Mom's Facebook post warns about how children are burning their skin after taking on the dangerous Deodorant Challenge
A UK mom’s Facebook post about a horrible new “game” being played by children in the South West of England has gone viral. On 4th May, Jamie Prescott posted pictures of injuries sustained by her daughter Ellie as a consequence of the game called the “Deodorant Challenge”.
"She [daughter Ellie] still regularly has to see a practice nurse and go to the surgery once a week,” Ellie’s mother said, speaking more than two weeks after her daughter's mishap. "The incident happened on Tuesday (18th April), but I did not notice anything until she came home from school on Wednesday as it had blistered up a lot by that stage."
The game reportedly involves spraying deodorant on a person’s bare skin for as long as possible until the skin starts to blister. Ellie recently changed schools but claims that the “game” is widespread in both her new school and the old one.
"It seems fairly common, a lot of people have shown me their arms after doing it a while ago,” Ellie told Somerset Live. "My old school isn't doing anything to warn anyone but my new school has sent out a warning to everyone about the dangers of it happening."
Prescott, who is a single mother from Yate, near Bristol, is worried that her daughter might need skin grafts for her severe secondary burns. Ellie took part in the “challenge” when she met some friends from her old school in Kingsgate park.
"Apparently, when they asked her to put out her arm she did it but she had no idea of the consequences and hadn't even heard of The Deodorant Challenge before that point,” Prescott said.
“Since then other children have asked her what is wrong with her arm and when she has told them, they have then replied that they have also had it done to them and showed her their scars."
Even last year around the same time, mum Sara Stanley appeared on ITV's This Morning where she revealed how her daughter Kaitlyn Stanley had burned her own arm repeatedly using a deodorant because 'it looks really cool'.
The 12-year-old has been quoted by The Independent revealing how children were reportedly filming themselves doing this. 'You spray it and then it goes white and it looks really cool, so I tried it," she explained.
When medical experts were asked about the activity most answers highlighted the how an increase in the amount of deodorant used was dangerous. It would not only burn the skin but could cause other problems associated with inhaling aerosol products.
An effective way to treat the affected area is to cool it as quickly as possible.