A Week After Shaving, She Developed Rare Flesh-Eating Disease
(MedPage Today) -- She shaved her perineal area, then applied a topical herbal substance provided by an alternative practitioner -- but a week later, the 40-year-old woman developed aggressive necrotizing fasciitis. What ensued was a 12-week...
A 40-year-old woman developed a rare flesh-eating disease one week after shaving her perineal area and applying an herbal topical treatment given by an alternative practitioner. King Saud University doctors Ali Bassi and Futoon Alsaleh detailed the case in the American Journal of Case Reports. The aggressive necrotizing fasciitis, also known as Fournier gangrene, is more common in men and immunocompromised individuals.
However, this case shows it can affect healthy women without immunodeficiency. The patient, who was obese, presented with left labial pain, swelling, vomiting, and lower abdominal pain, a week after the perineal shaving and herbal application. Bassi and Alsaleh noted that the shaving disrupted the skin barrier and the herbal substance may have introduced a non-sterile preparation, creating an entry point for polymicrobial infection.
Treatment involved multiple surgical debridement sessions, negative-pressure wound therapy, various antibiotics, and nutritional counseling. The patient recovered but faced mild cosmetic deformity from tissue loss. The doctors emphasized that Fournier gangrene is a clinical diagnosis, not a demographic one, and clinicians should consider it in patients with rapidly progressing perineal pain and swelling, regardless of sex or immune status.
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