TikTok/@ser.gaya
- A TikToker's told Buzzfeed her face swelled up and went numb after she tried to dye half her hair.
- Seraya Ellison said she had to go to the ER with chemical burns and scalp tenderness.
- She said it took five days for her symptoms to fully subside.
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A TikToker's attempt to dye her hair backfired when one side of her head swelled up so badly she had to go to hospital, Buzzfeed reported.
Seraya Ellison's July 16 video describing what happened has been viewed over 29 million times.
The 19-year-old was attempting to dye half her hair black, but ended up going to the ER after having an allergic reaction to paraphenylenediamine (AKA PPD), which is often found in dark hair dye.
Ellison said she initially ignored the swelling
Ellison told Buzzfeed she had been dying her own hair for 13 years and was used to experiencing some irritation, so she initially ignored the reaction.
But the next day she woke up to her boyfriend yelling because the right side of her forehead had swollen up.
Ellison said she decided to take some Benadryl. But the swelling continued, and around lunch time, her mother took her to the emergency room.
"My face and eyes were getting even bigger by the minute," Ellison told Buzzfeed, adding that her face also went numb, and she had scalp tenderness and chemical burns.
A doctor in the ER told Ellison they'd "never seen anything like this before" and gave her a cream for her scalp.
The teenager said she ended up having to go to urgent care two cities away where she was given steroid pills and told to use Benadryl and ice packs too.
Her symptoms took five days to subside completely, she said, and Ellison is now urging people to be careful and always do patch tests before dyeing their hair.