Health Desk
Remember when you discovered dry shampoo and it changed your life? Now some of us use dry shampoo a few days a week, usually on mornings when we want to sleep an extra 15 minutes.
Nicole Baxter of Belfast, Northern Ireland, felt the same way — until she had a severe reaction to a dry shampoo, the details of which she shared in a scary Facebook post detailing how she noticed a bald patch on her head that kept getting bigger, along with some sores and blisters.
“Anyone who uses dry shampoo, please continue to read,” she wrote.
“It’s a long one but work with me! So I went to my GP at the end of last year due to having a bald patch on my head which kept getting bigger. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t stress and my diet’s alright so there didn’t seem any reason for this to happen? My scalp was also very itchy and flaky. I had wee red sores and blisters all over my scalp and a terrible burning sensation all over my head — to the point where I would wake up several times a night due to the discomfort/pain. She referred me to the dermatology unit in Belfast City Hospital where I had my first appointment in February.”
“At this initial appointment I was immediately diagnosed with TRIANGULAR ALOPECIA (hair loss in one area of the head, usually in a triangle, duh). And was told I’d have to come back to have a scalp biopsy (injection straight into my scalp to numb the area, then a hole punch tool used to remove a part of it, then closed up with stitches) done to see what was causing these blisters and sores I had. The doctor asked had I anything on my hair at the minute, I said just dry shampoo. So she advised when I come back for the scalp biopsy to come with nothing in my hair and to make sure it was clean. I thought it was weird she said that, it’s only dry shampoo what’s that got to do with it? So I actually stopped using it all together [sic] from that day to see what would happen.”
