To friends and family, she is a typical teenager. Twinkle Dwiveldi is a 13 year old tomboy who hangs out with neighbourhood kids, listens to music and studies only when she feels like it. Yet her medical condition is anything but typical.
For nearly two years, Twinkle has reported spontaneously bleeding from her eyes as well as her head, hands and other body parts, though there is no visible source or injury to explain it.
“Sometimes I believe we’ll find a cure…but we are broken now. We’ve lost faith.” - Nandani, Twinkle’s mother.
The bleeding from her eyes and even hands, head and elsewhere on her body appears to start anytime - when Twinkle is watching TV, playing or simply doing nothing. There is no visible injury that prompts it, and she feels little pain. In fact, when the blood is washed off, no cuts or scrapes are revealed…it’s as if it never happened.
Some say a bad omen has been cast; others think she is possessed and yet others think it could be self-inflicted. Twinkle and her mother Nandani have tried dispelling the spirits at their temple as well as seeking medical treatment. But even doctors at one of India’s best hospitals are baffled and have not been able to provide a single medical explanation.
In the end, they decide to put their faith in a top American blood specialist, Dr. George Buchanan, who flies to India to investigate Twinkle’s extraordinary medical case.
When Dr. Buchanan gets and emergency call in the middle of the night that Twinkle has started bleeding, he is finally able to meet her and collect the samples for a rang of sophisticated blood tests - perhaps offering a breakthrough. But the tests come back indicating only a minor problem of blood platelets, without answering how the bleeding is brought on. Dr. Buchanan is suspicious that the tears of blood could be faked, angering Twinkle so much that she abruptly leaves.
“I really very much admire this young lady and her mother and…see a very healthy relationship between the two,” he says. " My heart tells me that this really is truly something that I’ve never seen before. My head tells me as a physician scientist that in fact Munchhausen’s syndrome by proxy [an illness fabricated or induced by a parent] is the most likely diagnosis. But I’m going to keep an open mind."
Source: Nat Geo Presents ‘The Girl Who Cried Blood’ and ‘The World’s Smallest Girl’ - Coffeerooms on TV
I’ve heard of tears of blood before; a rare condition known as “Heamolacria” is most likely the cause of the blood red tears. Haemolacria manifests as bloody tears but the red tears are actually only partially composed of blood. What i don’t get is where the the other blood is coming from… the blood which spontaneously manifests itself around her body with no signs of cuts/injury… on her head, her arms, her neck etc…
So what do you think? Something truly unexplainable and unseen by the world of Science, or a case of Münchhausen by proxy?
