A Reseda woman who alleges a negligently designed laser machine caused her internal burns and scarring during a cellulite-removal treatment wept Monday as she described for a jury the negative impacts on her ability to interact with her children and to be intimate with her husband.
Adriana Diaz, testifying in the trial of a lawsuit that she and her employer, Dr. Stuart Linder, brought against Cynosure Inc., said her son was born before her 2013 procedure and had the benefits of a healthy mother who participated with him in sports.
“He had all of me,” Diaz said.
But the plaintiff said her daughter, born afterward, has not enjoyed those same opportunities. Merely bouncing on a trampoline with the girl, now 3 1/2, proves to be too painful on Diaz’s legs, the 38-year-old woman testified.
“She wants me to do these things with her and I can’t,” Diaz said, fighting back tears as she described her younger offspring as “her flower child.”
Along with internal burns, Diaz says she also developed a painful seroma, a pocket of clear fluid that sometimes develops in the body after surgery.
The lawsuit states that Diaz still has pain six years later, including constant throbbing in her legs — with one more painful than the other. Occasional migraine headaches she had before the procedure are now far more frequent, she said.
Linder testified previously that he followed the steps given him by Cynosure’s representatives regarding the use of the laser machine when he performed the procedure on Diaz in January 2013. He said company representatives never told him he should not used the device on an area where he completed liposuction on his employee in 2011.
But attorney Karin Curtis, on behalf of Cynosure and the salesman, said the device is safe and that Linder misused it.
In her testimony, Diaz said her intimacy with her husband also has been impacted because of the pain she experiences during such interactions. She said they now try fewer things, that she does not want her husband looking at her legs and that they have less “fun.”
Asked by her lawyer, Thomas Brown, if she has given up finding a solution for her injuries, Diaz replied, “I hope not, but part of me, yes.”
Diaz has said she does not blame Linder for what happened to her because of the procedure and called him an “exceptional doctor.”
Diaz also has said since the procedure, she has shunned skirts and dresses in favor of pants that hide her legs.
Linder, who has made television appearances on such programs as “The Doctors,” “The Dr. Oz Show” and “The View,” alleges Cynosure misrepresented the safety of the allegedly defective laser device and falsely told him it was approved by the FDA.
Linder said he bought the laser device in October 2012 after persistent prodding by Huston and that the machine cost about $200,000.
About 200 plastic surgeons work in the same area of Beverly Hills as Linder, the doctor testified previously.
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