Woman Sues After Having ‘Beauty Parlor Stroke.’ Here’s What That Is.

A woman is suing her salon this week for something much worse than a bad cut or dye job: for the stroke she suffered about two weeks after getting her hair done.

Elizabeth Smith, of California, alleges that by hyperextending her neck for a hair washing in one of those always-uncomfortable salon sinks in December 2013, the Blowbunny: Blow Dry & Hair Extension Bar of San Diego induced the rare but documented “beauty parlor stroke,” which has had lasting effects for Smith.

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Smith, 48, told KGTV she wanted to raise awareness around the issue, especially since she’s been left with a threatening clot in her brain. “It’s shocking to think such a benign activity can kill you,” she said of having her hair washed. Her doctors believe that when the mother-of-two’s neck was bent backward at the sink, it was overextended, causing her vertebrae to slice an artery and for a clot to form, soon causing a stroke.

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“Several of Ms. Smith’s neurologists confirmed with her that the stroke was caused by the vertebra dissecting her artery during her hair wash,” Smith’s attorney Carree Nahama told KGTV.

“We believe the personnel didn’t adequately support her neck or adjust the chair properly to compensate for the small frame of our client,” said Spencer Busby, another one of the attorneys for Smith, who was saddled with $250,000 in medical bills. The suit also alleges the salon’s chair and sink were “defective.”

In court paperwork, reports ABC News, the salon denied any negligence and claimed that Smith “failed to exercise any degree of care for her own safety and as a result proximately caused her own injuries.”

Now, two years later, Smith still has balance and vision problems, plus the worrisome knowledge of her remaining brain clot. “So I do live with that every night,” she said. “I go to sleep wondering, will I wake up tomorrow?”

So what is beauty parlor stroke, anyway?

The term, Dr. Warren Selman, director of the Neurological Institute at University Hospitals Case Medical Center, told ABC News, is “definitely something that all neurologists know about.” He added, “Actually calling it a ‘beauty parlor stroke’ is relatively common in the teaching, it’s been reported quite a lot,” and noted that a warning sign could be “if you tip your head back and get numbness or tingling and your speech slurs.”

A 1993 Journal of the American Medical Association report on this type of stroke — known in medical terms as iatrogenic arterial injury — looked at five cases, in women aged 54 to 84, that varied in severity. A subsequent New York Times article highlighting the study noted that patients receiving anesthesia or undergoing prolonged dental work may also be at risk. "It’s not a well-recognized problem, but I think it’s very interesting and it does make a lot of sense anatomically,” Dr. John C.M. Brust, professor of neurology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, was quoted as saying. “It’s been known that this could happen during chiropractic manipulations of the neck, and this is a variation on that theme.”

A Lancet study, from 1997, also examined the syndrome. Since then, other reported cases have included that of a British 51-year-old woman, who suffered a minor stroke in 2004 while bent backward to have her hair washed at a salon and, though she recovered, died of another stroke later on. In 2006, 46-year-old Marilyn Noonan, of California, was put on blood thinners and hospitalized after a trip to the salon left her with torn blood vessels within the wall of her carotid artery, causing a blood clot to form.

To avoid risk, doctors told KGTV, people with arthritis in their neck or hardening arteries — or older people, period — should either avoid leaning back more than 15 to 20 degrees or have their hair washed face down. Otherwise, avoid it altogether. But the biggest concern is regarding older shampoo sinks, some of which are not adjustable; many, though, now have reclining chairs.

Top photo: Gallery Stock