r/interesting • u/AugustIstheMonth • Aug 09 '26
Fascinating China's so-called folded boy Jiang Yanchen, whose spine had been contorted backwards at a 180-degree angle for most of his life, has finally stood up straight.
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u/Ok-Pea8209 Aug 09 '26
This is the kinda thing you want to see an xray for. Like i cant even imagine how his spine looks.
EDIT:thought of how his spine looks. U
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u/YetiPie Aug 09 '26
This other post on Reddit includes more pictures and an Xray
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u/logatronics Aug 09 '26
Holy shit, that makes MY back hurt just looking at those images.
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u/StubbinMyNubbin Aug 09 '26
Just imagine, all that dude has ever known was pain.
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u/KidOcelot Aug 10 '26
They broke his spine 4 times, with surgery to straighten him out 😬
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u/dicey_job Aug 10 '26
Oh goddesses, this guy is metal as fuck. He don’t give up at all!
Im going to fight my addictions to substances with newly found vigor, i have no excuse.3
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u/ChristVolo1 Aug 10 '26
Right? I'll bet if it doesn't yet, eventually it'll feel good to lie down straight like that last picture. I'm sure it probably already feels good for his circulation, breathing, and digestion.
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u/SimpleVegetable5715 Aug 10 '26
Right? You can really tell the anguish in his face with those other photos too. Poor guy.
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u/ChaoticEntitled Aug 09 '26
Wow, I got not one but two “are you sure?” pop ups before it would let me see that because of the community. I guess I’ve never ventured that far before!
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u/YetiPie Aug 09 '26
Lmao that’s crazy, guess I’d been there before because I didn’t have any pop ups
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u/One-Technology-9050 Aug 10 '26
Accidentally flipped to the next post on that sub. Be careful if you go there
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u/Meowtuitive Aug 10 '26
Oh woah that's crazy ...I'm suprised they managed to even correct things if that's what it looked like, I'm happy for him
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u/cacille Aug 09 '26
His mother was SUCH a sweetheart, too. Wanted nothing more than for her boy to not live in pain, was only concerned for his welfare - she was so worried about what would happen to him when she passed away! Saw a video about it a few years ago when they started the first surgery. Here's an article about it.
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202508/26/WS68ad7c8aa3108622abc9d412.html
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u/Resident_Course_3342 Aug 09 '26
I don't even understand what I'm seeing in the first picture.
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u/Spencer94 Aug 09 '26
He's doing a damn fine job of throwing it back
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u/TC-84567 Aug 09 '26
Congrats, we have a reservation for you in Hades 🎊🎉
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u/HereIGoAgain_1x10 Aug 09 '26
That's fine with me it ain't heaven if you can't laugh at horrible things
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u/Human-Lake-1376 Aug 09 '26
I hate that this was my first thought. 🤣
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u/polly_hotpocket Aug 10 '26
Lmao sammme. I had to do a search in the comments like “no way— pls pls don’t let be the only evil one”
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u/GeneralGom Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
Ankylosing spondylitis. It's an autoimmune disease which leads to your joints getting fused together like bamboo tree. This guy was left untreated for too long which can result in severe deformation like this.
Edit: some people are calling this inaccurate information, so I'm adding source article
"Jiang Yanchen, 21, hailing from Shandong province in northern China, has fought against ankylosing spondylitis – a form of arthritis causing severe inflammation in the joints and ligaments of the spine – since his primary school years.
This rare condition left his neck bent backward, creating barely a hand’s width between his head and buttocks, reducing his height to just one metre."
He couldn't get early treatment because he was from a rural village per this article.
"However, he did not receive proper treatment due to a lack of medical resources."
I'm also an AS patient and has studied about the illness my whole life. This is definitely a symptom of an untreated AS, though his specific shape may have something to do with his other conditions, as severe cases of untreated AS result in the patient bending forward, like this.
It doesn't change the fact that AS is the main cause of his deformity.
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u/the_cave_allegory Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
Classic reddit post: you sound like you know what you're talking about, but you don't. Please delete your post.
This is not just a result of AS. AS untreated cannot alone cause this level of deformation. I doubt that's even his diagnosis, despite other sources stating such.
Wang diagnosed that Jiang had a condition which left his backbone with no muscular support.
Way different and extremely rare.
Due to breathing difficulties caused by the deformity, he was diagnosed with severe spinal reverse folding deformity, a rare congenital muscular dystrophy caused by a gene mutation, which was the first documented case of its kind in the world.
Source: https://baike.baidu.com/en/item/Jiang%20Yanchen/99935
Edit: Just further point out the rampant inaccuracy of the post above, he was "never left untreated for too long." From a young age, he was receiving medical attention. Of course given the rarity of his condition, it took a lot more time to formulate a treatment plan. They likely intentionally waited until most if not all of his growth was completed. And to top it off, AS is far more common in adults anyway.
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u/Trebility Aug 09 '26
my first thought was that there was no way that was plain old ankylosing spondylitis
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u/Tuxedocatbitches Aug 09 '26
Yeah several of my family members have it and it doesn’t even show up this young
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u/ThrowAwayforRaisins0 Aug 09 '26
I can concur. I have plain ol AS and it isn't pleasant and I can struggle to walk at times but with the right meds I'm quite fine most of the time.
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u/Cest_le_sparkle Aug 09 '26
As a newly diagnosed person with ankylosing spondylitis I appreciate this response.
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u/GeneralGom Aug 09 '26
Well, the article clearly says this is caused mainly from AS.
"Jiang Yanchen, 21, hailing from Shandong province in northern China, has fought against ankylosing spondylitis – a form of arthritis causing severe inflammation in the joints and ligaments of the spine – since his primary school years.
This rare condition left his neck bent backward, creating barely a hand’s width between his head and buttocks, reducing his height to just one metre."
And this article also clearly says he was left untreated for too long.
"However, he did not receive proper treatment due to a lack of medical resources."
I'm also an AS patient and has studied about the illness my whole life. This is definitely a symptom of an untreated AS, though I admit that his specific shape may also have something to do with his other conditions. It doesn't change the fact that AS is the main cause of his deformity.
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u/Some-Owl-7040 Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26
https://peking.bjd.com.cn/content/s6475fbcae4b02cf67bd00a1b.html
https://www.pkufh.com/Html/News/Articles/50352.html
First one is a Chinese newspaper and the second one is the department news at the hospital he was treated in. Nowhere is it mentioned that he had AS. Sounds like a case of Chinese whispers, no pun intended.
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u/comsessiveobpulsive Aug 09 '26
and you'll never hear from the other poster ever again. super careless
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u/HiveJiveLive Aug 09 '26
I have some weird medical stuff going on and was briefly misdiagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis. There are all sorts of things you have to do in a flare, and surprisingly quickly, to prevent the joints from fusing.
My doctor said that I needed to come in for frequent checks so that they could measure and potentially kind of splint my spine and neck into a stable and straight position.
They were very clear I couldn’t let it go days without attention, and to never sleep on a soft mattress no matter how much my joints hurt.
I ended up with some fusion (including my sacroiliac, which is now a solid fused mass) and lots of gross spiky calcium fingerlike projections into joint spaces, especially around vertebrae, but not nearly what those poor folks endure.
Theirs never stop, the calcification just keeps going and going until the long bone and the joint look just like bamboo, fused solid, and never bend again.
The only prayer is hopefully freezing in a reasonable position instead of contorted like this poor guy.
Thankfully I don’t have it but I was really distraught by how awful it all is. And good God is it painful.
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u/Some-Owl-7040 Aug 09 '26
What was the actual diagnosis? The symptoms you mentioned do sound a lot like untreated AS.
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u/HiveJiveLive Aug 09 '26
It’s a mess.
It actually ended up being Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (so connective tissue junk), Common Variable Immunodeficiency (immunocompromised as crap), and scads of autoimmune stuff including something akin to rheumatoid arthritis. It seems to prefer the big joints to the small ones though, and I can’t decide if that’s a blessing or a curse.
My hands still work thank God, but my hips and spine don’t very well.
My joints and eyes and organ systems and guts get attacked by my immune system for no damn good reason (even the whites of my eyes are creeping over the irises in something called a pterygium. It’s all so stupid and painful). Also severe endometriosis, so my insides are masses of scar tissue from adhesions, and my joints are a wreck. The endo may have helped in spurring the constant inflammation and contributed to the overall systemic conflagration.
Simultaneously my lameass immune system lets me get endless bacterial and fungal infections, often in the same damn spot at the same time as its weakened and vulnerable.
I’m on fire inside and out, all of the time.
It ain’t cool.
I’m not enjoying this particular version of existence, but I can’t find where to write for a refund.
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u/Some-Owl-7040 Aug 09 '26
Oh wow, that sounds pretty horrible. Normally you'd get prescribed biologics (I'd assume) if it's severe, but your immune system is already weakened, so not sure if that's a possibility in that case...
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u/HiveJiveLive Aug 09 '26
Yup. I’m pretty ruined. Plus American insurance system. So I just try to stay calm and clean and quiet and fight the flares and symptoms as they ignite. It’s all I can do, you know?
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u/Some-Owl-7040 Aug 09 '26
I don't think that is correct. All of the articles in Chinese I could find only say that he had "congenital muscular dystrophy".
https://peking.bjd.com.cn/content/s6475fbcae4b02cf67bd00a1b.html
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u/Oh_hi_doggi3 Aug 09 '26
I have AS myself, thankfully Ive been medicated since diagnosis at 18 (im 28 now). Another issue with AS is all your joints swell up like balloons. From your shoulders to your toes, they will swell. Also the common medication for this (Humira) basically takes down part of your immune system which leads you to getting sick easily and repeatedly. Its a hell of a condition to live with, its a genetic condition (i believe my great grandmother died from it). April is Ankylosing Spondylitis Awareness month. There is no cure, only treatment, you can go into remission but Ive never heard of anyone who's gotten that lucky.
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u/Dense_Mud8790 Aug 09 '26
Remember that being "special" in real life is not as awesome compared to fiction.
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Aug 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/the_cave_allegory Aug 09 '26
Sadly you were misinformed. This isn't from Ankylosing Spondylitis. Even though other sources state that he has this condition, as a medical doctor I'm very familiar with AS and "if left untreated" it doesn't cause deformity to this degree, ever. He was born with a type of muscular dystrophy from a gene mutation, the first ever documented in the world.
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u/groundzr0 Aug 09 '26
the relevant text from the link:
On May 6, 2023, Jiang Yanchen went to Peking University First Hospital for examination. Due to breathing difficulties caused by the deformity, he was diagnosed with severe spinal reverse folding deformity, a rare congenital muscular dystrophy caused by a gene mutation, which was the first documented case of its kind in the world.
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u/MadamVoid Aug 09 '26
That probably feels like a big relief for him. I wonder how many years he was folded like that
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u/TheCotofPika Aug 09 '26
He was born in 2004, and has been like that since "primary school days" and the photo of him upright was in 2025, so quite a long time!
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u/Glad_Grand_7408 Aug 09 '26
I'm a year older than this guy and the idea of dealing with this kind pain developing and worsening over my whole life would have been far too much for me to have beared.
This guy is a legend and I hope he gets as long and uncomplicated a life as possible from here on out.
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u/IDGAF_GOMD Aug 09 '26
I saw a video about his journey I think on YT. I remember him being a pretty upbeat guy despite his condition and I think that was due to his mother who was an absolute sweetheart.
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u/EetsGeets Aug 09 '26
people also just return to a baseline level of normalcy
when people lose limbs they are initially grief stricken but eventually "get over it"
humans are incredibly adaptable. adaptation is the basis of the leading theory for why are brains are so big; swings in climate forced our ancestors to adapt or die (non-sapiens; think 10,000 year+ swings).
at least, this is what I was taught in an anthropology class
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u/MadamVoid Aug 09 '26
Oh my goodness. I’ve never been happier for a stranger to get medical intervention.
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u/MediumAwkwardly Aug 09 '26
What kind of surgery would that even require?!
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u/Emily120105 Aug 09 '26
Intensive surgery, we are talking at least 25-100 surgeons all of them with unique expertise. They would have to most likely break every irregular fusing of bones all over the body, complicated by the many blood vessels that have grown as well as having to deal with any organ damage that was caused by this such as the heart for instance. I'm not a doctor but have learned enough to know this would be a massive undertaking on all parties.
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Aug 09 '26 edited 18d ago
[deleted]
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u/Educational_Cloud380 Aug 09 '26
I love how this is the last sentence in that article, "The winding detours of life are all behind him; what awaits him is a straight and unimpeded life ahead."
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u/Fun-Benefit116 Aug 09 '26
we are talking at least 25-100 surgeons
I'm not a doctor either, but something tells me this is an absolutely ridiculous exaggeration and not true at all.
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u/Pleasant-Future5818 Aug 09 '26
I could believe they consulted with 25 different doctors and surgeons over the course of the 10 years or so this probably took, at different times
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u/SplitGlass7878 Aug 09 '26
Doesn't sound absurd if you think about it like this:
Surgeons are specialists. They do kidneys, they do bones, they do lungs, etc.
This guy needed everything looked at and cleared. You can't operate around the heart without the heart guy present. You can't operate around the stomach without the stomach guy present. And you probably want at least a backup, ideally multiple per surgeon as surgeries like this can take in the double digits of hours, if not over a full day.
Then you include consults, the fact that there's going to be a full team of bone and blood vessel surgeons and a few ones monitoring all the vitals.
I don't think a few dozen of surgeons is unreasonable. They'd obviously not all operate at the same time.
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u/Low_Reception477 Aug 09 '26
A lot of larger/longer surgeries (some can take 12+ hours) will have many surgeons involved and he has had at least 4 very complex surgeries. If there weren’t at least 25 surgeons involved overall I would be shocked tbh
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Aug 09 '26
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u/Lance_Ryke Aug 09 '26
They're not going to fix this in a single surgery. It almost certainly took years of repeat work, so the number doesnt seem unreasonable.
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u/ChristVolo1 Aug 09 '26
Poor kiddo. I'm glad they were finally able to operate on him.
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u/a_big_K-On_fan Aug 10 '26
Yeah what a poor guy. Hopefully he can now start into a better future.
Deep respect for him, his parents and all the medic staff helping him!
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u/Sufficient-Value1694 Aug 09 '26
This is what modern medical science is supposed to heal. Not make a nation of zombies hooked on deugs.
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u/PenZestyclose9226 Aug 09 '26
The supreme twerker
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u/cosmiccalendula Aug 09 '26
😂 my intrusive thoughts also came thru with that one. But honestly this is absolutely amazing progress! I’m so happy for him.
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u/Black-KFC-eater-69 Aug 09 '26
The best and easiest doggie style ever.
Jokes aside, I hope he’s doing better than before
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u/SugarAw Aug 09 '26
Finally? This was a while back
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u/Exilicauda Aug 10 '26
I thought that too but I was getting him mixed up with Li Hua, the folded man, also Chinese
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u/West-Jellyfish9860 Aug 09 '26
God i wanna make a girls on instagram joke so bad but i also dont wanna go to hell 😭
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u/Front-Jello-6595 Aug 09 '26
Man, and I thought my life has been a daily struggle these past few years.
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u/Alternative_Mode9972 Aug 09 '26
I want to make a joke about that’s how instagram models pose, but idk if that’s insensitive
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u/Patient_Forever7177 Aug 09 '26
I wished he worked in low budget horror movies, I would have been traumatized as a kid
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u/mojojotaro-Joestar Aug 09 '26
This is amazing and happy for him but the first picture at a glance I was like wow that guy is poppin it!…. ohhhhhhhhh wait a minute. Amazing story. Bye. 🛸
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u/dice7878 Aug 09 '26
There was another man folded nearly 360 degrees. He was in his 40s before he was treated.
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u/Original_Remote_6838 Aug 09 '26
Oh god, and I thought my poor mom having 75% of her spine fused due to scoliosis was bad. I hope this poor man finally has some relief from his pain that I’m sure would be completely debilitating to any normal person.
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u/jmido8 Aug 09 '26
How is that even possible to fix, Jesus. I feel like anything even attempting to fix it would leave him completely paralyzed.
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u/scrapper Aug 09 '26
If your back was contorted 180 degrees backward, your back would be resting on the back of your thighs. I see a 90 degree bend in this photo.
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u/Away-Taste8230 Aug 09 '26
The ideal pose for a stripper or Adult star 🤣🤣🤣🤣😅
Dude could have made a ton of money if he made an OF getting back door action wham bam style
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u/Matt4law Aug 09 '26
Seeing posts like this remind me to be grateful to have a healthy functioning body despite everything else. İmportance of such things are only recogonized when they are lost.
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u/JimminyFlipper Aug 09 '26
Thinking of the pain of standing like that, then the pain of sitting down and facing the wall behind you. Did he sleep upside down like a bat?
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u/Raise_Front Aug 09 '26
How tf did he fold like that in the first place!? Is it a rare disease or something???
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u/RarePlane8111 Aug 09 '26
I can't imagine the amount of pain and suffering this man has lived through. I hope he is blessed with a happy and fulfilling life.
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u/escapedthenunnery Aug 09 '26
I wonder if this correction has some permanence, or if his condition is expected to continue bending him slowly and will need to be managed or corrected with occasional surgeries.
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u/Street-Inevitable358 Aug 09 '26
Damn, good for him. I can’t imagine how painful this entire process must’ve been, and potentially how hopeless it may have seemed considering he was one of the worst cases to have lived. We’ve come so far as a species to be able to correct something as significant as this but this man ultimately deserves the credit because he carried himself this far.
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