Bloke with ‘brain growing outside his head’ undergoes year of weird surgeries to fix it
A bloke who appeared to have a human brain growing out of his head has spent 11 months undergoing a complex series of surgeries in order to remove the irritating spongy folds
The condition looked just like a brain
An unfortunate bloke who appeared to have a brain growing on the outside of his head has undergone nearly a year of surgery in order to get rid of the strange condition.
Having already seen several attempted skin grafts totally botched by local doctors, leaving his head covered in scars, 23-year-old Xiao Li made the bold decision to undergo a freaky-sounding process of water-based stretching alongside complex plastic surgeries to get a completely new scalp.
According to reports in local media, Zhao travelled from his home in China’s Hunan Province to the city of Wuhan for what would end up being 11 months of surgery after local doctors refused to try any more operations.
The arduous treatment lasted 11 months
Expert surgeons set about removing the diseased regions of skin, before stretching over the healthy patches across his bare skull in what sounds like an agonising process.
Fluid was then inserted into the skin in order to stretch the new skin even more and remove the ridges that had formed on his head.
While the disease appears as if the sufferers’ brain has begun protruding from the top of the head, the condition is in fact caused by an infection to the skin similar to eczema.
The man said he felt “psychological pressure” from the condition
Known by doctors as gyrular cranial skin or cutis verticis gyrata, the rare disease has no known cause. Those who suffer it have described the condition as mildly painful or irritating, while the ridges it produces are soft and spongy to touch.
According to Chinese media outlet CTDSB, sufferer Zhou felt an immense ‘psychological impact’ from the condition, which had first developed when he was only 14 and eventually pushed him into splashing out on the long and arduous surgery.
He is now believed to be in recovery from the surgery, and his scalp now appears normal and without the signature ridges that had caused him such a problem. He also reportedly is now better able to grow hair on his head.
The surgery would likely have set the man back thousands (Image: Getty Images)
The cost of the 11 months of surgery is not known, however similar treatments can cost in the region of £5000 to £20,000 to undergo.
