Since birth, Olesya Kulikova, a 27-year-old Russian girl, has had health problems. While suffering from pneumonia, she goes to the hospital for treatment and discovers that in reality her organs are in the wrong place, a rare disease that she has learned to live with.
Olesya is 14 years old when she discovers that her heart is located on the right side of his body, reports The Sun. Four years later, she then learns that her liver is placed on the left. But the young Russian continues to live normally until the day when, in 2019, she suffers from pneumonia persistent.
Asthmashortness of breath, cough…as the symptoms pile up, Olesya goes to the hospital to treat his breathing problems. It is there that the doctors reveal to him that even his lungs are reversed and mirrored. The medical diagnosis ends up concluding with a situs inversus totalis. This pathology is characterized by a congenital anomaly in which major organs are inverted in a mirrored position compared to their normal arrangement.
“Every time I go for a medical exam, I have to explain that my heart is on the right, not on the left like everyone else,” confides the patient.
A pathology that is accompanied by other diseases
And that’s not all. Because of this rare pathology, Olesya inherited other ailments. She suffers in particular from a genetic disorder: Kartagener’s syndrome. This disease is associated with respiratory manifestations and a left-right inversion of the organs of the thorax and abdomen, which would explain its many symptoms related to respiratory disorders. Also, these stomach pains have been associated with kidney stones.
Olesya must therefore learn to live with inverted organs and the pathologies that accompany this extremely rare phenomenon. She confides Do more sport to make his lungs work “properly” and the first results are already encouraging.
Situs inversus totalis, a rare pathology
Situs inversus totalis is a rare disease that affects 1 in 10,000 people. A similar case, reported by CNNreported this pathology in a 99-year-old woman who lived her entire life normally without ever suspecting that her organs were displaced. “I think the odds of finding another person like her are less than one in 50 million,” said Cameron Walker, professor of anatomy at the University of Health and Sciences of Oregon (United States), at the origin of the unusual find. Rose Marie Bentley, who died at 99 of natural causes, chose to give your body to science when you die. This is how the researchers were able to spot this anomaly without the American ever having heard of her condition during her lifetime.
According to Cameron Walker, mutations develop early in the fetus without knowing their origin. If only 13% of those affected survive more than five years, according to the data reported by the professor, Rose Marie Bentley did not suffer from any heart problem. “It’s almost certainly the most contributing factor to his long life”suggests the researcher.
The pathology is usually detected by X-ray, MRI or ultrasound examinations.