Former Texas beauty queen with rare disease wakes with British accent
BUCKEYE, Arizona -- Michelle Myers said she went to bed one night with a blinding headache only to wake up with a foreign accent.
The former Texas beauty queen now lives in Arizona, and says she suffers from a rare condition that has changed the way she speaks three times.
She's gone from an American English accent to speaking with an Irish, Australian, even British accent, KNXV-TV reports.
It's called Foreign Accent Syndrome, and Myers says it's a very real condition.
"They send in the psychiatrist at hospital and make sure you're not a loon," Myers said. "Who would do this for attention? I don't know."
Doctors say the syndrome is a rare condition that usually accompanies a stroke, neurological damage, or underlying health issue.
For Myers, she points to her diagnosis of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which caused her chronic pain from childhood into adulthood.
Her condition causes bruising and painful joints, bone-deep aches and pains, and could also have triggered her British accent.
"I feel like a different person," Myers said. "The person I am now has been through so much, compared to the person here."
Myers said in spite of people who seek to discredit or question her story, she lives a good life surrounded by her seven children.
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