21-year-old woman who sweats blood from face and palms diagnosed with rare disease
A 21-year-old woman in Florence, Italy, was recently hospitalized with a set of symptoms that seem like they're straight out of a horror movie.
According to the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), the unnamed woman had experienced a "three-year history of ... episodes of bleeding from her palms and face despite no evidence of skin lesions."
While there was no obvious trigger for her bleeding, "which could occur while she was asleep and during times of physical activity," the woman did say that the more intense bleeding episodes occurred during times of severe emotional stress and could last between one and five minutes.
Photo: Canadian Medical Association Journal
The CMAJ states that the woman had become "socially isolated" due to embarrassment over her condition and had also reported symptoms consistent with major depressive disorder and panic disorder.
Doctors were eventually able to diagnose the woman with hematohidrosis, "an uncommon disease characterized by spontaneous discharge of 'blood sweat' through intact skin."
In patients with hematohidrosis, blood-stained fluid can seep out of unbroken skin just as sweat would. Although the emissions are most common around the face, ears, and nose, some people with the condition may even cry bloody tears.
Although the root of the woman's illness remains unknown, doctors were able to minimize the bleeding by administering propranolol, a beta-blocker commonly used to treat heart and blood pressure issues.
They also gave her anti-anxiety medications to help with the social side effects she had experienced due to her condition.
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