Man learns he’s really a woman after trip to doctor in Hong Kong
A junk sails on Victoria Harbour in front of the Hong Kong skyline on June 3, 2013.
This is why men avoid doctors.
A 66-year-old Chinese patient is now considering male hormone injections after learning that longstanding abdominal pain was caused by an ovarian cyst.
The diagnosis was especially troubling in this case because up until seeing doctors in Hong Kong, the patient believed she was a man.
Yes, the man was really a woman.
“Were it not due to the huge ovarian cyst, his intriguing medical condition might never have been exposed,” a report in the Hong Kong Medical Journal says.
The patient suffers from two exceedingly rare conditions, Turner syndrome and congenital adrenal hyperplasia, the article published Monday said.
About 1 in 2,500 girls worldwide are born with Turner syndrome, a condition that renders ovaries useless and keeps girls from growing very tall, among other symptoms.
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The patient in Hong Kong was merely 4 feet 6 inches tall and stopped growing after age 10.
It's caused by a missing or malfunctioning chromosome.
While girls have two X chromosomes and boys an X and Y, Turner syndrome patients typically have one X and one missing or malformed chromosome.
Furthermore, congenital adrenal hyperplasia affects hormone production while also creating excess androgen and only affects about 1 in 10,000 to 18,000 children.
The combination causes patients to show male characteristics early or, in the case of the woman from China, inappropriately.
The patient in Hong Kong has a beard, “micropenis” and no testes, but ovaries and fallopian tubes.
The woman was born an orphan in Vietnam and had lived her whole life believing she was male.
After the trip to see doctors, it forced some difficult decisions.
“The patient decided to continue perceiving himself as having a male gender with the possible need of testosterone replacement,” the journal article says.
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