Cecil. No mention of cocaine and/or crack? The
illusion that your skin is crawling with bugs
is very commonly a sign of excessive use. People
from Freud to John Phillips to the crackhead
who use to live on my block mention it.
Thank you for posting your comment.
Please include a link to Cecil’s column if it’s on the straight dope web site.
To include a link, it can be as simple as including the web page location in your post (make sure there is a space before and after the text of the URL).
Cecil’s column can be found on-line at this link:
What’s up with people who think they’re infested with bugs? (23-Jun-2000)
Cecil Adams did mention substance abuse.
I’m sorry, but I have no idea why you took this tract in response to a question that might actually have some validity. Infestation of animals by insects is not so uncommon a phenomena, outside of the flea, lice and worms, there are other organisms which can invade a human host.
In the desert there are insects which bore through the bottom of your feet and lay eggs under your skin. Even in your sushi bashing article, you discussed the fact that people can become infested by parasites.
We are a walking cosmos of infestation. Every cold you ever caught is still living in you, the 30,000 some odd creatures that live in your eyebrows alone. So why, if someone has a belief they are infested should they immediately be reduced to delusional.
If in fact the health care practitioner had performed a thorough exam and found nothing, then I could see following this course of logic, but cynism for the sake of itself is just that. I agree with debunking ridiculous notions, but there is a difference between that and reaching for a conclusion which proves a protagonist wrong merely for the sake of argument.
I just got out of the shower.
I just washed my hair.
Now, I’m itching so much, that…
I GOTTA GO SHOWER AGAIN!!! :eek:
Bearcat, take a look at the column once again.
First, the question was about people who think they are infested with bugs, not those that actually are. Thus Cecil addressed the delusion.
Second, see Cecil’s initial sentence:
Well, assuming he didn’t actually have bugs-
I think that covers him pretty well for people who actually do have parasites.
I suppose a different tac would have been to address parasites, and the types you can get and how, but the question seemed to be more about delusion of parasites, not actual parasites. Thus the column.
How can a bug be delusional? I didn’t know they were even self-aware.
Note that the Oxford English Dictionary lists “formication ~ An abnormal sensation as of ants creeping over the skin” with a reference dating from 1707.
For those of you who enjoy lauging at someone else’s misery - and who doesn’t? - I highly recommend a perusal of the message board at http://www.skinparasites.com . The kids over there are on a Howard Hughes level of nuttines. Though no one seems to be saving their urine yet, they have all sorts of handy tips for avoiding the “bugs” that they think are everywhere, including shaving off all of your hair - Why not? - and coating your body with Johnson’s baby lotion after your third shower of the day…
Velly, velly interesting.
Cecil,
I can appreciate your half assed attempt at trying not to take sides on the delusional parasite subject, but it didn’t work…Mr. Norm Fones is an apparent Jerk, probably uneducated in the field of dermatology and parasitology, and sucks at his job!.. He should have offered to get help for this man elsewhere, instead, he immediately wrote him off as a lunatic! Imagine that! He didn’t present himself as a medical doctor but if he is, he’s a QUACK, and he’s not keeping his oath. and YOU Mr. Cecil, are also a Jerk! For the simple fact that you know nothing about this poor man, you agreed with a total stranger about his problem, and then you take it upon yourself to diagnose and then brand this man as a “lunatic with delusional parasitosis.” I was astounded on how you then proceeded with searching the net, finding, and then dumping on a group of people who have bonafied skin problems, also classifying ALL OF THEM as having the same disease without really knowing. How do you know that this isn’t a REAL, honest to God ailment as common as Head or Body Lice, but just not yet recognized in the medical community? ARE YOU A DOCTOR OR ACAROLOGIST? Because if you were, you would know these things DO EXIST… It doesn’t surprise me the way you went to these sites and picked the most outlandish stories you could find in order to justify your story and to sway people into thinking that everyone with similar skin problems are all crazy or “delusional”, as you have presented! Then you try to rectify yourself and add in the story about the woman who proved she wasn’t delusional by producing actual, living proof, then adding in “Even <lunatics> sometimes have real parasites.” Get a life Cecil. I don’t know what your problem is, and I’ll bet it’s hard to pronounce, but
Since I’m not a medical or mental doctor I’ll refrain from diagnosing and branding you with some kind of rare “delusional” disease.
Sincerely,
Alyssa
Listen, you all have skin ailments that the doctor’s can’t diagnose. Fine, I haven’t met you and don’t know. But here are where you kids seems to go over the edge, in my personal (and I’ll admit non-medical) opinion:
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Feathers appearing from nowhere. There’s a fair number of the parasite sufferers on the http://www.skinparasites.com board who claim their bodies “produce” feathers as part of their symptoms. If, as you claim, the parasites are sub-microscopic - since only the sufferer him/herself can actually see them - how can they produce full-size feathers? That defies the basic laws of matter.
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You all stridently insist to be infested with parasites. Why? Because your skin itches and you find lint? I find lint every day. Actually, everyone finds lint every day. Why does yours come from a parasite (or nematode)? Maybe you’re allergic to something in your environment. Why do you cling to the belief, with only anecdotal proof, that it “must” be a parasite? If I took three hot showers a day with antibaterial soap, I bet I’d itch too.
-
Whatever that medication was that’s supposed to help delusional parisitosis, why doesn’t anyone take it? If you took it and the parasites went away, wouldn’t that prove something? Instead I read on that message board about everything from taking veterinary medication to covering the floor in plastic. Is it all that surprising that an outside observer - might find that odd?
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There are no known bugs that look like bugs but turn into lint when shown to a doctor. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but I just thought I’d throw that out there.
5)I’d like to say it again - feathers? Itching, fine. Lesions? Probably because you scratched the itch. But feathers? I’m gonna have to say that I really, really doubt that.
Now, before you get all uptight, please take into consideration that I do not actually know what you might be going through. I really do hope you get better. You all seem like a lot of nice people, though you also seem to have a huge amount of anger bottled up, and a tendency to under-punctuate and over-capitalize your postings. “Jerk,” for example, is not a proper noun, and should only be capitalized when it begins a sentence.
Thank you…We are all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view! Do you have a feeling of accomplishment now that you have evaluated my anger factor and attacked my punctuation? I will give you credit where it’s due, you are correct. “JERK” should not be capitalized, and is not a proper noun…The meaning of “JERK”,(in case you don’t know), according to WordNet is; A dull, stupid, fatuous person. L Thanks for the english lesson! OK, let’s get down to business. Let me understand this correctly…Just because I post in defense of 1 man, disagree with Cecil’s tactics, and use my own common sense and humanity I’m automatically one of the parasite infested?..Hmmmm, interesting. I do have a tendency to use my common sense and I do like to ask questions. I do voice my opinion, you know, kinda like you? I have checked the site, I have read the message board. Yes, there are some strange documentations there, some beyond our understanding mainly because we are not in their shoes. Yes, we all know there are some crazies out there, why shouldn’t this group have a few? There’s even a few here. I don’t judge the whole group for a few who just in fact might have “delusional parasitosis.”
#1. I don’t know where you obtained the story about the feathers, I was just @ the site, the story was not posted anywhere on the board. What was the number of the archive?
#2. There are apparently guidelines to meet in order to classify whether a person has a “skin disorder” caused by parasites…These people all have the same symptoms in common if you haven’t noticed, (for example: the black dust-like particles on their skin) and I don’t think it’s some kind of "group delusional parasitosis. " Some of these people probably never met any of the other members before finding this site in hopes of finding a cure or some kind of relief. By the way, “Nematode” is not a skin parasite, it classifies the roundworm family and lives in water and soil
unless it is ingested, then lives in your intestines.
#3. Why take medication to relieve symptoms of a disease you haven’t been diagnosed as having? (like taking Ritalin just because you feel hyper, overly energetic, or can’t pay attention)…Not to mention that you have to have a prescription to get it just like you would with the Delusional Parasitosis medication.
#4. If this interests you, or just for s**ts and giggles, you really should do your homework on the symptoms and treatment of skin parasites & mite caused dermititis infections, it might answer some of your questions and satisfy your curiosity, I did.
#5. Hypothetically, IF you had this affliction, how do you know you wouldn’t take 3 baths a day with antibacterial soap? You wouldn’t be performing such a bathing ritual if you didn’t have an itching problem in the first place would you? It’s irrelevent whether or not the soap caused itching.
#6 S Observing your sentence structure, a complete, simple, sentence contains a noun and a finate verb and is easily understood when removed from the story and read alone. A sentence may also contain an adjective which is used to describe the noun. A compound sentence contains 2 or more subjects and finate verbs…As you can see, I do know a little something about grammar…
Thank you for joining our little group, alymaitland! It’s always refreshing to hear a differing point of view, especially when it is being presented eloquently and reasonably.
For everyone in this thread (I am not speaking to anyone in particular), I am just popping my head in to remind you of the ground rules.
We have another forum to help vent steam in case you get irritated. Personal insults may cause the thread to be locked and a moderator or administrator may tell you to continue the discussion in the “BBQ Pit” forum. We like to try and maintain a calm and civil demeanour in our SDMB discussions. (Which, in my mind, is one of the nice things about a moderated board.)
As far as criticisms of Cecil Adams, it probably behooves us all to remember that he is our host here, and deserves the same polite behaviour as the host of a house in which you are invited for the purpose of a round-table discussion. On the other hand, since he is in some respects a “public figure”, he perhaps can be discussed a bit more freely than the other members of the SDMB.
While there may be people out there with parasitic infestations of bugs that have proven tough for medical science to diagnose or treat, I didn’t take Cecil’s column to be directed at them. And I can easily understand the frustrations of having an ailment that is difficult to diagnose, as well as the potential for a concomittant touchiness on the subject by one so afflicted if one does have some such infestation and feel they are unduly being characterized as delusional.
But the fact remains that there are delusional imaginary infestations. Somebody above referred to the well known case of speed bugs (a delusion associated with use of amphetamines).
[[Mr. Norm Fones is an apparent Jerk, probably uneducated in the field of dermatology and parasitology, and sucks at his job!.. He should have offered to get help for this man elsewhere, instead, he immediately wrote him off as a lunatic! Imagine that!]]
I happen to know Norm Fones and have worked with him, doing HIV testing and counseling. Let me fill you in on… the rest of the story.
Norm DID take this gentleman seriously at first. He was alarmed at the guy’s symptoms - bleeding sores on his arms, legs, and torso. As some skin ailments can be symptoms of HIV disease, Norm took his concerns in that department seriously too. He brought the doctor into the HIV test counseling office specifically to look at the man’s sores and to see if bugs could be found. The doctor took several cultures and looked under the microscope at them, finding nothing. The man insisted that the bugs were visible, but several health workers could not find or see them.
When the client returned for test results - negative for HIV - Norm made some calls and made the guy an appointment at the mental health clinic in the hospital. Then Norm walked the guy over to the clinic to help him with intake.
The guy was nutty. He was nutty in a lot of ways, from what Norm said. We see a lot of weird stuff in our field and yeah, we tend to develop something of a black sense of humor sometimes. So sue us.
Jill
I once worked with someone (I’ll call him “Larry”) who had this problem. I can’t say that he had a substance abuse problem - perhaps being socialy isolated was the trigger, since he seemed to be very much a loner.
Anyway, the problem came to light after a co-worker in an adjacent office complained to Larry’s boss (hereafter “LB”) that there was a weird, unpleasant mechanical smell coming from Larry’s office. LB goes to investigate, and says later that he was nearly knocked over by the smell when he opened the office door.
LB: Say, Larry, is everything okay in here? You know, your office smells a bit strongly of chemicals, and some folks here are finding it unpleasant.
Larry: Oh, yes, well, that would be the bug spray.
LB: Bug spray?
Larry: Yes, I’ve had this problem with large flies coming through the holes in the ceiling. Look at how much spray I’v had to use to keep them under control. (opens a desk drawer, revealing approximately 12 cans of D-Con/Raid/etc.)
LB: (looks around at ceiling, sees no holes; looks in drawer and does his damnedest to keep control) Gee, Larry, if you had a bug problem, why didn’t you tell me? We could have Office Services call in an exterminator to deal with this properly, so you wouldn’t have to spend so much money on less effective repellants.
Larry: Well, you see, I also have this problem with tiny microscopic bugs that live under my desk…
LB: Under your desk?
Larry: Yes, the live under my desk, and they crawl up my pants legs and bite me, so I have to keep the spray on hand for those too.
LB: (completely at a loss for words, finally gets himself together) I’m sorry, Larry, I’m happy to have the exterminators in, but I can’t have you continuing to spray. The other people in the office don’t feel well after they smell it, and I have to consider them as well.
Larry: Okay, I’ll try not to spray any more.
It was real obvious that Larry couldn’t contain himself for too long, because the smell continued. The objecting co-workers were moved to new offices, because there was no other way to deal with Larry. (The company had decided that perhaps he had a mental health problem of some sort, and were afraid to fire him lest he sue under the Americans with Disabilities Act.)
I will only add that once, after this incident, I had to deal with Larry directly on a project. I held my breath the best I could, because it was like stepping into factory vat… while there, Larry confided to me that he also sprayed all of his books and inside his desk drawers, because other troublesome bugs lived there. Later in the conversation, I asked him for something, and he opened a desk drawer to get it. I couldn’t help but notice and remark upon the fact that he had a half-full mug of water in the drawer as well. He told me that whenever he didn’t finish drinking his water by the end of the day, he put it in the drawer for safekeeping until the next morning. However, he sometimes noticed an oily taste to the water, usually after he sprayed the drawer.
I went back to my desk completely nauseated, and wondering what sort of central nervous system damage he had already sustained.
Here are some links to the postings on the http://www.skinparasites.com discussion board which relate to the appearance of “feathers”.
http://www.skinparasites.com/dcforum/DCForumID8/65.html#
http://www.skinparasites.com/dcforum/DCForumID8/94.html
http://www.skinparasites.com/dcforum/DCForumID8/445.html
http://www.skinparasites.com/dcforum/DCForumID8/440.html
I think several of the people on that discussion board have some sort of delusional parisitosis, at least as I understand it from Cecil’s column. Rather than try to argue this point, I’ll let you read the messages on that board and you can make up your own mind. The threads listed above are a good place to start.
I’d also tend to say that “they all have the same symptoms in common” is an overgeneralization. They seem to have a variety of symptoms, not all of them in common. One common symptom many seem to have have is that their doctor has diagnosed them with delusional parisitosis. Whether that dianosis is correct or not is not for me to say. I would think that it’s probably correct for some and not for others.
Some of the people have been diagnosed with delusional parisitosis, and do not want to take the medication, because they do not believe themselves to be delusional.
If I thought I was infested with a parasite, I would probably bathe with an anti-parasitic soap, something along the lines of RID, I would think. Off the top of my head, I doubt an antibacterial soap would kill a parasite of the size described - i.e., the size of a ball of lint.
Hypothetically, if the symptoms started with an actual, diagnosed infestation, as is common in delusional parisitosis, and the antibaterial soap caused itching, wouldn’t the itching then continue past the demise of the actual infestation, causing the sufferer to believe the “bugs” were still around, when in fact the anitbacterial soap was now causing the itching? I think that would be relevant.
Folks,
The Spring 2000 issue of American Entomologist has a very good, mostly non-technical article on delusory parasitosis (full reference at the end of my post). If you are in any way concerned about this condition, I recommend it as a relatively brief but thorough overview of the characteristics of the condition, its potential causes, both physiological and psychological, and suggestions for responding to people who might have the condition. The article is written for entomologists and pest control operators who work with bugs and sometimes encounter folks with this problem, and is written by a veterinary entomologist who was inspired to learn more about the problem after her encounters with many sufferers. Among other things, she notes that a very wide range of important health problems (anemia, diabetes, some cancers, hypoglycemia, AIDS, carbon monoxide poisoning, among others) include dermatological symptoms such as skin rashes, reddening, feelings of prickling, or “ants on the skin”, etc. Also, ALL of the 50 drugs most commonly prescribed in the U.S. in 1998 have one or more of the same skin conditions as potential side effects. This includes many antibiotics, estrogen, antihistamines, heart and high blood pressure medications, anti-depressants, ulcer treatments, etc. Further, incidents of side effects often increase when two or more drugs are taken simultaneously, especially in elderly patients.
So there are lots of good reasons to have skin problems that are not “just in your head”, but might lead one to think one had bugs in/on the skin.
If Cecil does a followup on this topic, I hope he includes this reference. The article is by Nancy C. Hinkle, entitled “Delusory Parasitosis”, and appears on page 17 of the Spring 2000 issue of American Entomologist (volume 46, number 1).
oops. I meant to add: I’m sure any public or university library that didn’t have its own copy could get one easily by inter-library loan. American Entomologist is a quarterly magazine published by the Entomological Society of America, which is the professional organization for academic and research entomologists and professional pest control operators in the U.S. The magazine is their “general scientific interest” publication. They publish other hard-core research journals as well. The society has a web site: http://www.entsoc.org, but I couldn’t find any information on getting copies of specific issues or articles.
When I read this column, the way Cecil phrased his response bothered me.
This gives the impression to the reader that Cecil advocates giving a patient a cursory examination–or none–writing him off as a loon, and not helping. Is that unfair? Maybe. But the question as written didn’t make clear that Fones did a thorough examination. Cecil came across as too dismissive in this.
I agree - whether or not the person actually has bugs, it sounds like the guy in the question definitely had lesions, and they should be investigated, obviously, for what caused them. It may be someone doesn’t actually have bugs but does have some sort of horrible itch that needs to be treated, especially if it’s causing them to scratch themselves all the time. And it from what I’ve been reading, it actually isn’t out of the question to have a mite infestation or something, so that needs to be totally ruled out, also.