An 87 year old woman named Liang Xiuzhen from the Sichuan province in South West China has had a horn growing out of her head for the past two years. Clearly this is real, as you can see from the photograph above.

Apparently it started as a weird black mole on her head around eight years ago and she treated it with a herbal remedy, although it never fully went away. Two years ago it burst and a small horn about the size of a little finger started to grow out of the skin and it stayed at that length on her head for some time.

Xiuzhen and her son Wang Zhaojun went to the doctor to try and get a diagnosis:

Featured Image VIA

Image VIA 

We went to the hospital and the doctors couldn’t diagnose the growth.

My mother doesn’t like going to the hospital because she thinks that she won’t be able to come back home if she goes.

So they just left it there until six months ago when Zhaojun accidentally knocked it off her head. From that point on it started to grow rapidly until it developed into the monstrosity that you can see today. It’s five inches in length and two inches in diameter and also bleeds at times. It causes Xiuzhen so much pain sometimes that she can’t sleep.

Doctors have also finally been able to diagnosis it as a cutaneous horn – a growth which is composed of keratin, the same protein found in hair and fingernails. Xiuzhen is now hoping to raise awareness of the condition via her story and eventually have it removed – although surely if that happens it will only grow again to be even bigger, going on previous results?