Hair dye allergy

[Babooshkar]

Looking for some advice about allergic reactions to hair dye.
Dye went on on Wednesday afternoon at hairdressers, was a bit itchy at the time but not too bad, next day (Thurs) was a hit more itchy but again nothing awful. Then woke up yesterday feeling terrible, red swollen ears and red angry raised patches down sides of face and forehead, scalp like it’s burning although it’s not red, nausea, bad guts and lightheaded. Went to A&E on advice from speaking to my GP yesterday morning and was put straight on fairly high dose of oral steroids for 3 days (today is 2nd day of steroids) and antihistamines - felt quite a bit better yesterday arvo, happy days, but then woken up today feeling awful again. Taken steroids and antihistamines again etc..

Now worrying that unless I can get this dye out of hair I am going to be re-introducing the allergy constantly and will run out of steroids after tomorrow.. and then it’s Christmas :-/

Can anyone share experiences? How long did the reaction last and did you have to cut all your hair off?!

Bump

Are there traces of it on your bedding still which set it off again maybe?

Oh no you poor thing. I would go back to a&e although they’ll still be open over the festive period so you could take the 3 day course of steroids and see how you feel but definitely go back. Did your hairdresser not do a patch test?

Speak to your GP/NHS111 (or NHS24 in Scotland)

The salon shouldn’t put chemicals on any client without doing a patch test. Not sure if you could sue them etc regarding this.

Found this on a solicitors website

“Hairdressers are expected to carry out skin patch tests to check for allergies and test individual skin sensitivity, and where a client suffers a moderate to severe allergic reaction because of a salon's failure to do, the latter will be found to have acted negligently. A patch test is performed by testing a small amount of a hair dye product on the skin, 24-48 hours in advance of a hair dyeing appointment, and waiting to see if it causes any irritation. This simple procedure is too often disregarded by hairdressers however, and hundreds of salon customers are injured every year as a result.”

Sorry for drip feed! Should have said, I had a patch test which was okay, so hairdressers did the right thing, I am just very unlucky

Good tip about pillowcases! I will change them all before bed tonight.

Just worries I am going to keep getting a reaction as it has been no better today without major steroids and piriton :-/

I had the same reaction to a dye that I’d used at home for years. 5 days steroids and the reaction stopped. It didn’t keep going.
I’ve had so many patch tests since (about 7 years now) and had the same reaction each time. Now I just have grey hair.

And the steroids are so strong they’ve kept me awake all last night like a twitchy wreck

Thanks ChristmasAccountant, that’s good to know, although suspect I will need to get more steroids then as I only have enough for tomorrow (3 days total), and today was no better.

What was your allergic reaction like? Did you have wheezing?

No wheezing that I can remember. itchy and burning scalp and face which progressed to swelling to the point I couldn’t open my eyes.
Now any patch test results in burning and itching so no hairdressers will even contemplate dying it.
Hope you’re feeling better soon.

@ChristmasAccountant
Omg that sounds awful, I haven’t swollen up that much in my face itself, but my ear lobes have! I have what looks like red raised burns down each side of face and across top of forehead. But I am wheezing a fair bit, which is doing my head in.

We’re you able to leave the dye in your hair once the allergy stopped flaring or did you have to get it removed? The A&E dr suggested I might need to cut my hair off if it didn’t settle down arghhh!