A woman in California is suing a beauty salon after she says she developed a stroke from having her hair washed in one of the salon’s sinks. Elizabeth Smith, 48, tells San Diego’s KGTV that eight days after visiting her local salon, where she had her hair washed for 10 minutes, she felt weakness in her left arm and leg. A week later, she had a massive stroke. “They didn’t think I was going to live,” she recalled.

The stroke left Smith with strength, balance, and vision issues, as well as a brain clot that could kill her if it moves. Smith is now suing the salon, saying they didn’t adequately support her neck during the treatment, leading to her stroke.

While it sounds far-fetched, experts say this is a legitimate condition known as beauty parlor stroke syndrome.

“This is a potential problem that we’ve seen as the cause of strokes, usually in younger people,” says Peter Gloviczki, M.D., a vascular surgeon at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. beauty parlor stroke syndrome is caused when there is an injury, tear, or blood clot in one of the four major arteries that go to the brain, he explains.

The main problem is hyperextension of the neck, which can occur when you’re having your hair shampooed, and staying in that position for a period of time. “When you hyperextend your neck, there can be a little bit of compression on the artery from simply just changing the position or the bones slide a little bit one over the other,” Gloviczki says. That can cause a tear in the blood vessel, resulting in a blood clot, which can travel to your brain and cause a stroke.

Aneesh Singhal, M.D., associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and vice chair of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, says this kind of thing can also happen to people when they’re at the dentist, playing tennis, undergoing chiropractic neck manipulation, and even doing yoga.

While this can really happen to anyone, it's not extremely common, and Gloviczki says it’s often found more in people who have some kind of connective tissue disease or underlying weakness, which, unfortunately, they might not be aware of.

Singhal says you can minimize your risk without swearing off salon shampooing forever. “Avoid activities where the neck would be malpositioned for a long period of time—more than 10 or 15 minutes, but it could be even less,” he says

Clifford Segil, D.O., a neurologist at California’s Providence Saint John’s Health Center also recommends making sure your neck is supported when you have your hair washed and asking a salon employee to pad the area where your neck will be positioned over the wash basin with a towel.

The initial warning signs of beauty parlor stroke syndrome are a little different from those of a typical stroke, Segil says. They include dizziness and unsteadiness in your hands, but can also include migraine-type headaches, some loss of vision or blurred vision, neck swelling, and change of taste. (After that, the symptoms match those of a regular stroke, including: numbness, especially on one side of the body, loss of balance, slurred speech, and—in women, specifically—weakness, fainting, and sudden behavioral change.)

While beauty parlor stroke syndrome sounds terrifying, experts note that it’s pretty rare. “You don’t need to avoid going to the beauty parlor, just be aware that there’s a small risk,” says Singhal.