New Zealand Woman Partially Paralyzed by Hickey

From: http://www.foxnews.com/

A New Zealand woman was temporarily partially paralyzed by a hickey on her neck from her amorous partner, AFP reported Friday.

The 44-year-old woman went to the emergency department of Middlemore Hospital in Auckland last year after experiencing loss of movement in her left arm while watching television, doctors reported in the New Zealand Medical Journal.

Doctors concluded the woman had suffered a mild stroke but were puzzled about its cause until they found a small vertical bruise on her neck near a major artery, a hickey, she received a few days earlier.

"Because it was a love bite there would be a lot of suction," one of the doctors who treated her, Teddy Wu, told the Christchurch Press.

"Because of the physical trauma it had made a bit of bruising inside the vessel. There was a clot in the artery underneath where the hickey was."

Wu said the clot dislodged and traveled to the woman's heart, where it caused a minor stroke that led to the loss of movement.

"We looked around the medical literature and that example of having a love bite causing something like that hasn't been described before," he said.

The medic said the woman recovered after being treated with an anti-coagulant.

Boy develops fish scales at 14 months old

This 14-month-old boy born without pores in his skin has baffled medics by developing fish scales.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Baby Song suffers from the rare and severe condition Lamellar ichthyosis, where the whole body is peeling off like fish skin

Doctors believe Song Sheng, of Jinhu, eastern China, may be suffering from a rare genetic condition that means his body cannot cool itself.

Song Sheng - called fish boy by locals - began developing scales within days of his birth caused by his lack of pores.

Doctors say because he cannot sweat or lose heat through his skin, it peels away in fish-like scales.

Instead, his family controls his body temperature by laying him in baths of ice.

Song Dehui, his father, said: "He is in a lot of pain all the time and if we don't have enough ice he gets a fever."

But doctors have told the family there is still no known cure for the genetic condition, known as Lamellar ichthyosis.

"It can be treated but not cured so we are praying for a miracle or a folk medicine cure," his father said.

To make a donation to help Song Sheng click here

Swedish girl 'grows back face' after reaction to Paracetamol

A Swedish teenager has grown back her entire face after an allergic reaction to a single Paracetamol pill caused it to turn black and fall off.

By Bruno Waterfield

Eva Uhlin has finally recovered her looks. Photo: Caters

 

Eva in hospital. Photo: Caters

Eva Uhlin, aged 19, has recovered her looks after suffering a once-in-a-million allergic reaction to the commonly used household pain killer purchased over the counter.
The deadly condition, known as Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis, attacked her body causing her skin to blister, burn and to scab.

 

During her illness parts of her chest, arms, back and stomach fell off. At one point the damage to Miss Uhlin's face was so bad that her lips grew together.

"It felt like something was crawling around under my skin, I was in total shock – it was like something out of a horror film," she said.

"I couldn't believe what was happening. I had taken Paracetamol many times before."
Miss Uhlin's nightmare began in September 2005 when she became ill with a fever on holiday.
Then aged 15, she was told to take a couple of Paracetamol tablets to relieve her symptoms but the combination of her virus and the drug created a freak reaction.

The teenager, now working as a waitress, woke up the next day to find blisters covering her face and spreading all over the rest of her body.

"It was terrifying, because at the time they didn't know what was wrong with me or what would happen to me," she said.

"When I looked in the mirror for the first time after it happened I didn't recognise myself."

Eva in hospital. Photo: Caters

After years of treatment at Sweden's University Hospital of Linkoping, Miss Uhlin has finally tried to return to the normal life of teenage girl. But even today she still has to take eye drops twice a day and is sensitive to bright sunlight.

"I've always been a positive person, and I didn't let myself think about the chance that my skin would never be normal again," she said.

"As well as the pain, the affect that the reaction had on my confidence for that time was pretty terrible. I was so ashamed of the way I looked. I hated anybody to see me."

Professor Folke Sjoeberg, one of the doctors who treated Miss Uhlin, said that she had been lucky to recover from the rare condition.

"The condition is very uncommon and it strikes only one in a million people. With this condition you have to just let it run its course because there is no way to stop it," he said. "I'm very glad that Eva has done so well after all that happened." 

Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis, also known Lyell's syndrome, kills 40 per cent of sufferers.

Rebecca Freeman, a spokesman for the British Association of Dermatologists, said anybody could be struck down by the disease.

"It is a very rare and severe skin condition," she said. "It can occur in all age groups, although prognosis is worse in the elderly and it is more frequent in females."

Conjoined orphan twins Krishna and Trishna successfully separated after 29-hour operation

By Richard Shears

From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

Two sisters joined at the head have survived 29 hours of surgery to separate them.

Krishna and Trishna, whose mother died giving birth to them in Bangladesh almost three years ago, were operated on in Melbourne by 16 surgeons.

Anaesthetists, nurses and other medics also worked around the clock in a procedure that lasted 16 hours longer than expected.

Leo Donnan, head of surgery at the Royal Children's Hospital, said it was a once-in-a-lifetime operation for the medical team and every minute was tense.

Trishna (L) and Krishna (R), the Bangladeshi set of twins joined at the head before the operation to separate them

The toddlers have a 25 per cent chance of making it through without any harm at all - and there was also the strong possibility that one or both could die.

But after a team of 16 surgeons, assisted by anaesthetists, nurses and other medical staff had worked around the clock in rotation, Mr Donnan stepped from the operating theatre to announce with a smile: 'They have been successfully separated.'

The dangerous operation had taken nearly 13 hours longer than anticipated - including 27 hours to separate the little girls, aged two years and 11 months, and a further two hours of work by plastic surgeons to seal the ensuing holes in their heads.

And although Mr Donnan said there was 'still is a long way to go' with the girls having a 'very difficult time ahead of them,' he said that the way the operation had gone was an historic moment for the hospital and for the twins 'an even more historic moment.'

The Royal Children's Hospital surgical team operate to separate twins Krishna and Trishna

Leo Donnan (C), chief of surgery at Royal Children's Hospital, speaks to the media after Australian doctors successfully separated the twins

The twins had come to the attention of a Melbourne-based organisation, Children First Foundation, which arranged for them to be flown to Australia for an operation that could give them a new start in life - if successful.

After weeks of careful planning, studying X-rays and monitoring the children's daily health and behaviour, the medical teams arranged their working hours, fully aware that the task ahead would not be easy.

On Monday Krishna and Trishna were anaesthetised and placed faced down on two adjoining operating tables. Plastic surgeons stepped forward to open up the skin and then neurosurgeons carefully opened a small area in the skull.

This 'window' allowed surgeons to insert their instruments to separate the brain tissue and blood vessels at the back of the girls' heads.

Krishna and Trishna pictured a year after they were born

Next the twins were carefully lifted and turned over so they were face up, enabling surgeons to complete the separation of the skulls.

Bone had to be severed and connecting tissue separated.

Finally, for the first time, the twins were able to be moved apart and two teams of plastic surgeons set to work sealing the holes in their skulls.

'This is a once-in-a-lifetime operation that teams would do,' said Mr Donnan, adding that the mood inside the operating theatre, where every minute was filled with tension, had changed after the separation.

'It's been a very nice stage to move into,' he said.

And there had been concerns, with problems occurring with Krishna's kidney, but when that crisis eased everyone, according to plastic surgeon Tony Holmes, 'was particularly optimistic and excited.'

He explained there had been a great deal of preparatory work before the operation could even begin.

'There's a lot of mucking around at the beginning of an operation like this,' said Mr Holmes.

More...

• See more pictures of the operation here

'It's mainly for positioning and getting all the tubes right so there's no pressure on the eyes, no kinks in the tubes.'

Mr Holmes and another plastic surgeon, Andrew Greensmith stripped back the skin and that allowed neurosurgeons to create a one inch by seven inch window in the skull so that surgeons Wirginia Maixner and Alison Wray could separate blood vessels and brain matter.

Later the plastic surgeons came back to the girls, closing the brain lining and skulls with artificial caps and closing the skin.

The twins are now in intensive care. It will be weeks before it is known if the operation has been 100 per cent successful - but surgeons said they were remaining optimistic.

• How doctors worked a medical miracle and separated the twins:
  

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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1228500/Conjoined-orphaned-twins-Krishna-Trishna-successfully-separated-29-hour-operation.html#ixzz0XKpT3QR2

Meet the brave 'crystal girl' with rare illness that is turning her body to rock

From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

By Daily Mail Reporter

A five-year-old must a daily cocktail of drugs to avoid her body turning - into a crystal.

Little Lillie Sutcliffe has a faulty kidney which fails to clean her blood - allowing excess a chemical called cystine to build up in her system.

If too much cystine remains, her cells start to solidify.

But to mother Laura Milner and father Simon Sutcliffe, she is their perfect little girl, who has battled against all odds to try and live a normal life.

Lillie Sutcliffe, five, has a rare genetic condition called cysitinosis, where crystals form in her cells

Lillie, from Castleford, was diagnosed with Cysitinosis in August, 2006, at the age of 23 months old.

The incurable condition means Lillie has stunted growth, cannot walk long distances or do any sports.

And with her daily dose of drugs, she is under attack from her own body as the very cells in her tiny 86cm tall frame slowly turn to crystal.

Her parents had been worried about her growth as she looked like a baby at a year old, was constantly crying and had little appetite.

But medics stunned mother Laura, an NHS secretary, when they identified the problem after scanning Lillie's eyes and discovering the crystals.

She said: 'I had never heard of the condition so was a bit shocked to hear what it did.

'It means Lillie's body essentially turns to crystal.

'They just load up inside her, if it wasn't treated she would turn into stone eventually because it attacks all the cells.

'She can't do normal things that other five-year-olds do because she is so small - she's got the body of a two-year-old.

'She goes to full-time school and is academically no different, she just needs a step to reach things because she's so little.'

Mother Laura makes sure Lillie takes her daily drugs cocktail to try to help her live a normal life

Laura, 29, added: 'It's unusual because she doesn't like sweets or anything like that because she craves salt, because she loses so much of it through her kidney.

'I have to make her salty food to try and help her replace the sodium she needs.

'If it had gone undiagnosed parts of her body would have turned to crystal.'

The condition occurs when the mechanism removing excess cystine - an amino acid - from the body breaks down.

It is then the cystine crystals build up in cells in the body, causing problems in the kidney, thyroid gland, eyes and liver.

Impaired growth is yet another symptom of the condition, which shortens life expectancy and causes sufferers to have to have a kidney transplant at some point in their lives.

Lillie has it because of the combination of a recessive faulty gene in both of her parents and sufferers can never completely rid their bodies of crystals.

Every day she has to take multiple doses of potassium citrate, sodium chloride, phosphate solution and vitamin D just to replenish her body with nutrients.

Consultant paediatric nethrologist Dr Kay Tyerman said while the illness could be partially treated, it could not yet be completely cured.

She said: 'This is an excessively rare condition. It's usually present in children who are not growing properly in the first few years of their life.

'They have a salt-wasting problem which means the kidney loses salt in the urine that she needs to help her grow.

'Lillie has such a strong craving for salty foods because she is losing so much salt her body needs to keep.

'Over the past few years she has been working on her medication, which she needs to take a lot of every day.

'The condition does cause kidney failure and can also cause blindness and it is an illness that unfortunately does tend to shorten life expectancy.

'But Lillie is a real star and just gets on with it - she is very brave.'

There are only 2,000 known sufferers of cysitinosis throughout the world, meaning Lillie is one in just 3, 353, 496.

Lillie's parents Laura and Simon, who works as a tiler for a maintenance company, separated four years ago and it was thought her behaviour was down to the break-up.

But tests revealed the truth and two months after starting medication she started showing improvement.

Laura added: 'I am so proud of how she is fighting it.

'It is just a part of life now for her, we have to take every day and month one at a time, but who knows what treatment might become available in the future.

'Science is getting better and better so you never know what might be around the corner.'

1-Year-Old Girl Carrying Parasitic Twin

A 1-year-old girl from China is waiting to have an operation after doctors discovered she was carrying her parasitic twin.

Kang Mengru left doctors baffled after her belly became enlarged, The Sun reported.

They carried out a CT scan to discover the cause of the growth and found a fetus inside her. They believe it is her parasitic twin.

While the condition is very rare, Dr. Manny Alvarez, managing editor of health at FOXNews.com, said it is possible that's what this child is "carrying."

"There are multiple varieties of parasitic twins," said Alvarez. "In some cases you could have some sort of merging body parts... like an extra leg or sometimes you have an abnormal formation of the head when you have two brains."

In this instance, Alvarez said from looking at a picture of the girl, you can clearly see that it’s a large abdominal mass that could potentially be an embryonic remnant of a lost twin.

"This could be a type of parasitic twin called fetus-in-fetu," he said. "What you find is that you have an encapsulated tumor-like formation inside the body, which contains fetal parts."

Mengru is now waiting for an operation to have the fetus removed, according to the report.

View shocking images of the girl at The Sun.