A woman in Arkansas landed in the hospital after she says she got a potentially deadly foot infection from a pedicure.
Stacey Wilson told KATV she was receiving a pedicure Saturday at a salon in Benton when the employee giving her a nail treatment cut one of her feet with a pumice stone.
"She knew she had hurt me a little bit," she said.
But by Sunday, Wilson noticed that there were more problems with her foot than a simple cut. Her ankle had become inflamed and red, and by Tuesday she couldn't stand.
Wilson is a nurse at the nearby Saline Memorial Hospital, and said she knew she had to go to the E.R.
Doctors diagnosed Wilson with cellulitis, a common but potentially serious skin infection.
"It feels like you're sitting too close to a fire and you just cannot get away from it, that's the way it feels," she said of her infection.
The condition is caused when bacteria gets into the body through an opening like a wound, according to the Mayo Clinic. The condition can "rapidly turn life-threatening" if it isn't treated immediately.
Dr. Michael Pafford of Saline Memorial Hospital told KATV that he has previously seen this type of infection develop in patients who have visited a nail salon.
"Pedicures and manicures aren't the only [things] that cause it, but we definitely we do see it associated with that," he told the station.
Bacterial infections associated with nail salons are nothing new. In 2002, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study in which they studied an outbreak of bacterial infections at a nail salon in California.
"We believe that these rapidly growing mycobacterial infections associated with nail salons are underrecognized and may increase in prevalence," the paper states.
Wilson told KATV she plans to file a complaint with the Arkansas Department of Public Health to hopefully prevent infections in other people.
The Mayo Clinic said people who have a red, swollen, or rapidly changing rash and a fever could be suffering from cellulitis and should see a doctor immediately.
"It's important to identify and treat cellulitis early because the condition can spread rapidly throughout your body," the clinic stated.