A man from the United Kingdom almost died due to biting his nails, a habit that he never thought would put his life in danger.
A study from 2016 claimed that a nail-biting habit among children should be allowed, as it lessens their risk of developing allergies. The opposite, however, happened to the father of two, whose nail-biting habit resulted in a nearly fatal infection.
Man Almost Dies From Nail-Biting Habit
Luke Hanoman, a 28-year-old father of two children from Birkdale, Southport, knew that he should stop his habit of biting nails. What he did not know, however, was that it could kill him.
“I used to bite my nails all the time. It was nervous thing,” Luke told The Sun. However, one day, he accidentally bit the skin at the side of his nail. “It hurt a bit but I didn’t think anything of it.”
Luke, a warehouse operator, still went to work that week, but he started experiencing flu-like symptoms that include cold sweats, shaking, and a fever. His finger than started to swell up, and had an “unbearable throbbing.”
“I started going really weird and I couldn’t focus.” Luke thought that after he got home from work on Friday, resting over the weekend will fix things.
However, things got worse. Luke did not wake up until 2 p.m. the next day, which made his mother go check up on him. Luke told his mother that he was not feeling well, and he did not look well either according to his mother, who called the National Health Service helpline and told the operator about her son’s symptoms.
The operator advised for Luke to be taken to the hospital immediately. Luke’s body had red lines all over it, and he his temperature was extremely high.
Luke spent four days at the hospital last July, where he was treated for sepsis. He was on 24-hour surveillance with an IV drip to refresh his fluids. The doctors told him that he was lucky to make it, as he was very close to suffering from a septic shock when he was brought to the hospital.
Biting Nails Leads To Sepsis Infection
Luke did not know about sepsis until his nail-biting habit resulted in him being infected with it. After surviving through the life-threatening ordeal, Luke is now helping raise awareness about the condition.
Sepsis is a medical anomaly caused by a bacterial infection in the blood. If left untreated, sepsis effects may include tissue damage, organ, failure, and even death. Over 1.7 million people in the United States are diagnosed with sepsis each year, with about 270,000 dying because of the infection.
Earlier this year, a 31-year-old mother filed a lawsuit against an English hospital because a sepsis misdiagnosis resulted in the amputation of an arm, all her fingers, and both her legs.