Popular acne treatment left 24-year-old woman with second-degree burns all over her face – she could be scarred for life

A woman who underwent a new treatment to get rid of her acne scars claims it left her with severe burns all over her face.

Melia Nielsen, from Grimsby, Lincolnshire, underwent the £75 microneedling procedure, which uses small, sterile needles to puncture the skin, in July.

However, the 24-year-old finance worker was forced to rush to A&E when ‘her whole left cheek’ swelled and turned ‘a horrible purple’.

Doctors reportedly confirmed that it was a chemical burn and that he had to endure months of ‘pain’ and was left with a ‘big scar’.

She is now speaking out to urge others to ‘make sure you do thorough research, consult and choose your skin care wisely’ to avoid suffering the same fate.

Ms Nielsen shared the gruesome photos documenting her ordeal on social media, claiming the burns were the result of ‘improper methods by the practitioner’, who reportedly had only undergone two days of training.

Ms Nielsen said: ‘I wanted to feel confident without make-up. Now I’m in an even worse position because I have a huge scar on my face instead of just a few spots.

“I went to the clinic for chemical peels and stuff to get rid of acne. We turned to microneedling to get rid of the scars.’

She explained that she had had a session before and that it was ‘just fine’. But by the second appointment, the procedure “wore out” her skin.

Ms Nielsen said: ‘As she did it, she went over that same area over and over again to the point that it actually wore away the first one or two layers of my skin. So then it was essentially rawhide.

‘She never said anything about it at the time, but I was actually bleeding. It wasn’t until five or six days later that she texted me to say that she had noticed that I was bleeding heavily.

“Because I was bleeding, she was cleaning the area. I don’t know if it was a toner or what, but it burned that brand new raw skin.”

Ms. Nielsen remembers the doctor asking her if everything was OK and saying the procedure was “tickling.”

‘Then there was a small spot in the middle where it wasn’t red, but white. She just told me to keep an eye on it and not use any aggressive means against it,” she added.

“By the time I drove home, that spot on my face was crying. I thought, “This isn’t normal.” I panicked the night it happened. I washed it with water and didn’t put anything on it.’

When Ms Nielsen got home, she started sending pictures of her burned skin to the doctor, but claims her messages were ignored.

The next day, Ms. Nielsen messaged that she was going to the emergency room because she had a chemical burn, and the doctor responded right away.

Screenshots of messages appear to show the doctor blaming Mrs. Nielsen for the burn and asking, “Haven’t you taken any medications or changed products at home?”

Later reports also indicate that the doctor noticed that her skin was bleeding during the treatment and that she felt “terrible.”

With microneedling, a device is covered with hair-fine sterile needles that are passed over the skin.

It is believed that the small holes stimulate the healing process and improve the texture of the skin.

Products applied during or immediately after microneedling may also be more easily absorbed, proponents 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 side effects of both treatments, this should disappear within a few days.

Emergency room doctors told Ms Neilson she had suffered a chemical burn.

‘By the time I was in hospital it had stopped crying, but it was wet to the touch. It was really, really swollen. It was pretty much the entire cheek all the way up to my eye,” she said.

She was given a water-based cream to treat the burn and instructed to apply it every hour for ten days.

Nielsen had been visiting the clinic since November 2023 and admitted she was “upset” by the doctor’s lack of “responsibility” for her injuries.

“What upset me most was that I had been going to her for seven to eight months and got to know her very well,” Ms. Nielsen said.

“Once she finally answered, she was really just trying to say it must have been something I did.”

However, Ms Nielsen is adamant that the burns were not caused by any products she used herself, adding that all the skincare products she used were recommended by the doctor.

The shopper admitted she regretted the £75 cosmetic procedure as she ‘didn’t really need it’ and it ‘will never completely go away’, leaving her struggling to apply make-up.

Ms Nielsen said: ‘It’s made me realize I didn’t really need it and I’ve seen first-hand how things can go wrong. I would never want to risk experiencing something like 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 on makeup to cover it up. I wanted to feel confident without it.

‘It was painful. It was so painful for weeks. It was itchy, it was swollen, it was horrible.

‘Even when I rub it with my finger now, it has a completely different texture than the rest of my face. It never goes away completely.

“The girl who did this to me went through two days of training and was allowed to use needle tools and chemicals on people’s faces.

“I just want people to go to someone who maybe has a little more experience, or who’s even had some pretty thorough consultation and stuff, to prevent something like that from happening.”