In Western countries, there’s been an explosion in neurological diseases—including early-onset dementia—that can’t be explained by longer life spans. It turns out that some brain disorders have such bizarre symptoms that they’re sometimes mistaken for psychiatric conditions.

10Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis

For many patients, anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis—a recently discovered autoimmune disease that causes the brain to swell—initially presents psychiatric symptoms such as hallucinations, violent outbursts, and delusions. Patients appear to be possessed by demons, and most of them will develop seizures and involuntary movements within a few days.

But the neurological symptoms may be subtle and easy to miss. Dr. Souhel Najjar, an anti-NMDA expert, believes that as many as 90 percent of these cases have been misdiagnosed. “There could be people in comas right now, or people stuck in psych wards, that have this disease and aren’t being treated properly,” said Emily Gavigan—an anti-NMDA patient—to CBS Eyewitness News.

One 24-year-old woman, Susannah Cahalan, spent over $1 million in hospital care with top doctors, but they repeatedly misdiagnosed her condition. She had seizures and hallucinations—grunting like an animal, she would kick and punch people. She thought newscasters were discussing her on TV. Then Dr. Najjar entered the scene and asked her to draw a clock face. When she drew all the numbers on one side, Dr. Najjar knew she had inflammation on the right side of her brain. Susannah was treated just in time to save her from a coma and death.

Although Susannah recovered with no brain damage, not everyone is so lucky. Even with treatment, approximately 7 percent of patients die, and others are left with mild to severe brain damage. Anti-NMDA can be treated with immunotherapy, but there’s no cure—only remission. A relapse requires more treatment.

Anti-NMDA has spurred Dr. Najjar to investigate other presumed psychiatric illnesses—such as bipolar disease, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and schizophrenia—to see if they, too, are actually physical illnesses caused by inflammation of the brain.

9Othello Syndrome

Othello syndrome (OS) is named after the Shakespearean character Othello, who killed his wife, Desdemona, because he believed that she was having an affair. OS patients develop the same stubborn delusions of suspicion and jealousy toward their spouses and constantly accuse them of infidelity. Some patients even have hallucinations of their spouse having sex with someone else.

OS usually begins around age 68, with about 77 percent of patients having a neurological disease affecting one of the brain’s frontal lobes—usually the right one. Sometimes, OS is brought on by the use of dopamine therapy for Parkinson’s disease. If that’s the cause, then reducing or stopping the medication may alleviate the symptoms of OS.

In Lewy body dementia (LBD), the symptoms of OS may continue (or even start) after the death of a spouse. LBD includes Parkinson’s disease and dementia caused by protein deposits—called Lewy bodies—in the nerve cells of your brain.

One 42-year-old man, who was being treated with dopamine agonists for Parkinson’s, began to insist on having frequent sex with his wife. Accusing her of infidelity, he obsessively stared at his driveway because he was convinced that a fictional lover was going to pick her up and have sex with her somewhere else. He lost thousands of dollars to sudden gambling impulses and couldn’t control his spending habit, either.

Also like Othello, OS patients can become dangerously violent. Men with OS have tried to strangle their wives or start fights with neighborhood men suspected of being their wives’ lovers.

8Sensory Desynchronization

“PH”—a retired pilot in his sixties—was the first confirmed patient with sensory desynchronization, where a person hears voices before people speak. For PH, life is like watching a movie with the sound and picture out of sync. He even hears his own voice before he feels his mouth move. Brain scans revealed one lesion in his midbrain and another in his brain stem. Both of these parts are associated with hearing, movement, and timing.

Scientists believe our brains process sight and sound at different rates to compensate for the different speeds at which light and sound travel. For most of us, our brains do the work when syncing voices with lip movement. But for PH, there’s now a quarter-second delay between hearing a voice and seeing someone’s mouth move. To sync them up, scientists played clips of people whose voice sounded 210 milliseconds before their lips moved.

No one knows how the human brain is able to unify our perceptions of sight and sound. But it does mean that each of us has more than one clock in our brain. If these clocks don’t work together correctly, the soundtrack to our lives may go out of sync with our visual reality.

7Ecstatic Epileptic Seizures

An ecstatic epileptic seizure—or ecstatic aura if it occurs in the first moments of a seizure—was described by the famous epileptic novelist, Fyodor Dostoevsky: “I would experience such joy as would be inconceivable in ordinary life . . . I would feel the most complete harmony in myself and in the whole world and this feeling was so strong and sweet that for a few seconds of such bliss I would give 10 or more years of my life, even my whole life perhaps.”

A 53-year-old female teacher described her ecstatic seizure by saying, “The feeling was almost out of this world. This led to a feeling of complete serenity, total peace, no worries; it felt beautiful, everything was great . . . Maybe the closest sensation that I know would be an orgasm, but what I felt was not at all sexual . . . it was almost religious.” She went on to say that she no longer fears death and sees the world more vibrantly than she did before.

Some scientists believe ecstatic seizures explain what happens during near-death experiences. No one knows for sure what’s going on there, but researchers do know that ecstatic seizures only happen to about 1–2 percent of temporal lobe epilepsy patients. All these patients report a heightened sense of well-being and enhanced self-awareness. Some also report holding on to a moment in time, feeling serene and blissful yet sometimes overloaded by the intensity of what’s happening.

Often, these seizures start in one of the brain’s temporal lobes. Some neurologists believe that the insular cortex—which is under the temporal lobe—is really where the activity occurs. Unlike the temporal lobes, the anterior insula is supposed to be linked to our feelings—both good and bad.

6Misophonia

Sufferers of misophonia fly into rages at small noises that most of us disregard or don’t notice: gum chewing, soup slurping, and soft footsteps, among others. Their hearts pound, their fists clench, and their bodies seem to explode with uncontrollable fury or anxiety. Unlike hyperacusis patients—who perceive all sounds as unbearably loud—misophonia patients are fine with loud noises. It’s the soft ones they can’t stand.

Misophonia usually starts during late childhood or in the early teenage years. Over time, the condition gets worse and patients acquire more trigger sounds—even breathing can set some people off. Sufferers don’t outgrow the condition. As a patient named Adah Siganoff said, “It’s all about the reaction. The rage. The anger. Not being able to stop it. For people with this disorder, the sound is like 200 people pulling their fingernails down a chalkboard at the same time. It’s that same intensity and it’s very overwhelming.”

Many of these patients have been misdiagnosed with psychiatric conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder. But some doctors are beginning to recognize misophonia as a neurological disease that may be caused by faulty brain wiring in the area that causes emotions. Many other doctors still don’t believe in misophonia—for now, treatment options are limited and largely ineffective. Most patients have to cope as best they can by eating alone or by releasing tension through screaming. Some people use earplugs to block out the sounds.

5Developmental Topographical Disorientation

Imagine getting lost every day—even in your own home—and you may have some idea how Sharon Roseman of Littleton, Colorado feels. Now in her sixties, Sharon has struggled with developmental topographical disorientation (DTD) since she was five years old. DTD is a rare neurological illness that leaves a person unable to orient herself or navigate anywhere. When Sharon couldn’t recognize her house as a little girl, her mother warned, “Don’t tell anybody because they’ll say you’re a witch and they’ll burn you.”

Sharon complied, not even telling her husband about her condition. It got so bad that she would have trouble finding her children at night when they cried. When she drives a car, curved streets and angles leave her disorientated as do oceans, lakes, and swimming pools. As Sharon described the experience, “It’s almost as if somebody picks up the entire world, turns it, and sets it back down.”

When Sharon first sought medical help at age 29, she saw a psychologist. But he couldn’t treat her disorientation. She was later told she might have a brain tumor or possibly epilepsy. This, too, turned out to be false. Then she met Guiseppe Iaria, a neuroscience professor at the University of Calgary. Dr. Iaria had published the first paper about DTD in 2008, and thus he knew exactly what Sharon was going through.

Doctors aren’t sure exactly what happens to a DTD patient’s brain. Scans don’t reveal any atrophied or shriveled areas. But Jeffrey Taube, a professor from Dartmouth College, believes that the mapping processes in different areas of a DTD brain aren’t communicating with each other properly, and that their internal compasses have short-circuited.

Currently, there’s no cure for DTD. Until then, Sharon is simply relieved that she can finally explain her condition to others without being called crazy or a witch.

4Musical Hallucinations

A woman simply identified as “Sylvia” heard a piano playing outside her house one day. But there was no piano—Sylvia was actually experiencing a musical hallucination. These sound real enough to convince the patient that a live band or choir is in an adjoining room. Over time, Sylvia’s hallucinations became almost constant, featuring long melodies from classical composers like Rachmaninoff.

Psychiatric conditions like depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and schizophrenia can cause musical hallucinations. But in most cases, it’s not psychosis. It’s simply an older person with a hearing impairment whose brain incorrectly predicts what they’re hearing. At least, that’s the theory of doctors who’ve studied Sylvia and other patients like her.

Sylvia eventually discovered that listening to real music would briefly stop the hallucinations. By imaging her brain both when live music was playing and when it was not, doctors were able to identify which regions showed stronger activity as the hallucinations got louder. Based on these studies, doctors now believe that our brains only hear one actual note or chord. It will then predict the following notes based on past experience. If our brains predict incorrectly, the next actual sound will cause our brains to make an entirely new prediction to minimize errors.

When someone has a hearing impairment, the brain receives fewer sound inputs and makes more prediction errors. As the mistakes increase in number, they begin to feel and sound very real to the patient. Doctors believe patients are most likely to hallucinate music because it’s organized and thus easier for the brain to predict than random noise.

3Huntington’s Disease

Caused by a mutation in the Huntingtin gene, Huntington’s disease (HD) is a rare inherited disorder that breaks down nerve cells in the brain over time, affecting a patient’s behavior and movement. Musician Woody Guthrie died of the disease after being misdiagnosed for years. So far, there is no cure.

Some people, like Katharine Moser, get tested young to find out if they have the genetic defect that causes HD—which usually doesn’t manifest until middle age. Sadly, many HD patients are afraid to admit they have the disease—both because they don’t want to face it and because they’re afraid of discrimination in the workplace and elsewhere. As Ms. Moser’s mother said, “Nobody has compassion. People look at you like you’re strange, and ‘What’s wrong with you?’ ”

Katharine Moser had seen the ravages of the disease on her grandfather when she was younger. His body jerked involuntarily, and he would have violent outbursts. One time, he entered the kitchen without any clothes on except for the underwear on his head.

In its early stages, HD symptoms vary among patients. Generally, though, the younger the patient when symptoms begin, the faster HD progresses. Mood swings are an early symptom. The HD sufferer may become depressed, irritable, apathetic, or angry. HD may also impact a person’s memory, judgment, and learning ability. Over time, their intellect will be increasingly affected.

For other patients, the first signs are uncontrollable movements in the face, feet, fingers, or trunk. There may also be balance or clumsiness problems. Over time, basic functions such as eating, speaking, and walking will decline. For now, death is the inevitable outcome.

2Frontotemporal Dementia

While Alzheimer’s begins with memory loss that later gives way to behavioral problems, Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) does just the opposite. By first killing nerve cells in the frontal lobes, FTD begins with behavioral problems. Then, as the damage spreads around the brain, the patient’s memory fades. Over time, Alzheimer’s and FTD present almost exactly the same way.

FTD often strikes victims 45–65 years old—younger than Alzheimer’s usually does. The behavioral variant known as bvFTD has early symptoms that mimic psychiatric conditions the most. Physically, FTD results in atrophy of the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. But as with all forms of dementia, it robs its victims of their lives, loves, and dignity. As one family member said, “Being a caregiver in this disease is a grieving process while the person is still alive.”

Barbara Whitmarsh, a former scientist at the National Institutes of Health, was married for three decades and had six children with her husband, John. Eventually, though, John noticed severe changes in his wife that were caused by her FTD. He said, “Her ability to feel empathy, her personality, it just disappeared over a period of time.” She also gained 15 kilograms (30 lb) in one year.

With bvFTD, patients may develop abnormal appetites for sweets. They’re also prone to violent outbursts, loss of inhibitions, and poor emotional judgment. They can become hyperactive, hypersexual, and impulsive. But perhaps the hardest symptom for families to cope with is the patient’s loss of feeling for the people around them. What’s worse—FTD patients typically don’t recognize the changes in their behavior.

Barbara Whitmarsh no longer recognizes her family members and speaks only rarely. She’s been confined to a locked nursing home, where she never stops moving.

1McLeod Syndrome

Caused by an inherited mutation in the XK gene, McLeod syndrome is a neurological disease that typically starts in midlife and only affects about 150 men in the world. Half the patients have seizures, while other symptoms include muscle weakness and atrophy, involuntary jerking of the legs and arms, grimacing, and vocalizations like grunting and mental deterioration.

But it’s the odd changes in behavior that may cause doctors to mistake McLeod syndrome for a psychiatric disease. Some of the early symptoms are depression, anxiety, and severe emotional instability—including a lack of self-restraint. There is no cure, but treatments can address symptoms.

According to Southern Methodist University researchers, McLeod syndrome may have been the real reason King Henry VIII of England beheaded two of his six wives. Initially, Henry VIII was strong, athletic, and generous. At around 40 years of age, he began to experience weakness and atrophy in his legs that eventually caused immobility. He also descended into psychotic paranoia, ultimately beheading his wives.

McLeod syndrome is specific to the Kell blood group, which may also explain the difficult pregnancies of Henry VIII’s wives and mistresses. They were pregnant with at least 11 of his children, but only four lived past infancy. If Henry VIII carried the Kell antigen in his blood, and his women didn’t, then they would only be able to have a healthy first child before losing every one thereafter.

+Alien Hand Syndrome

The corpus callosum is a band of nerve fibers that lets the right and left hemispheres of the brain communicate with each other. Sometimes, a surgeon must cut the callosum of an epilepsy patient’s brain in order to help stop seizures. Most patients recover normally from this procedure. But some end up with the two halves of their brain operating independently of one another. Quite possibly, they’ll end up waging war on each other, like an alien has taken control of one side of the body. This, appropriately enough, is known as alien hand syndrome (AHS).

Nobel prize-winning scientist Roger Sperry filmed an AHS patient arranging blocks to match a pattern on a picture. The patient’s left hand—which was controlled by the right half of the brain—did a good job. The right hand, though, couldn’t do it. What’s more—when the left hand attempted to help the right, they started fighting with each other like a couple of squabbling kids.

Karen Byrne’s epilepsy was cured by cutting her corpus callosum. But one day, her doctor noticed her left hand was opening her shirt buttons with Karen being completely unaware of it. After rebuttoning her shirt with her right hand, her left hand began to undress her again.

Sometimes, an alien hand will punch or slap the patient. Or, if a patient’s legs decide to go in different directions, that person will end up walking around in circles as the two brain halves engage in a power struggle. Luckily, Karen’s doctors have finally found a way to control her symptoms with medication.

Any condition that causes painful symptoms is obviously quite frustrating, but imagine how magnified that frustration becomes when a doctor expresses that the pain is just “in your head.” Such is the case with the following 10 conditions, all of which cause painful and sometimes debilitating physical symptoms yet are believed to be completely psychological in nature.

10Exploding Head Syndrome

The condition known as EHS causes sufferers to perceive “a sense of explosion in the head, confined to the hours of sleep, which is harmless but very frightening for the sufferer.” The perception of explosion often occurs as the sufferer is falling asleep but may also cause the sufferer to violently awaken in the middle of sleep. Other symptoms include flashes of light, an intense feeling of heat, chest pain, and the feeling of an electrical sensation throughout the body.

While the condition has been around as far back as the late 1800s, there is little that a medical doctor can offer in the way of help for the physical symptoms generated by EHS. So far, doctors have found that simple reassurance is seemingly the best treatment, and one sufferer’s symptoms ceased due to his doctor’s assurance that his EHS was “nothing more than an inconvenience.” Causes for EHS are believed to include common issues such as stress and fatigue, with other sleep disorders also considered as likely playing a role.

9Fibromyalgia

There are a host of physical symptoms associated with fibromyalgia, including widespread pain throughout the body, fatigue, depression, and headaches. Despite this, there is still the belief in the medical community that the condition is all in the minds of the sufferers. According to Gerard Mesill, M.D., “People with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) suffer not only from constant, widespread pain, but they also sometimes face judgment and distrust from medical professionals who doubt if their condition is real. They are labeled as annoying and needy. In the literal sense, insult is added to injury.”

There is no lab testing available to confirm whether a patient has fibromyalgia, and while doctors used to use a “tender point exam,” all that is necessary for a diagnosis is for the patient to have “widespread pain for more than three months—with no underlying medical condition that could cause the pain.” Doctors do use blood testing to eliminate other conditions as a possible cause, and though recent estimates have indicated that five million people suffer from fibromyalgia in the US alone, there are still many doctors who express disbelief at the existence of the condition altogether.

8Somatization Disorder

Somatization disorder is particularly troubling to patients since the disorder creates an endless cycle of widespread pain due to anxiety over the condition. The physical symptoms of the disorder are far too many to list but include amnesia, diarrhea, dizziness, headaches, paralysis, and changes in vision. While the symptoms of the disorder are seemingly limitless, the absence of any identifiable physical cause has led many doctors to believe that the disorder is simply psychological, and it is therefore frequently dismissed altogether.

Because of the lack of an identifiable physical cause, it is recommended that patients suffering from the disorder undergo some form of psychotherapy and perhaps antidepressant medications as well. Some studies have theorized that this disorder and several other similar disorders may be rooted in neurocircuitry.

7Conversion Disorder

While the issues associated with conversion disorder are quite severe, the circumstances surrounding the disorder are still less bleak than in the 17th century, when many sufferers of conversion disorder—then referred to as hysteria—were thought to have been practicing witchcraft and were therefore executed by being burned at the stake. Though the ancient Greeks were far less punitive to sufferers of the disorder, they believed that it occurred as a result of the “uterus wandering into the body.”

Though many years have passed since sufferers were thought to have a “wandering uterus” or have been practicing witchcraft, the belief is still that conversion disorder is a psychological disorder that results in some very serious physical symptoms, including seizures, blindness, and paralysis. Those afflicted with conversion disorder have often experienced something traumatic, and this trauma is often repressed in some manner. The disorder is not common, as it is estimated to affect only 0.03 percent of the population.

6Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Sufferers of chronic fatigue syndrome have a great deal of difficulty getting an accurate diagnosis of their condition and therefore are often forced to deal with the very real physical symptoms without adequate treatment. The feeling that chronic fatigue syndrome—which results in serious and debilitating physical symptoms—is just a psychological disorder is so widespread that the Institute of Medicine felt it necessary to “put to rest, once and for all, the idea that this is just psychosomatic or that people were making this up, or that they were just lazy.”

According to the report issued by the Institute of Medicine, as many as 2.5 million Americans deal with symptoms caused by chronic fatigue syndrome, including “profound fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, sleep abnormalities, autonomic manifestations, pain, and other symptoms that are made worse by exertion of any sort.”

Due to doubts regarding the very existence of chronic fatigue syndrome, the report noted that less than 33 percent of medical schools even include the condition in curricula, and the condition is not so much as mentioned in 60 percent of medical textbooks, leading sufferers of the condition to encounter “skepticism of health care providers about the serious nature of [chronic fatigue syndrome] and the misconception that it is a psychogenic illness or even a figment of the patient’s imagination.”

5Retired Husband Syndrome

This particular disorder is almost entirely localized in Japan, where wives often experience several physical symptoms that only occur following their husband’s retirement. Sufferers of retired husband syndrome, or RHS, deal with physical symptoms that may include ulcers, polyps, rashes, and headaches, and it is all caused by the increased presence of their husband at the home.

The physiological ailments that develop are caused by stress, and that stress is often due to the very strict gender roles that have existed in Japan for centuries. The effects of RHS have resulted in a divorce rate that has increased significantly. Between 1985 and 2000, the rate of divorce among couples married for longer than 20 years doubled.

Though many women in Japan are finding themselves afflicted with physical symptoms, doctors have not been able to find any other medical cause for those symptoms other than the psychological stress of the retirement of their husbands.

4Psychogenic Dystonia

Psychogenic dystonia is a movement disorder that causes the muscles to contract painfully and involuntarily without any identifiable physical cause for the issue. While many in the medical field believe this type of dystonia develops as a part of a conversion disorder and is rooted in a psychological cause, recent studies may have revealed that the cause may be neurological instead.

While some forms of dystonia are caused by a gene mutation, psychogenic dystonia sufferers have no such mutation. They do, however, have “markedly different brain activity,” as determined through a study using PET brain scans to measure levels of activity in specific regions of the brain. So while the very name of the disorder implies that there is a psychological cause (psychogenic disorders were once referred to as hysterical disorders), it appears that researchers may have identified a neurological cause in those suffering from the apparently poorly named psychogenic dystonia.

3Pseudocyesis

The physical symptoms—abdominal enlargement, the sensation of fetal movement, lactation, and even labor pains, among others—all seem to obviously point to pregnancy. Yet with this particular condition, such is not the case. Pseudocyesis, or false pregnancy, can afflict both women and men and is completely rooted in the psychological realm. The condition is listed in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and it has been found to be most common in countries in which medical care for pregnancy is not sought until the later stages of a pregnancy.

A study published in the US National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine delineated some of the common factors among those who experience pseudocyesis, noting that “pseudocyesis shares many endocrine traits with both polycystic ovarian syndrome and major depressive disorder, although the endocrine traits are more akin to polycystic ovarian syndrome than to major depressive disorder,” and that there is a tendency among those experiencing false pregnancy to have “increased sympathetic nervous system activity.”

2Chronic Lyme Disease

Lyme disease is a very treatable condition that usually requires about four weeks of treatment using antibiotics. The disease, which is caused by a tick bite, is particularly prevalent in the northeast portion of the United States but can be found in numerous other locations. Chronic Lyme disease is different, however, and though many doctors are dubious as to its existence, a recent study claimed that its effects can last “4.7–9 years” and includes symptoms such as “persistent musculoskeletal pain, neurocognitive symptoms, or dysesthesia.”

Even though the study professes to have proved that chronic Lyme disease indeed exists, other doctors remain doubtful and believe that any improvement in the symptoms patients experience is nothing more than a psychosomatic response and is simply the result of the placebo effect. While many doctors dismiss patients claiming to have chronic Lyme disease as hypochondriacs, others believe that any physical symptoms experienced by a patient may be the result of a co-infection, and that doctors treating patients for chronic Lyme disease are harming the patient by not identifying the true cause.

1Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures

This particular condition is quite often mistaken for epilepsy, resulting in frequent misdiagnoses. As the name implies, psychogenic non-epileptic seizures are not caused by the same issue that results in epileptic seizures but rather by some form of psychological distress. The main identifying factor for psychogenic non-epileptic seizures, or PNES, is through the observation of seizures in which there are “unusual features, such as type of movements, duration, triggers and frequency.”

PNES sufferers often have endured some sort of traumatic event that serves as the root cause of the disorder, and because of the fact that there are inherent difficulties in dealing with the disorder, individuals with PNES must often endure an arduous process in treatment. According to Dr. Selim R. Benbadis, the director of Comprehensive Epilepsy Program, “In addition to being common, psychogenic symptoms pose an uncomfortable and often frustrating challenge, both in diagnosis and management.” As with many conditions that doctors believe are all in the patient’s head, PNES often represents quite a significant hardship for those suffering from the syndrome.

J. Francis Wolfe is a freelance writer and a noted dreamer of dreams. He aspires to one day live in a cave high in the mountains where he can write poetry no one will ever see.

The human body is a weird and wonderful thing. But when it comes to the brain, it’s mostly just weird. Go flicking through medical journals and you’ll discover that our minds are capable of deceiving us in the strangest possible ways. Sometimes, these horrific conditions can occur without warning.

10 Living Out The Plot Of Big

Remember that Tom Hanks film Big? It’s about a boy who wishes that he was a grown-up. Thanks to some vaguely explained magic, his wish is granted. He goes to sleep one evening and wakes up the next day in an adult body. Hilarity ensues.

If you’ve ever stopped to think about the plot, you’ve probably realized that Big is kind of terrifying. Being magically granted a mature body while still having a child’s brain would be the stuff of nightmares. We know this for a fact because it really happened to Naomi Jacobs in 2008.

At the time, Jacobs was 32 and dealing with the fallout from a decade of homelessness, bankruptcy, and drug abuse. One morning, she woke up to find that the previous 17 years had been wiped from her memory.

The last thing that she could recall happened when she was 15. She was climbing into the bunk bed that she shared with her sister and trying not to worry about her upcoming French exam.

From Naomi’s point of view, she’d fallen asleep as a teenager and awakened as an adult. To make matters worse, her adult mind had no recollection of 21st-century technology or even her 10-year-old child.

Interestingly, there was no physical reason for Jacobs to lose her memory. She was suffering from dissociative amnesia, meaning that the mind-wipe was caused by psychological factors. It’s believed that she was so stressed out and traumatized by her past (including sexual abuse as a child) that her brain just flipped a switch and wiped it all out.

9 Seeing An Extra Dimension

Stereoblindness is a condition that affects 5–10 percent of the global population. It affects your ability to see in 3-D, so the world appears to be completely flat.

Since the ability to see things in three dimensions is learned during a narrow window of brain development when we’re young, stereoblindness is usually a lifelong condition—unless you have an experience like Bruce Bridgeman did in 2012.

Bridgeman, 67, had never seen the world in three dimensions. One day, he went out to see Hugo, the Martin Scorsese family film. Unable to find a 2-D showing, he was forced to cough up the extra bucks for some 3-D glasses that he knew he wouldn’t be able to use. Nonetheless, he put them on, went into the cinema, and sat down. When the film started, Bridgeman could suddenly see in 3-D.

Imagine finding that your human eyes had magically been upgraded to those of a hawk or maybe a superhuman who can see heat or radio waves. That’s basically what happened to Bridgeman. After nearly seven decades of being stuck in a two-dimensional world, he could see in 3-D.

The effect continued after he left the movie. In the blink of an eye, his stereoblindness had vanished. Doctors now think that his brain had developed the synaptic pathways for doing so when he was young. For some reason, they hadn’t activated until he got a big jolt of 3-D cinema.

8 Being Forced To Make Continual Wisecracks

The term “continual wisecracks” brings to mind an image like Groucho Marx firing off witticisms like a caffeinated Oscar Wilde. But imagine if that was something over which you had no control. Imagine that you could no more stop dropping one-liners than you could stop breathing.

For sufferers of Witzelsucht, that’s not just a strange thought experiment. It’s their daily reality.

Perhaps the earliest case was recorded way back in 1929. German neurologist Otfrid Foerster was removing a brain tumor when the patient suddenly came to manic life on the operating table and began cracking pun after awful pun.

Since then, others who have suffered damage to their frontal lobes have been reported to display the same symptoms. The BBC recently reported on a man known only as Derek who had suffered two strokes five years apart.

Not long after the second stroke, Derek began cracking terrible jokes. He never stopped. Not only that, he couldn’t stop. Even while sleeping, he would laugh himself awake recounting awful puns. Needless to say, it drove his wife nuts.

Interestingly, people suffering from Witzelsucht are often incapable of understanding other people’s jokes. Although they may still laugh at slapstick, wordplay that isn’t their own leaves them utterly cold. It’s believed that this may have something to do with the way that damaged brains release dopamine, responding only to internal thoughts.

7 Having Your Head ‘Explode’

Have you ever been on the verge of dropping off when you suddenly heard someone say your name? According to Mind, a mental health charity, this is a common condition that affects many of us at one time or another. For some people, though, the experience goes beyond merely hearing a voice. They can feel like their heads are literally exploding.

Known aptly as “exploding head syndrome,” the condition can affect almost anyone and occur at any time. Some may only feel it once in their lives. Others can have their heads suddenly start “exploding” night after night—like their brains are the climax of a Fourth of July fireworks show.

It’s undoubtedly unpleasant. Some sufferers have described it as seeing a bright flash of light and then feeling like they were at the epicenter of an explosion. Others have said that it was like having a grenade detonate on their pillows.

The phenomenon is surprisingly common for those who are suffering from insomnia, jet lag, or all-nighters. One study estimated that 22 percent of students suffer from this condition.

Strangely, we’re not entirely sure what causes it. The best explanation is that there is a “bump” between our waking and sleeping states that causes a lot of neurons in the brain to misfire at once.

6 Having Someone Else’s Limb Appear On Your Body

Imagine that you wake up one morning to discover that a crazed surgeon has crept into your room during the night and performed a horrific operation on you. Instead of your left arm, you now have the left arm of the old woman living across the hall. Worse yet, she’s still in control of it.

No, this isn’t a pitch for a new horror film. It’s a rare condition known as somatoparaphrenia. It can occur at any time, usually following an injury to the right side of the brain. Those suffering from it become convinced that one of their limbs is not their own. They persist in this belief even when confronted with direct evidence to counter it.

While some with this condition just consider the limbs to be alien implants, others believe that they belong to specific people. One patient—whose somatoparaphrenia was caused by schizophrenia rather than injury—thought that his right arm belonged to a woman he knew named Maria.

For some, the experience of having an alien limb is so horrible that they go to great lengths to have it amputated.

5 Meeting Your Own Double

The idea of the doppelganger is so prevalent in storytelling that it has shown up in everything from the works of Dostoyevsky to The Simpsons. Usually, the story features a moment when other characters can’t tell who the “real” person is. But if you meet your doppelganger in real life, it could be much worse than that. Even you may no longer be able to tell which is the real you.

About 20 years ago, neuropsychologist Peter Brugger reported meeting a 21-year-old from Zurich who had met his own double. He had recently stopped taking anticonvulsant medication and had spent the morning drinking heavily. At some point, he felt dizzy and stood up—and that’s when things went insane.

The young man turned around and saw his own double lying on the bed. He started shouting at his new twin, only to suddenly find himself lying on his bed and looking up at the shouting face of his doppelganger.

Unable to figure out if the “real” him was the one lying on the bed or the one shouting, he had a breakdown and jumped from a fourth-story window. Miraculously, he survived the fall.

Such moments are extremely rare but not unheard of. The man from Zurich had a tumor in his left temporal lobe. Other reports of doppelgangers have come from other people suffering similar damage to that region.

4 Losing The Ability To Remember Anything

Are you one of those people who hates going to the dentist? Well, we’ve got a whole new reason for you to avoid the experience. At 1:40 PM on March 14, 2005, a soldier known only as William walked into his dentist’s office for root canal surgery. He never came out.

We don’t mean that the dentist killed him. Something much stranger happened. At the exact moment that the dentist gave him a local anesthetic, William completely lost the ability to form new memories. His mental clock stopped dead, frozen forever in the middle of his appointment.

Creepily, there’s absolutely no reason why this might have happened. When William was rushed to the hospital, it was assumed that he’d had a severe reaction to the anesthetic. But that wasn’t the case. There was nothing physically wrong with him. It was like his brain had just stopped functioning properly.

Fast-forward to today, and William has a memory of 90 minutes. Beyond that point, everything vanishes. As far as he’s aware, it’s always midafternoon on March 14, 2005, and he’s just awakened after a dental operation.

3 Losing The Ability To Understand Mirrors

As shown in the video above, one of cinema’s greatest gags came in the 1933 Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup. After Harpo breaks Groucho’s mirror, Harpo must pretend to be his brother’s reflection so that Groucho won’t realize what’s happened.

This being the Marx Brothers, there’s a surreal moment when Harpo—still pretending to be Groucho’s reflection—hands his brother a hat and Groucho takes it without thinking. It’s a hilarious scene in a hilarious movie. It’s also a perfect demonstration of mirror agnosia.

Mirror agnosia can occur due to right parietal lesions but is more commonly associated with dementia. Sufferers lose the ability to understand mirrors or reflections.

There are cases where doctors tested this with an apple. The patient would sit in front of a mirror. Then the doctor would stand behind the patient and hold up an apple so that the patient could only see the apple’s reflection in the mirror.

When told to get the apple, the patient would try to reach through the mirror. Even after being told what a mirror was, the patient continued to believe that the apple was in front of them rather than behind.

Freakily, it doesn’t seem that mirror agnosia can be cured. For example, if you lose your ability to understand reflections tomorrow from a brain injury, you’re unlikely to ever get it back.

2 Having Your Heart Go Crazy

Right now, your body is doing too many vital things to count. You’re breathing, you’re blinking, your heart is beating, your stomach is breaking down food, and you’re not thinking about any of it. It’s second nature to you, complete background noise.

So imagine what might happen if one of those little things suddenly changed. Imagine that your heart started beating in the wrong place. You’d suddenly start noticing it, right?

For a handful of people, that has actually happened. In 2014, the BBC reported on a man known as Carlos whose heart started beating in his stomach. It wasn’t his real heart. The man was old and had just been fitted with a pump in his abdomen to keep his heart ticking. But to Carlos, the pump felt like his real heart. And that had all sorts of weird implications.

The simplest was that Carlos began to lose all sense of his chest. With his heart seemingly migrating south, he started to feel like his chest was bigger than he remembered it and was taking up valuable body room.

Crazily, it also affected his mind. With his new mechanical heart, Carlos suddenly lost his ability to feel empathy toward people in pain. Other social skills disappeared, too, including his ability to read other people’s motives. Simply by tricking his body into thinking its heart had moved, it seemed like his whole mind had gone haywire.

1 Losing The Ability To Sleep

Some people like to boast about how little sleep they need. Sufferers of fatal familial insomnia (FFI) almost certainly hate them. An ultrarare condition that occurs when a specific genetic mutation activates, FFI causes the patient to completely lose the ability to sleep. In most cases, it never comes back.

The effects are horrifying. As the sleepless nights mount up, the patients start to slip into a permanent half-dream state. Although they’re awake, they start to act out the crazy half-dreams that form in their subconscious rather than engage with the world around them.

Patients have been known to walk around in a daze as they mime putting on clothes or combing their hair. As they slip further into that deadly twilight world, their ability to speak fades, followed by their ability to walk. After many months have passed, they simply close their eyes and drift off into that permanent state of sleep—death.

The good news is that only about 40 families worldwide have the genetic defect that triggers FFI. The better news is that even those with the defect often live long, happy lives and never suffer insomnia.

The bad news for those affected is that FFI can occur at any time without warning. One night, they’ll go to bed, close their eyes, and find that they can’t sleep. Drugs won’t help, hypnosis won’t help, and seeing the doctor won’t help. They’ll simply spend the next few months in mental anguish before dying a horrible death.

Good luck not thinking about that the next time you suffer a bout of insomnia.

In medical research, finding a method to combat a chronic or terminal illness doesn’t typically come along very often. Of course, this being the future, such advancements are coming along at a far greater clip than decades or even a few years ago.

From the cosmetic to the truly life-giving, you’ll be surprised at some of the conditions where inroads have been made toward conquering them.

10 Baldness

The use of stem cells has made regenerative medicine a promising field in recent years. At RIKEN, Japan’s largest research organization, methods have been developed to regenerate teeth and certain glands in laboratory mice by taking advantage of stem cells’ ability to change into virtually any type of cell. But that’s not all: This technique can also restore hair follicles and could virtually cure hair loss when made available to the public.

Unlike traditional follicle transplants, which simply move active follicles to new locations where hair has been shed, the stem cell–based therapy actually regenerates new follicles—not simply stopping hair loss but promoting new growth. Electronics maker Kyocera is leading the charge to manufacture equipment for the process. In the US alone, over 50 million people are affected by hair loss—roughly one-third of them women.

9 Hepatitis C

Hepatitis C is a chronic infection of the liver that is difficult to manage, costly to treat, and often fatal. Approximately 350,000 people worldwide are claimed by the disease every year. The only previously available treatments helped 25–75 percent of patients (depending on the virus type) and came with a slew of unpleasant side effects.

Hepatitis C used to be incurable but no longer. In 2014, pharmaceutical company Gilead received FDA approval for a 12-week, pill-based course of treatment that eliminates the disease in the vast majority of patients.

Similar drugs were subsequently approved from pharmaceutical giant Merck and AbbVie. Although this is great news, the drugs can be prohibitively expensive—over $80,000 for a course of treatment in many cases.

8 Parkinson’s Disease

Tyrosine kinase inhibitors have been used to treat leukemia for some time. These drugs work by helping to induce a process called autophagy, the disposal of unneeded material within the body’s cells. In a small clinical trial, Georgetown University researchers found that the drug’s effects could also help those with Parkinson’s disease.

Patients were given a far lower dose of the drug nilotinib than is usually used in leukemia patients, mainly to see if it could be tolerated. Surprisingly, there was marked improvement in coordination and motor skills among all participants. Examination of blood and spinal fluid revealed a huge drop in Parkinson’s-related markers.

At follow-up visits after treatment had been stopped, the beneficial effects were reversed. But researchers are confident that this likely represents the most important breakthrough in Parkinson’s treatment in over 50 years.

7 Blindness

One Florida doctor has come up with a controversial, stem cell–based treatment to reverse blindness. The controversy arises from the fact that Dr. Jeffrey Weiss is not affiliated with any research institutions nor has his procedure undergone any clinical trials. But he has used the procedure—which involves extracting stem cells from bone marrow and injecting them into the patient’s eyes—to restore vision to over 100 blind patients.

As of mid-2016, a similar procedure is currently undergoing clinical trials at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. Their technique uses an ultrathin layer of polyester to distribute the stem cells behind the patient’s retina.

6 Herpes

Herpes is an extremely common virus with over 100 strains, only eight of which ordinarily infect humans. Some versions are virtually asymptomatic, meaning people can be infected all their lives and not know it. There is no cure, but a promising new treatment has all but eradicated the disease in the lab by editing the DNA of the virus.

Researchers used the gene editing technology CRISPR to target double-stranded DNA in three herpes strains, including Epstein-Barr (which can also cause cancer). CRISPR essentially cut the viral DNA to pieces. The process was also shown to severely inhibit virus replication, especially with Epstein-Barr. Although the researchers acknowledge that further research is needed, no other treatment has shown such promise in eradicating the herpes virus.

5 Type 1 Diabetes

According to the American Diabetes Association, diabetes is the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States. Type 2 diabetes is an acquired condition in which the body does not produce insulin in sufficient amounts or use insulin properly. But type 1 diabetes is genetic and is the complete lack of insulin, making it much more difficult to manage.

Insulin is secreted by beta cells in the pancreas. The immune systems of type 1 diabetics attack these cells. Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers have found a reliable, highly complex procedure for turning stem cells into vast quantities of pancreatic beta cells in the lab, the first means that has been found for producing these cells.

The procedure is half the solution to the type 1 diabetes problem, with the overacting immune response being the other. Several options for dealing with this, including immunosuppressants, are being considered.

4 Alzheimer’s Disease

Incurable and irreversible, Alzheimer’s gradually robs the sufferer of their mental faculties and precious memories. However, scientists from the United States and Australia intend to bring a pair of new vaccines—which have shown incredible potential to destroy the toxic proteins in the brain associated with the disease—to human clinical trials within a couple of years. Not only could the vaccines prevent dementia, but they may actually reverse its effects when administered together.

Meanwhile, Salk Institute researchers have discovered that THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, seems to excel at removing the buildup of these toxic proteins. In lab tests, THC reduced the levels of toxic proteins and eliminated the associated inflammatory response. The team also discovered that endocannabinoids, compounds similar to marijuana that are made by the body, trigger these beneficial responses naturally.

3 AIDS

In 2012, a clinical trial was performed on RV144, a potential HIV vaccine, using rhesus monkeys. It was the first clinical trial in which an HIV vaccine reduced the rate of acquisition.

In July 2016, Case Western Reserve University scientists were able to successfully duplicate these results using macaques. Although a tweak to the formula didn’t work, one aspect of the study proved highly beneficial—a pre-vaccination RNA screening of the subjects.

Using these, researchers were able to correctly predict the response to the vaccine in two-thirds of their subjects, which may pave the way for “personalized and predictive vaccinology” that prevents diseases more effectively in the future. They believe their HIV vaccine formula is ready for clinical trials in humans.

2 Cancer (All Of Them)

A host of related but different conditions fall under the umbrella of “cancer,” making a blanket cure impossible according to almost all medical researchers. But a team at Johannes Gutenberg University didn’t get the memo and say they have taken a huge step toward a universal cancer vaccine.

Their encouraging results come from testing in lab animals and early human clinical trials. Although called a vaccine, it would be administered to patients with cancer. It works by shooting tiny pieces of RNA from the patient’s cancer cells at the immune system to mount a lethal response against any cancer cells of this type. Different types of cancer can be targeted by changing the RNA used in the process.

The treatment has been shown to kill “aggressively growing” tumors in mice. So far, it has only been tested in human patients for safety, which yielded good results. No previous treatment has shown such promise against multiple varieties of cancer.

1 Aging

Scientists have been studying methods of slowing down or halting the aging process for decades. In 2005, a Stanford University scientist first demonstrated a process for rejuvenating the healing powers of an aging rodent by surgically linking its nervous system to that of a younger mouse. Other approaches have involved the in-depth study of medications and nutritional supplements to extend life and bolster the body’s natural regenerative powers.

But a team from the University of Tsukuba may have recently one-upped all previous research in this field by focusing on the mitochondria, which is essentially the battery of a cell. They theorized that mitochondrial DNA does not mutate naturally (as previously thought) but accumulates proteins over a lifetime. This eventually contributes to defects which cause the effects of aging.

By using stem cells to reset these aged cell lines, the team found the anticipated effect—the “old” cells morphed back into “young” ones, as if by magic. Combined with the amino acid glycine—which has been shown to partially reverse age-related defects in mitochondria—this process has made researchers practically giddy that they may soon develop an actual age-reversing pill. We’re going to go out on a limb and say that there just might be a fairly sizable market for such a thing.

The science of medicine is far more advanced nowadays than it was even ten years ago. Yet, there are many diseases that do not have a cure. Billions of dollars are spent every day for researches, experimental treatments and various tests. Even so, there are some conditions that are extremely rare and the researchers cannot gather information for them and cannot find a cure. Of course, in some cases the so called “symptomatic treatment” can be applied, but there is a long way to go before discovering treatment for the diseases themselves.

There isn’t a person who has not been sick during his lifetime. Some of us get lucky and just catch the flu from time to time or have to get through minor surgeries. Others must take medicines all of their life or undergo long, dangerous and horrible treatments. But imagine suffering from a disease that is so rare that just a few people have heard about it.

And knowing that you have had the bad luck to be that one in a million (or maybe billion) who get’s “hit by the Russian roulette bullet”. Some of the diseases listed bellow cause only discomfort (although big), others are lethal, or lead to a terrible and painful state of being. Let’s take a look at them.

Top 10 of the Strangest Medical Conditions

10. Cotard’s Delusion, Walking Corpse Syndrome

Cotard’s delusion syndrome or Cotard’s delusion, known also as the “Walking Corpse Syndrome”, is a mental illness in which the person believes that he or she is dead or missing essential body parts, or even, paradoxically, might has delusion of immortality. The patient cannot recognize his or her own face, has a tendency to suicide, loses sense of reality. The sufferer would not eat, bathe and can eventually die from starvation.

Very little is known about this illness. In one case, that of Graham Harrison, the positron emission tomography (PET) showed that his brain function resembles that of someone who is sleeping. But since there aren’t many people who suffer from the disease and almost none of them has undergone PET, Graham’s test results cannot be conclusive.

It is more likely that the disease will affect patient who have bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, or had suffered strokes or depression. There are three stages of the syndrome. Germination stage, when the person had depressive mood and is worried of unwellness. Blooming stage – then the patient starts experiencing delusions and thinks he or she is dead or immortal. Chronic stage, when the sufferer shows very severe depression.

The disease is treated with Electroconvulsive therapy and medications, like antidepressants, mood stabilizers and antipsychotics.

9. Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, Stone Man Syndrome

Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP) or the “Stone Man Syndrome” is very rare medical condition that affects 1 in every 2 million. What causes it is a genetic mutation. That mutation allows the connective tissues, like muscles, to be replaced with bones, when injured, instead of being cured. This would eventually lead to a new skeletal structure.

The syndrome has no cure. Patients are advised to be very careful and to prevent falls, traumas and not to engage in contact sports in order to prevent injuries. Surgery for removal of the extra bones is also not an option because every attempt will result in even more bone producing. Most of the affected people usually live till their 40’s and die from respiratory problems.

8. Microcephaly

Microcephaly is a condition in which the brain is not normally developed or has stopped growing and this leads to smaller than normal head. It can be present at birth, but may occur in the first few years. Along with the smaller head, dwarfism, seizures, delayed motor functions, facial distortions, hearing loss, visual problems, intellectual disability might occur, but some of the patients may have normal intelligence.

Scientists do not know the exact reason for Microcephaly, but they believe that the disease is caused by drugs, alcohol, viruses or toxins on which the baby is exposed during pregnancy, or by genetic abnormalities in the baby’s DNA.

It can be diagnosed either during pregnancy (with the use of an ultrasound test), or after pregnancy. There is no treatment and the research on microcephaly is ongoing.

7. Kuru

Kuru, also called trembling disease, is a fatal disorder of the brain, which occurs in New Guinea, among the Fore people. It was a result of the cannibalism among the Fore. The people consumed the brain of the deceased, which lead to spreading the disease because brain tissue from people with kuru was very infectious. In the first stage begins unsteadiness, shivering, tremor, deterioration of speech. In the second, the patient need support for walking, loses coordination in the muscles, has emotional lability. The third and terminal stage includes inability to sit up without support, urinary and faecal incontinence.

No treatment is known for kuru and the only method of preventing it is discouraging the cannibalism. The disease had a long incubation period, sometimes even decades. The person dies 6-12 months after the first symptoms. Because of the discouragement of cannibalism kuru has almost disappeared.

6. Fields Disease

This is one of the rarest conditions in the whole world. Only two people are known to have suffered from it. The disease is named after Catherine and Kirstie Fields, twins from Wales, and causes muscular degeneration. The girls are still alive and there is no change in their brains or personalities.

Field’s disease is progressive. By the age of nine, the twins already had trouble walking. Their muscles gradually deteriorate over time. Catherine and Kirstie now use wheelchairs and are unable to speak. They also have painful muscle spasms. There is no cure for the disease, but doctors continue to search for a treatment.

5. Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria

Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS), also known as Progeria, is very rare and fatal genetic condition and leads to premature aging. Most kids with progeria start aging when they are only two and die of heart diseases at an average age of 14.

Children who have progeria look normal at birth, but during the first year start to show symptoms like bigger head, large eyes, slow and abnormal tooth growth, hair loss, loss of body fat. As children who have progeria get older, theщ suffer from diseases that are typical for people at the age of 50, like hardening of the arteries, heart diseases, etc. There isn’t a treatment for progeria, but the researches are ongoing and show some chances for cure.

4. Alien Hand Syndrome (AHS)

The Alien hand syndrome gets this name, because if one suffers from it, then one of his or her hands will move involuntarily. It might even grip your throat. Thе disease is one very rare neurological disorder which most commonly affects the left hand. The affected hand is usually described to have “will of its own”. The patient is able to feel sensation his or her affected hand. Despite this, he or she cannot control it. This disease is connected to brain trauma, after brain surgery, strokes or brain infections.

No cure exists and some of the patients often try and keep their hand occupied by giving it something to hold or even tying it behind their backs.

3. Hypertrichosis, Werewolf Syndrome

This syndrome is a disorder of hair density and length on one (localized hypertrichosis) or more sites (generalized hypertrichosis). The generalized hypertrichosis is inherited disorder and the hair growth is typically on the face, ears and shoulders and may vary (decrease or increase) with age.

Some other types of hypertrichosis may be linked to cancer, metabolic disorders, hyperthyroidism etc. That is why the correct diagnosis is very important.

Up to date, there is no cure for hypertrichosis. Temporary hair removal may be used and it usually lasts from several hours to several weeks. The hair might be removed permanently by the use of chemicals or energy of various types. One effective method is laser hair removal, which is effective on hairs with color but not white hair. Electrolysis, Electrology, or Electrolysis, is able to treat white hair, too.

2. Exploding Head Syndrome

Sounds dangerous, doesn’t it? But, actually, it is not. This is a sleep disorder and people who suffer from it hear very loud noises like explosions, thunder claps, gunshots, etc. – while drifting off to sleep or waking up. Usually there is no physical pain, but some people may see a bright light along with the sound. The disease is more common in women, its onset is at the average age of 50 and is related to high stress level, minor temporal lobe seizures or other neuronal dysfunction.

It can be a result of certain medications or drugs. If the disorder is related to stress, yoga or meditation before sleeping are recommended. The condition may come and go.

1. Allergy to Water

Aquagenic urticaria or water allergy is a rare condition. It is not a true allergic reaction, but the skin reacts after contact with water, which is why the condition is called water allergy. The symptoms can appear minutes after the contact with water. Some people with water allergy also have itching. After removing the source of water, it takes 30 to 60 minutes for the rash to fade. Some patients cannot even drink water, because it causes their throat to blister. Water allergy is less common in men. It often begins after puberty.

No treatment is known. Oral antihistamine, topical corticosteroids, epinephrine, PUVA therapy, ultraviolet radiation, stanazolol and capsaicin can be used to lessen the effects of the condition. An oil in water solution or emulsion cream may be used on the skin to protect it from contact with water. Swimming should be avoided and umbrellas or protective clothing should be used for avoiding water contact.

In conclusion, first, I want to remind you that you should tolerate every person who has some weird disease, although you might feel disgust or want to laugh at them, because you can never know what will happen to you or to someone you love. The diseases listed above may seem strange to you, but imagine having to live with them and, I promise you, the desire to laugh will go away. Be happy that you are healthy and tolerate the sick people.

Second, these are many other strange and rare diseases, but it would have taken many more articles to list them. If you are interested, you can always search in the Internet.

And once again, although the science of medicine might have made a lot of important and lifesaving discoveries, there is still a long way to go. Everything is evolving, including the various viruses, infections, etc. New diseases are being found, others have disappeared. We can only hope that the doctors and researchers will be faster that the diseases.

Related Posts

A host of medical hiccups can hit the human body. Microscopic bugs, injuries, and failing systems are the classics. More intriguing are the rare cases, some only appearing for the first or second time.

Say hello to semi-identical twins, children who cannot move after dark, and serious gender switching. The senses go haywire in unbelievable ways, but the brain, when injured or subjected to surgery, is responsible for some of the most unreal and often tragic conditions.

10 Uncombable Hair Syndrome

A rare condition gives people a wild hairdo. Called uncombable hair syndrome (UHS), it makes hair, well, difficult to comb. Only around 100 cases are known, and one of them is Taylor McGowan. When she was born around two years ago, she appeared fairly normal.

By the time she was five months old, Taylor grew the trademark silvery-blonde locks of UHS. Her parents noticed the super frizz, but a nurse told them that the hair would soon fall out. Taylor’s grandmother was the first to realize what was going on when she found photos of other UHS babies. The rarity of the condition made her parents dismiss the chance of Taylor having it.

However, genetic tests proved that the Chicago baby was indeed a member of this funky-looking group. From each surprised parent, she had inherited a copy of the PADI3 gene mutation. Normal hair shafts are smooth and round, but the mutation sprouts hair with grooves—and that’s why she looks like a baby Einstein.^[1]

9 The Religious Tumor

In 2016, researchers published an interesting case. It did not end well for the woman involved (she died eight months after diagnosis), but her tumor could explain sudden mystical experiences in some people.

The unnamed patient lived in Spain. The 60-year-old was described by family and friends as a happy person. Although she believed in God, she was not religious. Over two months, she experienced an abrupt change. Her mood was quiet, even sad, and increasingly, the woman turned to religious writings. She even had meetings with the Virgin Mary.

An MRI and biopsy diagnosed her with an aggressive form of brain cancer. During the next five weeks, her treatment included radiation, chemotherapy, and antipsychotic medication. Tellingly, the elderly patient’s conversations with the Virgin Mary ceased.

An overview of the case could find no other trigger for the hyper-religiosity except the tumor. How the cancer caused spiritual fervor remains unknown, but the woman’s right temporal lobe appeared to have played a role. Previous cases involving mystical experiences have been linked to this brain region.^[2]

8 Hyper Empathy

In 2000, a woman had surgery to treat her daily seizures. The procedure removed parts of her brain, including the amygdala. This region is behind the recognition of emotions in others, or empathy.

For all intents and purposes, the woman’s ability should have taken a knock. Instead, empathy swelled so strongly that it was described as a “spectacular emotional arousal” that also triggered physical effects. Just getting involved with characters in a book could ignite her feelings.^[3]

Around 13 years later in 2013, her hyper empathy continued. That same year, it became the first case in scientific literature detailing the unusual emotional development after a brain-removal surgery. The woman scored high on empathy questionnaires and beat 10 other women when asked to determine emotions from photos. (The images only showed eyes.) Her mental health also scored in the normal range.

Oddly, this went against a study from 2001 in which 22 people with damaged amygdalae showed reduced emotional recognition. It is plausible that damage to the amygdala reduces empathy, while complete removal rewires other regions for empathy and more strongly so.

7 Reverse-Slope Hearing Loss

In 2019, a woman in China felt sick. Her ears rang, and soon afterward, she threw up. The next morning, she woke up with an exceptionally weird symptom—she could not hear her boyfriend’s voice. The woman, identified only as Chen, could hear everything else.

The female doctor who treated her noticed that Chen could hear her but not a man talking nearby. As it turned out, she could not hear male voices. The diagnosis was a rare condition known as reverse-slope hearing loss (RSHL). Patients fail to hear low frequencies—like deep male voices.

Many things can cause RSHL, including trauma, blood vessel problems, and autoimmune disorders. In Chen’s case, physicians found that a lack of sleep and work stress caused her strange deafness. Luckily, the prognosis was good. She was expected to make a full recovery given enough rest.^[4]

In general, when RSHL is treated within the first two days, most cases can be resolved with potent doses of steroids. Oddly, some cases spontaneously heal with no medical intervention at all.

6 Whole-Body Graft

Epidermolysis bullosa (EB) is an excruciating, often fatal condition. The slightest contact can make the skin blister and fall off. In 2015, German doctors were desperate to save a seven-year-old boy. His EB was so serious that most of his skin sloughed off and the child was dangerously septic.

The doctors called a stem cell biologist in Italy who tinkered with experimental gene therapies for EB. He had experienced some success with two other patients but on a very small scale. The German boy’s condition was an epic emergency and a true test for the gene therapy.

The Italian team searched for stem cells on his ravaged skin and finally found some near the groin. These were grown into sheets of skin using a retrovirus that carried healthy copies of the gene responsible for EB.

During two operations, the sheets were grafted over his back, limbs, and a part of his chest. It was an incredible success. The skin regenerated in a healthy manner over 80 percent of the boy’s body. He remained blister free in the graft areas, returned to school, and even made the soccer team.^[5]

5 The Riddoch Phenomenon

Milena Canning’s life changed when she was around 30 years old. The young Scottish woman suffered a respiratory infection and strokes and survived a coma that lasted for eight months. The medical trauma left her blind.

Several months after emerging from the coma, she started to see again. However, her vision only worked when something moved. For example, rain running down a window pane was visible but not the window. Cleverly, she learned to create motion with head movements.

As her mysterious case became more known, researchers put Canning, then 48, through a battery of tests. They diagnosed her with the Riddoch phenomenon. A patient with this condition is blind but can detect movement.

Normally, lesions within the brain’s occipital lobe cause the syndrome, but Canning’s was missing an apple-sized piece—which was nearly the entire thing. The tests performed in 2018 also compiled the most detailed map of a Riddoch brain.^[6]

It showed something remarkable. Canning’s brain did its best to circumnavigate the dead visual system by rewiring other areas. This was why her motion perception had survived.

4 Walking Corpse Syndrome

This gory-sounding illness makes people believe that they are dead. Officially called Cotard’s syndrome, it was first described in 1880. Almost no research was done to understand the rare condition.

In recent years, scientists sieved through the Mayo Clinic’s records dated from 1996 to 2016 to identify more cases. They found 12. The four women and eight men all had nihilistic delusions. They believed that they were either dead or dying or that their organs were missing or in the process of being destroyed. Oddly, three of the patients had the same “death.” They all claimed to have been killed by medical staff.

In the past, Cotard’s was believed to be a psychiatric condition. But the Mayo study found that the brain played a role, one that was not mental. Although eight patients had a psychiatric diagnosis, including schizophrenia, five displayed neurological symptoms like headaches and seizures.^[7]

The physical evidence for Cotard’s also received a strong boost when scans found seven of the individuals had brain lesions. Approaching it as a neurological rather than exclusively psychiatric condition could one day solve its cause and help develop better therapies.

3 Semi-Identical Twins

During an ultrasound, a woman from Australia heard that she was carrying twins. They shared a placenta, which meant the babies were identical. When the mother was 14 weeks pregnant, she went for a follow-up scan. When the ultrasound showed a boy and a girl, doctors knew something was wrong. Identical twins cannot be different genders.

Soon, they were identified as sesquizygotic, or semi-identical. The case was only the second such pregnancy in history. Sesquizygotic twins form when the egg is fertilized by two different sperm. This is genetically risky, as the babies eventually proved.

Normal conception works with two sets of chromosomes, but the Australian babies started out with three sets. Although the children were anatomically male and female, both had XX (female) and XY (male) sex chromosomes. Due to malignant developments, the girl had her ovaries removed.

As of early 2019, the four-year-old twins are reportedly healthy. Interestingly, on their mother’s side, they are 100 percent identical. On their father’s side, about 78 percent.^[8]

2 Girls Turning Into Boys

In the Dominican Republic, Turkey, and New Guinea, some parents welcome the birth of a new daughter. When puberty hits, however, the child actually turns into a boy. They are called the Guevedoces, a word that means “penis at 12.” These little girls were never female.

In affected boys, an enzyme deficiency impedes the development of male sex organs. At birth, they fool everyone so convincingly that the children are given female names and raised as girls. Come puberty and the influx of testosterone, the Guevedoces finally develop their male genitalia. As adults, their height, beards, and testes are slightly undersized, but they live as men and can have children.

Sometimes, only their names give away their feminine beginnings. Some never adopt male names. Although the condition is incredibly rare, around 1 percent of boys born in Salinas, a village in the Dominican Republic, are Guevedoces.^[9]

1 Sunset Paralysis

In Pakistan, brothers Shoaib Ahmed, 13, and Abdul, 9, do everything expected of healthy kids—until the Sun sets. As soon as that happens, the brothers become paralyzed. They cannot speak, eat, or open their eyes.

Doctors have never seen this condition but have reason to be alarmed. The family lost two children in the past, and both had the strange paralysis. Gender was a common factor. The deceased kids were also boys. The family’s daughter was unaffected.

In 2016, Shoaib and Abdul took up residence in a hospital in Islamabad. For the sake of medical curiosity and helping the boys lead normal lives, the treatment was free. Over 300 tests later, the only medical progress was to rule out certain possibilities.

A lack of light had nothing to do with it. When placed in a dark room during the day, the brothers functioned perfectly. No nerve damage or sleeping disorders accounted for the paralysis. Researchers suspect that genetics could be behind the unique affliction because the boys’ parents are first cousins.^[10]

No one wants to get sick with anything whether it be the common cold or some rare genetic condition that most people have never even heard of before. Unfortunately, disease is a part of life that all of us have to deal with at some point in time. We can all hope that whatever we do come down with is gentle and we overcome it quickly. Sometimes, however, even the most well-known illness can throw you for a loop with an extremely weird symptom that you never knew was possible. 

10. People With Diabetes Insipidus Need to Drink Up to 20 Liters a Day

When your body cannot produce insulin, either at all or in the correct amounts, you become diabetic. There’s a lot more to it than that, but the gist of it is you have some kind of insulin deficiency. Fortunately, Frederick Banting invented a process for making insulin many years ago and now most diabetics can live long lives as a result, though there are still many complications. But that’s if you have diabetes mellitus. 

While a typical diabetic needs to worry about things like ketoacidosis and in some serious cases diabetic comas or peripheral neuropathy, one thing you rarely hear about is the need to drink 20 liters of water per day.

Someone born with diabetes insipidus has to drink constantly. This condition is actually very different from “normal” diabetes. You produce insulin just fine but your kidneys are not able to concentrate urine properly. As a result, those afflicted may produce as much as 20 liters of urine every day. A typical person makes one to three. You can understand why those with it need to drink so much as a result. If they didn’t, the victim could foreseeably suffer deadly dehydration. 

9. Extreme Cases of Anorexia May Result in a Layer of Fine Body Hair

While anorexia nervosa is classified as a mental health condition, it’s also the deadliest mental health condition and has serious effects on your physical body. Even in cases when the disease is not deadly, it still can wreak havoc with how your body works. One of the most unusual side effects of anorexia is a condition called lanugo.

Lanugo, which can also affect newborn babies, is characterized by a soft, downy coating of white fuzz all over the body. It’s believed that this layer of hair helps protect the baby in the womb and insulate them. Usually it disappears while they’re still in the womb, or shortly after birth.

For those with eating disorders, it’s believed that the severe malnutrition causes the body to start shutting down. The lanugo hair grows again for much the same reason as it does on the unborn baby. It is there to insulate and protect because the body realizes it’s in great jeopardy. 

8. Too Much Vitamin A Can Cause Your Skin to Come Off

If you have ever been looking for a reason to avoid eating the liver of a polar bear, this is it. Hypervitaminosis A can be triggered by the extreme amounts of vitamin A found in polar bear liver, but also any extremely high source of vitamin A can cause it as well. 

Side effects of taking too much vitamin A can include things you might expect like headache and vomiting, as well as blurred vision and liver issues. But it gets so much worse. One of the most unusual symptoms is that your skin will start peeling off. Not just a single layer, either, but multiple layers leaving you red and raw. 

One Arctic explorer who had been consuming too much vitamin A felt like his feet were sore and took his socks off, peeling the soles of his feet right off with them. His ears, penis and more suffered the same fate, shedding like the skin of a snake. A single ounce of polar bear liver can do it. But other arctic animals like walrus, seal, reindeer and arctic fox all have high concentrations, too.

About 250,000 to 300,000 IU of vitamin A is toxic. Polar bear liver has 9 million. 

7. Severe Hypothermia Can Cause You to Strip Naked and Hide

Even if you don’t know all the symptoms for hypothermia, you can probably guess a number of them if you’re even remotely familiar with the condition. Exposure to extreme cold can lead to a dangerous drop in body temperature, shivering, confusion and death. 

In rare cases, in the final and most dangerous stages of hypothermia, some victims will display a symptom called “terminal burrowing.” Like an animal going into hibernation by digging a hole, the victim will literally try to hide or bury themselves as a form of protection. Typically, this still happens indoors, and the person has hidden under a bed or behind a dresser as though the confined space will protect them . 

Along with terminal burrowing there is paradoxical undressing, believed to be related to peripheral vasodilation. In this case, people suffering severe hypothermia will actually strip off all of their clothes. Obviously this makes little sense from the outside, but the idea here is that the body had constricted all the blood vessels in the extremities in an effort to keep the vital organs warm. Over time, all of those muscles become exhausted and then relax again. This causes all the warm blood that was kept in the vital areas to rush back to the extremities. 

Essentially you’re the victim of one final hot flash which makes you feel super warm and, since many victims are suffering mental confusion at the same time, they take their clothes off because they feel too warm. 

6. A Sense of Impending Doom is a Side Effect of Wrong Blood Type Transfusions

ABO incompatibility is the name for what happens if you get a blood transfusion of the wrong blood type. You either have type A blood, type B blood, type AB blood or type O blood. You want to mix the same blood types whenever possible. Type AB is the universal recipient and can get a transfusion of any type in a pinch. Type O is the universal donor and anyone can take O. But you never want to mix any of the others. O can’t take AB, A can’t take B and so on.

If you do mix types, rare though it may be in the modern world, ABO incompatibility causes a range of unpleasant symptoms from fever to back pain to blood in the urine. But the most unusual is a sense of impending doom.

A sense of impending doom is also an occasional side effect of some medications, and even jellyfish stings. It doesn’t manifest as anything physical, but a general sense that something terrible is going to happen to you. So just imagine this feeling of fear that the world is ending or you’re going to die and there’s no specific reason for it. You can’t explain it and there’s no specific thing that you can blame it on. You don’t think someone is after you or that you have a disease. You just think you’re going to die or something terrible is going to happen to you. That’s the sense of impending doom. 

5. Nicotine Withdrawal Can Cause a Sense of Time Dilation

Have you ever tried to overcome an addiction, especially cold turkey? It’s not the easiest thing in the world by any means and nicotine is one of the hardest addictions to get past. Part of the reason for this is that cigarette withdrawals affect the way you perceive time.

Beyond irritability and anxiety, nicotine withdrawal can alter your perception of time by as much as 50%. That means every minute you don’t have a cigarette seems 50% longer to you than it does to someone who doesn’t smoke. This altered time perception feeds into those other symptoms like irritability making it all even worse. 

In experiments, people forced to abstain from smoking were simply asked to estimate how long a 45 second interval was. The test was done with smokers, non-smokers and then smokers who were in withdrawal. The average guesses were off by 50% for those in withdrawal which is how the time warp effect was determined. The non-smokers and the same people who guessed wrong but were then allowed to smoke were fairly accurate. 

4. Covid-19 is Proving To Have Several Odd Symptoms

The world is still learning about all the side effects and symptoms of covid-19. Because there are so many variants, and so many ways people react to it, there’s a lot we still don’t know. But what we have learned is, in some circumstances, pretty weird.

One symptom that has been reported is face blindness. This means that you cannot recognize faces anymore, even those of close friends and relatives. You can still recognize a person’s voice and know who they are, but your brain lacks the ability to discern their face as one you recognize. 

In other cases, this time with children who have contracted covid-19, pink eye is presenting as a symptom. Most commonly associated with bacterial infections.

3. Parkinson’s Can Cause Tiny Handwriting

Parkinson’s Disease is a condition that affects the brain. This degenerative condition is mostly associated with symptoms like shaking limbs and head, imbalance and poor coordination and slow movement. There are a host of lesser known and less obvious symptoms as well.

One of the strangest symptoms, and also one that can help in early diagnosis, relates to handwriting. Those who suffer from Parkinson’s often have tiny handwriting. Also called micrographia, the longer a person writes, the more cramped and small the letters tend to get. 

Your ability to write is controlled by the same parts of the brain that are affected in all of those other ways by Parkinson’s, so while tremors become a visible symptom later on, this small writing can be an early warning of what’s to come. As many as half of patients with Parkinson’s also demonstrate micrographia in their handwriting.

2. Pregnancy Can Cause Pitting Edema

Swelling is one of the more common side effects of pregnancy. However, there are degrees of swelling that a woman can endure when this happens. In some rare cases the edema and fluid buildup can get so bad you can actually poke your finger into the flesh and leave noticeable dents or pits.

Pitting edema has also been linked to depression-related weight gain which is even more unusual.

1. An American Cancer Patient Developed an Irish Accent

Foreign accent syndrome is something that’s usually related to brain damage. A section of the brain is injured, and the victim ends up speaking with an unusual accent afterwards. It’s rare but not unheard of. But that’s when it’s related to a traumatic injury or stroke.

There is at least one case of someone getting cancer and, as a result, they developed an Irish accent. The patient, a man from North Carolina, had developed prostate cancer. Nearly two years after his diagnosis, the Irish accent crept into his speech and he could not stop it. Doctors had stated that he had never spoken with an Irish accent before, had never been to Ireland, and had no history of psychiatric conditions that might explain it. 

Instead, it was blamed on a paraneoplastic neurological disorder which can occur when your body’s own cancer-fighting cells attack the spinal cord and parts of the brain by mistake.

Usually when you hear about a genetic condition in the media, it’s presented as rare. You may be surprised to learn that around 60% of people will endure some kind of health problems related to a genetic condition. The symptoms can range from extremely mild to absolutely devastating. Many of the more common or severe conditions get a lot of media coverage, but there are numerous others which bring a host of unusual symptoms along with them that are lesser known. 

10. Angelman Syndrome

Angelman Syndrome affects about 1 in 12,000 to 20,000 people. Its cause is related to a problem with a gene on chromosome 15. Either the maternal copy of the gene is damaged in some way, or there are two paternal copies present.

Those with Angelman may have developmental delays and issues with balance and speech. However, there are some other characteristics of the condition which make it very unique. One of them is how it affects the disposition of children who are born with it. Though they may experience intellectual disabilities, children with Angelman’s are frequently noted to have remarkably happy and excited dispositions. Smiling and laughter are hallmarks of the syndrome. 

People with Angelman typically have a lifespan as long as those who don’t have the condition, although they may require lifelong assistance. Another unique aspect of the condition is that many of those diagnosed with it have a fascination with water. 

9. Snatiation

Snatiation may be a fun word to say, but it’s an odd condition to have. The name is a portmanteau combining “sneezing” with “satiation” and gives insight to what exactly happens when you suffer from the condition. Those who have it sneeze after they feel full from eating. 

First identified in 1989, the condition has been studied little because, let’s be honest, it’s not a pressing concern for most people. Basically, what happens is that, after eating a meal that fills you up, you’ll sneeze a handful of times. The case was first reported in a man who sneezed about four times after every meal, and most of his family did the same. So clearly it was genetic in nature. One person recorded 22 sneezes as a personal record. Annoying, to be sure, but not dangerous. 

The type of food has no effect on the condition, and the sneezing isn’t a continual, painful, or even disruptive thing, but it may happen for someone’s entire life. 

8. Favism

Favism sounds similar enough to favoritism that you may not even realize it’s related to a genetic condition at first. That said, it is a condition that affects people who are deficient in an enzyme called glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase. This enzyme is important to maintaining red blood cells. Now, even if you have the condition, you’ll likely be fine in general. The problem arises when a person who has it consumes certain compounds that can be found in medication or specific foods. When those are ingested, red blood cells can burst inside the body and lead to severe anemia.

So far it sounds like a curious condition, but not all that weird. That part comes in when you look at what triggers this anemia reaction. It’s fava beans, hence the name favism. You can also suffer the same fate by eating broad beans which are in the same family as fava beans and contain the same glucoside compounds.

The symptoms will manifest within six to 24 hours. Victims will become jaundiced and may have dark urine. The condition can potentially be life threatening. 

7. Klippel–Trénaunay Syndrome

Klippel–Trénaunay Syndrome can express itself in many ways. The congenital vascular disorder is very often denoted by dark-colored birthmarks as well as overactive bone or soft tissue growth.  For many people, it can be debilitating. Since it often presents in a single limb, it can lead to things like fingers or toes fusing. But for Matthias Schlitte, the German Hellboy, it turned out to be an odd blessing. 

Schlitte has confirmed he was born with the condition despite online rumors that he did this to himself. And in this case, the “this” we’re referring to is that arm. Schlitte is a professional arm wrestler because his Klippel–Trénaunay Syndrome caused his arm to grow unusually muscular. Though he looks like he spent his whole life only lifting weights with one arm, the condition is mostly responsible for what has happened 

He discovered when he was still a little boy that one arm was just much stronger than the other. Encouraged by his mother, he took up arm wrestling and has exploited it to his advantage. His arm grew to 46 centimeters, or about 18 inches in diameter, while the average bicep is under 14 inches. 

6. Adermatoglyphia 

By the numbers, the odds of a stranger somewhere in the world having the exact same fingerprints as you are one in 64 billion. As far as we know, it has never happened. But there is a much greater chance that someone in the world has no fingerprints at all, thanks to a condition called adermatoglyphia. 

One of the rarest conditions in the world and so far only linked to a few families, the only side effect seems to be entirely smooth finger pads. It first came to the attention of a dermatologist in 2007 when a patient came in with a problem. She couldn’t travel from Switzerland to the United States because she had no fingerprints, and no one had ever encountered that before. As it happened, many of her family members had the same problem.

A little digging turned up a mutation in a gene called SMARCAD1. How it caused them to not develop fingerprints is still unclear, and no other symptoms seem to come along with it. 

5. Short Sleep

The amount of sleep a person needs can vary based on several factors. The Mayo Clinic has a chart arranged by age with recommendations that range from seven hours for adults to as much as 16 hours for infants. But that seven plus hours is the absolute low end of the scale and doctors generally agree that lack of sleep can bring a host of serious health problems.

That said, there are some people in the world who are genetically short sleepers. A mutation of the DEC2 gene is the culprit. Those with the mutation can cut their sleep cycle much shorter, clocking a brisk four or five hours before waking up as refreshed as the rest of us who need a full seven or eight hours. 

In mice that had the same gene manipulated, the production of a hormone called orexin was altered. Orexin regulates wakefulness. Your body produces it when it’s time to wake up and a narcoleptic produces too little. But those with the altered gene make it earlier in a sleep cycle than the rest of us, to no ill effects. 

4. Total Color Blindness 

You can quickly find an online test for colorblindness and it’s likely to be a circle made of colored bubbles. There will be a number in the center formed of reddish bubbles surrounded by green bubbles. If you can’t read that number, you’re colorblind. But that’s just one kind of colorblindness, often called red-green colorblindness.

There are several ways a person can be colorblind, and red-green is the most common. Blue-yellow is another less common version and even more rare is monochromacy. This version affects one in 33,000 people and they see no color at all. The world is simply black and white. 

On the tiny island of Pingelap in the Pacific Oceans, monochromacy is very common. This is because, in 1780, a tsunami killed all but around 20 people on the island. The king, one of the survivors, had a genetic condition that caused monochromacy. He set about repopulating the island as best he could and his descendants carried the colorblindness gene,

Today, sufferers need to wear dark glasses during the day because the sun essentially blinds them. However, their night vision is remarkable. Around 10% of the island have the condition and, at night, they can work and function as well as most of the rest of us do in full daylight. 

3. Methemoglobinemia 

Skin tone can vary greatly from one person to another and for a variety of reasons. Typically, we’re all familiar with the common range of skin tones, however, and it’s rare that you would ever see a person whose skin tone could be described as surprising. This was not the case with the Fugate family, whose skin was blue. 

In the 1820s, in a place called Troublesome Creek, Kentucky, there was an entire family of blue-skinned humans. Martin Fugate, the patriarch, had skin described as being “indigo blue.” He married a woman named Elizabeth Smith, and four of their seven children also had blue skin. 

In the 1970s, a baby named Benjamin Stacy was born with skin the doctor described as “blue as Lake Louise.” He was the great grandson of Luna Fugate, herself the great granddaughter of Martin, and just as blue. 

Martin passed a condition called methemoglobinemia to his children and, as a result of inbreeding, the condition continued. The recessive gene remained in the family line and manifested again with Benjamin Stacy when he was born. Their hemoglobin can’t carry oxygen through the blood and many patients who have the condition, which can also be caused by medication, will die. But if enzyme levels are in the right balance, a person could live a full life as all of the Fugates did. They’ll just be bright blue. 

2. Honeymoon Rhinitis

Also called Honeymoon Nose, Honeymoon Rhinitis is a condition where sexual activity leads to nasal congestion and sneezing. The symptoms can manifest at any point during a sexual interaction but seem to occur most often right after. They are not caused by any direct stimulation of the nasal cavity or mucous membranes in the area. The cause is unknown.

It has been theorized that the condition may be caused by emotional stimulation and anxiety. It becomes a parasympathetic response as various hormones and emotions build during the activity and then, boom, your nose turns against you. Another theory has a psychiatric component, with sneezing being a physical manifestation of the emission of sexual tension. 

Both men and women can suffer from it, and it resolves itself once the situation is no longer present. That means when the sexy times are done, the symptoms leave in about five to 15 minutes.

One thing worth noting is that the condition isn’t necessarily predicated on actual sexual activity with a partner. It may even occur as a result of sexual thoughts, which could potentially be remarkably frustrating and embarrassing depending on circumstances. 

1. Fatal Familial Insomnia

If you’ve ever suffered insomnia or another sleep disorder, you know it can get bad fast. The feeling of exhaustion that refuses to go away and, in time, problems focusing and mood changes. Fatal familial insomnia is a genetic condition that takes this to terrifying new levels.

The condition is caused by a mutation in a gene that produces a cellular prion protein. It can manifest in a person’s 20s all the way to their 70s, though most victims are in their 40s when symptoms begin.Once they begin, a person may have between seven months and six years to live. It cannot be cured.

Symptoms start out as difficulty falling or staying asleep, what you’d consider typical of insomnia. As it progresses, there may be muscle spasms, stiffness, mental deterioration, rapid heart rate and finally death. 

Treatments involve measures to try to induce or maintain sleep, but they are only band aid solutions. Over time they fail to provide relief.

Medicine is an absolute marvel of science. To think we’ve gone from at one point using poisons like mercury to try to treat diseases to being able to grow a patient a new ear using their own cells. There are new and seemingly miraculous treatments being put into use all the time. Sometimes they’re extremely in depth and the product of years of research and practice. And other times they’re just really weird. Here’s ten of the most surprising treatments for some common, everyday conditions.

10. Coke is Prescribed to Treat Some Bowel Obstructions

A can of Coke contains 39 grams of sugar, which works out to 140 calories in a can. That’s fairly significant, and it’s the reason a lot of people insist Coke and other soft drinks are bad for you. If you’re a fan of soda and need a reason to defend it against those who think it’s unhealthy, then you’re in luck. Coca-cola is prescription medication for some people.

There is a type of bowel obstruction a person can suffer caused by something called bezoars. These are caused by clumps of undigested food that sort of snowball together and get stuck in your intestinal tract, building up until they cause a blockage. They can be very serious and even deadly if they aren’t removed, which is often done through surgery, but not always.

Coca-Cola has been administered to remove bezoars successfully in some cases. Based on research, the soda is actually effective in over 90% of cases in removing certain types of bezoars by basically dissolving them. The acid in Coke has an effective reaction to these nasty little food balls, softening them up and breaking them down so they can pass harmlessly through the digestive tract. Compared to surgery, it’s a much safer and less stressful treatment.

9. The Epley Maneuver Can Treat Vertigo and You Can Do It To Yourself

They say as many as 40% of Americans will experience vertigo at some point in their lives. The condition affects your sense of balance and can make you dizzy, nauseous, cause vomiting and related symptoms. There are many causes, however, so treatments can vary and can include a number of different medications and even surgery to destroy certain nerves. That said, one of the most effective treatments is something called the Epley Maneuver. 

Named for its creator, Dr. John Epley, the treatment works amazingly well, including in cases that have proven resistant to other treatments. Weirdly enough, it was widely derided and rejected by other professionals for years. They just didn’t believe the treatment could be real because it was so simple and, as a result, they dragged Epley’s name through the mud and even threatened his license at some point. 

So what does this mystery treatment involve? You need to be sitting on a bed. Then turn your head 45 degrees in the direction of the ear that’s suffering problems. Next, you lie back quickly with your head still turned, resting on your shoulder for 30 seconds. Then turn your head 90 degrees in the other direction and wait 30 seconds again. Give your head and body another 90 degree turn in the same direction and, you guessed it, wait 30 more seconds. Then you just sit up. That’s it.

When used to treat certain types of vertigo, an impressive 76% of patients show improvement after using the maneuver just one time. 

8. Ketogenic Diets Can Treat Epilepsy

Ketogenic diets have been fairly big in the fad diet world for a few years now. They are sometimes referred to as low-carb diets and typically involve normal protein but higher fat content than you’d get in many other diets. The Atkins diet was a famous example of keto and while some people have had success eating this way, others argue it’s fairly unhealthy, especially long term. But it turns out it does have another unexpected benefit, and that is the treatment of epilepsy.

There have been cases in which epilepsy, especially epilepsy not well regulated by medication, has been controllable thanks to a keto diet. Because your body, and your brain, rely on what you eat to get energy, a keto diet is able to alter the way you get energy from food and that changes how epilepsy works. Instead of carbs, you’re training your body to burn fat for energy. How it changes seizure activity is still a bit of a gray area, though it does seem to rely on lowering sugars while raising fats which sort of tricks your brain into functioning differently.

The approach is used frequently with children, but adults who have had poor results with traditional epilepsy treatments can benefit from it as well. It does need to be strictly monitored by doctors, however, and it’s not an overnight success by any means, it will take patience. 

7. Acid Reflux Can be Treated with a Magnetic Ring

If you weren’t sure how serious heartburn and acid reflux are, you should know the global antacid market is worth $3.97 billion. That’s a lot of Tums and a lot of upset stomachs. And while antacids can often fix the problem, they can’t always do it. Serious heartburn calls for serious relief, like a magnetic ring installed in your esophagus.

The ring allows food to pass through but prevents acid from coming back up and has been approved for the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease. The metal ring basically cinches your throat shut, but not with enough force to prevent swallowing. You can think of it like a balloon held between your fingers. You can still force air in, but you hold it with enough force to stop it from coming out. 

6. ’90s Rap Music has Been Used to Help Treat OCD

For some years, music therapy has shown benefits in treating a variety of disorders, including anxiety, phobias, and OCD. At least one doctor has further narrowed the field when it comes to treating disorders by using rap music from the 1990s, so probably a healthy dose of Snoop Dogg, MC Hammer, and Public Enemy. 

In one case, a woman with a severe fear of thunderstorms was rendered literally unable to leave her home due to the fear that consumed her. After her therapist had her listen to Hypnotize by the Notorious B.I.G. and focus on the clapping beat, she was able to keep herself distracted by the beat long enough to actually go for a walk outside with her therapist since her brain, and therefore the phobia, was otherwise occupied. 

5. Cone Snail Venom Can Treat Chronic Pain

The ocean is an inhospitable place at the best of times. Drowning is always a risk, and no one needs to be told about sharks anymore, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Even snails in the ocean can kill you. Untreated, the venom from a cone snail could kill you in as little as one hour. And as dangerous as that sounds, is valuable stuff. Cone snail venom is also a potent pain killer and cancer treatment.

One of the many compounds in the venom of certain snails can be used in the treatment of cancers and endocrine disorders, as well as severe and chronic pain. Somatostatin is made by humans as well, and it’s a hormone and neuropeptide. The snails make a chemically similar compound that is much more stable. The human version has a half-life of only three minutes. The snail one last for nearly a week.

Painkillers like Prialt already exist and have been derived from snail venom, but they need to be injected into the spine, making them hard to use. They are, however, even stronger than morphine, so the hope is to one day improve on how they’re administered.

4. Botox Injections are Used to Treat Chronic Migraines

Migraine headaches can be extremely painful and debilitating. Often, standard treatments you might use for normal headaches have no effect on a migraine, and those afflicted may just have to ride them out. But the FDA has approved one unusual treatment that, while not a cure, can certainly alleviate symptoms – Botox.

The treatment is not for everyone. You need to have a serious migraine issue, meaning around 15 days’ worth of migraines per month for three months. But because Botox has the effect of paralyzing muscle and nerve receptors, it’s believed that, when injected in the forehead, scalp and surrounding area, it is able to block pain receptors associated with migraines as well. 

3. Depression May Be Treated with Sleep Deprivation

Depression is one of the most common conditions in the world and affects an estimated 280 million people. For some, it can be treated with medication, but for many, it can prove to be quite resistant to medications. That leads to long-lasting struggles that, in some cases, may never be treated.

There are alternatives to medication and some of them are more surprising than others. Arguably one of the most unusual is sleep deprivation. In studies, it has been shown to reduce symptoms almost immediately in about half of patients. This is quite a step up from traditional medications, which can sometimes take weeks to show results. 

For many patients, sleeping again after the deprivation will suffer a relapse, but it may only be partial and the benefits can last for weeks. Combined with medication therapy, the benefits may be stabilized and improve the effects overall.  There’s also reason to believe partial sleep deprivation can be as effective as total sleep deprivation, which means being awake for upwards of 36 hours. As for why it has any effect at all, well, that’s still a bit of a mystery. 

2. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Can Treat Back Pain

Upwards of 65 million Americans reported recent back pain according to one study, and it’s about 8% of all adults who deal with chronic back pain. Life is a pain in the back. So what can be done? Usually it’s over the counter painkillers like Tylenol and Advil that carry the weight of back pain, but there is a curious alternative with no medication required. Cognitive behavioral therapy, the same psychological treatment used for things like depression, can help treat back pain.

Comprehensive studies that covered over 13,000 patients have shown that when a physical and psychological approach is taken to treating the pain, the results are far better than either one alone. The approach needs to be comprehensive, and obviously it won’t address the physical cause of the pain, but it can help a patient learn mechanisms to deal with psychological comorbidities. So if your back pain is also making you depressed, anxious, angry or anything else, it can help you overcome that which, in turn, causes an overall reduction in the amount of pain perceived. 

1. Fish Scales Can be Used to Treat Burns

There are close to half a million burns treated at hospitals in a given year. Of those, around 40,000 may be so severe as to require hospitalization for treatment. And if you’ve ever been burned yourself, you know you don’t want to be burned so badly that you need hospitalization. It’s one of the most painful injuries you can endure. 

One of the most horrible parts about severe burns is the damage it can cause to skin. Skin grafts are some of the only treatment options in this case, which involve moving unburned skin from a healthy part of the body to the burn so that it can heal. 

It’s been shown that fish skin can actually greatly accelerate the healing of wounds in animal testing. Treated with silver solution, fish skin greatly reduces infection risk by lowering bacteria counts and accelerating the growth of new skin. The same fish, tilapia, have been successfully used in treating human burns. Their skin is loaded with something called Type 1 collagen that is very crucial to healing. Once sterilized, the scales can be applied just like a bandage, but they don’t need to be changed. Human skin is, of course, more ideal, but in a lot of developing nations that’s just not an option. Since tilapia skin has no purpose after the fish have been processed, it’s an untapped resource with some clear benefits.