Sick is bad, even an ordinary cold can turn a cheerful and cheerful person into a dull, sneezing misanthrope at all. However, there are people suffering from very rare and unusual diseases. And, probably, they would be glad to exchange their illness for an eternal cold.
We have prepared a list for you from 20 most unusual and rare diseases in the world. And also tell you about what famous people suffered from them (or suffer to this day).
About 80% of rare diseases are of genetic origin, while others are the result of infections, allergies, and environmental causes. And in most cases, there are no effective medications to help reduce pain and suffering for patients.
20. Hutchinson-Guildford syndrome
This condition has a shorter name - progeria. This is a genetic condition that leads to rapid aging of the body. Treatment of progeria is not possible, although doctors have tried hormone therapy and antitumor drugs. The only thing that doctors can do is to reduce the complications of this disease.
There is a hypothesis that with progeria some pathological changes occur faster, which are associated with the usual aging process.
19. Disease Fields
One of the rarest and most dangerous diseases in the world is named after two twins, Katherine and Christy Fields from Wales. It does not have a medical name, and refers to neuromuscular pathologies. The muscles of the patient’s body slowly break down, which makes him lose his ability to move.
18. Progressive fibrodysplasia ossifying
This unusual disease affects the connective tissue. Its congenital classic symptom is a malformation of the thumb. There is no known method for the treatment of FOP, since the operation to remove the bone, apparently, forces the body to even more intensively turn the soft connective tissue into bone.
17. Hippel's Disease - Lindau
This condition is characterized by the growth of tumors in various parts of the body. Many tumors grow in the central nervous system and are often benign. They are known as hemangioblastomas.
This disease occurs in 1 out of 36,000 newborns.
16. Microcephaly
A very rare disease that occurs immediately at birth, and sometimes detected even before birth. The head of microcephalus is smaller than the size of the skull in a normal child. The disease can be caused by genetic problems, intrauterine infections, or exposure to hazardous radiation (such as radiation) while the baby is in the uterus. The disease is usually combined with Down syndrome.
Those with microcephaly tend to suffer from mental retardation, hyperactivity, dwarfism, seizures, and speech problems.
15. Wiedemann-Rautenstrauch syndrome
This extremely unusual disease currently affects only three people in the world. And one of them is Elizabeth (Lizzie) Velazquez, the most ugly woman on Earth. In people with this syndrome, there is a loss of fatty tissue under the skin. Simply put, the body cannot "store for future use" fat. This is not the only, but the most noticeable externally problem with Wiedemann-Rautenstrauch syndrome.
14. Paraneoplastic pemphigus
This is another disease you have probably never heard of. It causes the formation of very painful blisters and ulcers. They usually appear in the mouth, throat, lips, conjunctiva of the eyes, on the mucous membranes of the genitals and occasional places on the skin. Without treatment, paraneoplastic pemphigus can lead to the death of the patient due to respiratory failure, sepsis, multiple organ failure and gastrointestinal bleeding.
13. Morgellon's disease
This extremely rare disease is very poorly understood. Some doctors believe this is a chronic infectious disease. Patients complain of sensations as from insect bites, itching, or that worms crawl under their skin and there are certain threads. At the same time, the threads that they demonstrate to doctors are fibers of cotton clothing.
Probably, the discomfort is psychogenic in nature. There are no drugs or effective treatments for Morgellon's disease.
12. Vitiligo
This chronic disease that causes the appearance of white spots on the skin affects only 0.5 percent of the world's population to one degree or another. Several famous people suffer from this ailment, including model Winnie Harlow and Holly Marie Combs (Piper from Enchanted). Michael Jackson, the highest paid celebrity, also had it.
11. Yawning Eustachian tube
Have you ever heard the echo of your own voice during a poorly connected telephone conversation? Celine Dion experienced something similar when she suffered from the gaping of the Eustachian tube in the winter of 2018, which forced her to cancel several concerts in Las Vegas.
This condition, which affects from 0.3 to 6.6% of the population, is characterized by a prolonged opening of the Eustachian tube. Because of this, patients hear their own breathing (when they breathe through their nose) and the echo of their voice. Some patients even attempted suicide, unable to bear the constant sound discomfort.
10. Porphyria
Although porphyria symptoms (one of which is purple urine) may seem unusual, it is a serious metabolic condition that affects the skin and nervous system. It can cause constipation, nausea, photophobia and mental disorders. Since this condition is rarely diagnosed, the exact number of patients is unknown.
9. Acromegaly
Less than one in 20,000 people suffer from this very strange and unusual disease, which leads to the fact that the limbs (arms and legs) become unusually large and the face becomes deformed over time. Richard Keel, a Hollywood actor known to the audience as a villain with steel teeth in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977, suffered from acromegaly.
8. Imperfect osteogenesis
A very rare ailment is also called a "crystal man disease." It is characterized by extremely fragile bones. Those who suffer from this disease (approximately 1 in 15,000) can receive hundreds of fractures throughout their lives. One of the smallest women on Earth suffered from osteogenesis imperfecta.
7. Tourette's syndrome
Identified by a neurologist Gilles de La Tourette in the 19th century, this syndrome is characterized by uncontrolled motor or voice tics. It affects one percent of the population. Some sufferers are not able to stop themselves from uncontrolled swearing, or offensive and inappropriate statements.
It has been documented that Mozart had motor impairments, as well as a strong propensity for obscene expressions, especially associated with bowel movements (coprolalia). This led some researchers to believe that he had Tourette’s syndrome.
6. Congenital insensitivity to pain
“But this is not a disease, but a gift!” - the reader may exclaim. And he will be right in something. However, mother nature did not give people pain in vain. It helps us to avoid danger, which is clearly visible when observing those who suffer from congenital insensitivity to pain. They may be injured and not notice it, and often suffer from undetected diseases.
5. Kuru
This very rare and unusual disease was discovered in members of the cannibalistic tribe foret from Papua New Guinea. Researchers in the 1920s observed frequent dementia and severe tremor of the head and limbs in those suffering from this neurological condition. Sometimes this tremor was accompanied by a smile, because of which the press dubbed the disease "laughing death." Gradually, the patient's brain turned into a spongy mass.
The disease was caused by the cultural practice of Aboriginal foret, who ate the remains of their dead in the hope of gaining their physical and intellectual properties. So the chicken was transmitted from one person to another.
4. Foreign accent syndrome
This is a strange malaise that often appears after a blow to the head or stroke. It makes people speak their native language with a strong foreign accent. In some cases, patients may begin to fully speak another language. In 2016, a young American football player, Reuben Nsemoh, emerged from a three-day coma and began to speak Spanish fluently.
3. Graves' disease
Missy Elliott, an American singer, often becomes a subject of gossip because of her “jumping” weight back and forth. However, these changes are caused not by one of the most effective diets, but rather by Graves' disease, an autoimmune condition that affects the functioning of the thyroid gland and speeds up metabolism. But don’t think Missy Elliott is lucky. She also suffers from motor, linguistic, and emotional disorders resulting from this rare disease.
2. Sjogren's syndrome
This disease causes fatigue, joint pain, and dry mouth and eyes. It affects only 0.02 percent of the population. And he suffers one of the most talented tennis players in the world, Venus Williams.
1. Picacism
Do you think this is strange when a pregnant woman is drawn to eat ice cream with pickles or lick chalk? These are trifles compared to what people who suffer from a perversion of taste or picacism want to eat.
This eating disorder causes sufferers to eat dirt, chalk, paper or other inedible substances. The most common form of picacism is known as geophagy, the eating of land. In some nations, it is believed that ingested clay reduces nausea during pregnancy. And in Kenya, you can even buy "food" land with various food additives, such as black pepper.
