Remember the Mantra of Our Times: If it happened once to anyone, anywhere you should start worrying about it now! As WLKY reports:
LOUISVILLE, Ky. —Nearly two weeks ago, Audree Kopp was in the middle of moving into her new home. In the midst of the chaos, she noticed a growing bump on her wrist.
“It just kept getting bigger and redder and worse,” said Kopp.
Kopp went to her doctor, who gave her antibiotics. But the bump continued to grow. So she went to the hospital and underwent emergency surgery.
“They said I needed surgery, and thank God I caught it in time, or I could have had sepsis,” she said.
“She had a large abscess on the back of her wrist, so I basically made an incision and drained the puss all the way down,” said Dr. Amit Gupta at Norton Healthcare.
Gupta said bacteria from Kopp’s hair-tie likely got under her skin through her pores and hair follicles, causing three types of infection…
And so, of course, we come to the reason for this cautionary article: a cautionary caution!
“Be careful, you can’t put all these hair-ties around the wrist particularly because it can cause problems with the skin, it can cause infection,” said Gupta.
Yes, of the billions of hair ties in the world, YOURS MIGHT KILL YOU.
Amelia Earhart that I am, I am defying death RIGHT NOW with a hair tie around my own wrist. Crazy, I know! If you don’t see any blog posts for a few weeks — or EVER AGAIN — you will know why.
P.S. Do NOT click on the link to the article if you are eating, or have eaten in the last 24 hours.
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24 Comments
Most dangers aren’t “new.” If you’ve managed to live your life up until now without being warned about this particular one…then it’s probably not that big of deal.
It wasn’t the bacteria that caused the infection, no it was the hair tie. Morons. The bacteria could have been trapped by a watch, a bracelet, wristband, gloves or long freaking sleeves.
I saw this as a “trending topic” on Facebook a week or so ago and thought the same thing. The hysterical comments and shares were worse than the article. Not only am I still wearing hair bands on my wrist, I am also letting my girls do it. Trying to take your “Worst Mom” title from you!
Notice the doc said the hair tie is the likely cause – even he’s not really sure that’s it. Your skin is a barrier against infections, you can get pimples, yes, but this type of infection is incredibly unlikely unless she already had some kind of opening in her skin.
Patents Beware! A scary new teen trend is taking off in America’s high schools. We have TV5’s Tricia Takanawa live at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.
Tricia: “Thank you, Diane. Teens call it ‘tying one off’, ‘banding’, or ‘making an updo’ and it’s taking our nation’s schools by storm. This dangerous new fad can lead to subdermal hematomas, cysts and even [dramatic pause] DEATH. In this 17 part series, we’ll investigate the origins of this dangerous trend, we will tell you the warning signs that your teen might be banding, and we will tell you what our experts recommend if you suspect your kids might be dabbling with the ‘sparkly elastic’.”
Staph infections are the new athlete’s foot. She probably picked it up because she layed down her hair ties on the sink or shower at the gym or got staph on her wrists while getting a manicure. It is dangerous but really really common these days.
And here I thought they were going to blame it on the glitter and we could pretend to have a whole epidemic of glitter caused maladies. My daughter recently had an urgent doctors visit due to glitter. Warning: micro abrasions on soft tissue can case macro pain!
… And she recovered rapidly after the offending bit of glitter was removed, infection avoided by sterilizing the abraded area. I have not declared war on glitter, and when she worried upon seeing glitter on her hands, I mildly told her that a good hand washing after she was done arranging the decorations should be enough to prevent a repeat of the issue.
I really hope that it was WLKY and not the doctor that spelled what should be “pus” as “puss.”
Well crap. That’s pretty much the extent of my jewelry. Now I’ll be all ugly. Also, I hope they start printing warnings on hair band packages before it becomes an epidemic.
@Havva- Glitter is the herpes of the crafting world. I despise it and try to ban it from my house as it gets on everything. Glittery hair bands sound just as bad an icky.
My daughter constantly has a hairband around her wrist like a watch. She has long hair but is also active and will pull it back when playing sports and then put it back down later. We were at a soccer tournament with a female referee who broke her hairband and was asking any parents or players if they had a spare because she needed her hair out of her face to ref the game. My daughter gave up hers to the ref (she already had her hair pulled back).
These are not real life dangers, having elastic hairbands on your wrist. These are long haired girl problems. Or Johnny Depp problems (does it also apply to too many bracelets too??)
Oh no! I’ve been wearing hair ties around my wrist since high school. My daughters even copy this dangerous habit of mine. Then again they always have something to put their hair up with and I’ve managed to live more than 20 years doing this. Maybe we’ll be just fine, probably, most likely.
My mother once caught me wearing a hair tie around my wrist. She was furious, and demanded to know where I picked up such a dangerous, dirty habit.
I told her, “I learned it from you.”
And then I joined a gang. We all wore hair ties around our wrists. Things went rapidly downhill from there. Don’t let it happen to your children. Be alert to signs of wrist hair tie wearing. They include sarcasm, and using words containing vowels and consonants.
So, this woman got an abscess, went to the doctor, antibiotics didn’t work, went back to medical people, got abscess drained.
Talk about a total non-news story….
was totally expecting the doctor to find the unscrupulous, glimmering piece of glitter amid the pus and decay.
headline is slanderous against glitter…which has enough problems on it’s own.
The brain works on both electrical impulses and bio-chemical stimulus. Every emotion including fear, anger, despair, or worry has a chemical that makes us feel that way. These chemicals can become addicting similar to a cocaine addiction. If you’re addicted to the despair, you obviously don’t get a pleasurable feeling. However you still go through the withdrawals and the horrible feelings when you try to ‘kick the habit’. You can get fed up with despair and start listening to some of the self-help advice in order to change your life. However many people give up their life changing efforts in a short time as the DT’s kick in.
Sorry. I didn’t mean to get off topic. However the glittery hairband problem is an excellent example of a worry addiction and why people are drawn to and seek out new things to worry about.
Just ban hair. Problem solved.
People that seek out (or make up) things to worry about are driven by the same thing as the people that seek out (or make up) things to be outraged about.
I could see her posting this Danger and Warning on social media, because it’s what we do in today’s culture. But an actual news source? The mind is boggled.
@lollipoplover, it’s definitely a long-haired girl problem. Us long-haired guys carry our spare hairbands in our pockets.
@Mark- Ha! And likely no glitter on yours…
Back when I had long hair like my daughter’s, I used to wear a Scrunchie around my wrist to pull it up. 80’s hairbands had better safety though I probably damaged my lungs permanently spraying aquanet to hold that hair in place.
I miss scrunchies…
I have a really hard time believing this story.
P.S. Too bad you posted this AFTER the video with the kids and presents, or it would have explained your Kleenex shortage 😛
… just saying that a hair band makes a good tourniquet. There is more than one way use for it. And, after having been in several mommy groups with Audree Kopp, I’d look at other way she could have gotten an infection under the skin.
WARNING! DANGER! M son acquired a staph infection at the site of a bee sting! Never, ever allow your children to be outside again!
(Yeah, true story. Doctor said it was on his skin and the bee sting drove it into his body.)
Yes! Let us pray.