Remember how the bride of Frankenstein's hair went white overnight? Well, this is the stuff of nightmares, yummies. Imagine aging 50 years in a matter of days.
That's exactly what happened to a 23-year-old Vietnemese woman. After an allergic reaction to seafood, Nguyen Thi Phuong switched medications, and in the course of a few days the drug mixture left her skin sagging and wrinkled.
At 26 years old, Phuong is now unrecognizable, reports Tuoi Tre News. Although the precise cause of her speed-aging still has doctors scratching their heads, her condition is thought to be the rare lipodystrophy -- a by-product of too much steroid medication.
Essentially the fatty tissue under the skin disintegrates while the skin itself continues to grow. However, specialists at Ho Chi Minh City Medicine and Pharmacy University Hospital believe Phuong may be suffering from mastocytosis: "an incurable disorder caused by the presence of too many mast cells."
Additional further testing is needed, doctors are hopeful that treatment will restore 50-70 per cent of Phuong's skin.
Throughout the ordeal, Phuong's husband has stayed by her side, though the couple have delayed starting a family.
“He still loves me like before despite the fact that I look old and ugly," Phuong told Tuoi Tre News. "With him, I feel more confident to live and work.”
The disorder differs from progeria -- like the reverse of that which afflicted Brad Pitt's character in Benjamin Button -- which ages children 10 times faster than normal. Progeria is caused by excessive progerin, the protein responsible for destroying cells that cause us to age.
Image Credit: www.dailyrecord.co.uk
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