1. Deal with the clinical problem
Contact the practitioner who treated you, by phone, and describe what is happening specifically. If you are concerned about a vascular occlusion, use that phrase.
If you cannot reach them promptly, call NHS 24 on 111. Attend an emergency department if you have severe pain, spreading redness with fever, difficulty swallowing or breathing, or any visual symptom.
Do not wait for a reply to a message. Do not wait until morning to see. The clinical page for this is what can go wrong after injectables.
2. Ask for the treatment record
Product name, batch number, dose or volume, sites, date, and who administered it. If a prescription only medicine was used, ask who prescribed it.
Ask in writing so there is a record of the request. Where a healthcare provider holds your record you have a right of access, and the Information Commissioner's Office explains how to make that request if it is refused or delayed.
3. Photograph and date everything
Daylight from a window, plain background, same distance, front and both sides, no makeup. Repeat daily while things are changing, then weekly.
Write a short note of what happened and when: time of treatment, time symptoms began, time you called, who you spoke to, what they said, what was agreed. Keep all messages and emails.
4. Complain to the provider first
Almost every route later will ask whether you raised it with the provider. Put it in writing, set out what happened and what you want, and keep a copy.
Registered services are required to have a complaints procedure and to respond to it. Ask for a copy of theirs at the outset.
5. Then the professional regulator, if there is one
If the person who treated you is a registered healthcare professional, their professional regulator can consider concerns about their fitness to practise: the General Medical Council for doctors, the Nursing and Midwifery Council for nurses and midwives, the General Dental Council for dentists and dental care professionals, the General Pharmaceutical Council for pharmacists.
This route exists whatever the setting, and it is about the individual's practice rather than about compensating you. If the practitioner is not a registered healthcare professional, this route does not exist at all, for the reasons set out in when a non medic injects.
6. And Healthcare Improvement Scotland, if the service is registered
Where the service is registered as independent healthcare in Scotland, concerns can be raised with Healthcare Improvement Scotland. It regulates the service rather than resolving your individual dispute, and it can inspect and require improvement.
Check whether the service is registered before assuming this route is open, using the method in how to check a practitioner is registered.
7. Trading standards, advertising and consumer routes
If you were misled about what a treatment would achieve, about qualifications, or about regulatory status, that is a consumer protection matter. Trading standards act on misleading practices, and Citizens Advice Scotland can advise on your rights and how to escalate.
If the misleading claim was in an advertisement or on social media, it can be reported to the Advertising Standards Authority, including the unlawful promotion of prescription only medicines.
Report the product too. Suspected adverse reactions to medicines and problems with devices go to the MHRA Yellow Card scheme, and patients can report directly.
8. Legal advice, and the clock
If you have suffered harm and want compensation, that is a legal claim and it needs legal advice. You will need to show that the standard of care fell below what was reasonable and that this caused the harm.
Time limits apply in Scotland to personal injury claims, and waiting while you try to resolve things informally is a common way that a valid claim becomes unrecoverable. Take advice early, even if you intend to pursue the other routes first. Our page on insurance and indemnity explains what may or may not be available to pay a claim.
9. Getting a second clinical opinion
If the treating clinic is managing the problem competently, stay with them: they know what was used and where, and continuity matters more than a fresh pair of eyes.
If they are not, or if you have lost confidence, a second opinion is reasonable. Take everything with you: the treatment record, the product and batch details, your photographs with dates, and a written account of what was said and when. A practitioner assessing you without any of that is working blind, and the assessment will be worse for it.
Expect to pay for a second opinion, and expect a careful practitioner to be cautious about intervening in somebody else's complication, particularly where filler is involved. That caution is appropriate rather than unhelpful.
What not to do
Do not go to a second clinic for a corrective treatment before the first one has had the chance to respond, unless the situation is urgent. It complicates both the clinical picture and any subsequent complaint.
Do not accept a refund in exchange for signing something that prevents you from complaining or from speaking about what happened, without taking advice on what you are giving up.
And do not conduct the whole thing on social media. It feels effective and it makes formal routes harder, because it changes the posture of everyone involved before any of them has had to answer a written question.