When I was going through my Facebook feed, I came across several posts which talked about some of the weirdest diseases in the world. At first, I thought these posts were fake, as they didn’t look real. Thanks to my curious nature, I started researching about weird diseases after asking myself “What are the weirdest diseases in the world?”
What Are The Most Weird Genetic Diseases In The World?
Some of the weirdest diseases in the world are the result of abnormalities in the human body’s DNA.
Alice in Wonderland Syndrome
Alice in Wonderland Syndrome or AIWS is a series of symptoms, where the patient suffers from visual perception. Due to this disease, the patient won’t be able to perceive the size of several external objects or body parts properly.
As a result of this, the patient will see objects larger or smaller than their original size. The hallucinations also go by the name, “Lilliputian,” derived from the popular book Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. In this book, the tiny residents of Lilliput island go by the name Lilliputian. As the symptoms are similar to what Alice experienced in Lewis Carroll’s book, British psychiatrist, Dr. John Todd, gave this disease its name.
Alien Hand Syndrome
Alien Hand Syndrome is a neurological disorder, where the patient feels that he/she has no control over their limb. Doctors came across this disorder after performing corpus callosotomy, a type of brain surgery, where the surgeons cut off nerve fibers which connect both halves of their brain. The purpose of this surgery was to stop the epileptic impulses from traveling throughout the brain. However, the result of this surgery had another effect, where one of the patient’s body was no longer under their control.
When victims get affected by Alien Hand Syndrome, one hand will act independently, ignoring their will completely. However, there are times when the brain adapts to this condition, by learning about the change in the neural pathway, causing the syndrome to disappear. There are also cases when patients have to deal with this problem throughout their lives.
Cotard delusion (Walking Corpse Syndrome)
Cotard delusion or Walking Corpse Syndrome is a type of mental illness where the patient believes that he/she doesn’t exist, the body is decaying, or he/she is dead. One of the major symptoms of cotard delusion is nihilism, where the victim believes that there is nothing in this world which has meaning and value. Other symptoms of this illness are guilt, hypochondria, hallucinations, anxiety, and self-harm.
One of the biggest problems with diagnosing this illness is that most of the organizations don’t consider it to be a disease. Due to this reason, several patients live alone, thinking that they are already dead.
Epidermodysplasia Verruciformis (Tree Man Syndrome)
Epidermodysplasia Verruciformis or Tree Man Syndrome is a condition where the patient’s skin is full of warts, which become worse after getting exposed to sunlight. Although most of these warts are malignant during the later stages of the patient’s life, they are benign in the start.
Tree Man Syndrome is the result of EVER1/EVER 2 genes undergoing mutation. Although, researchers don’t know the all the functions of these genes, they found that the mutations cause diseases such as human papillomavirus 5 and 8. Although there are specific treatments to combat the symptoms of this disease, there still isn’t a cure.
Hematohidrosis
Hematohidrosis is a type of disease where the patient will start bleeding from any part of their body, without any particular reason, spontaneously. There was a case of a 13-year-old boy, who experienced bleeding through the sweat glands, due to excitement or stress, which ruptured the capillaries. The strange thing is that the patient doesn’t experience any pain during the time of bleeding. It doesn’t affect the hemoglobin levels of the patient, even though he/she loses 5 – 10 ml of blood every time it occurs.