Woman lying in hospital bed
The human body is fascinating and, to this day even, full of mysteries. Did you know there's a condition called Stoneman Syndrome where a person's ligaments slowly transform into bones? Or how about Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome where a person lives their entire life on the brink of orgasm? Or how about Auto-brewery Syndrome, where a person's gut biome naturally creates alcohol out of normal foods and beverages, thereby making them intoxicated without drinking a drop of booze?
The body is capable of extraordinary and extremely bizarre things, that's for sure.
That was certainly the case when 20-year-old Savannah Stuthers went in for a relatively routine cyst removal that turned out to be anything but.
A female patient speaks with her doctorCanva
Stuthers dealt with months of cramps, pain, and even bleeding—which doctors told her was normal after having an IUD inserted—before she couldn't take it anymore and took herself to the emergency room.
There, ER docs discovered a sizable cyst on one of her ovaries. Because the cyst was so large, the OBGYN at the hospital wanted to have it removed as soon as possible. Within a few days, Stuthers went under the knife.
When she woke up from the anesthesia, the doctors had news. Her mom was there to capture the moment Stuthers heard that what was removed from her body was no normal ovarian cyst. It was a teratoma—a unique kind of tumor that grows from germ cells (cells that eventually become sperm or, in Stuthers' case, eggs). Because of their origin, teratomas frequently grow hair and even teeth, along with various kinds of tissue. The teratoma inside Stuthers' ovary had all that, and more... The surgeons even thought Stuther's teratoma may have had an eyeball! (Later testing ruled this out... close call!)
Here's the exact moment Savannah Stuthers learned what had been growing inside of her:
Savannah Struthers was horrified to learn that her cyst was actually not a cyst at all.TikTok
Stuthers posted the photo on TikTok where it went mega-viral to the tune of 34 million views. The morbid curiosity in the comment thread was absolutely off the charts. Many people had never heard of teratomas before, and most of them wish they still hadn't.
"Girl I could have went my entire life without looking up what a teratoma is," one wrote.
"I just looked at photos of teratomas and it made my arm get chills," a user added.
"it's crazy the body can actually create new eyes and teeth and THIS is what it chooses to use that ability for," said another.
Other commenters were just here to applaud the teratoma representation:
"this happened to me, they removed my ovary with the teratoma and my surgeous said it burst on her 😩 I was the first surgery of the day"
"this happened to my sister but there were brain cells in hers, causing her anti bodies to fight off both the teratoma braincells as well as her actual braincells putting her in a coma for 4 months. it was awful."
Of course, there were plenty of jokes, too:
"Why am I picturing Mike Wazoski from Monsters Inc???" one user said.
"Can we see it? ❌ Can it see us? ✅" joked another.
Mostly, people just wanted to know if they could see a picture of the actual teratoma. Stuthers did eventually show a photo briefly in a follow up video, but luckily for us, we can get a better look at these things through a plethora of high-res online images.
Ready? If you're squeamish, you might want to look away now.
A teratoma with lots and lots of hair growth.Ed Uthman, MD. - Public Domain
Stuthers was not about to let her newfound virality go to waste: She set right to work busting myths and misconceptions about teratomas.
Obviously, with 34 million viewers and many who had never heard of teratomas, she was going to get a lot of questions. She also got a lot of opinions that needed correcting.
"Those things form from sperm so tell your man to get a better pull out game or use protection," one commenter said. In a response video, Stuthers simply wags her finger: Uh, no. Teratomas form from germ cells, which can turn into sperm, but they have nothing at all to do with sexual activity.
Another asked if the teratoma formed from a pregnancy gone wrong in the early stages. "So you would've maybe had a viable pregnancy but it didn't make it down into the uterus." Stuthers responded by citing that teratomas are actually congenital tumors, meaning they are present or begin forming prior to birth. So this was lurking in her body for a long time before it reached critical mass and had to be removed, and again, has nothing to do with her sexual activity whatsoever.
(Sorry, one more photo incoming.)
An ovarian teratoma with a long strand of visible hair.E.dronism - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0
In an interview with Newsweek, Stuthers said that discovering the teratoma inside of her made her feel "gross."
"It messed me up for a while thinking about how I never knew that it was there. In a way, it made me feel gross. The photo of the tumor truly altered my brain chemistry," she said. But that couldn't be further from the truth. Teratomas, while admittedly a little freaky and frightening, are really no different than any other kind of tumor. It's their origin from germ cells which makes them capable of growing human tissue, teeth, hair, and eyeball-like structures.
But they're understandably hard to talk about. And so as a result, the general public doesn't understand teratomas very well. But Stuthers is working to change that with her follow-up videos on TikTok.
She also wants to encourage young women to advocate for themselves medically. Doctors dismissed her pain and discomfort for months before she finally went to the ER, and she's urging women to trust their gut and fight for their own bodies:
"I got lucky as we found it in time so nothing too extreme happened. But I can't help but think that if my doctors in Illinois would've listened, I would still have both ovaries. It is so important for women to express our pain and not allow doctors to invalidate us."
This article originally appeared earlier this year. It has been updated.
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