A UK woman was left with a severe skin rash that she says was an allergic reaction to a routine dental procedure.
Lily Lindsay paid more than £1,000, or about $1,200, for dental composite veneers – a common, cheaper alternative to porcelain veneers – to fix her teeth before her best friend’s wedding, according to a report by South West News Service shared by The New York Post.
“Composite veneers are thin shells that are placed on teeth to correct their appearance, fix minor cracks or fissures, or make minor corrections to the alignment of teeth,” according to Very good health, which adds that they are made of “composite resin”.
Two weeks after getting the veneers, Lindsay, a 29-year-old from Aberdeenshire, says she started having red eyes, itchiness, dry lips and dry skin.
Lily Lindsay / SWNS
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“My veneers gave me extremely dry and flaky skin – like elephant skin,” Lindsay told the South West News Service.
“Every day, my face would get a little more crusty, itchy and red,” she said. “It was so painful under my arms – I couldn’t even put my hands down or shower.”
Lindsay says doctors initially dismissed her condition as dermatitis, which the Mayo Clinic says is a general term for skin irritation.
He was then diagnosed with eczema – chronic inflammation of the skin — when the rash did not improve. Lindsay was prescribed a steroid cream, but when that didn’t help, she ended up in a “vicious cycle” of trying new diets and topical creams to improve her condition.
“It was absolutely eating away at me,” she said.
“I couldn’t do my job, I didn’t want to see my friend … I couldn’t be bothered to feel like this,” she said. “I was so down on how I looked. It got to the point where I just didn’t want to be here anymore. I felt like a failure.”
Lindsay says she ended up taking anti-depressants after “no doctor could help me”.
Lily Lindsay / SWNS
Five months after getting her veneers, Lindsay says she started feeling dizzy and her vision was affected. After going for a blood test that confirmed she was inflamed internally, Lindsay decided to have her veneers removed.
“[My dentist] I was so worried that their testimony might send me into anaphylactic shock — but luckily she was fine,” she said, according to The Daily Mail.
And about ten months after her symptoms started, Lindsay says “my face had completely cleared up.”
“Although resin-based restorative materials are considered safe, their components can leach out and cause allergic contact stomatitis [aka, an inflamed mouth],” The National Institute of Health he said.
Lindsay said she hopes people learn there are “risks” to these dental procedures, as “I don’t ever remember seeing or signing anything that said I might have an allergic reaction.”
“It’s not something people really think about.”
