A woman had a holiday from hell after her skin peeled off and her hair and nails fell off when she was bitten by a tiger mosquito in the Caribbean.<br /><br />Amy Wells, 37, got a huge rash over her whole body after the bite and was treated with antibiotics.<br /><br />But they reacted with a medicine she was already taking and within days the skin all over her body blistered - leaving her looking like she'd been badly burned.<br /><br />She had to take ten weeks off work and has been left with scars all over her lower legs.<br /><br />Amy, from Ashford, Kent, who works in quality control, said: "It was hell on earth.<br /><br />"The blisters covered my whole body - even my eyes and my lips.<br /><br />"It was extremely painful. People kept asking me if I'd been in a fire.<br /><br />"It's very odd. I've never had any kind of allergic reaction to anything."<br /><br />Amy and now-husband Charlie, 27, who works in security, travelled to the Dominican Republic on January 22 2023 and got engaged four days later on her birthday.<br /><br />After a day swimming with dolphins, on January 28, Amy woke with a rash on her neck, which quickly spread over her whole body.<br /><br />Amy went to the island's hospital where she was given an antibiotic called ceftriaxone not commonly used in the UK, she says.<br /><br />A language barrier meant they didn't talk about how she was taking amoxicillin for a tooth infection.<br /><br />Amy stayed in hospital and was allowed to fly home on February 1 because the infection markers had dropped, but she had little blisters appearing on her body.<br /><br />Her thighs swelled to twice their normal size during the ten-hour flight, and it felt like they were burning, she said.<br /><br />She went to an urgent-care centre in Faversham, and was sent on to A&E at the William Harvey hospital in Ashford, Kent.<br /><br />She said: "I knew something wasn't right. It felt like I was burning from the inside out.<br /><br />"The blisters started popping while I was in A&E - fluid was pouring out of them. It was horrible."<br /><br />Amy said she had to wait 56 hours in A&E before being given a bed in a corridor, then a ward, because the hospital was so full.<br /><br />Doctors spotted puncture wounds on Amy's legs which they identified as mosquito bites, she said.<br /><br />Amy believes she was bitten by tiger mosquitos, which carry dengue fever and Zika virus.<br /><br />She thinks an infection from the bites caused the first rash.<br /><br />Medics said the burning was caused by a rare reaction between the two antibiotics, she says.<br /><br />After the blisters popped, her skin peeled off, but some skin stuck to her legs leaving open wounds which turned green after she was discharged.<br /><br />"I was really frightened," she said.<br /><br />Her legs took three weeks to heal, thanks to cream, and she now has scarring covering half of each leg below the knee.<br /><br />Amy had to take ten weeks off work.<br /><br />Amy's finger and toe nails fell out in April, and her hair started thinning, and by May she was totally bald - <br /><br />A hair specialist explained This is due to shock.<br /><br />She said: "Losing my hair was the hardest part - your hair really defines you.<br /><br />"I looked in the mirror and I was like 'that's not me'."<br /><br />Amy and Charlie got married on October 14.<br /><br />Amy said: "After everything that had happened we decided not to hang about.<br /><br />"You never expect that something like this can happen to you.<br /><br />"It's such a rare illness and I was so healthy."
