Woman's skin 'melted' after reaction to common drugs - twice

Woman's skin 'melted' after reaction to common drugs - twice At first she thought her symptoms were flu A woman's her skin ‘melted’ after she started taking a medication she didn’t even need – and then it almost happened again. While juggling a master’s degree, along with a full-time and part-time job, Khaliah Shaw quickly found herself struggling. The now 36-year-old admitted herself to a psychiatric crisis centre where she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prescribed Lamotrigine to help manage her condition. Although the drug worked for her mental state, the former health educator’s physical body was taking a significant toll. Within weeks, her skin began to “melt”, and Khaliah recalls seeing it sliding off her eyes and lips when waking up in the middle of the night. She was suffering from Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS), which isn’t an allergy, but a hypersensitivity reaction. Khaliah was left at her wit’s end when she was recently prescribed antibiotics – and her skin began to tingle. “After two days, my face began to swell up,” she said. “And my body was burning from the inside out. It felt like a curling iron was singeing my organs. “For me, the sensation was contained to my mouth, eyes and genitals. I refused to go through that battle again – so I took matters into my own hands. Had I been listened to in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened.” Khaliah, from Georgia, US, had been told following her initial battle that she was at risk of an SJS reaction happening again since it had already manifested in her system. She was warned to stay away from any medications that had a similar makeup to that of Lamotrigine. In July 2025, she visited her dentist after experiencing “agonising” pain in her tooth. It was an infection, and her dentist prescribed her Amoxicillin, a form of antibiotic. She said: “I didn’t feel very good about taking it. I told the dentist that I wanted to find another solution – but he told me that my previous reaction was an allergy to that drug. “Since I had no other choice, I took the antibiotic six times over the course of two days as prescribed. I had never had a reaction to this before, so I hoped I’d be fine. But then my face swelled up, and I began getting membrane irritation. “I stopped taking the medication and rushed to the emergency room. Sadly, I was dismissed and given more drugs that had warnings for SJS attached to them. There’s such a lack of knowledge on this condition that it’s never treated unless you’re at the skin detachment stage.” Khaliah says that once a rash develops, it’s already too late. She believes that had she kept taking the antibiotic, she wouldn’t be here today. Khaliah said: “I had to save my own life. Given I was in such a critical window, I refused to take any other medication. “Instead, I took supplements and used holistic approaches, as well as focusing on my nutrition.” She was then prescribed a lower dose of a different antibiotic to clear the infection. The ordeal, while horrifying, taught her that it’s more about the high dosage than the medication itself which can spark a reaction. Khaliah mistook symptoms of her initial battle in January 2014 as the flu. Her temperature rose to 40 degrees, with rashes and blisters spreading across her body. Soon, she fell into a coma for 37 days and woke up to catastrophic burns over 95 per cent of her skin. It was later found that she never had bipolar disorder, and so the medication should’ve never been prescribed. She is now raising funds through GoFundMe to help seek justice. She added: “I woke up to a body I didn’t recognise. I had to completely learn how to walk, eat, swallow – everything – all over again. “My whole world got turned upside down for no reason at all. After paying all the attorneys and medical expenses, I’m barely left with anything to care for myself. And I can’t work for the rest of my life, either. My body was destroyed, and I didn’t get anywhere near what I deserved. “I have never been able to fully recover from this ordeal and fear that someone won’t listen to me again – and it could be the end of me for good.”