Sensiization: Henna Hazard: Chemical Causes Ornate Allergies

[Guest guest]

Howdy y'all,

 

Recommend you:

 

1. Read the part below under the heading " Lifelong allergies to some

medications. "

 

2. Check out the photos at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26080350/

 

3. Know that just as some ancient wise men spoke in parables so the

average person could understand .. the writer of this article uses

the term " allergy " to indicate Sensitization. ;-)

 

Y'all keep smiling. :-)

 

Butch .. http://www.AV-AT.com

 

 

Harsh dye can swell popular tattoos into itchy, blistery swirls and

shapes.

 

By Melissa Dahl

Health writer

MSNBC

updated 7:06 a.m. CT, Fri., Aug. 8, 2008

 

Debbe Geiger has never been one for tattoos. But when her daughter

Kim begged to get a henna tattoo on a family vacation to Cancun a few

years ago, she thought it couldn't hurt. After all, it's only

temporary, and Kim would have something to show off to her friends

back home.

 

But just two days later, the tattoo of a cute little bug had swelled

into an itchy, bubbling blister on Kim's upper right arm.

 

" I was scared to death, " says Geiger, who's 43 and lives with her

family in Cary, N.C. " I thought, she's 9 years old and she's going to

be scarred for life. "

 

The American Academy of Dermatology recently issued a warning that a

chemical found in black henna tattoos can cause a severe allergic

reaction, causing the skin to redden, swell and blister — but only

where the henna is applied, leaving people with bubbly blisters in

shapes like suns, stars and flowers.

 

As henna body art has become mainstream in the last few years, often

peddled at summer carnivals and concerts, dermatologists report

increasingly treating patients, especially teen girls and young

women, with these often elaborate looking allergic reactions.

 

" Just because they're temporary, people think they're safe, " says Dr.

Sharon E. Jacob, a dermatologist at the University of California, San

Diego.

 

Natural henna vs. black henna

While true henna is made from harmless plants, black henna uses a

chemical called para-phenylenediamine, or PPD, which makes the tattoo

dry quickly and last longer — and in some cases, that's much, much

longer.

 

" These skin allergies themselves are not dangerous, " says Dr. Colby

Evans, a dermatologist in private practice in Austin, Texas. " But

they can cause scarring or darkness to the skin that can be

permanent. "

 

Despite the potential for creating a permanent souvenir from that

trip to Mexico, the scarring generally will go away on its own within

a few weeks. But it's almost always odd-looking. This week, the New

England Journal of Medicine published Evans' account of a

particularly intense case: A 19-year-old Kuwaiti woman Evans treated

after she returned from a wedding, where she had black henna applied

to her forearms, hands and fingers. A week later, her swirly, flowery

henna was overwritten with a swirly, flowery blister.

 

Last year, Evans also treated a young man with a similar allergic

reaction to henna that took an even more bizarre form: a blister on

the back of his neck in the perfect shape of an eagle.

 

In both cases, Evans prescribed steroid creams to bring the swelling

down.

 

Lifelong allergies to some medications

 

But Evans and other dermatologists warn that just one bad reaction to

black henna can be enough to cause permanent sensitivity to PPD, and

that allergy can cross-react with chemical relatives in certain

anesthetics and medications for heart disease, hypertension and

diabetes.

 

" The allergy you can develop is lifelong, " says Jacob. But she's

found that people, especially teens, are generally unimpressed by her

warnings of reactions to medication, so she reserves this for the

kicker: " It may mean you can never dye your hair again. "

 

While PPD is used in most hair dyes, allergic reactions aren't very

common because it isn't applied directly to the skin, and in black

henna the concentration of PPD is 10 times higher, Jacob estimates.

But a PPD sensitivity could cause an allergic reaction after even the

slightest contact with the chemical.

 

Kim Geiger's blister faded away within a month, and her mom says she

hasn't had any allergic reaction to medication since. But Debbe

Geiger often wonders how anyone could ever tell the difference

between safe, natural henna and black henna.

 

" This was a little booth set up at the hotel pool, and I didn't think

anything of it, " she says.

 

Experts say there are a few easy ways to tell the difference between

true henna and black henna. For one, henna is never black — it's red,

which darkens to a brownish color on the skin as it dries. Real henna

starts to fade away within a few days, so be wary of a henna tattoo

artist who boasts of tattoos that will last any longer than that.

 

But both mom and daughter Geiger aren't taking any more chances;

they're staying far away from all things henna. " It looks so

harmless, " Debbe Geiger says, " but you have to watch these

ingredients they're using. "

 

© 2008 MSNBC Interactive

 

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26080350/