SAIGON--Nguyen Thi Phuong, 23, is telling friends to just put up with the itch the next time they have an allergic reaction to seafood. Her husband and she claim that, after taking steroidal medication, she aged some 50 years in a matter of days.
The once-pretty Phuong now appears to be more like a 73-year-old and looks exactly like her mother. Newspaper reporters are clambering to find Phuong's mother for a side-by-side photo, but no one can find her.
Rather than suspecting that Phuong's husband and mother have killed her and come up with a fantastical story that she's added 50 years to her appearance, doctors have scrambled to come up with a reason for this transformation.
The latest harebrained idea is that Phuong suffers from Lipodystrophy, a rare disease that causes a layer of fatty tissue beneath the surface of the skin to break down while the skin continues to grow at an amazing pace.
Said one official at the U.S. consulate in Saigon, "Sounds more like something Governor Chris Christie is dealing with than what's happening with this woman."
