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Elderly Man Sees Doctor About a Stomach Ache- Discovers He's a Woman

By Christine Hsu | Update Date: Jun 04, 2013 11:32 AM EDT

A 66-year-old Hong Kong man who went to the doctor's office to see about a stomach ache got the shock of his life when he was told he was actually a woman.

Doctors made the bizarre discovery after they realized that the bearded patient's swollen abdomen was actually caused by a large cyst on his ovary, according to the Hong Kong Medical Journal.

Medical experts discovered that the patient suffered from two rare genetic disorders. 

One of the conditions was called Turner syndrome, which affects girls and women and results from a problem with the chromosomes.  Some of the symptoms associated with this condition include infertility, short stature and lymphedema of the hands and feet.

The other condition was called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, a condition that increases male hormones.  Doctors said that condition made the patient appear like a man by causing body to grow a beard and a "micropenis," according to AFP.

The Vietnamese-born Chinese patient grew up as an orphan and had a history of urinary leakage since childhood. He was found to have no testes and had stopped growing after puberty at the age of 10 to be 4.5 feet (1.37 meters) tall, according to The Sun.

"Were it not due to the huge ovarian cyst, his intriguing medical condition might never have been exposed," seven doctors from two Hong Kong hospitals wrote in the study published Monday.

Doctors said that there have been only six cases where both genetic disorders have been reported in medical literature.  Experts estimate that only one in 2,500 to 3,000 females have Turner Syndrome.  While most men have a X and a Y chromosome and most women have a pair of X chromosomes, those with Turner Syndrome tend to have only one X chromosome or are missing part of their second X chromosome.

Doctors said that Vietnam-born Chinese patient decided to continue "perceiving himself as having a male gender with the possible need of testosterone replacement," according to the journal.

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