For the past 17 years, a woman in Sengata, East Kutai, has claimed to periodically grow steely wires of up to 20 centimeters in length from her chest and belly.

"Thousands of wires have and grown and fallen from my body since 1991," the 40-year-old Noorsyaidah told The Jakarta Post recently.

"It is very painful when the wires are about to come out from the pores," she said in Samarinda, where she had come from her village for a medical check-up at A Wahab Syahranie Hospital.

IRON WOMAN: Noorsyaidah, a 40-year-old woman from Samarinda, East Kalimantan, shows metal wires protruding from her body in a photo taken earlier this month. She says the wire-hanger-like metal has grown, fallen out and grown anew on her body for the last 17 years. 

She said she had given many of the wires to researchers, doctors, or visitors for research, diagnostic purposes or as curios.

The hospital, which conducted an X-ray photo earlier this month, diagnosed the symptoms as "unusual in the medical world".

"We call the wires alien things.... This is really a very unusual case," hospital director Sirafuddin said.

Sirafuddin said the hospital suggested surgery to remove the wires, but Noor declined, despite having pursued a number of alternative treatments to no avail.

Noor said that last week three more wires came out, two on her chest and the other on her belly. The hospital reports there are currently a total of 35 wires protruding from Noor's body.

"God probably wants to show His Almightiness through this odd disease," Noor.

Noor, who is a graduate of Mulawarman University's school of social and political sciences, has been nicknamed the "wire woman".

She said she decided not to get married because she did not want to disappoint a man because of the condition.

She said that to prevent the wires from hurting her skin, she wore the upper part of a two-piece mukena, the loose clothing worn by Muslim women when praying, and trousers only up to her lower abdomen.

The wires, she said, do not stop her from conducting daily activities. As a Muslim, she added, she never forgot to perform the shalat prayers five times a day. She also joins preaching forums in Sengata.

Noor teaches autistic children at a foundation in Sengata that provides education to children with developmental disabilities. In the afternoons, she gives private courses to some of her students.

"I'm emotionally very close to my students. I feel I'm useful among them," she said.

"I'll keep struggling for my recovery. I want the best for me," said Noor, adding that she was hoping to go overseas to seek treatment with the help of a benefactor.

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