Woman Suffers Severe Infection After Wearing A Glittery Hairband On Her Wrist

This Is Why You Shouldn't Wear Hairbands On Your Wrist

If you've got long hair, chances are you regularly keep a spare hairband on your wrist.

But doctors have warned this habit could pose a serious risk to health after a woman suffered a severe infection.

Audree Kopp had been wearing a glittery hairband around her wrist when she noticed a swelling appearing under her skin.

At first she thought it was a spider bite, so she went to her doctors. The GP prescribed antibiotics for an infection but the lump continued to grow.

At that point Kopp went to her local accident and emergency clinic.

Audree Kopp's wrist

There, doctors told her she had three types of infection that were likely to have been transferred to her body from the hairband.

They explained that bacteria on hairbands can easily pass onto the wrist and into the blood stream via pores in the skin and hair follicles.

"They said that I needed surgery and thank God that I caught it in time or I could have had sepsis," Kopp says in the video above.

Dr Amit Gupta, one of the doctors who treated Kopp at the hospital, made an incision into her wrist and drained the pus before dressing the wound.

In the video he warns: "Be careful when you put these hair ties around the wrist particularly because it can cause problems with the skin and it can cause infection."

Kopp says she will be using smooth hairbands that are easy to clean, rather than textured or glitter ones, from now on. She'll also be avoiding putting them on her wrist.

After hearing her story, so will we.

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