Alex Lewis Regains Face After Losing His Limbs and Lips to a Deadly Infection

Alex Lewis has managed to beat a rare flesh-eating infection and regain his lips after losing it to the disease. This escape from death has come at a considerable cost to him as he had lost all his limbs to the necrotizing fasciitis infection. What happened in 2013, when a series of infections debilitated him from head to toe?

The infection which he thought to be just a cold, turned out to be a very rare flesh-eating infection and it was all downhill from then. The effect of the chain reaction of the infections in his body was very bad; it had left with only three percent chance of survival.

But after a series of 18 operations, six months later he slowly started on his road to recovery. According to Mr. Lewis’s surgeon, his injuries were similar to a person who could have been a bomb explosion. She even said that he was an extreme survivor from any point of view.

Even after enduring an incredible amount of bodily damage, Mr.lewis didn’t give up, He even jokes about his chances of survival, but his optimism pulled him through. “It's very rare. I had more chance of winning the National Lottery than I did of getting this,” he said.

Necrotising fasciitis infection can be devastating because it causes your cells and tissues to die and what is even worse that the skin that is lost can never be regained because of gangrene.

One day when Alex Lewis woke up in the middle of the night, he found blood in his urine and the very next day he wasn’t able to move. He was immediately rushed to the hospital as his skin started turning purple. The infection rate was so high that they had to amputate all his limbs and his lips to save him.

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After the incident, the doctors found out that the infection had been attacking his organ all this time. His condition started becoming worse after that discovery; he was put under intensive care after it.

Irreversible damage to his face and limbs was caused by the infection; his legs had started becoming black in just after a few days in the hospital. Initially, after this, he thought he wasn’t going to survive, but after the amputation of all the limbs and some part of the lip, the infection was brought to a control.

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Mr. Lewis’s family was distraught and devasted during the whole ordeal to watch him deteriorate over a matter of a few weeks because of the rare infection. Moments in the hospitals were even hard to take for Lewis’s son who was afraid to see his father in such a disfigured state.

A ‘new’ set of lips had to be created by Alexandra Crick, Mr. Lewis’s plastic surgeon from a patch of skin on his shoulder, she referred this surgery as a very “brutal” surgery.

“Having my bottom and top lip done at the same time like this was a world first. It’s one piece of skin, and it was like if you imagine placing a bag in your mouth and then sewing around the edges,” said Mr.lewis

Lips, in this case, were made from naturally fatter skin and his shoulder, so they were of different color. Ms. Crick who performed all the 18 operations was extremely relieved with the results as she explained: “Muscle was preserved with its nerve supply and functions so that Alex can seal his lips and open his mouth allowing speech, eating and drinking, oral hygiene.”

At last, he even got his mouth tattooed by a medical tattoo artist to give him realistic looking red lips, freckles, and even stubble marks to blend that area into the rest of his face.

He says that he feels unique now as he is the only one with a face like that.

Source-Eurekalert