Conjoined twins Carmen & Lupita Andrade reveal what it’s like to share a body – from getting drunk to being intimate
CONJOINED twins Carmen and Lupita Andrade have revealed the secrets of what it’s like to share a body in a tell-all Q&A.
The sisters, 23, who moved to the US from Mexico when they were two, have gone viral for their big reveal video in which they hit back at strangers who repeatedly ask the same inappropriate questions.
The siblings, now living in Connecticut, have their own arms but share organs and limbs below the waist.
That unfortunately means some certain questions crop up more than others but they have now opened up on their bond in a very revealing Q&A.
In the video uploaded to TikTok, Carmen and Lupita cover all kinds of topics from what it’s like to get drunk to what happens when they die.
“If one of us is tired, we both don’t have to both be tired because we have two separate brains,” Carmen begins the FAQ.
“Yes, one of us can be awake and one of us can be asleep because, again, different brains. We are two separate people,” she said.
Lupita also dispels any theories they can control each others limbs but reveals how they still have the ability to drive.
“Yes, I can drive,” said Carmen. “I have the right foot so I drive.”
When it comes to alcohol consumption, both sisters will get drunk even if only one of them drinks because they share the same bloodstream.
However, as they have their own separate stomach, they feel full at different rates.
They also highlight that despite sharing the same body, they still register as two different individuals.
“We’re still two different people,” Carmen reminded followers. “So we have two separate ID’s and ID numbers and social security numbers and all that stuff.”
As expected, the pair receive continuous questions over their love and sex life, especially because Carmen has been in a relationship for the last three years.
But she quickly reminds everyone that her boyfriend, Daniel, is only dating her and not Lupita as well.
Nonetheless, Daniel and Lupita, who is asexual, are good friends and often stay up late at night talking while Carmen is asleep.
“It’s funny because I stay up later than Lupita, but when Daniel’s sleeps over, I fall asleep quickly — and he stays up talking with her,” Carmen shared.
She also addressed the topic of sex, explaining how her and Lupita share a reproductive system.
She explained, for example, how they both have endometriosis and experience pelvic pain.
“So you do the math of your weird inappropriate questions about sex,” she quipped.
Unfortunately for the pair, the twins aren’t able to have children, although they revealed it does not bother them regardless.
“We can’t have kids, we don’t want kids and my partner feels the same way,” Carmen explained.
Speaking about the severity of their condition, however, the twins reveal the looming threat of contracting sepsis.
“We share a bloodstream, so eventually sepsis will kick in and obviously within hours or days the other one will die,’ Carmen explained.”
She added: “But we’re not dead, so why always ask us that?”
The sisters are also unable to undergo separation surgery because they “share” so many “internal structures”, meaning the risk of death for one or both of them is too high.
But on a more positive note, the sister’s claim to never get sick of each other and will always do their own things if they want some time to themselves.
“Sometimes at the end of the day, we’re just exhausted and we don’t want to talk,” Carmen said. “That’s when we’ll go on different devices and do our own thing.”
“I have my laptop to do schoolwork, and Lupita will put on headphones and listen to music or go on her phone.
“We’ve been conjoined our whole life, so it’s not like we miss our independence. It’s all we’ve ever known, right?”
What are conjoined twins?
CONJOINED twins are two babies who are born physically connected to each other.
They develop when an early embryo only partially separates to form two individuals.
Although two babies develop from this embryo, they remain physically connected – most often at the chest, abdomen or pelvis.
Dicephalic parapagus is a rare form of partial twinning that involves having two heads on one torso.
The twins have a single body and below the waist, all the organs are shared, including the intestine, genitalia and bladder.
Conjoined twins are very rare and occur on average once every 50,000 to 100,000 births.
Most dicephalic twins are stillborn, or die soon after birth.