>
A young music festival reveler’s warning after a ‘small mark’ on her forehead turned into a huge, painful black scab days later, leaving her hospitalized and unable to eat or drink
- A young woman found a cut on her head after a festival
- The doctors thought it was just a severe sunburn infection.
- She was shocked to learn that she was infected with herpes.
A young woman was shocked to learn the true cause of a small cut that developed on her forehead during a music festival she attended after graduating from high school.
Taneesha, from Melbourne, discovered the wound was actually a “huge cold sore” caused by herpes after it got progressively worse over a matter of days.
Doctors originally thought the then-18-year-old’s wound was a sunburn and sent her home from the emergency room, but she became so sick that she ended up lying in hospital for nearly a week.
Taneesha, 23, is now telling her story to raise awareness of the little-known problem.
Type one of the herpes simplex virus (HSV), known as herpes, is usually transmitted by mouth-to-mouth contact. Type two is transmitted mainly sexually and causes genital herpes.
Taneesha (pictured), from Melbourne, was shocked to learn that a small cut that developed on her forehead during a music festival was actually herpes.
Before and after: Doctors originally thought the then-18-year-old’s wound was a sunburn and sent her home from the ER. The wound got progressively worse and turned out to be a huge cold sore caused by herpes.
Taneesha contracted the infection after attending the Falls music festival for the first time, she has never attended since due to the terrifying incident.
“So five years ago I finished school and went to Falls, and when I got home I was very sick,” Taneesha said.
‘I couldn’t keep down any food, I couldn’t keep down any water. She couldn’t sleep because she had cold sweats.
She explained that she went to the emergency department but they sent her home because they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her.
“I just got what looked like a sunburn on my forehead, it didn’t start off not too bad, the doctors told me to put some tea tree on it, saying ‘it’s probably just a little sunburn infection or something. So”.
The young woman revealed that in a couple of days the wound had progressively worsened and began to form scabs.
“I remember going to the pharmacy and she was like, ‘My God, are you okay, did you fall?’
Taneesha got so sick that she ended up bedridden in the hospital for almost a week. She is now telling her story to raise awareness about the little-known problem.
“I was so embarrassed,” Taneesha admitted.
As the cut continued to worsen, she visited her doctor, who thought it might be a staph infection, however a swab proved that theory wrong and the young woman was rushed to hospital to find an answer.
“I ended up in the hospital because I was very sick and I was there for five days,” she said.
The doctors discovered that along with the wound she had been suffering from glandular fever, which is why she felt so ill.
They still couldn’t figure out what the cut was and thought it might have been shingles but the tests came back negative, after five days of testing at the hospital they found out it was shingles.
At first, doctors thought the wound was a sunburn, then speculated it could be a staph infection or shingles. They are still not sure how Taneesha contracted herpes, but they said it may have been simply from ignoring an infected person in the crowd, as her immunity was very low at the time.
“Specialists said that herpes and shingles are from the same family, so they can behave in a similar way,” Taneesha explained.
“Basically, it was a huge cold sore on my face.”
Doctors are still not sure how he contracted it, but said it may have been simply from brushing against an infected person in a crowd, as his immunity was very low at the time.
She revealed that a big concern was that the wound might heal, however, after it was properly treated, it healed quickly.
“It took a long time, but there aren’t really any noticeable scars left,” Taneesha said.