These Out of the Ordinary Medical Reports Are Made of Nightmares

8. Hiccups With No End in Sight

Hiccups can be quite problematic and painful if they go on for too long. Many people try several tricks to get rid of them, such as drinking upside down or holding their breath. Hiccups are usually caused by the diaphragm’s involuntary contractions, a wall of tissue situated under the lungs that help with breathing. For one young man, none of these remedies helped him. In fact, his case of hiccups was so profound that he would hiccup for almost fourteen straight hours every single day. That would occur for many years, leaving doctors wholly baffled.

After many tests later, doctors eventually discovered that there was a tumor growing on his brainstem. That was causing involuntary muscle spasms in his diaphragm that just wouldn’t go away. Thankfully, once the tumor was removed, the hiccups went away entirely. A good thing too, because if the doctors had waited two more years, the tumor would have killed the young man.

7. When The Word No Longer Makes Sense

Many people believe that they have a book living within them, that when they’re older, they’ll write books about their lives for other people to read. This dream became a reality for one man, but it wasn’t because he wanted to write a beautiful memoir. No, Howard Engel was a trained author who forgot how to read. How could such a strange thing happen?

Engel went to sleep one day and woke up the next, unable to read the newspaper he held in his hands. It was likely a very frightening experience for him. It was discovered that he had developed something called “word blindness” due to a stroke he had suffered. He was still capable of writing in a strange twist of fate, but he was unable to read his own words. Through many months of therapy, he slowly regained the ability to read his own writing, but he could no longer read anything else.

6. My Hand is Not My Own

Daily, most people are aware of their limbs and where they are. It’s how they get around in daily life, maneuvering through their homes, driving their cars, and ensuring that they’re not in danger. But there is a small number of people who don’t get to experience this. They suffer from what is called alien hand syndrome. That is where a hand or a leg acts of its own free will, involuntarily. It is more than just twitches and jerks; a limb will perform tasks that are unintentional.

That is not a movement disorder by any means but is more neurological and is more closely connected to frontal lobe dysfunction. Other tests have shown that this could also be the result of network disruption in the brain. Furthermore, it can lead to a loss of inhibition by the muscles in that limb. People who suffer from this syndrome tend to consider their alien limbs as separate entities and even give them names. Although there is no cure for the condition, medications and various therapies can help keep the limb’s impulsiveness under control.

5. People Believe They’re Surrounded by Doppelgangers

There are two forms of imposter syndrome. The one that has become more common online is where people question their own accomplishments by convincing themselves that they are frauds, trying to be something they’re not. That can be debilitating for self-esteem, but it is the lesser of two evils than another kind of imposter syndrome. Sufferers believe that someone they love or know has been replaced by a double or an imposter.

Also known as Capgars syndrome, it is a serious neuropsychiatric condition that is marked by delusion. Studies showed that those who suffered from this condition had a neurodegenerative disease of some kind; most of them suffered from Lewy body disease (including symptoms of dementia, visual hallucinations, and a decrease in cognitive ability). There is no known cure for the condition, but it can be regulated with antipsychotic medication, therapy, and medications for memory and anxiety.

4. This Isn’t the Land of the Zombies

Zombie movies and television shows took consumers by storm. It was enticing to see who would survive by the end and what kind of grisly fates they would meet. It’s understandable that these are works of fiction and that zombies aren’t real. But for those who suffer from Cotard syndrome, their view of the world is hugely different.

The syndrome is also known as walking corpse syndrome. Sufferers believe that they are dying, they don’t exist, or there are pieces of their bodies that are missing, despite being able to seem attached to their bodies. Medical doctors also report that patients seem to have delusions of immortality and will become more reckless with their health, believing that they cannot die. This syndrome usually occurs due to some other neurological condition, such as Parkinson’s disease, a stroke, multiple sclerosis, or dementia, just to name a few. It’s also more likely to occur in women, and it’s rarely ever found in teenagers.

3. Being Unable to Go To Sleep

It can be pretty easy for children to tire themselves out after a long day of playing. They’re usually in their beds around 8 p.m., napping away and giving their parents some much-needed respite from taking care of them all day. For one four-year-old boy, this wasn’t the case. His mother discovered that he would be awake for as long as twenty-four hours. She noticed this when he was born, but after taking him to the doctor, they didn’t offer any kind of relief.

It took a long time before the boy was eventually diagnosed with a rare condition called Chiari malformation. That is where the brain is squeezing on the spinal column, leading to strangulation. The spinal column controls the basic functions of regulating sleep as well as breathing. To help the boy, surgery was required to alleviate this pressure on his spinal column. Surgeons made an incision at the base of his skull to remove the bone surrounding the brain stem and spinal column. However, they would wait at least a year to see if the surgery helped the boy’s condition or not.

2. Eye Worms Like You Won’t Believe

The thought of anything going into one’s eye is enough to send shivers down one spine. Even putting in eye drops can be an ordeal for some sensitive people about their eyes. For one medical anthropologist, she had more to bargain with than just eye drops. After taking a jog one day, she noticed that her eyes were frequently watering, and she didn’t know why.

What she hadn’t realized was that she’d jogged through a cloud of face flies. She reportedly had cattle and thought nothing of the flies that were buzzing around. Unfortunately, her path through them resulted in a few of the flies’ worms ending up in her eyeballs. She checked her eyes with a light and a magnifying mirror and discovered three “glittering” objects moving around in her eye. Thankfully, she was able to remove the worms on her own without any repercussions. A good thing too, because if left in, they could cause some severe damage to her sight.

1. Beauty Sleep Could End Up Being Too Much

It can feel like a vacation to just stay in bed all day and sleep the hours away. That is especially true after a very long and hard week at work. It’s a desire to get away from responsibilities and just let the world pass them by. But for some people, they have no control over when they wake up. Called Sleeping beauty syndrome – medically as Kleine-Levin Syndrome – people can sleep for up to twenty hours a day. How they get anything done is beyond our realms of understanding, but it becomes challenging for them to be involved in everyday life, such as holding jobs.

People suffering from this condition are hypersomnolence, sleeping for long periods, and only getting up to eat or go to the bathroom. There is no way for them to tell when it’s going to happen, as each episode takes place without notice. As a result of all of this sleeping, they can become quite depressed. Some spells can last for a few days, while some can extend for months on end. What’s strange is that between episodes, sufferers are actually in pretty good health. The only thing that seems to suffer is their memory of anything during the attack.

Sources:

Live Science – 27 Oddest Medical Cases

Live Science – 10 Strangest Medical Cases of 2018

The Healthy – 7 of the Craziest Medical Cases Doctors Have Seen on the Job

List Verse – 10 Cases Of Bizarre Medical Ailments

Medical News Today – 5 Strange, Rare, and Fascinating Medical Conditions

Live Science – 10 Strangest Medical Cases of 2019

Buzzfeed – 15 Bizarre Medical Cases That Will Straight-Up Baffle You

MD Link – 7 Real-Life Medical Conditions That Sound Too Bizarre To Be Real

Gizmodo – The Weirdest Medical Cases of 2019

ABC News – 12 Baffling Medical Conditions