The Connecticut woman who was mauled by her friend’s pet chimpanzee is back in the hospital because her body is rejecting her face transplant.
Charla Nash, 62, was hospitalized this week following a “moderate rejection episode” that left doctors scrambling for answers.
Despite the scare, officials at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston — where Nash was being treated Wednesday — said her face was not in jeopardy and that what she experienced was something that tends to happen to transplant patients.
“Charla is currently experiencing a moderate rejection episode, which face transplant patients experience on occasion,” explained Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, director of plastic surgery transplantation.
“Overall, she is doing well,” he said in a statement. “We expect this rejection episode to be resolved within the coming week.”
Dr. Eduardo D. Rodriguez, chair of the Hansjörg Wyss Department of Plastic Surgery at NYU Langone, told The Post that Nash’s doctors will likely adjust her medication in an attempt to reverse the rejection.
“An acute rejection episode can present itself when adjusting immunesupression medications and for this reason it is monitored regularly,” he said. “An acute rejection episode can appear as a rash and it is typically treated by adjusting the medication regimen.”
Doctors at Brigham and Women’s Hospital said they first learned Nash’s body was rejecting her transplant after performing a biopsy Monday.
She had been participating in a military-funded research study designed to determine whether it is possible for patients to be weaned off anti-rejection medication, which she had been taking since she received her new face in 2011.
“I appreciate everyone’s concern,” Nash said in a statement. “I feel perfect. I didn’t even know I was having a rejection episode.”
Nash lost her nose, lips, eyelids and hands when she was attacked by her friend Sandy Herold’s 200-pound pet chimp, Travis, in 2009.