Hey there and welcome to Life Noggin It's a beautiful butterfly, and now it's a
dragon!?
Wow!
The human body is pretty resistant.
Not only is it pretty good at growing, but if you get a cut, a bruise, or even break
a bone, your body usually has a way of repairing itself.
But sometimes, the same mechanisms that keep you healthy can mutate and cause your body
to grow and develop more or less than it would normally.
Imagine that one day, you find a huge lump on your ribcage, and, even after getting it
x-rayed, you still don’t know what’s going on.
Eventually you find out that you have a rare genetic disorder where your body becomes more
and more immobile due to a dehabillitaing amount of bone growth, to the point where
you relish the escape of video games since it’s one of the only activities where you
don’t feel left out.
Well that’s the life of Daniel Williams, an 11-year old boy living in Houston, Texas.
And all of this is happening because Daniel has what’s known as “stone man syndrome”.
Stone man syndrome, also known more officially as FOP, is a disorder where tissue from your
muscles, tendons, and ligaments are gradually replaced by bone.
This causes bone to form outside of your skeleton, which can begin to limit how much you can
move around.
Generally, people with FOP begin to notice it when they’re kids, with symptoms starting
in their neck and shoulders, and then moving down their body and into their limbs.
For Daniel and other people with FOP, safety is a big deal.
That’s because physical trauma, even things that would otherwise be beneficial like surgically
removing the bone growth, can cause their FOP to flare up.
While there is still no cure, scientists /have/ tracked the cause for FOP back to a mutation
in a specific gene in your DNA.
So maybe with more research, there’s hope for a cure in the future!
Now, FOP is pretty rare, but it isn’t the only condition that causes excessive growth
in your body.
There’s also neurofibromatosis, or Nf, which has three different types, but is generally
a genetic disorder that mainly affects nerve cell tissues.
It can cause tumors to grow on your nerves, which may be benign, but can also be dangerous
as they compress your nerves and other tissues.
Sometimes the tumors are even cancerous.
There’s no cure for Nf, but treatments can help to control the symptoms.
Unlike with FOP, sometimes it’s recommended to remove any harmful growths through surgery.
Radiation therapy is also sometimes an option.
Another condition along the lines of abnormal bodily growth is epidermodysplasia verruciformis,
or EV, more commonly thought of as “tree man syndrome”.
In this extremely rare skin disease, wart-like lesions begin to cover your body, resembling
tree bark.
The growths can be limited to a small cluster of only a few warts, or expand to the point
where they cover a large part of your body.
There’s currently no cure.
You can remove the warts surgically, though it may only be a temporary solution, as they
can sometimes come back.
Any of these conditions can certainly affect the quality of your life.
Hopefully one day we can find a cure for all of them, or at least find more effective ways
to treat their symptoms.
Are there any other conditions you want us to talk about?
Let me know in the comment section below!
Did you know that it's possible for your hand to have a mind of it's own!?
Curious to find out more?
Check out this video!
Sometimes the hand will do the opposite of what you want it to do, like closing the fridge
door after you just opened it, or trying to take off your clothes after you just put them
on.
As always, my name is Blocko, this has been Life Noggin, don't forget to keep on thinking!