Woman 'too scared to travel' after trip left her skin 'ripped apart'
A young woman has been left 'too scared to travel' after a trip left her skin 'ripped apart'.
Beatrice Guaca believes her trip caused the worst eczema flare-up she's ever seen.
The 22-year-old was backpacking in Brussels, Belgium when she thought her eyes were just irritated from the draught through the open bedroom window.
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Beatrice, from County Carlow, Ireland, first developed eczema on her joints when she was just two-years-old, which spread over her face as she got older.
In the middle of the night on 15 March, she woke up with a feeling like her eyes were swelling - and it continued to get worse.
Chicken pox-like spots began forming on her face and she returned back home that day.
Beatrice became more and more 'terrified' as her skin starting to go yellow and crust began forming around her eye.
The backpacker shared videos on TikTok of her 'glowing' clear-skinned face transforming to red raw and bleeding as she says her skin 'ripped apart' within only three days.
She claims her skin began to drop off like a 'chemical peel' and the young gymnastics instructor went to hospital the day after she returned.
Things got worse and Beatrice was hospitalised for two weeks with the baffled doctors hooking her up to an IV.
"I didn't put anything on it until I went to the hospital, because you can't put anything on when there's [no skin] left on your face. It was very itchy, and I couldn't really speak as all of the skin on my face tightened up.
"The wounds were kind of starting to dry out, and on the second day my eye sealed shut. It was very painful; I couldn't open my eye for a day or two," she said.
After many biopsies and blood tests, doctors confirmed her eczema had become infected.
She reckons this happened due to contact between her skin and the air from the airport and plane - leaving her too traumatised to travel again.
"I thought I was going to remain this way for life. And even when it did start to go away, I thought I was going to be left full of scars. I didn't think eczema could get this out of proportion.
"I am a bit traumatised from travelling at the moment. It's left me scared that it will happen again."
Beatrice said it took a week before her skin started to heal and is grateful to be left without any scars now - crediting a skin-friendly diet of vegetables, healthy oils and collagen shots.
"When people saw me in person, they couldn't believe it. It's like it never happened," she says, calling it a 'miracle' on TikTok.
She does hope it was only a one-time thing but says when she does build up the courage to fly again, she'll be even more careful to protect her face.
The 22-year-old even says she might consider wearing 'some glasses or a mask' to cover her face from the air on the plane and at the airport.
Sharing videos from hospital to 'stay positive' she'd get better, Beatrice says: "This situation bought me the confidence to not be ashamed of what I have but to use it to help others."
Jess Battison