An NHS doctor has left viewers feeling “afraid” after recalling a medical story of a woman who was paralysed after getting a love bite or “hickey” on her neck.
Love bites are hot or disgusting depending on who you ask, but Dr Karan Rajan shared a new reason to avoid them in a TikTok video he shared on his @dr.karanr channel.
In the clip, Dr Karan explains: “In 2011 a woman in New Zealand was watching TV when suddenly she noticed her arm became paralysed.
“When she was brought to a hospital doctors couldn’t make sense of her symptoms until they saw this: a love bite on her neck.
The hickey was sat on her carotidartery, which is a large blood vessel that supplies the brain.
(Image: TikTok / @dr.karanr)
“When someone gets a hickey, the suction causes trauma to the surface blood vessels, often causing it to burst and leaving a bruise.
“The carotid artery lies close to the surface which is why you can feel a pulse in your neck.”
He continues: “A violent hickey likely caused injury to the carotid, causing turbulent blood flow to cause a clot.
“And this clot likely caused poor blood flow to the brain resulting in a stroke.”
(Image: TikTok / @dr.karanr)
Dr Karan added: “Hickey-induced strokes are rare but there are at least three reported cases.”
The video has been watched more than half a million times and people were horrified about the case, even though Dr Karan reassured people it was “very rare”.
One user said: “I was already afraid of this why would you remind me?”
A second person commented: “My mum tells me this story every time I get a hickey telling me it can kill me.”
Someone else shared: “I don’t understand why you have got to show them my bf (now my husband) always made them in a private place, not on the neck.”
A fourth asked: “Why do people bite the neck they aren’t vampires are they?”
Dr Karan is also on Instagram and has a YouTube channel where he shares medical trivia and weird facts.
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