super rapid ageing

kaorukamiya

DOCTORS are baffled after a 23-year-old woman claims she has aged by 50 years in just days.
Her story has sparked an internet debate asking if such rapid ageing is possible and medical experts are divided on what could have triggered it. Vietnamese woman Nguyen Thi Phuong now looks like a septuagenarian after the affliction took hold following an allergic reaction to seafood, it's claimed.


Her sad story began in 2008, when she says her youthful beauty began to fade over the course of just a few days, leaving her with sagging, wrinkled skin all over her face and body. Until now she has apparently been forced to wear a mask in public to hide her appearance from prying eyes, but now doctors are attempting to establish what caused her sudden and horrifying ageing.
Her husband, carpenter Nguyen Thanh Tuyen says his love for his once beautiful wife has not faded while Phuong, now 26, says her condition has only worsened since she was first struck with the condition. Doctors are at odds over what condition she has - some have argued it is lipodystrophy, a rare syndrome that causes a layer of fatty tissue beneath the surface of the skin to disintegrate while the skin itself continues to grow at a startling pace.

Syndrome

The syndrome, which has no cure, leaves its victims with loose folds of skin all over their bodies, wrinkled faces and the gaunt features of people decades older. The condition is extremely rare and only 2,000 people throughout the world are thought to have lipodystrophy.



Displaying photos of a beautiful 21-year-old woman on her wedding day in 2006, Phuong said: "Five years ago, I was rather pretty and not so ugly like this, right?" Phuong claims she has long been allergic to seafood and that she had suffered a particularly bad reaction in 2008.


She said: "I was really itchy all over my body. I had to scratch even while sleeping." Phuong said she took some medicine bought at a local pharmacy instead of going to the hospital because her and her husband Tuyen, now 33, were too poor to pay for treatment. She said: "After one month of taking the drugs, I became less itchy but hives remained on my skin. "Then I switched to traditional medicine and all the hives disappeared, together with my itching. However, my skin began to sag and fold."

Traditional

Phuong says she then took another kind of traditional medicine to treat her rapid-ageing skin problem - but to no avail.
The couple do not remember what the medicine was or which pharmacy they got it from. Phuong said: "We considered that it was our destiny and I quit treatment in 2009. Now I always wear a face mask whenever I go out. "The skin on my face, chest and belly have folds like an old woman who has given birth several times although I have never had a child.


"But the rapid-ageing syndrome hasn't affected my menstrual cycle, hair, teeth, eyes and mind." Tuyen said his wife's disease has not affected his love for her or their relationship. He said: "I married Phuong when she was a beautiful woman. I have followed her through her disease and have never been shocked at all. "It's not easy to talk about one's own marital affairs. Just simply understand that I still love her very much." Doctors from Nguyen Dinh Chieu Hospital in Ben Tre Province have promised to examine Phuong for free and send her to the HCMC Dermatology Hospital if they fail to diagnose her condition.

Variety

Meanwhile, stories about Phuong in the local media have prompted a variety of diagnoses from local doctors. Many of them do not believe that Phuong has lipodystrophy, saying instead that she may be suffering the side-effects of too much steroid medication.

They said Phuong might have taken low quality traditional medicines that are often secretly spiked with corticoids to quicken and improve patients' responses to some treatments. But the steroids often have dangerous side-effects which become apparent much later.

Doctor Vo Thi Bach Suong of the HCMC University of Medicine and Pharmacy said Phuong was a rare case but was not suffering from lipodystrophy, which is usually found in younger patients. He said: "She might have taken corticoid for a long time. Many traditional pharmacists use corticoid in their medicine, leading to side effects like swelled face and abnormally-growing skin sections."


Doctor Yen Lam Phuc, of the Vietnam Military Medical Academy, agreed with Hoang, saying the rapid ageing could not be a side-effect of a medical substance. He said: "It could be a totally new syndrome."
Doctor Hoang Van Minh from the Ho Chi Minh City Medicine and Pharmacy University Hospital claims Phuong, could regain some of her previous beauty with medical treatment. Minh visited Phuong on Tuesday at her house in the Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre and after some simple tests, he believed she may have Mastocytosis, a rare disorder caused by the presence of too many mast cells.


There is currently no cure to Mastocytosis but there are many medicines to help treat its symptoms. Minh said Phuong's face still swells and she is itchy with frequent diarrhoea, which are common signs of the disease. "However," he said, "she needs to be treated for her allergies first." Minh said his treatment plan could restore between 50-70 percent of her skin to normal and laser therapy could reduce the folds.  He said there should be more tests to verify his initial diagnosis and find any other diseases she might have for premium treatment, adding that he is 90 per cent certain that Phuong has Mastocytosis.


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oleh itu hati-hati lah bila mengambil sebarang ubat.

HaMiZiE

.... skerinyaaaaaaaa

zaiha

ya Allah biar benar....

outcast

nih bukan salah ubat .. ni sbb dia mmg ada penyakit

shaiyun75

Kecian nyer..  sebelum tu cantik tu....

kaorukamiya

Reply 4# outcast

mungkin juga, tapi memula dia kena allergy itu, dia hanya ambil ubat dari kedai farmasi saja. mereka dari keluarga susah, tak mampu nak jumpa doktor. kemudiannya cuba juga secara traditional. jadi, tak apa proper diagnose dan treatment dari awal.

menjad

aiyohhh...aku pun selalu ambe ubat alergy nie...takut le pulak nie!