Rare Medical Conditions that You won't Believe are True

We certainly live in a strange world. There are some strange, hard-to-believe things happening in this world. Sometimes it might be difficult to understand the many different ways that the human body and mind function.  Here, we're talking about poorly understood and rare medical conditions that continue to confuse doctors and researchers around. Unfortunately, there is no known panacea for the illnesses these folks have. Let's look at some unusual and rare medical conditions:

It is a neuropsychiatric illness (mental sickness) sometimes known as Cotard's Syndrome in which a person thinks that they have passed away. The affected person believes they are not real people and also rejects the existence of their soul, organs, blood, or certain body components.

Another rare medical condition that results in individuals developing a foreign accent is this one. Even though they have never been to that region before, such persons constantly speak in a foreign accent. Timing, intonation, and tongue location in speech can all be changed to make it appear foreign. According to experts, the illness is brought on by injury to a region of the brain connected to speech.

The disorder, known as cognitive hypertrichosis lanuginose, is brought on by a rare genetic mutation that results in abnormally profuse and out-of-control hair growth all over the body. Long hair can fully enclose the face, which is how the disorder came to be known as "werewolf syndrome." Only around 50 persons worldwide have the disease.

The illness is often referred to as Dr. Strangelove Syndrome, after the lead character in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film Dr. Strangelove. This disorder causes uncontrollable hand or limb movements that the person has no control over. The hand assumes a life of its own and operates independently, gripping things or moving against the will of the person using it.

If you watched the Amitabh Bachchan-led 2009 film Paa, you would be familiar with the problem being discussed. This is a genetic disorder that causes youngsters to age quickly and is highly rare. Rarely do such youngsters live past their teenage years.

One of the most abnormal diseases and rare medical conditions of the connective tissue is fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP). This condition causes bone tissue to start growing where muscles, tendons, and other connective tissues should be, fusing the body's muscles and joints into solid bone. Slowly, the body becomes so rigid that it becomes immobile and eventually like a statue.

It is a disease of distorted space, time, and body image, named after Lewis Carroll's fantasy tale "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," published in 1865. Todd's Syndrome, a neurological condition, is characterized by headaches that alter one's perception of size and distance. The person who is suffering truly feels as though all or sections of their body have changed in size and shape.

One in every 230 million persons worldwide suffers from an uncommon illness called aquagenic urticaria, sometimes known as water allergy. When this allergy comes into touch with water, it causes a severe skin reaction. The affected person is unable to bathe, go outside in the rain, sweat, cry, or most importantly consume plain water since they must avoid all bodies of water at all times. This syndrome's underlying mechanism is still not fully understood.

The long-haired girl Rapunzel from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale serves as the inspiration for the syndrome's name. People with this uncommon digestive disease are forced to consume their own hair. The person bites, chews, or suckers on his or her hair compulsively. Enough of it is ingested for it to begin to gather and form a trichobezoar (hairball) in the stomach.

This rare medical condition, which is more prevalent in women, causes the skin and soft tissues of one-half of the face to steadily deteriorate over time. A person with this illness will appear to have an asymmetrical face because half of their face will shrink. On the side that is afflicted, the eye and cheek may droop, and the facial hair may become white and fall out.

Final Word

When it comes to diseases, people are most familiar with cancer, diabetes, and mental health conditions. But more and more people are becoming aware of even rare medical conditions, such as lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis. Thus, they are actually not that uncommon.