Nguyen Thi Phuong, 26, looks nothing like her age, with a face full of wrinkles. She claims that her appearance changed over a few days when she was 23, and since then she has looked like a 70-year-old.
Comparing a photo of her five years ago with her appearance now, it also appears that she has become fatter, and her ears have grown longer.
Nguyen thinks her rapid-aging might be due to a particularly severe seafood allergic reaction in 2008 that left her scratching during sleep, according to Vietnamese media Vietnam Net Bridge.
After taking medications from a local pharmacy for a month, the itching decreased, but hives remained. She switched to another medicine, which took care of the hives, but her skin also started sagging, and after a few days she looked like an old lady. She then tried yet another medicine to treat the aging problem, but to no avail.
“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,” Nguyen said, according to The Daily Mirror. “But the rapid-aging syndrome hasn’t affected my menstrual cycle, hair, teeth, eyes, and mind.”
Mai The Trach, former Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Endocrine Association, said that the biological functions of Nguyen’s internal organs are normal, Vietnam Net Bridge reported.
Local doctors recently offered to examine Nguyen, but there is disagreement about the diagnosis. Some think her condition is due to lipodystrophy, some think it is because of mastocytosis, and others think it is because the medicines that she took had a high level of corticoids.
However, none of these potential causes have been associated with symptoms like Nguyen’s.
“It’s really strange,” said Huynh Huy Hoang of Ho Chi Minh City’s Hospital of Dermatology and Venerology, according to the Daily Mail. “This is the first time I’ve heard of such a case of rapid-aging process on an adult.”
“It could be a totally new syndrome,” Yen Lam Phuc of the Vietnam Military Medical Academy said, according to the Mail.
This case seems to be yet another unexplained mystery of the human body.
Comparing a photo of her five years ago with her appearance now, it also appears that she has become fatter, and her ears have grown longer.
Nguyen thinks her rapid-aging might be due to a particularly severe seafood allergic reaction in 2008 that left her scratching during sleep, according to Vietnamese media Vietnam Net Bridge.
After taking medications from a local pharmacy for a month, the itching decreased, but hives remained. She switched to another medicine, which took care of the hives, but her skin also started sagging, and after a few days she looked like an old lady. She then tried yet another medicine to treat the aging problem, but to no avail.
“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,” Nguyen said, according to The Daily Mirror. “But the rapid-aging syndrome hasn’t affected my menstrual cycle, hair, teeth, eyes, and mind.”
Mai The Trach, former Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Endocrine Association, said that the biological functions of Nguyen’s internal organs are normal, Vietnam Net Bridge reported.
Local doctors recently offered to examine Nguyen, but there is disagreement about the diagnosis. Some think her condition is due to lipodystrophy, some think it is because of mastocytosis, and others think it is because the medicines that she took had a high level of corticoids.
However, none of these potential causes have been associated with symptoms like Nguyen’s.
“It’s really strange,” said Huynh Huy Hoang of Ho Chi Minh City’s Hospital of Dermatology and Venerology, according to the Daily Mail. “This is the first time I’ve heard of such a case of rapid-aging process on an adult.”
“It could be a totally new syndrome,” Yen Lam Phuc of the Vietnam Military Medical Academy said, according to the Mail.
This case seems to be yet another unexplained mystery of the human body.
