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A woman who left ‘looking like Sloth from The Goonies’ after getting ‘sun poisoning’ at a music festival is warning others to slather on the sunscreen this summer.
Ruby Brewer’s face doubled in size with her eyes swelling so much she could barely open them after attending Love Supreme Festival in Glynde Place in East Sussex with her pals on 2 July without putting any suncream on.
The 23-year-old from Bromley, London, said the SPF that was in her moisturiser was most likely sweated off in the heat, leaving her exposed to the sun.
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Music-loving Ruby said she woke up two days after the festival to find her face had ballooned to twice its size.
She rushed to A&E where hooked up to an IV drip containing antihistamines and steroids to reduce the swelling, initially believed to be caused by an allergic reaction.
It took three days until her face went back to normal size and after researching her symptoms Ruby believes she had a severe case of sunburn known as ‘sun poisoning’.
She said: "When I woke up, I went to open my eyes and that's when I realised I couldn't open them fully.
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"I was really shocked when I looked in the mirror and saw how big my face was.
"My face had doubled in size and there was just a small slit that I could see [through].
"My skin was all blotchy and red and my arms and neck had rashes on them.
"I looked like Sloth from The Goonies or even a chipmunk as my cheeks were so large.”
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Although she had spent all day in the sunshine, Ruby says she didn’t experience any discomfort until the following morning when her neck was a bit itchy.
But on the Monday morning, she woke up to discover she couldn’t fully open her eyes and her face had doubled in size.
At the hospital she was treated for an allergic reaction, but neither Ruby nor her mum could determine the cause of the reaction.
Ruby said: "When I got home I said to my mum 'it can't be something that I've eaten because I didn't have an internal reaction'.
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"I started googling 'sun allergy' and found an article where someone had sun poisoning, I clicked on it and saw a picture of a woman whose face had swollen up.
"I put two and two together after seeing pictures of people who looked like me. It was a bit of a relief to know what it was. Now I'm just scared of the sun.
"I slowly deflated over those few days thanks to the steroids and I was back to normal by Thursday.
"My skin was super tight, super itchy and if you touched it, it was really scaly - it felt really horrible."
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With her skin back to normal, Ruby says she now slaps on factor 50 every day to make sure she doesn’t burn again.
Ruby said: "I've got this really good SPF 50 cream that I now put on underneath my makeup and I have the matching spray, which I carry around with me at all times.
"I would say to anyone who thinks it won't happen to them 'you'll definitely eat your words' because I never thought it would happen to me."
Claire Reid