10 Macabre Maladies

Copyright 2016 by Gary L. Pullman

Overnight geniuses. Strange perceptions about one's body. Unawareness about the loss of one's vision. These are only a few of the strange effects of rare, often mysterious, illnesses. Some of these diseases are organic, and their causes are discernible on brain scans or by means of other testing procedures. Others are emotional, or “affective.” Trauma or disease accounts for the onset of a some symptoms, and several of these ailments are associated with other medical problems or psychological disorders. Some can be cured. Others can be treated. In a few unfortunate cases, there only palliative care is available. Each of these conditions has one thing in common with the rest” all 10 are macabre maladies.

10 Acquired Savant Syndrome

Acquired savant syndrome is a condition in which a normal person becomes an instant genius concerning a particular subject as the result of severe trauma or disease. After two men brutally assaulted him outside a karoke bar, Jason Padgett, a furniture salesman, became a mathematical genius. He recalls being knocked out briefly and “seeing a bright flash of light.” His assailants beat him and kicked him in the head. As a result, he suffered “a severe concussion and a bleeding kidney.” His vision was also altered. It became pixilated, and he saw things as if they were still photographs joined to one another by a line. “Every shape” appears to be “a finite construction of smaller and smaller units.” He also developed synesthesia, which allows him to see “mathematical formulas as geometric figures.” Padgett, who had never done well at math before his injuries, is now in college. He plans to become a numbers theorist. 

9 Alice-in-Wonderland Syndrome

People who suffer from the Alice-in-Wonderland Syndrome (aka a Lilliputian hallucination) experience distortions of time, space, and body image, feeling their entire body or parts of it have been altered in shape and size.” Typically, their perceptions are accompanied by “visual hallucinations” and a family history of migraine headaches. The English psychiatrist, John Todd (1914-1987) who discovered the malady named it after the Lewis Carroll novel,

Alice in Wonderland, whose main character experiences similar perceptions. 

8 Anton-Babinski Syndrome

Blind people who have Anton-Babinski syndrome are blind deny they are blind. The rare condition, which is also known as reversible cortical blindness and transient Anton's syndrome, should be “highly suspected” when an individual experiences “odd vision loss” or a brain scan indicates injury to the occipital lobe. The syndrome is often associated with brain injury or strokes. In one case, a 90-year-old man, who was blind in both eyes, had false memories related to vision, and was unaware of his condition, was diagnosed with Anton-Babinski syndrome. During the course of a week, he “gradually realized he was blind.” In another case, a patient became aware of being blind in two weeks. These cases show that the effects of Anton-Babinski syndrome need not be permanent.

7 Auto-brewery Syndrome 

Matthew Hogg, age 34, of Middlesbrough, England, is a human brewery, able to convert starchy foods into alcohol. Due to “an excess of yeast in his digestive system,” Hogg gets drunk on such foods as “bread and pasta.” As a result, he was often drunk or hungover and routinely experienced fatigue. At first, doctors were baffled by his condition, but after he spent $80,000 in medical testing, a Mexican doctor diagnosed Hogg with the auto-brewery syndrome (aka gut fermentation syndrome). Now, Hogg is on a strict diet, although he remains too exhausted to work full time. 

6 Capgras Syndrome

People with Capras syndrome, a condition named for the French psychiatrist, Jean Marie Capgras, who discovered it, strongly believe their family and friends are impostors. Deluded, they think significant others are doubles, they themselves are doubles, or both. They may also believe animals are impostors or inanimate objects are doubles. Such individuals are not hallucinating, because they are aware of their perceptions. Capras syndrome may also feature cerebral lesions as the result of head trauma, schizophrenia “conditions,” or emotional or “organic-psychic disturbances.” The syndrome is also known as delusional misidentification, illusion of doubles, illusion of negative doubles, misidentification syndrome, nonrecognition syndrome, phantom double syndrome, and subjective doubles syndrome. 

5 Exploding Head Syndrome

The heads of those who have the exploding head syndrome don't actually explode. Instead, they hear loud noises as they drift into sleep or awaken. They compare the noises to exploding bombs, gunshots, and crashing cymbals. Although the condition doesn't cause pain, it frightens and confuses those who hear these sounds. Exploding head syndrome is often accompanied by heart palpitations and a rapid pulse. About 10 percent suffer from the syndrome, which affects women more than it does men. The cause of the condition is unknown, although it may result from “minor temporal lobe seizures, from “sudden shifts of middle ear components,” or from stress or anxiety, “calcium signaling” impairments, or “brainstem neuronal dysfunction.” Unless individuals suffer from sleep deprivation, no medical treatment is prescribed for the macabre malady.

4 Fish Odor Syndrome 

Trimethylaminuria (aka fish odor syndrome) is characterized by the body's inability to break down the chemical compound known as trimethylaminuria. As a result, a person with this syndrome excretes an excessive amount of the compound in his or her “urine, sweat, and breath.” The syndrome is caused by a genetic mutation, and its “symptoms are often present form birth.” Although uncommon, it's not a condition easily hidden or ignored, because the odor it causes is like that or “rotting fish.” Fortunately, the macabre malady responds favorably to “dietary restrictions” and the use of “acid lotions and soaps, . . . activated charcoal and copper chlorophyllin, certain antibiotics, laxatives, and riboflavin supplements. 

3 Fregoli Syndrome

Fregoli syndrome, discovered in 1927, is the opposite of Capras syndrome: a stranger is impersonating a friend or family member. Schizophrenics may develop the condition, as was the case with a patient identified as “Mr. A.” He believed co-ed students were “strongly attracted” to his “facial cream,” the use of which gave him a perfect appearance. After spending an inordinate amount of time flirting with a young woman he encountered on Facebook, He spent an excessive amount of time on Facebook, only to have her break off their online relationship, Mr. A believed she'd “been in contact” with him previously and “now was disguising herself.” He was also convinced she used “the same cream as he did himself to transform her facial looks” and was still “interested in pursuing a relationship with him.” Brain scans showed no organic “abnormalities.” One of the causes of Fregoli's syndrome is a “breakdown” in the affected individual's ability to see individuals as unique.

2 Stereo Blindness

Stereo blindness results from a lack of alignment between the eyes which prevents the brain from combining the image seen by each eye into a single picture. This malady may actually benefit artists, research suggests. In an experiment, art school students wore 3-D glasses before staring “at a background of colored dots that were manipulated by a computer to flicker randomly.” Those who wore the 3-D glasses and, as a result, possessed stereoscopic vision, could discern “a square floating in front of or behind the computer screen,” whereas students who were stereo blind “just saw noise.” Another experiment demonstrated that, more often than not, artists are stereo blind. As a result, they enjoy “a natural advantage in translating the richly three-dimensional world onto a flat two-dimensional canvas,” Harvard Medical School vision expert Margaret S. Livingstone said.

1 Stone Man Syndrome

Fibrodysplasiaossificans progressiva (aka stone man syndrome) transforms connective tissues, such as muscles, ligaments, and tendons, into bone. The macabre malady is rare, but a one-year-old Oklahoma boy, Ryder Kirkman, has it. His mother, Chastity, was aware her son had a problem when she noticed his “fingers and toes weren't fully developed.” A fall can prompt bone growth, as can an attempt to remove it. Unfortunately, there's no cure for the ailment, although those who suffer from it survive into their forties.

An older person with the syndrome, 20-year-old Seanie Nammock, of Birmingham, England, is and has had the disease for six years. Essentially, “a second skeleton” is “growing inside her,” atop her original set of bones. Her “back and neck are frozen already,” and she can't “lift her hands above her waist.” Eventually, she'll be forced to lie or sit for the rest of her life, because her whole body will be too rigid for her to move. Her inability to hold the banister when she climbs or descends stairs and her shaky balance has caused her to fall several times, and she's unable to break her fall by putting her arms down. Worse yet, each fall tends to spur more painful, unwanted bone growth. Nammock's only recourse against the progressive disease is “over-the-counter painkillers.”