Watch out for those love bites, they could give you a stroke. Photo: Getty
Getting a bit too frisky with your lover can lead to all sorts of trouble, but never before have we heard it could lead to a stroke. However that's exactly what happened to one New Zealand woman who suffered a stroke, followed by partial paralysis, after her partner gave her a love bite.
The case of the 44-year-old Maori woman has been reported by one of the doctors who treated her, Dr Teddy Wu, in the New Zealand Medical Journal.
According to Dr Wu, it's the first time anyone has been hospitalised after having a love bite - or, as they call them in other parts of the world, a hickey.
The woman - who understandably hasn't been named - apparently went to the A&E department of the Middlemore Hospital in Auckland last year after she lost the use of her right arm. After examining her, the doctors suspected she'd had a stroke, but they didn't know why. At least that's until they found the love bite on her neck, which was close to a major artery.
Dr Wu claims the physical trauma caused by the suction had bruised a blood vessel and caused a clot in the artery beneath it. The clot broke free and travelled to the poor woman's heart, where it caused a minor stroke. The stroke subsequently caused her arm to become paralysed.
Thankfully she recovered after being treated with anti-coagulants. If she hadn't gone to hospital so soon after having the stroke, however, things could have got much worse for her, and she could have suffered even more strokes.
Now that's what we call a scary story.