A woman was horrified after a holiday sunburn left her face in such a state that her own mother could not recognise her. Ashlei Bianchi has spent the afternoon lying by the pool in the sun on her trip to the Dominican Republic with her family.
In spite of using sun cream, in the evening, the 23-year-old noticed her forehead and head swelling up. “I did use sunscreen, but I still got a little red,” she said. “I’m not used to the sun down there, and we were in the pool all day.”
She initially assumed she had suffered a mild reaction to the sun, so the New York native slathered aloe vera gel on her skin and carried on with her holiday.
But things only got worse when Ashlei woke up on the final morning of her holiday to find one of her eyes had swollen shut.
By the last day of the trip, Ashlei woke up to find one of her eyes completely swollen shut. Her face was so puffed up, her mum, Michelle, 52, was left stunned during a video call and didn’t recognise her own daughter.
“My family said I looked like ET,” Ashlei laughed. “I was scared I wouldn’t even get through customs looking like that.”
She kept her sunglasses on during both flights home, even at night, out of embarrassment. At the airport pharmacy, the reaction was instant.
“The woman looked at me and went, ‘Oh my,’” she recalled.
Once she arrived home on March 25, Ashlei was finally able to start a course of oral steroids prescribed by her doctor. It took four days for the swelling to fully subside.
Medical staff later confirmed that she had suffered from sun poisoning, an extreme form of sunburn that can cause swelling, blisters, nausea, and other symptoms.
Now fully recovered, Ashlei is using her experience as a warning to others about underestimating the sun, even with sunscreen.
She said: “I would say the dangers of sun exposure are real. I’m lucky my sun poisoning affected my face and not anything else. I had no symptoms besides swelling.
“It’s very important to use your sunscreen and wear hats. I think that’s where I went wrong. I really should have had something besides sunscreen protecting my face.
“But all in all, the sun is no joke, especially in the Caribbean where it’s much more potent.”
