A boy reportedly died after getting a love bite from his girlfriend (generic photo). Picture: Supplied
A TEENAGE boy has died after getting a love bite from his girlfriend.
Julio Macias Gonzalez, 17, began convulsing at the dinner table with his family in Mexico City after spending time with his 24-year-old lover, The Sun reports.
It is thought the woman gave him a hickey earlier that evening which caused a blood clot that travelled to the teen’s brain, triggering a stroke.
Paramedics were called to the scene but Julio could not be saved.
The young man’s family are blaming his girlfriend for his death, but she has now disappeared.
It is not the first time a love bite has been believed to have triggered a reaction.
In 2011, a 44-year-old woman in New Zealand lost movement in her left arm after having a stroke.
On noticing a faded love bite, doctors quickly realised damage to a major artery in her neck and linked it to her paralysis. The suction had caused a blood clot to form which then travelled to the woman’s heart, causing a stroke.
Dr Teddy Wu, who treated the woman at Auckland’s Middlemore Hospital, said: “To my knowledge, it’s the first time someone has been hospitalised by a hickey.”
Love bites or hickeys are caused by a person sucking on an area of another person’s skin, more commonly the neck. The suction causes blood vessels under the skin to burst which causes bruising that can last up to two weeks.
Apart from the dangers of blood clots and fatal strokes, hickeys can cause swelling which can be treated with an icepack. Often people hide the bruises under make-up, scarfs or polo neck sweaters.
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