Did a Mexican Teen Actually Die From a Stroke Caused by a Hickey?

Human brain showing stroke (computer artwork/Getty Images)

A teenage boy is believed to have died from a stroke that may have been caused by a hickey, or “love bite,” from his girlfriend.

Julio Macias Gonzalez, a 17-year-old from Mexico City, is said to have suffered from a blood clot, which traveled to his brain, causing the stroke, reported The Independent and local media outlets. He reportedly had convulsions while eating dinner with his family, and they called emergency services.

Doctors believe the hickey ultimately caused the stroke, according to The Independent.

He had been with his 24-year-old girlfriend before his death. According to local Mexican media outlets, it’s unclear where the victim’s girlfriend went, and her whereabouts are unknown so far.

A 44-year-old Maori woman in New Zealand suffered a non-fatal stroke caused by a hickey, according to a study published in the New Zealand Medical Journal in 2010. They described the incident at the time as a “rare phenomenon.”

“A small vertical bruise was noted in the right anterior neck, superficial to the upper third of the sternocleidomastoid muscle. This was attributed to a love bite with the minor trauma occurring several days prior to the onset of neurological symptoms,” the study stated.

They concluded that the suction from the hickey damaged a major artery, forming a blood clot, which then traveled to her heart and caused a stroke. She noticed the symptoms later while watching television, the study said.

Possible, But Not Likely

“A hickey is a bruise. It’s an injury to the surface of the skin,” Dr. Mitchell Elkind, a stroke specialist, told CBS New York.

He said it could conceivably cause a stroke if it was aggressively applied.

“The carotid artery, which is one of the arteries that goes to the brain travels through the neck. so, if you were to press on or otherwise damage the neck in that area where the carotid artery is going, potentially they could cause enough injury to tear the blood vessel, and cause a blood clot to form that could go to the brain and cause a stroke,” he said.

He noted it would be an exceptionally rare incident, and he said that parents shouldn’t worry.

Another doctor, Robert Glatter, who is an ER physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, said the hickey would have to be “the mother of all hickeys” in order for it to be fatal. “It’s possible this could happen, but it’s very rare, and parents should be reassured it’s not something that happens in a routine way,” he told USA Today.

In the New Zealand case, Dr. Teddy Wu, who worked at the Christchurch Hospital, said he thinks it was the first time someone had been hospitalized by one.

“Because of the physical trauma it had made a bit of bruising inside the vessel,” said Wu, Stuff.co.nz reported in 2011.“There was a clot in the artery underneath where the hickey was.”

The clot then traveled to the woman’s heart, causing a minor stroke, he noted. The woman had to undergo warfarin treatment, he said in the report.

After the treatment, the clot disappeared within a week, Wu told the Stuff website.  “We looked around the medical literature and that example of having a lovebite causing something like that hasn’t been described before,” he said.

And, he added, if the woman hadn’t been treated, she would have suffered more strokes.

“Strokes have different levels of severity. But possibly patients can become paralyzed,” Wu explained.