VIDEO: Ladies, Did You Know Your Hair Tie Can KILL You?

by Sierra Marlee | November 28, 2015 2:35 pm

I’m guilty of slinging any old hair tie[1] I find around my house around my wrist, but it turns out, doing that is dangerous for your health!

[2]

From Uproxx[3]:

Here’s a fun fact for you: a hair tie around your wrist could possibly kill you. No, it’s not because it’ll cut off your circulation (although check out what happens when people tie their man buns and ponytails too tightly)[4], but because they can transfer bacteria under your skin that could cause a life-threatening infection. This discovery isn’t academic, either. A real live person really did contract a debilitating illness after an experience with a dirty tie.

According to WLKY, a woman named Audree Kopp was in the middle of moving[5] when she noticed that the skin around her wrist looked strange. Then, it began growing and getting redder. And when she went to the doctor, she was immediately put on antibiotics, because everyone just assumed it was a spider bite. Unfortunately, the thing that had started out as a small bump kept getting bigger and bigger until Kopp had to go into emergency surgery to remove the large abscess that had grown on her wrist.

The culprit, according to Kopp’s doctor, was bacteria from the hair tie which penetrated her skin and and then just settled in for the long haul. Fortunately, the bacteria didn’t get into Kopp’s bloodstream. She’s grateful for that because, according to her[6],  ​”It could have been a whole different ball game. Once it gets into your bloodstream, people have been known to go into a coma, your body shuts down. It could have been worse.”

WLKY reports that you don’t have to throw away all your hair ties immediately. Instead, you can wear them loosely around the wrist and choose not to go with anything that’s sparkly or hard to clean. Otherwise, bacteria could get in through pores and hair follicles. So go with something that’s made of rubber? Or just cut off all your hair because I’m pretty sure we’re only days away from being told that having it on our heads is way too dangerous, too.

Watch the video below:

This is definitely make me think twice about keeping all of my hair ties on my wrist, especially when I don’t know where they’ve been!