Woman nearly loses arm after catching flesh-eating bacteria at nail salon – New York Post

A trip to the nail salon nearly cost this Tennessee woman an arm.

Jayne Sharp claims she contracted a flesh-eating bacteria during a manicure at the Jazzy Nail Bar in Turkey Creek, Tennessee, this spring — and she’s still attempting to regain feeling in her hand after multiple surgeries to curb the infection.

“While I was [at the nail salon], I got stuck on my thumb and I went ‘ouch’, but I went back to looking at my telephone,” Sharp told WBIR.

Later that day, Sharp’s thumb began to throb near where she’d been cut, and she felt so sick that she couldn’t fall asleep.

She got a flu test, but it came back negative, she said.

By the next day, her entire arm was swollen.

An emergency room doctor told her she’d contracted the rare flesh-eating bacterial infection necrotizing fasciitis.

“I had never heard of such a thing when they told me flesh-eating bacteria,” said Sharp, a retired dental hygienist.

Her doctor, Udit Chaudhuri, an internal medicine specialist with Summit Medical Group, said Sharp could have lost her arm if had she not been diagnosed quickly and properly.

During a series of surgeries, Sharp had to get chunks of her hand taken off, including part of her right thumb.

The grandmother said she can no longer shuffle cards when she plays bridge and for a while “couldn’t even floss my own teeth.”

“My life took a total turn when this happened to me,” she said.

A manager at the nail salon told the outlet it had a state inspection days after Sharp reported the incident and passed.

A Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance spokesman said no problems were found at the salon during its annual inspection or during the follow-up inspection about the complaint.

Necrotizing fasciitis can exist anywhere and generally infects people through a break in the skin, like a cut, scrape, burn or bite, according to the Centers for Disease Control. It is fast-spreading and can cause death if not treated, the CDC says.