Case study: hair tourniquet syndrome
A 39-year-old mother Sara Ward shared the story of her 5-month-old son who developed a rare condition, hair tourniquet syndrome. The syndrome occurs when a hair or thread becomes tightly tied around a finger, toe or genitals. The mother of 3 had no idea about what tourniquet syndrome is. Neither did she realize how difficult it would be to treat. When the doctor failed to remove the hair, she had to take her boy, Logan to urgent care and then the emergency room at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital.
If not promptly treated, the condition can lead to an infection and even amputation
‘This was my first time and even with being a third-time parent, I was not aware of this beforehand,’ she told Good Morning America.
I had never seen this or this [had] never come up with any of my friends or family members that are moms. So I was definitely kind of in the dark on just how severe this can be.’
According to Ward’s Facebook post, on Saturday, she and her husband noticed a line going across their son’s toe with some redness. However, they ignored it. On Monday, the parents noticed that the toe still hadn’t improved so they took him to see a paediatrician. That is when they first learned about the syndrome. Similarly, doctors and nurses spent around 40 minutes removing the hair wrapped around the boy’s third toe on his right foot.
‘They took a look and they had to use all these kinds of special instruments. They brought in these magnifying goggles and special lights and they had these long tweezers and like little scalpels,’ she recalled.
A few hours later they noticed that the toe was swollen and turning purple. She further wrote in her post that a total of 12 nurse practitioners and surgeons tried to find the hair using Ward wrote in her post that a total of 12 nurse practitioners, paediatricians, and surgeons attempted to find the hair using tweezers, scalpels, magnifying goggles, and special lights. At one point they even used Nair, a hair removal cream in an attempt to break down the strand of hair.
Fortunately Logan’s condition improved and they were able to avoid surgery
Ward isn’t sure what changed but her son’s condition began to improve and they avoided surgery at the last minute. At the end of her Facebook post she wrote that while Logan’s case was extreme, they were lucky that they were able to save him. She ended her post by warning parents to check their babies, toes and fingers for stands of hair. The medical team later speculated that there was a random piece of hair stuck in his pyjamas which started to get caught on his toe. ‘Then with all his kicking, it just wraps around the toe and begins restricting blood flow,’ she explained.
Logan fully recovered three weeks after the scare.
Source: Daily Mail
