Topics: Health, Celebrity, Mental Health, Film and TV
Reality TV star Brandi Glanville might have finally solved the mystery of what has caused her drastic facial transformation, which cost her $130,000, five teeth, and her mental health.
The former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cast member opened up about her terrifying experience with what she called a facial 'parasite' earlier this year, sharing candid pictures of her disfigurement to show how the illness had affected her.
Glanville, 53, had initially been told that the 'crazy lumps' appearing on her face were a side-effect of having work done, but has spent thousands over the past two years trying to diagnose what she believes could be a parasite.
"I felt like something was just eating me from the inside," she told US Weekly over the summer.
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But after months of dental reconstruction and further medical investigation says she has now received a diagnosis and can begin the path to recovery.
At an event in Sherman Oaks on Friday, December 5, Glanville appeared to be much happier about her two-year medical issue after finally getting a diagnosis - which she hasn't revealed the details of.
"I have a long road ahead of me to get fully better, but I finally have an answer, so I’m just thrilled," she told TMZ , while promising to finally tell her fans more about her condition 'soon'.
The 53-year-old previously told the outlet how the journey had been a nightmare that had destroyed her confidence, saying: "It’s been hell. I’ve turned into an introvert.
"Leaving my house, I get the worst anxiety because I’ve been in my house for two years.”
Glanville had 'exhausted' her credit cards and even went to celebrity plastic surgeon and Real Housewives of Orange County husband Dr Terry Dubrow at the start of this year, with the hopes of finally getting her believed parasite diagnosed.
However, Dr Dubrow later told TMZ that Glanville's facial agony was a result of 'an infectious process or a foreign body reaction to something she's had injected'. This would make her infection bacterial or fungal, rather than parasitic.
This medical scepticism even prompted some of Glanville's fans to wonder if she had developed delusional parasitosis, a condition that makes people believe their body is infested with parasites.
Glanville had doubled down on this notion, even pointing the finger at Bravo for her believed infestation, claiming to have been infected with a previously unknown human ectoparasite while filming Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip in Morocco.
The former international model has said previously that she had named the parasite 'Caroline', after her nemesis Caroline Manzo, who stars in the New Jersey franchise.
Surprisingly, fellow Girls Trip-er Vicki Gunvalson from Orange County has also reported problems with parasites that she links to the Bravo holiday in North Africa.
63-year-old Gunvalson told SiriusXM that she '100 percent' had a parasite after the trip.
"We all got sick when we went to Morocco," she said; although her parasite made her 'feel bloated' and not 'the same.'
