Featured Image Credit: TikTok/@bethjozey
Topics: Beauty
Emma Guinness
A trip to the nail salon is meant to be one of life's little luxuries, but for one woman, it very nearly ended in a life changing amputation.
Taking to TikTok, Beth said that the next time her nails need some TLC, she will be using press on nails after she almost lost her thumb from a 'professional' experience.
Beth said at the start of her now-viral story: "I almost had my thumb amputated and now I only wear Kmart press on nails."
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She explained that the incident happened in 2020 at an unidentified 'beautiful' salon and said that when she arrived, it looked 'really clean'.
But as she was getting her nails done, she noticed that the nail technicians were not sanitising their equipment between uses.
She explained: "I noticed they would grab equipment from other's bays. My best friend was sitting next to me and they would use a utensil on her then immediately swap it over to me."
"I didn't really think anything of it at the time and I didn't want to be that person," Beth said of potentially complaining.
She said that she left with beautiful nails, but the next day, her nails started to 'ache'.
Having had nails done at salons for a long time, Beth admitted that this has happened to her before if the acrylics are, for example, 'too tight'.
However, the pain in Beth's thumb was particularly noticeable 'in one corner'.
But she still dismissed the pain, even when her thumb turned red, concluding that maybe there was some glue stuck beneath the acrylic.
"I was a new mum and didn't have time to be worrying about what my nail was doing," she added.
A few days later, Beth's mum pointed out how sore her thumb looked, and when she went to pick up a mug of coffee, the pressure caused the worst pain she'd ever experienced.
"I get in the car and drive myself to the hospital with my one thumb out, it was definitely not responsible driving," she said.
Beth said that once she got to the hospital, she had a high temperature and was ultimately diagnosed with paronychia - a skin infection.
"They did my blood count and it came back as such a severe infection that they immediately transferred me to the other hospital for surgery then and there, to drain this thing out of my thumb.
"They said if I had left it any longer to go to the hospital it would have gotten into my bone, into my bloodstream properly and I would have ended up losing my thumb because it would have decayed my bone."
Beth ended her video by warning others not to make the same mistake as her and not let the reuse of equipment at a nail salon go unquestioned.
Needless to say, viewers were shocked at the close call.
"You should have sued them," declared one viewer.
"This is why I do my own nails at home! So many dodgy places these days," wrote a second, while a third added: "I'm so glad that the people at the nail salon I go to wash everything."