A Lancashire man has who suffered an allergic reaction to hair dye has said he was left with a giant ‘balloon head’ like the cartoon character Megamind – leaving his own girlfriend ‘unable to look at him’.
27-year-old Ryan Brigg’s entire head swelled up, at first in a large tyre-like shape around his forehead, before his entire face followed suit – and he needed to take 25 tablets a day to reduce it.
Ryan went over to his mum’s house on July 27 and found she’d bought him some black hair dye to help to cover up a couple of new grey hairs.
The 27-year-old applied the formula over his scalp and admits he didn’t do a patch test as he didn’t realise it was necessary.
Despite feeling a burning sensation, the gas installer assumed this was normal and went to sleep only to wake up to see a scaly rash had developed around his hairline.
Heading to work as normal, Ryan was horrified to see his face expand throughout the day leaving him with an incredibly itchy ‘balloon head’.
After being sent home from work by colleagues, he went to the hospital but was told to come back the next day if it was worse – to the horror of his girlfriend who ‘couldn’t even look at him’.
Ryan awoke the next day to discover his face had ballooned to the point he couldn’t see out of one eye so was taken via an ambulance to the hospital where they told him he’d had a reaction to paraphenylenediamine (PPD), a chemical commonly found in hair dyes.
Online, the NHS website warns people to always carry out a patch test before using a permanent or semi-permanent hair dye, ‘even if you are using your regular brand’.
Ryan, from Blackburn, Lancashire, said: ‘I should have done a patch test really but I didn’t know that you had to do that. I applied the dye and it did burn a little bit but I thought that’s what it does. Obviously it wasn’t.
‘The day after I woke up with a tiny bit of a rash. It wasn’t that bad but throughout the day my head started expanding.
“I was at work and it just escalated from there. My colleagues said ‘you need to get to the hospital’.
After going home from the hospital with medication in tow, Ryan said his girlfriend was ‘gobsmacked’ and couldn’t look at him.
He said: ‘When I looked in the mirror that morning I didn’t know what to think. I rang 111 and got an ambulance to come and get me as I obviously couldn’t drive as I couldn’t see. They said it was an allergic reaction to PPD, which is in the chemicals of the hair dye.
‘I was in the hospital for about 13 hours, I got discharged at about 3 o’clock in the morning. They didn’t send me home with anything as they didn’t have it in stock. I had to ring my doctors the next day.
‘My girlfriend had to go get the tablets for me from the pharmacy as I still couldn’t see.’
Despite all being well now, Ryan claims he’s been left with scabs across his scalp and is now warning others to not make the same mistake he did and always take a patch test.
Ryan said: ‘It’s fully gone now. My scalp is full of yellow and green scabs but my face has gone normal now.’
He’s warned anyone using hair dye to always do a patch test, as it could have been much worse if it spread further down his neck and into his airways.
Ryan added: ‘That’s why they kept me in because if it had gone down to my neck it could have started to close my airways up. I’m glad it’s over now but definitely do patch test, one million percent.’
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