Man Living with a Twin Inside Him

[snopes]

Sanju Bhagat had one of the world's most bizarre medical conditions — fetus in fetu. It is an extremely rare abnormality that occurs when a fetus gets trapped inside its twin. The trapped fetus can survive as a parasite even past birth by forming an umbilical cordlike structure that leaches its twin's blood supply until it grows so large that it starts to harm the host, at which point doctors usually intervene.

http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=2346476

[Troberg]

Is it really that uncommon? I know at leat two people who has had that happening to them, although in both cases, the twin was tiny and it wasn't noticed until the "umbilical cord" got twisted.

[Penny]

So, the fetus was almost 40 years old and, I think, died during the operation (it doesn't say, but I think that's what they're getting at). I wonder how much of a brain it had and whether it was aware - if so, 40 years trapped inside someone else's body would be torture.

[Missie]

Probably none. Most fetus-in-fetu cases have no brain at all, even though they may have a fairly well-developed head and a brain case (which is empty).

Some parasitic twins are aware however, but it's extremely rare and it's never in recorded history happened with an internal twin. If a parasitic twin has some kind of awareness, it's always an external twin, and I can only think of two well-documented cases, and one not-so-well documented case.

First is Manar Maged - the two-headed baby born a few years ago. She had a fully-developed head with some vestigial organs attached to her own head. This head probably had mental capabilities similar to its fully-formed twin, but it died when they removed it. There was a similar case not too long before this, Rebeca Martinez, but her head seemed much less well-formed, and possibly had much less brain function.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manar_Maged
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebeca_Mart%C3%ADnez

The two-headed boy of bengal is the second case I was thinking of. It's fairly well documented, and strikingly similar to the case of Manar Maged. He lived to the age of four when he died of a snakebite. Although his second head probably wasn't fully aware and intelligent, they did display some degree of independence of each other, and this suggests that although it was probably extremely deficient its brain probably worked to some considerable degree.

http://www.forteantimes.com/articles...ngalboy1.shtml

The last is somewhat less verifiable since the case is so old. I speak of Lazarus and Joannes Baptista, who were born in 1617. Lazarus was fully-formed, Joannes hung from his chest and lacked organs.

http://www.phreeque.com/lazarus.html

I find this kind of stuff fascinating.

Is it really that uncommon? I know at least two people who has had that happening to them, although in both cases, the twin was tiny and it wasn't noticed until the "umbilical cord" got twisted.

I'm pretty sure it's different. I know one person too who had a "mass" removed and it turned out to have hair and bone material.
Maybe the same thing occurred in utero, but it didn't develop as far. Twins being absorbed into each other is a very common occurrence, I think the less common thing is the fetus growing really big and becoming a big enough parasite to cause a lot of damage to the host.
It's all rather disturbing.

Dermoid cysts can contain hair, teeth, and other types of tissue, but aren't absorbed twins. I believe that only the ovarian forms can develop teeth; others just have hair, sebaceous glands, and skin.

My impression is that dermoid cysts are much more common than one twin contained within another, but they're often believed (by non-medical types) to be "absorbed twins," presumably because it's freakier and makes a better story. "Wow, it would have been another person, and it's been trapped in me all along" is just cooler than "some of my cells were displaced while I was a fetus."

Isn't this similar to the idea of a Chimera where the two twins actually merge into one body? In those cases (there was a Discovery Channel show on it), the person will actually have two different genetic codes. Often, the only external sign of it is the person might have two different colored eyes (blue in one, green in the other).

The case I remember from the TV show was a woman who needed to have her kid DNA tested to find the father. She already "knew" who the father was, but the authorities needed "proof". When they did the DNA test on the kid, they verified that the father was "the father", but found out that she wasn't the mother. It seemed as if her sister was the mother (even though she didn't have a sister). It was a cool show.

Originally Posted by Doug4.7

Isn't this similar to the idea of a Chimera where the two twins actually merge into one body?

Something like that happened to this patient - she needed a kidney transplant, but the tissue typing showed her kids were her husband's but not hers.

[pirateslife]

This just reminds me of the old X-Files episode "Humbug". And I have once again painted "GEEK" on my forehead.

[MidgardDragon]

To geek out even further, wasn't this the subject of a Stephen King novel?

[Tisiphone]

I haven't watched the x-files episode but the Enigma was in that one, no? And yes to the Stephen King novel, I beleive it was called 'The Dark Half' but could be wrong.

[Wicked Tinkerbell]

Originally Posted by Doug4.7

Isn't this similar to the idea of a Chimera where the two twins actually merge into one body? In those cases (there was a Discovery Channel show on it), the person will actually have two different genetic codes.

This appeared in an episode of CSI. If I recall correctly, the character was a rapist. The victim identified him, but DNA from his hair indicated his innocence. He had a sculpture of a Chimera in his house, which pointed Grissom to the truth.

[Signora Del Drago]

There was also something similar in Gone South by Robert R. McCammon. It's been a long time since I read it, about 14 years, I think, but I remember Flint/Clint, a guy who had a twin growing out of his body. Flint was the whole person and Clint was the underdeveloped Siamese twin.
It was a good .

[Troberg]

This just reminds me of the old X-Files episode "Humbug". And I have once again painted "GEEK" on my forehead.

Don't worry, you're not alone. I just couldn't remember the name of the episode.

[Morrigan]

Originally Posted by Tisiphone

I haven't watched the x-files episode but the Enigma was in that one, no? And yes to the Stephen King novel, I beleive it was called 'The Dark Half' but could be wrong.

Yeah, it was "The Dark Half."

I, however, am reminded of the South Park episode where (I think) Stan tries to open his head with an icepick to get the twin out because of the school nurse.

Morrigan

[Aud 1]

Chimera also happen when maternal cells migrate to the fetus and vice versa. (Yeah, I know that's not supposed to happen.)
This is the article I read on the subject
Science. 2002 Jun 21;296(5576):2169-72. "Cells exchanged during pregnancy live on" but this "Microchimerism in human health and disease" has an abstract.

the person might have two different colored eyes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterochromia

[Izzy Quigley]

Originally Posted by Doug4.7

The case I remember from the TV show was a woman who needed to have her kid DNA tested to find the father. She already "knew" who the father was, but the authorities needed "proof". When they did the DNA test on the kid, they verified that the father was "the father", but found out that she wasn't the mother. It seemed as if her sister was the mother (even though she didn't have a sister). It was a cool show.

Was this a 48 Hours Medical Mystery, by any chance? If so, I think I saw the same program.

Originally Posted by Doug4.7

Isn't this similar to the idea of a Chimera where the two twins actually merge into one body? In those cases (there was a Discovery Channel show on it), the person will actually have two different genetic codes. Often, the only external sign of it is the person might have two different colored eyes (blue in one, green in the other).

The case I remember from the TV show was a woman who needed to have her kid DNA tested to find the father. She already "knew" who the father was, but the authorities needed "proof". When they did the DNA test on the kid, they verified that the father was "the father", but found out that she wasn't the mother. It seemed as if her sister was the mother (even though she didn't have a sister). It was a cool show.

Originally Posted by Izzy Quigley

Was this a 48 Hours Medical Mystery, by any chance? If so, I think I saw the same program.

I don't remember now, but I thought it was titled, I Am My Own Twin or something like that. In her case, her ovaries were the "other" while the rest of her was, well, "her". She ended up having ANOTHER baby by the same man (topic of a rant on its own), and when they tested THAT baby (just as it came out), it was also "not hers", proving (more or less) that the other baby was hers. She was being prosecuted for welfare fraud at the time, and this got her off. It was an cool show. They even had a kid who was (literally) half black & half white (right down the middle of the kid's body).

Originally Posted by Swiri

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterochromia

Interesting. All I can think of is, "Everyone wants a water buffalo, mine is fast but yours is slow...".