A fitness influencer’s worst nightmare came true after vitamin injections left her in a years-long battle with a flesh-eating illness.
When Beatriz Amma was 23, she reportedly spent $800 at a luxury spa to receive dozens of shots of vitamins B1 and C mixed with “fast dissolving” deoxycholic acid, injected in each arm, her back and stomach.
Just a few days later, “I had all these welts on my skin,” Amma, now 26, told Kennedy News. “They just started popping up in the places it had been injected … My entire body started eating itself alive.”
Doctors confirmed she’d contracted Mycobacterium abscessus, a bacterial infection that causes festering and painful skin lesions. They believe it was the result of deoxycholic acid being injected improperly.
“It all looked super legit, clean, professional,” Amma said of the Los Angeles spa where she got the contaminated injections. “[A worker] said it was made by a really reputable company and she showed me the vials. I was excited.”
4 Beatriz Amma dreamed of becoming a successful swimsuit model before she became infected with flesh-eating bacteria. Kennedy News and Media
Previous research has shown a connection between faulty injections and similar reactions in the skin.
“During that time I was just rotting in bed. I couldn’t even put clothes on. I needed help going to the restroom. I needed help showering and changing,” Amma recalled of the horrifying ordeal.
Now still recovering from the condition, Amma remembered when she thought she might lose her life to the flesh-eating disease: “I prayed to God and said ‘If this is my time, take me’. My body had lost the fight. I remember just being in so much pain that I thought I was going to die that night. I couldn’t fight anymore.”
The former swimsuit model has undergone several surgeries to remove infected tissue and endures six hours of IV antibiotics daily.
4 Amma said doctors advised her not to wear bikinis in public lest she scare others. Kennedy News and Media
4 Amma has had multiple surgeries to remove rotted skin. Kennedy News and Media
“Every time I look in the mirror I remember that I’ve lost so much of my life to this. My dream was to be a fitness influencer and I loved traveling and wearing bikinis. I’d worked so hard for the body I had,” she said.
“I’ve had doctors tell me ‘you’re going to have this forever, give up on your dreams of being an influencer, your skin is always going to alarm people.’”
Now, Amma is focusing on spreading body positivity and awareness of the unsightly illness. “I want all of us to be able to express our bodies and feel beautiful even if people feel different,” she said.
“I just really want to help ignite this body positivity movement and empower people of all kinds with all different adversities to not hide and to feel beautiful regardless of their scars – internally and externally.”
4 Amma now devotes herself to promoting body positivity. Kennedy News and Media
Still, Amma is in many ways still gripped with the misfortune to suddenly come over her life.
“I’m on year three and it still isn’t over. I would never have thought that something so simple could almost take my life and leave me still fighting for my life.”
My body was eating itself alive after fat-dissolving injections
