These pictures may look like an attractive woman in her 20s and her grandmother.
But they are said to be the same person - apparently taken just days apart.
The young Vietnamese woman at the centre of the improbablemedical case, Nguyen Thi Phuong, claims the transformation may have come about because of an extreme allergy to seafood.
Nguyen, 26, says she developed this puffy face and sagging skin in 2008 but was too poor to seek treatment. Earlier this month, doctors said they would examine her free of charge.
She has always worn wear a mask in public to hide her appearance from prying eyes, but she has now sought help from doctors to see if they can reverse the "ageing" effect.
Mrs Nguyen believes her condition was caused by a life-long allergy to seafood.
She said she had suffered a particularly bad reaction in 2008.
"I was really itchy all over my body. I had to scratch even while sleeping."
Phuong said she took some medicine bought at a local pharmacy instead of going to the hospital because her and her husband Tuyen, now 33, were too poor to afford it.
She said: "After one month of taking the drugs, I became less itchy but hives remained on my skin."
"Then I switched to traditional medicine and all the hives disappeared, together with my itching. However, my skin began to sag and fold."
Mrs Nguyen then took another kind of traditional medicine to treat her rapid-aging skin problem - but to no avail.
Doctors say it may have been the long-term use of traditional medicines that caused the condition as they are often spiked with corticoids. These steroids speed up the effects of the unregulated remedies but could also have triggered the rare skin disease mastocytosis, where the body produces too many mast cells.
On October 2, doctors from Nguyen Dinh Chieu Hospital in Ben Tre Province said they would examine Phuong for free and send her to the HCMC Dermatology Hospital if they failed to diagnose her condition.


据英国每日邮报10月14日报道，这些照片看起来像是一个有魅力的20岁年轻女人和她的祖母站在一起。
但其实这是同一个人--两张照片拍摄的时间仅相隔几天。
这名患上怪病的女子名叫阮莳芳，她说自己身体的这种变化可能是由非常严重的海鲜过敏症引起的。

阮莳芳今年26岁，从2008年开始，她的脸部开始肿胀，皮肤也开始松垂，但由于家庭贫困，一直没有进行治疗。本月早些时候，医生已经给她做了免费的体检。
她出现在公共场合时总是戴着面具来躲避人们窥探的眼神，但现在她开始寻求医生的帮助，想知道他们是不是能帮助她扭转这种"衰老"的趋势。

阮女士相信，她的病情是由一种终身海鲜过敏症引起的。
她说她在2008年曾有过一次特别严重的过敏反应。
"我全身发痒，就连睡觉时也在不停地抓挠。"

阮莳芳说她当时没有去医院，而是去当地的药店买了些药，因为她和她33岁的丈夫张庭选实在太穷，负担不起医疗费用。
她说："我服药大约一个月后，身上不太痒了，但还是有很多荨麻疹。"

"然后我开始服用一些传统药物，荨麻疹和瘙痒都消失了，但我的皮肤却开始松弛下垂。"

随后她又开始服用另一种传统药物，试图治疗她迅速老化的皮肤--但却毫无作用。

医生说她的这种状况可能是由于长期服用传统药物所致，因为这些药物中通常都含有肾上腺皮质类脂醇。这些类脂醇可以大大提高药效，但也可能引发罕见的皮肤病--肥大细胞增多症，使身体产生过多的肥大细胞。

槟椥省阮庭沼医院的医生表示，他们已经在10月2日给阮莳芳做了免费体检，如果无法治愈，他们将会把她送去胡志明市皮肤专科医院。

• attractive [ə´træktiv] a.有吸引力；诱人的 (初中英语单词)
• medical [´medikəl] a.医学的；医疗的 (初中英语单词)
• extreme [ik´stri:m] a.尽头的 n.极端 (初中英语单词)
• treatment [´tri:tmənt] n.待遇；对待；治疗 (初中英语单词)
• reverse [ri´və:s] v.颠倒；(使)反向 (初中英语单词)
• reaction [ri´ækʃən] n.反应(力) (初中英语单词)
• scratch [skrætʃ] v.&n.抓，搔；抓伤 (初中英语单词)
• province [´prɔvins] n.省；领域；范围 (初中英语单词)
• apparently [ə´pærəntli] ad.显然，表面上地 (高中英语单词)
• transformation [,trænsfə´meiʃən] n.转化；转变；改造 (英语四级单词)
• traditional [trə´diʃənəl] a.传统的，习惯的 (英语四级单词)
• improbable [im´prɔbəbəl] a.未必有的 (英语六级单词)
• taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)