People stop Ed Brown, aka Big Ed, on the street all the time when they recognize the "90 day Fiancé" star. But even before he started appearing on the TLC reality series, Brown was used to drawing attention from strangers for a different reason. "Since I was a young child, young adults and kids especially, they would always stare at me.
They just have always found me kind of interesting. And I think it was due to my physical characteristics," Brown tells TODAY.com.
The 59-year-old is referring to his short neck and larger-than-normal rib cage, two of the most common physical attributes of someone with Klippel-Feil syndrome (KFS). Klippel-Feil syndrome is "a condition in which you have two or more neck bones (vertebrae) fused together." Spine abnormalities are normal with KFS, and symptoms include a short neck, limited range of motion in the neck and a low back-of-head hairline.
Treatments may include surgery and devices to protect the spine. KFS is rare, and the Cleveland Clinic estimates that the condition affects only one in 40,000-42,000 newborns worldwide. Brown lives Klippel-Feil syndrome, which means that he has multiple neck bones fused together, giving him the appearance of a short neck.
It's not known what causes the condition. Because of its rare nature, Brown wasn’t diagnosed with KFS until he was a teenager. However, a doctor did once tell Brown’s parents that their newborn son would experience “a lot of complications” when he got older.
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