Kriti Mehrotra
With TLC’s ‘Most Extreme Humans’ centering on individuals with the rarest medical and physical conditions, we get a genuine insight into their daily challenges as well as life experiences. Among them are ischiopagus twins Charoonphan “Pan” Romphoyen and Charoonroj “Pin” Romphoiyen in the episode titled ‘On Your Side’ because they are connected at the abdomen and pelvis. According to records, ischiopagus is a rare type of medical condition where conjoined twins often face in opposite directions while sharing the lower part of their spine, primarily the coccyx and the sacrum.
Pan and Pin Romphoiyen Have Primarily Been Raised by Their Loving Grandmother
Pan and Pin Romphoiyen were born in 2009 in the beautiful province of Nakhon Sawan in north-central Thailand, changing the world for their parents, their grandparents, and their elder sister. As per the twins’ own accounts, their birth was quite complicated, so they spent their first two months in the hospital before they were deemed strong enough to go home with their loving, devoted family. The doctors initially wanted to separate them as they believed it would improve their quality of life, but their loved ones refused upon hearing the 50-50 survival rate due to their fused spines.
Pan and Pin’s grandmother, Noknoi Pongchamnan, has actually been the one raising them from the moment they came into this world because she knew they would need unwavering care. She said in an interview on ‘Born Different’ that the twins’ parents both work nights and knew they “wouldn’t be able to look after” them as needed, so she became their full-time guardian. “It was challenging in the beginning,” she candidly added, “because I have only ever raised a one-headed child. Then, I had to learn how to carry two at the same time.” She claimed there was even some outside discouragement at the time, but she didn’t listen and proudly powered through.
Pan and Pin thus credit their grandmother for almost everything, especially in how they have learned to navigate their daily lives, lead relatively independent lives, and do their own chores. In fact, Noknoi is the one who encouraged them to balance their combined weight on their 2 legs, walk without support at age 7, and care for themselves in the areas of personal hygiene and health. She even taught them to cook when they were merely 10 years old, all the while also keeping up with their educational needs. She initially enrolled them in a special-needs school, but upon realizing it wasn’t really helping their development, she transferred them to a general public school.
Pan and Pin Romphoiyen Already Know The Path They Wish to Pursue as a Career
Although Pan and Pin started attending a general school around age 11 or 12, they were not at the same academic level as their peers and struggled to catch up, per the TLC show. However, they are incredibly talented in the world of arts — while Pan is an extraordinary singer and has an innate passion for music, her much girlier counterpart, twin sister Pin, is a drawing artist. Therefore, the artistic and creative entertainment industry is the one they wish to pursue a career in without hesitation, albeit in a broadly unconventional way. From what we can tell, the twins graduated earlier this year, in late March 2026, and have no plans to pursue further studies.
Instead, Pan and Pin have likely already joined their father’s lion-and-dragon dance troop full-time, which they had begun helping with in their early teenage years. According to Manus Romphoiyen, his girls are “very capable” as they have been presenting work and finding jobs for the troop across the nation since they were merely 13-14 years old. Along with that, while Pin has long had the responsibility of dancing with the crystal ball to lure the dragon into movements, Pan has been playing the cymbals for years.
“Being in the dance troop, we get to travel to different provinces,” Pan said on the show. “Some people look at us strangely. If we care too much about them, we can’t live our own lives. Listening to other people too much can really affect our mental health.” She and Pin also admitted that being a part of the dance troop full-time is a dream because they not only want to carry on the family legacy but also truly love the creative aspects involved. They do worry about how they’ll be able to carry on with it over the years as their bodies continue to grow, especially on just their two shared legs, but they are determined not to let it impact their current standing.
Read More: José Armando and José Luis: Where Are the Conjoined Twins Now?
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