Woman Contracts Gnarly Infection From Her Hair Tie

A Kentucky woman named Audree Kopp had noticed a huge bump started growing on her wrist, so she paid a visit to a doctor who prescribed her antibiotics. Unfortunately, the thing kept growing and she ended up having surgery. The culprit for her infected bump? Kopp’s glittery hair tie, which she had been wearing around her wrist. Nasty!

Kopp’s doctor believes bacteria from her hair tie got in through her pores and hair follicles, causing a triple infection. She didn’t believe it at first. “I thought that it was a spider bite, or something else, not from wearing hair ties,” she told WLKY, via People. (Warning: the link contains some pretty gruesome images of the wound.) Luckily, they caught the infection in time. “It could have been a whole different ballgame, once it gets into your bloodstream, people have been known to go into a coma, your body shuts down it could have been way worse,” she said.

Let this be a warning to everyone who uses hair ties, and wears them around their wrist. I don’t even want to think about where that bacteria came from. There is danger lurking around every corner.