Woman Hospitalized After Listening to Wellness Influencer, Warns Others to Research Their Advice

A woman who burned her esophagus after following a health and wellness influencer's suggestion that she should eat an entire orange, peel and all, that was coated in cinnamon and cayenne pepper is warning folks to think twice before they adhere to the advice doled out by social media influencers.

Lutinii (@lutinii) shared her story in a viral video that she posted to TikTok, and there were throngs of folks who responded that they had a feeling who the influencer in question was, even though Lutinii doesn't refer to her by name.

"Y'all better be careful about listening to those 'health and wellness' influencers, otherwise you might just end up in the hospital like I did. About six years ago I was following a well-known health and wellness creator."

She continued to talk about the popularity of the influencer whose advice she followed that made her ill, "someone who created holistic recipes and was in the process of healing her body from a chronic illness. As was I. So I started leaning into her content and listening to some of her tips."

The influencer went on with her story, "And it was one day when I stumbled upon one of her videos talking about how you could help your digestion by coating and orange with cinnamon and cayenne pepper and eating it."

While the concept of mixing citrus with certain spicy ingredients isn't necessarily new — there are recipes on the internet that instruct folks on how to craft tasty cocktails that embrace this flavor profile, for instance.

Apparently, coating an orange in these spices was a bad idea for Lutinii. But here's the thing: it even included the rind of the orange too: "Peel and all. It was absolutely not pleasant going down, but I thought it was in the name of health. I thought I was doing the right thing for my body and it would thank me later."

Her body did thank her later, by letting her know that she needed to go to the hospital immediately. "Wrong. I ended up so sick I had to go to the hospital and when the doctor asked if I'd eaten anything in the last 24 hours I let him know that I coated an orange in cinnamon and cayenne, peel and all, and ingested it."

The doctor's reaction was pretty much what you would expect: "He looked at me and he said why would you do that? And you know what my answer was? I saw someone do it online. Yup, as soon as it came out of my mouth I was like I deserve this, like this is what I get."

The potential damage that she could've done to her body sounded pretty gnarly, according to the doctor: "He said well now you might have burned your esophagus. So I had to see a specialist, I got an endoscopy and it turns out I did in fact burn my esophagus."

She went on to say that her road to recovery was pretty brutal, "This was years ago but I actually recently in the last year saw her repost this little hack and it just makes me upset because there are now hundreds of thousands of people looking to her for information."

A text overlay in her clip popped up with an asterisk to indicate that it actually wasn't hundreds of thousands but "millions" of people who are following this influencer for advice: "And, first of all, I'm not. Saying that the holistic route is not the way to go for most cases."

She clarified her stance, stating that she is by no means attempting to deride folks who decide to try and treat their ailments via holistic methods. "That is the route that I go in most of my life. But I think that it's not one size fits all, and everyone has different bodies, everyone has different health histories, everyone has different genetics."

Lutinii said that her criticism was aimed towards the influencer herself, "It's dangerous to recommend something for someone and say that like this is the cure to your digestion issue. But it's even more dangerous to believe everything you see. So while I do think it's an influencer and a content creator's responsibility to be mindful, I think we have even more responsibility to discern and to take everything you see with a grain of salt."

She ended her video with a vow to never blindly follow an influencer's recommendations ever again: "That is the last time I will listen to a health and wellness influencer."

A number of commenters who responded to her video wrote that they thought Lutinii was referring to the influencer @lilsipper, who posts a variety of food recipes to her TikTok and Instagram accounts.

Lutinii summarized the thesis of her video in a caption for the clip where she penned: "A reminder not to believe everything you see on the internet in any and every case. Just because someone has a large following does not make them equipped to give advice to on anything. No one body is the same and there is no one size fits all!!!! Be careful out there"

Have you ever followed the advice of an Influencer without doing your own research and ended up getting burned as a result?