Top 10: Weirdest Diseases You’ve Never Heard Of

We’re all familiar with various diseases like Diabetes, Cancer, and Alzheimers. However, there are other, less conventional diseases lurking around the world with stories begging to be told. Some of them have effects you may never have heard of, while others are new twists on familiar ailments. In this article, we will put 10 of the weirdest diseases in the world under the investigative microscope to see what we can uncover!

1 Elephantiasis: grossly enlarged members

Lymphatic filariasis, also known as elephantiasis, is best known from dramatic photos of people with grossly enlarged or swollen arms and legs. The disease is caused by parasitic worms, including Wuchereria bancrofti, Brugia malayi, and B. timori, all transmitted by mosquitoes. Lymphatic filariasis currently affects 120 million people worldwide, and 40 million of these people have serious disease. When an infected female mosquito bites a person, she may inject the worm larvae, called microfilariae, into the blood. The microfilariae reproduce and spread throughout the bloodstream, where they can live for many years. Often disease symptoms do not appear until years after infection. As the parasites accumulate in the blood vessels, they can restrict circulation and cause fluid to build up in surrounding tissues. The most common, visible signs of infection are excessively enlarged arms, legs, genitalia, and breasts.

2 Progeria: the 80-Year-Old Children

Progeria is caused by a single tiny defect in a child’s genetic code, but it has devastating and life-changing consequences. On average, a child born with this disease will be dead by the age of 13. As they see their bodies fast forward through the normal process of ageing they develop striking physical symptoms, often including premature baldness, heart disease, thinning bones and arthritis. Progeria is extremely rare, there are only around 48 people living with it in the whole world. However, there is a family that has five children with the disease.

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Progeria (Greek, “old age”) refers specifically to Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome.

Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome is an extremely rare condition in which physical aspects of aging are greatly accelerated, and few affected children live past age 13. About 1 in 8 million babies are born with this condition. It is a genetic condition, but occurs sporadically and is usually not inherited in families.

Scientists are particularly interested in progeria because it reveals clues about the normal process of aging

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3 Werewolf Syndrome: the wolf people

When two year-old Abys DeJesus grew dark, hairy patches on her face, doctors said she has a condition known as Human Werewolf Syndrome. The disease is called werewolf syndrome because people with it look like werewolves - except without the sharp teeth and claws. In Mexico, a large family of men had hair that covered their faces and upper bodies. Two brothers were even offered a part in the X-Files but they turned down the offer.

Hypertrichosis, congenital generalized Hypertrichosis or werewolf syndrome is a medical term referring to a condition of excessive body hair. Werewolf syndrome comes from the characteristics of a mythological werewolf of which the person is completely covered in hair or fur. It can be generalized, symmetrically affecting most of the torso and limbs, or localized, affecting an area of skin. The hair does not usually cover the eye area, hands or the feet.It may be mild or severe. In most cases, the term is used to refer to an above-average amount of normal body hair that is unwanted and is an aspect of human variability.

In medical practice, once generalized hypertrichosis has been distinguished from hirsutism, it is most often considered a variation of normal, primarily resulting from genetic factors.

Although the statistic has been cited that this only occurs for 1 out of 10 billion people,^[1] 19 people alive today have hypertrichosis,http://news.sky.com/skynews/picture_gallery/0,,91251-1316213,00.html, the link is one such child from india, out of ~6.5 billion people in the world, makes for an average of 1 in 340 million.

 More about werewolf people

4 Blue Skin Disorder: the blue people

A large family simply known as the “blue people” lived in the hills around Troublesome Creek in Kentucky until the 1960s. They were the blue Fugates. Most of them lived past the age of 80, with no serious illness - just blue skin. The trait was passed on from generation to generation. People with this condition have blue, plum, indigo or almost purple skin. (Source)

5 Pica: the urge to eat non-food substances

Glore Stomach Display

People diagnosed with Pica have an insatiable urge to eat non-food substances like dirt, paper, glue and clay. Though it is believed to be linked with mineral deficiency, health experts have found no real cause and no cure for this disorder.

6 Vampire Disease: pain from the sun

There are people out there who go to great lengths to avoid the sun. If they are caught in the sun, their skin will blister. Some of them have pain and blistering as soon as the sun touches their skin. Ok, so they’re not actually vampires. They don’t drink blood and sleep in coffins, but they do suffer from a rare disease that has vampire-like symptoms.

7 Alice in Wonderland syndrome: time, space and body image are distorted

Alice in Wonderland syndrome (AIWS), or micropsia, is a disorienting neurological condition which affects human visual perception. Subjects perceive humans, parts of humans, animals, and inanimate objects as substantially smaller than in reality. Generally, the object perceived appears far away or extremely close at the same time. For example, a family pet, such as a dog, may appear the size of a mouse, or a normal car may look shrunk to scale. This leads to another name for the condition, Lilliput sight or Lilliputian hallucinations, named after the small people in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. The condition is in terms of perception only; the mechanics of the eye are not affected, only the brain’s interpretation of information passed from the eyes
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Alice in Wonderland syndrome (AIWS, named after the novel written by Lewis Carroll), also known as Todd’s syndrome^[1], is a disorienting neurological condition which affects human perception. Sufferers may experience micropsia, macropsia, and/or size distorsion of other sensory modalities. A temporary condition, it is often associated with migraines, brain tumours, and the use of psychoactive drugs. It can also present as the initial sign of the Epstein-Barr Virus (see infectious mononucleosis).

  8 Blaschko’s lines: strange stripes all over the body

Blaschko’s lines are an extremely rare and unexplained phenomenon of human anatomy first presented in 1901 by German dermatologist Alfred Blaschko. Neither a specific disease nor a predictable symptom of a disease, Blaschko’s lines are an invisible pattern built into human DNA. Many inherited and acquired diseases of the skin or mucosa manifest themselves according to these patterns, creating the visual appearance of stripes. The cause of the stripes is thought to result from mosaicism; they do not correspond to nervous, muscular, or lymphatic systems. What makes them more remarkable is that they correspond quite closely from patient to patient, usually forming a “V” shape over the spine and “S” shapes over the chest, stomach, and sides.

9 Walking Corpse Syndrome: they believe to have died

It is a syndrome of mental depression and suicidal tendencies, in which the patient complains of having lost everything: possessions, part of or entire body, often believing that he or she has died and is a walking corpse. This delusion is usually expanded to the degree that the patient might claim that he can smell his own rotting flesh and feel worms crawling through his skin. The latter phenomenon is a recurring experience of people chronically deprived of sleep or suffering amphetamine/cocaine psychosis. Paradoxically, being “dead” often gives the patient the nation of being immortal.

10 Jumping frenchman disorder: weird reflexes

The main characteristic is that patients are extremely startled by an unexpected noise or sight. It’s not just twitching when someone sneaks up behind you. Patients with this disorder flail their arms, cry out and repeat words. First identified in some of Maine’s lumberjacks of French-Canadian origin, the odd reflex has been identified in other parts of the world, too.

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