.png)
A woman feared she may lose her sight after her face ballooned following a severe allergic reaction to eyebrow dye.
TV producer Jackii de la Rosa, from Atlanta, decided to get her eyebrows microbladed for the first time, after previously having them threaded.
But, Jackii said that the beautician who carried out the treatment failed to apply a patch test, and within hours, her eyes and forehead had swelled up so much that she couldn't see.
Advert
"I went to where I normally get my eyebrows threaded and they said 'try something new' - I've always wanted to get my eyebrows filled in so I tried it [microblading]," Jackii said.
"By the time I got home, within an hour, I felt a tingling sensation but I didn't think anything of it because she did mention to me 'you might get some tingling but if you don't have any swelling you should be fine'."
After two hours, Jackii noticed that her face had started to swell, and that her eyes were 'kind of puffy' and had started closing.
Advert
"It was burning my eyebrows and as time progressed my eyes started swelling up really bad and itching terribly," she continued.
"I realised I needed to go to the hospital when I looked up and I couldn't see anything, my eyes were shut - they were so swollen that I couldn't open them."
Worried about losing her sight, Jackii's boyfriend rushed her to the hospital.
"My boyfriend had to put me in the car and take me to the hospital and when I got there they took me in immediately because they didn't want me to lose my sight."
Advert
Doctors later confirmed that Jackii was suffering a 'severe' allergic reaction to an ingredient in the dye. They immediately admitted her and began treating the reaction with antihistamines and IV fluids.
Although she was discharged a few hours later, Jackii said that the remnants of the dye, which had soaked into the skin around her eyebrows, caused her face to 'blow up' several times over the following weeks.
"It took me two months to fully recover from this. It was so painful, I wouldn't wish it on anyone," she said.
Advert
"I had to just keep washing my face but the dye wouldn't come out fully so even after I left the hospital there were times when the swelling would come back a bit.
"It was so uncomfortable because you just wanted to scratch and take it off but you couldn't because it's in your skin.
"My eyebrows scarred because they were so irritated from the dye it had to scab and fall out and now I see more spaces than I originally had because of this allergic reaction."
Advert
Jackii has now vowed to always get a patch test for any future beauty treatments and warns others to do the same.
"I think we just need to move a little smarter and realise that everyone is beautiful in their own way. That's what I learned."
Lucy Devine