summer, you are 37 years old. You’re a mom. You’ve got a master’s degree. Why would you not do your research? Why would you go to someone who has a hookah lounge upstairs and a med spa in the basement,’” Mills said.

“It was stupid on my part.”

Martinez said she called Boyette and demanded a refund, which Boyette gave her.

She also filed a complaint against Très Luxe Event Lounge with the state Office of Attorney General’s health-care section.

Boyette’s lawyer told the state in a letter that Boyette had refunded Martinez’s money “under duress,” after Martinez threatened to take legal action, “despite no evidence of negligence.”

Boyette had closed her business “due to financial reasons and no longer provide services to the public,” the lawyer, Mark Keenheel, wrote.

Keenheel did not return a call from The Inquirer. “My client has always prioritized safety, client satisfaction, and professionalism,” he said in the letter.

The consumer protection agent assigned to Martinez’s complaint said there wasn’t anything more the state could do, according to a Dec. 17 letter.

“I was crying,” Martinez said. “I felt alone.”

AG spokesman Brett Hambright said his office has no other consumer complaints against Boyette and noted the business is closed.

Martinez also wants authorities to investigate whether Boyette should be allowed to continue providing health care. She filed another complaint with a separate state agency that regulates nurses.

Matt Heckel, spokesperson for the Department of State, said he could not confirm or discuss any complaints or investigations.

As of Wednesday, Boyette’s practical nursing license (LPN), which she renewed last July, was active with no disciplinary history, state records show.

“She shouldn’t be touching anyone,” Martinez said.