Image via Shutterstock
The first person in the world to receive two face transplants says he is feeling well after receiving his third face.
Currently recovering in a Paris hospital, French man Jerome Hamon seemed happy about his procedure. “I’m 43. The donor was 22. So I’ve become 20 years younger,” he told french TV.Hamon suffers from Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), or von Recklinghausen’s disease, a genetic condition that caused severe tumours on his face. He first underwent a face transplant in 2010. However, five years later his body started showing signs of rejecting the new face. Hamon developed necrosis—essentially, the face started to die while still attached to him—after a reaction to antibiotics he was taking for a cold. Last year, that face was removed.Waiting for a donor to be found, Hamon spent two months in hospital unable to see, talk, or hear. Then he had the blood drained from his body and treated before the second transplant could take place, a procedure which took a month.
Professor Laurent Lantieri, who conducted both transplants for Hamon, described his patient's ordeal as like “going through a nuclear war".“We were very concerned about the possibility of a new rejection,” Professor Lantieri said.It's now three months since Hamon's second face transplant. His new face remains motionless, but it'll gradually align itself with his skull and skin. The doctors are hoping an immunosuppressant will stop his body from rejecting the new face this time around.“I feel very well in myself,” Hamon told reporters, “ I can’t wait to get rid of all this.”