Woman Discovers She Has ‘Multiple’ Extra Organs After Years of Severe Pain
After years of intense stomach pain, Mel Placanica was stunned when doctors revealed that she had “multiple” extra organs, finally explaining the health struggles she’d been enduring. The 31-year-old from Adelaide, South Australia, was diagnosed with two uteruses, four ovaries, two cervixes, and three kidneys following extensive testing.
Mel, a makeup artist, first sought medical help after experiencing excruciating stomach pain and severe bleeding. Initially, doctors suspected a tumor due to an unusual mass spotted near her uterus during an emergency department scan. “I had terrible stomach pain; just like the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life,” she recounted. “My mum took me to ED, and straight away they did a scan, and they saw a uterus and this lump-type shape next to it. So automatically, they thought it was a tumour”, told the Mirror.
Fortunately, further tests ruled out a tumor. However, this misdiagnosis delayed the correct treatment. A subsequent laparoscopy scan conducted by a gynaecologist finally uncovered the full picture of Mel’s unique anatomy, shocking both her and her medical team. With the scan zeroing in on her abdominal area, it became clear that she was dealing with far more than initially suspected: the presence of multiple reproductive and renal organs.
The discovery led to surgical intervention, during which Mel had one of her uteruses and two ovaries removed, while her two cervixes were surgically unified into one. Complicating matters further, doctors found endometriosis on the lining of her uterus, which contributed significantly to her symptoms. Endometriosis, a condition where tissue similar to the uterine lining grows outside the uterus, is known to cause severe pain, often during menstruation.
Reflecting on her experience, Mel noted, “The moral of the story is that you cannot always trust a scan. A scan will not show everything; otherwise, everything would have showed up on the scan, and it wouldn’t have taken as long as it did.” Her gynaecologist initially shared the same assumption that she had a tumor, given the complexity of her scan results. Eventually, the diagnosis revealed the full extent of her condition, including what she humorously describes as “essentially two vaginas.”
To this day, Mel speculates that she may have absorbed a twin in the womb, leading to her rare anatomy. Her story serves as a reminder of the complexities of medical diagnosis and the need for persistence when standard scans fall short.