The world is a strange and wonderful place, and unfortunately for some, the world of medical
disorders is just as strange and a whole lot less wonderful.
Most of us take our health for granted, and yet there are millions living amongst us with
medical conditions that are not just debilitating, but truly bizarre.
Hello and welcome to another episode of The Infographics Show- today we're going to tell
you about some of the most bizarre medical conditions in the world.
Non-stop Hiccups
Hiccups are a pretty benign reaction triggered by an irritation of the diaphragm caused by
the stomach, and typically occurs only after we eat or drink too much too quickly.
Yet in 2009 Christopher Sands had been battling hiccuping for over two years.
Stating that the hiccuping started out of the blue and for no apparent reason, Sands
at first did what most of us would do- a whole slew of random remedies gleaned from family,
friends, and the internet.
Yet despite special drinking cups, hypnotherapy, yoga, and even herbal remedies from the far
east, the hiccups wouldn't stop.
Doctors investigating Sand's condition looked for a source of irritation on his diaphragm
or possibly a perforation, and yet test after test discovered nothing wrong with him.
The only possible culprit was a damaged valve that connected his stomach to his esophagus,
but this was a condition he had been born with and other than frequent heartburn and
vomiting, had not caused any hiccuping previously in his life.
The hiccuping can strike completely out of nowhere and plagued Sands for hours, making
sleep, eating or performing on stage with his band impossible.
According to Sands, he could hiccup for 14 hours nonstop or go through periods where
he was completely free of them, though he always felt that he was about to hiccup at
any moment similar to the way you might feel when a sneeze is on its way.
Sands traveled across Britain for almost three years before a Japanese company making a tv
show about him flew him to Tokyo, where an MRI scan diagnosed him with a small 1.2cm
growth on his brain stem.
Despite being warned that the tumor was inoperable by the Japanese doctors who discovered it,
Sands immediately flew home for a complex brain surgery.
The surgery was a success, yet left Sands with difficulty coordinating his movements
and some numbness on his left side.
Still, for the man who had hiccuped nonstop for three years, it was well worth it.
We suppose it was truly lucky that Sands was British, and had the rapid and life-changing
surgery without also going bankrupt from medical bills.
Now You See Me, Now You See Nothing For Three Days
Some nights Natalie Adler of Melbourne, Australia will feel her eyes getting quite heavy, and
not with sleep.
Yet when she eventually does go to sleep, she wakes up unable to open her eyes.
The strange affliction generally lasts about three days, after which she's once more able
to open her eyes normally and see just fine.
Flown to doctors both in Australia and the US- where she must have incredible insurance-
neither nation's physicians have been able to diagnose a cause for the condition.
Per Dr. Dean Cestari, a neuro-ophthalmologist at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary
in Boston, “There's nothing that would cause symptoms of a woman to close her eyes for
three days, and open her eyes for three days.”
Cestari believes however that the physical condition may be the manifestation of a psychological
one, with her mind converting some internal conflict into a physical ailment.
Now aged 30, Adler has had 99% of the muscles in her eyelids removed to keep them from closing
shut, and yet her eyes will still squeeze shut at least once a month.
She relies on constant botox injections to help keep her eyes open, yet says that the
treatments are losing their effectiveness.
Constantly Turned On
Persistent Sexual Arousal may seem like a funny joke to some, but for the women who
live with PSAS, it is a daily nightmare.
Not formally recognized until 2001, PSAS sees women living constantly on the brink of an
orgasm, and yet the symptoms are only partially relieved through an actual orgasm.
Sex itself can often not help quell it either, and in fact might make it worse.
Research into the causes is still rudimentary and has left doctors baffled, with no obvious
underlying physical or psychological cause.
Yet when the topic is brought up, many snicker and laugh at its mention, which leads to doctors
to believe that thousands of women may suffer from the condition yet never seek treatment
out of embarrassment.
For those afflicted, despite the jokes they see the condition as a curse, and one woman
who's suffered it her entire life says that she would rather never experience an orgasm
again than continue to live like this forever.
The Real Ice Man
Wim Hof has a pretty strong resistance to the cold, yet for a native dutch man that's
no great boast- the Netherlands sees some pretty cold winters after all.
What makes Wim Hof unique though is just how resistant he is to the cold, which borders
on supernatural powers.
In one stunt he immersed himself completely in ice water with just a pair of shorts for
modesty, and stayed there for an hour and 12 minutes, at temperatures similar to those
that killed the passengers of the Titanic in minutes.
Then in January 1999 he went 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle to run half a marathon
in his bare feet.
In 2002 and dressed only in a swimsuit, he dove under the ice at the North Pole and earned
a Guiness world record for longest distance swimming under the ice: 80 meters.
He has even scaled Mount Everest in just his shorts.
Hof explains that he discovered his supernatural abilities over thirty years ago, when while
strolling through a park as a teenager he saw the ice-covered water and thought to himself,
“What would happen if I go in there?”
For most people the answer would be instant hypothermia, followed by possible death, and
yet feeling an insatiable desire to strip naked and dive in, Hof hopped right into the
frozen water and said he felt amazing when he got back out.
He immediately turned the stunt into a routine, and years later, has developed superhuman
abilities to withstand freezing temperatures.
With most people unable to survive such exposure to extremely low temperatures without at least
losing a few toes to frostbite, Hof has explained that he believes his powers come from nothing
more than a specialized set of breathing techniques.
Marketing the techniques around the world, Hof has drawn some consternation from the
relatives of at least two people who died after trying to follow his exercise program
by replicating his cold water immersions.
Allergic to Cold
Wim Hof may have a superhuman ability to withstand the cold, but unfortunately for some their
superhuman power lies in being super-susceptible to the cold, to the point of being physically
allergic to it.
And no, we don't mean the excuse you make up when you're tucked in under a warm blanket
and your alarm rings to get ready to go to work- these people suffer physical ailments
from exposure to cold no different than what many would display as allergic reactions to
materials, food, or insect bites.
Known as cold urticaria, these individuals can develop huge welts if for instance you
place an ice cube on their skin, and exposure to winter winds and cold can prompt these
debilitating symptoms.
Having a few snowflakes land on their face may elicit a response in the form of itchy
and uncomfortable bumps, while diving into a cold swimming pool could induce a potentially
lethal allergic shock.
Dr. Gerald Gleich of the University of Utah says that some of his patients have even experienced
full-blown vascular collapse and ended up at death's door just from the act of going
outside in the winter.
He goes on to explain that the reaction to the cold is brought about by an inappropriate
immune system response, in this case an antibody known as immunoglobulin E is the prime suspect.
While no cure exists, the good news is that the same allergy relief you may seek out for
spring time's heavy pollen blooms is also effective for sufferers of cold urticaria,
and antihistamines provide relief for those afflicted.
But I'm Not Tired!
It's natural for most 4 year olds to resist bed time, yet in 2009 for Rhett Lamb of the
UK, going to sleep was impossible.
Per his mother the boy would stay awake for nearly 24 hours a day, and his sleeplessness
manifested at birth.
Concerned that her baby wasn't sleeping, his mother went on frequent visits to the hospital,
but the doctors assumed she was just being a nervous mother.
Only after a year of little to no sleep did medical experts begin to take the condition
seriously, but it would take a further three years for a diagnosis to be discovered.
Rhett was diagnosed with a very rare condition called chiari malformation, in which the brain
is squeezed into the spinal column.
This causes compression and strangulation of the brain stem, which is where vital functions
that control sleep and speech are located, along with areas responsible for regulating
our circulatory system and even our breathing.
The boy, who had been sleepless for years and had grown extremely irritable and
unsociable, underwent immediate and very risky surgery, with the doctors removing a portion
of the bone around the brain stem and spinal cord.
Initially they expected 50-50 odds on seeing any improvement, but a year later Rhett was
once more able to sleep and his behavior has dramatically changed as a result.
If you think you're cranky when you can't get a nap in, try and see how cranky you'll
be after four years of no sleep!
You're Not From Around Here…
Or Are You?!
Everyone knows that severe brain trauma can have long lasting and serious effects, everything
from landing yourself in a coma to losing partial or full control over your body's functions.
Yet for some people severe brain trauma can have an altogether and very peculiar effect-
the development of a completely foreign accent!
Canadian Rosemarie Dore suffered a stroke on the left side of her brain in 2006, and
very quickly after developed a strong Eastern Canadian accent, despite living in West Canada
and having never visited the region or even knowing anyone from there.
Visited by a nurse from Newfoundland while recovering from her stroke, Dore recounts
that the nurse came into her room and asked “Who's the Newfie here?”, in reference
to Newfoundland.
Dore replied that there was nobody there from that region, to which the nurse said, “I
think I'm talking to her.”
That's when it dawned on Dore that her speech had radically changed.
Extremely rare, Foreign Accent Syndrome has only had 60 verified cases in medical history,
with one of the first known sufferers being a Norwegian woman who during World War II
was hit in the head by a bomb fragment.
After recovering the woman began to speak with a strong German accent, which led to
her being targeted by those with strong anti-German sentiments.
Yet the condition remains to this day, with a Florida woman developing a British accent,
a Japanese woman developing a Korean accent, and a man from rural South Carolina developing
a strong French accent.
Doctors remain perplexed as to the cause, but are convinced that it is the result of
neurological damage suffered after trauma such as that experienced during a stroke.
While it may not be truly debilitating for its sufferers, it is certainly strange, and
no treatment has been developed yet.
The world really is a strange place, and life can be difficult enough without developing
one of these abnormal and extremely rare disorders.
While medical science constantly makes new breakthroughs, it seems that the complex machinery
of the human body still confounds scientists, and at times baffles our expectations of what
should be physically possible, or impossible, for the human body to do.
Hopefully in time science will learn to treat some of these most serious medical ailments,
and maybe even give us some of the rare benefits, such as being able to withstand extreme cold
or perhaps switch our speaking accents at will!
Which of these problems do you think would be the worst to live with?
Also, check out our other video, Most Painful Things A Human Can Experience.
Thanks for watching.
See you next time!