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A California woman is warning people to avoid manicurists because she claims she developed cancer from getting her nails done.
Grace Garcia says things started going south in 2021 when a manicurist accidentally cut her. "As the technician was cutting my cuticle, she cut me," Garcia says. "It was a deep cut and I remember being very upset about it." Five months later, the cut had long since healed -- but Garcia’s finger was still throbbing, she says. So she visited a dermatologist, who performed a biopsy on the finger. "It came back as a squamous cell carcinoma, which is a very common form of skin cancer," says Dr. Teo Soleymani. “Hers was HPV-driven.”
HPV is a common virus that can cause warts or, in rare cases, cancer, Soleymani says. Although Garcia is now cancer-free, she fears other people might not be so lucky. So she’s warning people if you must go to a manicurist, make sure their tools have been sterilized before they use them on you.
Have you ever had a manicure go horribly wrong?