Mar 16, 2016 05:32 PM
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Californian woman Elizabeth Smith, filed a lawsuit against a salon claiming that a hair wash led to her stroke.
A CT scan revealed that the shampoo chair and sink caused a cut in her vertebral artery, ABC News reported.
Smith’s first symptoms appeared eight days after a visit to the salon. “I had weakness in my left arm and leg, ” Smith told BuzzFeed. “I just didn’t feel right. I was standing up to point, and I couldn’t stand.”
Smith's first symptoms appeared eight days after a visit to the salon. "I had weakness in my left arm and leg, " Smith told BuzzFeed. "I just didn't feel right. I was standing up to point, and I couldn't stand." However, her symptoms resolved when the paramedics came over.
Six days later, Smith experienced nausea and vomiting when she approached a hospital to be diagnosed with a stroke.
This case isn't unheard of. The medical world terms it as'beauty parlor stroke', known to the neurologists. Though hard to quantify, its a rare condition.
While getting their hair washed, hyper-extension or any whiplash-type motions that happen when one leans back against a shampoo chair and sink can cause cervical artery dissection, i.e. arteries in the neck can get cut or torn, leading to stroke.
"When one of those cervical arteries is damaged in some sort of way, you can get what’s called a dissection, which is damage of the inside of the blood vessel, leading to abnormal flow and clotting, and then those clots can shoot north into the brain and cause a stroke, ” explained Steven R. Zeiler, M.D., Ph.D., head of stroke research at Johns Hopkins, to Buzzfeed.
"If you tip your head back and get numbness or tingling and your speech slurs, " could be a warning sign of injury, said Dr. Warren Selman, Director of the Neurological Institute at University Hospitals Case Medical Center.
Although there isn't much research on the topic, a 2006 report from the the journal Cerebrovascular Diseases said, "It can be prevented by changing the shampoo routine from the hanging head position to a flexed or neutral position."
People over the age of 65 or those with atherosclerosis(hardening of arteries) are more prone to such strokes, according to the internet stroke center, an independent web resource for information about stroke care and research.
