Woman’s horror ordeal after diagnosis for condition where her skin ‘eats itself’

WANING: GRAPHIC IMAGES The 25-year-old was left with ‘agonising, rotten sores’ all over her body from the condition, and begged her boyfriend to leave her rather than watch her skin ‘eat itself’

A young woman has spoken of her struggles with a horror condition that makes her skin ‘eat itself’.

Vienna German, from Southampton, claims doctors originally thought she simply had an inflamed armpit hair follicle, before she was diagnosed with the worst case of pyoderma gangrenosum they had ever seen last January.

The illness gives her ‘agonising, rotten sores’ all over her armpits, breasts and bum. The 25-year-old shared that she even ‘thought she was going to die’ when she developed wounds the size of apples under both armpits, under her breasts and a 17cm sore covering her entire butt cheek, which left her bed bound for months.

She describes the skin condition, which causes painful ulcers over the body, as ‘unbearable’ – and says the scarring from wounds and weight gain ‘destroyed’ her body image. Vienna said her sores were first treated with an extremely high dose of steroids, which caused her to go up four dress sizes in six months and left her looking like ‘a purple zebra’ from stretch marks.

The whole ordeal has made her relationship with her 27-year-old partner of seven years, Tom Gregory, much closer – but says it looked at first as if rob them of their future together. Vienna said: “Tom nursed me back to life. He washed me, he dressed me, he did everything for me. I genuinely don’t think I’d be here to tell the tale had he not been there.

“At the time I said, ‘You can’t watch me die, please leave me.’ That’s so sad to think about now because he’s the love of my life, but I didn’t want him to watch me die. We spoke about what I’d want if I did die and I put all that responsibility on him. I can’t imagine how he felt. I know it was hard for me but it must’ve been really hard for him as well.”

Vienna was first told by doctors she had an inflamed hair follicle in her armpit and given antibiotics in November 2021, before being admitted to hospital from A&E two days later. Following a misdiagnosis and ‘painful’ procedure where the skin was stripped from her armpits, Vienna was discharged a week later for what she secretly believed would be her last Christmas.

The young woman said “no one would believe how bad the pain was” because she had no official diagnosis, and was left with an “overwhelming feeling of doom” after coming out of hospital in mid-November. She revealed: “I felt like something was really wrong, so I hosted a Christmas party for my and Tom’s family because I thought I was going to die. I thought, ‘This is going to be my last Christmas – I probably won’t be here next year.’ I’ve never told anyone that.”

In the new year, Vienna woke up with more than 20 rapidly-growing wounds over her lower limbs, bum, under her breasts, and on her back, forcing her to rush to A&E. She shared: “Open, rotting flesh was falling off my body for months. It was black and it was dead. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even walk to the toilet by myself. One time I even wet myself because I couldn’t get there quick enough. Mentally it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with. There was a point where I thought, if this disease doesn’t kill me, I will kill myself.”

Vienna spent four weeks in hospital where she finally received an official diagnosis of pyoderma gangrenosum, but suffered severe side effects from steroids given as part of her treatment plan. “Steroids gave me Cushing’s syndrome, which is called the ugly disease, and it ruined my body and shut down my adrenal glands.”, she said. “Steroids also make you incurably hungry and I went up about four dress sizes. I was about a size 16 and then I was a size 24 by the end of the year. My body inflated so much and it’s given me stretch marks everywhere. I look like a purple zebra.

“At the time that was devastating. One day I just looked in the mirror and thought, ‘This is not me. I don’t even recognise you.’ It destroyed my body image. I think I grieved for the girl I was before. It felt like she had died and I was a completely different person.”

Vienna was unable to return to work as a dental nurse after being struck down by the condition, due to the risks of triggering it again. But she now happily runs a dog walking business which has helped her lose seven stone this year. After taking more than 30 pills a day, Vienna is now off all medication and in remission – and now making arrangements with dermatologists to treat her scars.

Detailing her journey to recovery, she said: “I just woke up one morning and thought, ‘I just can’t do this anymore,’ so I started walking, moving a bit more, and eating healthier. Now I’m just ready to get my scars dealt with and not look at myself and think about how traumatic last year was.”