7-Year-Old Girl Suffers from “Uncombable Hair Syndrome”
7-year-old Shilah Yin is one of only around 100 people in the world with a condition known as “uncombable hair syndrome”. Instead of downwards, her hair grows out from the scalp in multiple directions, and can’t be combed flat. Shilah, from Melbourne, Australia, was born with normal hair, but her parents noticed a strawberry blond fuzz growing […]
Agoraphobic Artist Travels the World without Leaving Her House
Jacqui Kenny has always wanted to travel the world, meet new people and discover different cultures, but she suffers from agoraphobia – an anxiety disorder characterized by fear of public spaces, public transportation, open spaces and/or large crowds – so she rarely gets to leave her house. Luckily, modern technology allows her to live out her […]
Insatiable 10-Year-Old Boy Weighs 90 Kg, Eats Anything He Gets His Hands On
At age 10, Caden Benjamin, from Mpumalanga, South Africa already tips the scales at a whopping 90 kg. He suffers from a rare genetic disorder known as Prader-Willi syndrome, which makes him feel hungry all the time. Caden was always a hungry child, but his mother, Zola, realized that there was something unusual about his appetite at age […]
Chinese Man Proves That Eating 54 Ice Creams in One Sitting Is Not a Good Idea
A 44-year-old man from Quzhou, China’s Zhejiang province, was recently hospitalized with severe kidney problems, after eating a whopping 54 ice creams in one sitting, and washing them down with ice water. The man, surnamed Zheng, was at his home, on July 15, when he began to feel the effects of the heatwaves that have been sweeping China for […]
New Cancer Drugs Turn Patients’ Gray Hair Dark Again
Cancer therapy is known to cause patients’ hair to fall off, but a few new cancer drugs apparently have a completely different side effect – they restore pigment in older people’s gray hair. Spanish researchers testing three new cancer drugs – Keytruda, Opdivo and Tecentriq – for negative side-effects in cancer patients made a very surprising discovery. After […]
Doctors Remove Over 200 Stones from Woman’s Body in a Single Operation
Surgeons at Guanji Hospital, in Hezhou, China, recently spent six hours removing over 200 stones from a woman’s gallbladder and liver, some of them the size of small eggs. The patient, a 45-year-old woman known only as Ms. Chen, had apparently been experiencing abdominal pain for over a decade. When she first went to a hospital […]
The Curious Case of a Boy Who Stops Breathing Every Time He Falls Asleep
Liam Derbyshire was born with a very rare congenital disease that causes him to stop breathing every time he falls asleep. Doctors told his parents that he wouldn’t live past six weeks, but the boy has defied the odds and will soon turn 18-years-old. Liam suffers from a condition known as central hypoventilation, or “Ondine’s Curse”, […]
Surgeons Find 27 Contact Lenses in “Forgetful” Woman’s Eye
Can’t find your contact lenses? They’re probably still in your eye sockets. Someone should have probably told this to a 67-year-old woman from the UK who has forgotten a whopping 27 contact lenses in her eye, over the last 35 years. The bizarre discovery was made last November, when the unnamed patient came to the […]
Malaysian Chiropractor “Fixes” Slipped Spinal Discs by Knocking Them with a Hammer
Suffering a slipped or herniated disc is no joke. It can be excruciatingly painful and, in severe cases, it requires spine surgery and months of recovery. But for one chiropractor in Malaysia, fixing a slipped disc is as easy as knocking it back into position with a hammer. Md Rosdi Hasan has a very unconventional way […]
23-Year-Old Man Stuck in the Body of a 13-Year-Old Boy Due to Rare Condition
A lot of people look younger than their age, but 23-year-old Tomislav Jurčec, from Zagreb, Croatia, is an extreme case. Due to a fault in his pituitary gland, which controls growth and ageing, he remains stuck in the body of a 13-year-old kid. Tomislav admits that looking 10 years younger than his actual age does have […]
Woman with Two Skin Tones, Two Immune Systems Is a Living, Breathing Medical Oddity
Taylor Muhl, a model and singer from California, often says that she is her own twin, and as strange as that sounds, she means it quite literally. The 33-year-old was diagnosed with genetic Chimerism, an extremely rare condition explained as “an organism composed of cells from different zygotes”. As a child, Taylor was obsessed with twins, constantly […]
Biotech Company Wants to Bring Brain-Dead People Back to Life
Bioquark, a biotechnolgy company from Philadelphia believes brain death is not as irreversible as most people think, and claims to have come up with a series of injections capable of “resetting” the brain, essentially bringing patients back to life. Up until a few years ago, a person was declared dead when their heart stopped beating […]
Woman Who Broke Her Neck Sneezing, Five Years Ago, Does It Again While Laughing
One morning, in 2011, Monique Jeffrey, of Rose Bay, Australia, was at home, in her bed, checking her emails. She sneezed and her head suddenly jolted forward, collapsing the C1 and C2 vertebrae in her neck. She had broken her neck in what experts called a “freak accident”, but the chances of something like this happening […]
Thai Hospital Provides Masks for Women Too Shy to Get a Potentially Life-Saving Pap Smear Test
The gynecology ward at the Nong Krot Hospital, in Thailand’s Kamphaeng Phet province, looked more like a masked ball hall a couple of days ago, as both patients and staff wore masks to conceal their faces. The initiative was meant to make women more comfortable about getting a pap smear test. Named after its inventor, Greek doctor […]
Rare Condition Allows Woman to Remember Everything She Has Ever Experienced
Can you imagine being able to remember every single experience of your life, every conversation you have ever had, every meal you’ve eaten, every word in your favorite book and even the feel of the clothes you wore on your very first birthday? That’s what Becky Sharrock’s life is like, and as amazing as that ability […]