Beautiful 16-Year-Old Girl With Long Neck

Beautiful 16-Year-Old Ukrainian Girl with Disproportionately Long Neck Teaches Internet About Marfan Syndrome

The girl to the far right in the photo above is Lyudmila Titchenkova, a 16-year-old living in the city of Nikolaev, Ukraine.

After she turned 10, Lyudmila’s parents noticed that their daughter’s body began developing at an accelerated growth rate. She was taller and had longer arms than other children her age, but of particular concern was the length of her neck and abnormal curvature of her spine.

As it got to the point where Lyudmila began feeling embarrassed to go out because of her appearance, her parents took her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with Marfan Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder of the connective tissue that can affect many parts of the body, most often the heart, blood vessels, bones, joints and eyes.

In Lyudmila’s case, the disorder affected the connective tissue in her spine, causing it to curve at an angle of 30 degrees. This seems to be a rather uncommon symptom of the disorder, which usually affect people’s arms, legs and fingers. After undergoing corrective surgery and extensive rehabilitation to straighten her spine, Lyudmila can now live normally and says she wants to study for her future without letting herself be affected by her disorder.

Photos of Lyumidla are currently making the rounds on the Japanese internet, with netizens praising her for—you guessed it—her beauty. That’s actually not a bad response considering how the internet has a way of turning people into monsters.

It is said that 1 in 5000 people have Marfan Syndrome. Heart-related complications may shorten the lifespan of people with the disorder. However, while there is no cure for Marfan syndrome, it is possible for people with the disorder to live a normal life-span given an early diagnosis and proper medical treatment.