# The strangest medical conditions. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 27, 2013, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495 "2013-01-27T00:57:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495/21 "2013-01-28T03:45:19Z")
I really shouldn’t have read this thread shortly before going to bed . . . (hope I remember to breathe ferchrissakes). ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495/22 "2013-01-28T15:20:48Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > [Progeria](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57520141-10391704/first-treatment-for-accelerated-aging-disease-progeria-has-promising-results/). Otherwise known as “accelerated aging disease”. Wow. :eek: And on the [other extreme](http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Health/girl-age-brooke-greenberg-baffles-doctors/story?id=7880954): URL links to a story of a 16 year old girl who stopped growing as an infant. One of the health channels recently aired a show called “my 40 year old child” about, well, a 40-year-old man with something similar (about the size of a 10 year old). A stunningly rare condition, and the show also featured a 6 year old girl who weighed 10 pounds and was like a newborn baby. They showed some medical testing that said the two cases had completely different causes; in the case of the boy/man, it was some kind of prenatal pituitary gland damage (not genetic); in the case of the girl, that was not the case and they were still trying to figure it out. It’s a misnomer to say “doesn’t age” obviously - “doesn’t grow” is more accurate. The man’s face looked quite old actually (not wrinkled per se, just “old” somehow). In his case, he didn’t reach puberty until about age 27, in the girl’s case, at age 6 it’s too early to tell. Hah - I see WhyNot trumped me on the girl referenced in the ABC link. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495/23 "2013-01-28T15:21:15Z")
[Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_Genital_Arousal_Disorder) ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495/24 "2013-01-28T15:34:52Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > [No problem.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibrodysplasia_ossificans_progressiva) I came in here to post about this. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495/25 "2013-01-28T15:53:03Z")
[Alien hand syndrome.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_hand_syndrome) Dr. Strangelove suffered from this condition. A lot of other neurological conditions are interesting for their bizarreness. Consider [Capgras delusion,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capgras_delusion) in which the sufferer believes that the people who are near and dear to him have been replaced with perfectly identical impostors. As in “yes, that _looks_ and _sounds_ exactly like my mother, but it’s _not_ my mother.” ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495/26 "2013-01-28T17:42:50Z")
Morgellons: [Morgellons - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons) ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495/27 "2013-01-28T18:46:37Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > A lot of other neurological conditions are interesting for their bizarreness. Consider [Capgras delusion,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capgras_delusion) in which the sufferer believes that the people who are near and dear to him have been replaced with perfectly identical impostors. As in “yes, that _looks_ and _sounds_ exactly like my mother, but it’s _not_ my mother.” They used that one in one of the Law & Orders. The woman believed it was really her daughter if she only heard her voice but once she saw her, she believed it was an imposter. ---
**Author:** ![Vicullum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/6de8d8/32.png) [@Vicullum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vicullum)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495/28 "2013-01-28T20:28:55Z")
[Koro,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koro_(medicine)) a neurological condition where sufferers believe their genitals are shrinking away. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495/29 "2013-01-28T21:38:55Z")
[Cotard’s Syndrome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_corpse_syndrome), AKA Walking Corpse Syndrome. The sufferers believe they are dead and/or rotting away. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2013, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495/30 "2013-01-29T02:22:42Z")
Face blindness: [Prosopagnosia - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopagnosia) ---
**Author:** ![nikonikosuru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f8ce5/32.png) [@nikonikosuru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nikonikosuru)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495/31 "2013-01-30T04:05:59Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > Face blindness: [Prosopagnosia - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopagnosia) Learned about that in my aphasia class. It must be so horrible to have. Another interesting/strange one is asomatognosia, denial of your own body part. ---
**Author:** ![AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495/32 "2013-01-30T11:19:18Z")
> [@](#): > > The strangest thing about her medical condition is that she doesn’t seem to have one . Um not really. There are a lot of people who Just Don’t Know Why a particular medical condition Happened. ---
**Author:** ![gracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495/33 "2013-01-31T01:14:27Z")
> [@Seanette](#): > > I’ll add [Fatal Familial Insomnia to the list](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_familial_insomnia). Dominant gene that manifests between about 30 and about 60. The patient stops being able to sleep, then goes insane from lack of sleep, then dies. Oh, and BTW, the age of onset gives the future patient plenty of time to have children before finding out that oops, they inherited the gene. Additionally, in women, childbirth can trigger onset. Gah! Scary! :eek: What I don’t get is what these patients actually _die of_? And how weird: they couldn’t even be properly brought into a coma. What the hell?! ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495/34 "2013-01-31T01:43:48Z")
[Ondine’s Curse](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001142/) These people can only breathe while awake. They have to think about every breath. They require mechanical ventilation when asleep. I took care of a 12 year old with it, whose parents were getting a divorce. When ever they would fight he’d stop breathing, on purpose, to make them stop fighting. There are many congenital deformities that are horrifying. Many are survivable, most are not. It’s been years since I looked through the series of books dedicated to these anomalies, so I don’t remember the names of any right now. The only one I can think of is [Williams Syndrome](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002105/). It’s main feature is a “cocktail party personality.” The children have very similar facial features. Unfortunately, they also have several life altering defects, like stiff blood vessels. ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495/35 "2013-01-31T04:10:23Z")
[Situs inversus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situs_inversus). Your organs are backwards, otherwise harmless (usually). ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495/36 "2013-01-31T04:26:02Z")
I’m not sure what this condition is, but apparently something with this kid’s skull/brain did not develop correctly. I’ve disabled the link, since it might not be safe for work (because of the shock value, not because of anything overtly offensive). This is an infant boy in Turkey from about six or seven years ago. No idea on whatever happened to him. (Some sound in this video. But I don’t understand Turkish.) [http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=844d12c29e](http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=844d12c29e) ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495/37 "2013-01-31T04:49:29Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > I’m not sure what this condition is, but apparently something with this kid’s skull/brain did not develop correctly. I’ve disabled the link, since it might not be safe for work (because of the shock value, not because of anything overtly offensive). This is an infant boy in Turkey from about six or seven years ago. No idea on whatever happened to him. (Some sound in this video. But I don’t understand Turkish.) > [ItemFix - Social Video Factory](http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=844d12c29e) It’s probably a form of [encephalocele](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalocele), but it’s possible that it’s [hydranencephaly](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydranencephaly)and a lack of a skull too. The difference would be if there’s actual brain tissue in there or just cerebrospinal fluid. Can’t tell from the video. Know how women of childbearing age are urged to take folic acid supplements? That’s why. (It’s a kind of neural tube defect, and while not all neural tube defects are caused by folic acid deficiency, many are.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-strangest-medical-conditions/648495.md?page=1)