Teen Girl Almost Dies While Straightening Hair

Story By:  Ana MarjanovicSub-Editor:  Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News 

A 14-year-old girl almost died after using a hair vitality cream to help her straighten her curls.

According to local media, the teenager who was not named, had been supposed to apply the cream directly, but instead had heated it up first in the belief that it would help her straighten her hair.

As a result she ended up inhaling the fumes and it is believed that the melted cream had also been absorbed more directly into her blood through her scalp, resulting in kidney failure.

She was hospitalised in Wolfson Medical Center’s in Jerusalem where she was put onto a dialysis machine in the intensive care unit as doctors battled to save her life.

Local media confirmed that the cream had been approved by the Israeli health ministry, but only for the purpose of nourishing and softening hair, not for straightening it.

According to Dr. Maital Kaidar-Ronat, an expert paediatrician at Wolfson Medical Center “the straightening cream was absorbed into the scalp, and breathed in, and reached the bloodstream as a result.”

He said that there were waiting to assess the damage to the girl’s kidneys and that she was still not out of the woods, adding: “She still has high blood pressure, and she is being treated with medication, but I believe that within a few weeks, she will completely recover and return to normal life.”

According to local reports, 60 percent of Israeli women dream of having straight hair, and every third woman in Israel undergoes a hair straightening process at some stage in her life.

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