A woman has gone viral showing how a slice of pizza caused her face to swell to the point she could barely see.
The TikTokker – who goes by the name Nicole Skirts – garnered 22 million views with footage of her face hours after tucking into a piece of pickle pizza.
Nicole had been at an event sampling pickle-flavoured foods, including the oven-baked favourite, as well as a cannoli, lemonade and an egg roll.
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But three hours after eating, the 27-year-old’s face swelled up from an apparent reaction to all the pickled goods.
Soon after, she was rushed to hospital.
“It started small… I thought I had a stye and it developed into my face getting extremely swollen to the point where I could barely see,” Nicole told Need To Know.
“I went to the hospital and they rushed me to the back room and hooked me up to an IV.”
Luckily, Nicole has made a full recovery since attending the event in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia.
But she says doctors are unsure what triggered the issue.
Her guess is an allergy to pickled foods, rather than pizza itself.
She says she has never had any reactions of this kind before.
The 27-year-old from Pennsylvania shared the video online with the caption: “Developed a pickle allergy in one day.”
The post has been liked two million times, with viewers theorising the issue could also have been due to an overload of sodium.
One person commented: “Felt the overload of sodium before I saw it was sodium overload.”
“You got yourself in a pickle,” quipped another user.
Another person wrote: “It was all the sodium.”
“It was that abomination of a pickle cannoli,” someone else said.
Another user joked: “See me, I’d go again best year just to see if it was the pickles.”
“At least you went out with a bang,” quipped another viewer.
Someone else added: “I feel like this is from the AMOUNT of pickle, not the pickle itself.”
Dr Helen Evans-Howells, a GP and allergy specialist, said: “’There are many components within a pizza which someone could be allergic to.
“Primarily, the commonest allergens (things you are allergic to) would be wheat, cow milk or egg.
“However, people can be allergic to a variety of other foods and toppings including fish, mushrooms, or pepper.
“Allergic reactions tend to occur within minutes to an hour or two after exposure to the food but crucially also usually fully resolve within hours.
“Some people have spontaneous reactions which occur as the body itself triggers constant histamine release.
“For some people with these conditions, eating foods high in histamines such as fermented pickles, may exacerbate their symptoms.”
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