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Medical Mysteries, Bizarre Cases

liveinabin

liveinabin

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Oct 19, 2001
Messages
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46 year old fetus removed from75 year old woman.

(originally found at story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=573&e=9&u=/nm/20021024/od_nm/birth_dc - link now dead, so hyperlink disabled. stu)

Now I want to know how they knew it was 46 years old? Did it have a wife and kids?
 
Body too toxic to touch

Nasty business...why would any employer allow workers to handle stuff like this without protective gear?

Link

"Hamilton [Ontario] police, firefighters and a chemical decontamination team closed one lane of Wellington Street North outside Hamilton General Hospital's morgue yesterday to clean a body so toxic it was unsafe to do a post-mortem otherwise.

The 31-year-old Niagara Falls man died Friday after he was splashed with corrosive phenol formaldehyde as he and others were mixing chemicals at Mancuso Chemicals Ltd. in Niagara Falls.

The substance is so strong that it ate through the rubber gloves of three firefighters carrying the man to a waiting ambulance. They suffered chemical burns.

Greater Niagara General Hospital evacuated its emergency room shortly after the body arrived Friday. Fumes forced medical staff to borrow breathing masks from firefighters.

The man's body was sealed in four body bags and taken Saturday to the morgue at Hamilton General. It was impossible to perform an autopsy and an outdoor decontamination was ordered for yesterday morning..."

[Emp edit: Fixing beeg link.]
 
Phenol and formaldehyde are both pretty nasty in large quantities - hell, phenol is nasty in small quantities.
Reading the report this looked like an accident waiting to happen- mixing the stuff by hand.

Will anybody end up in jail?
Will they bollocks!
 
Sounds interesting (it might have to go on my birthday present list):

Medical mysteries, bizarre cases

New book chronicles rare and odd ailments of human body, mind

By Amy Cox

CNN
Friday, February 20, 2004 Posted: 1604 GMT (12:04 AM HKT)



(CNN) -- Jumping Frenchmen of Maine, Alice-in-Wonderland syndrome, wandering spleen.

They might sound like the names of the latest rock bands, but they're actually extremely rare and bizarre diseases and disorders that few people even know exist.

Author Nancy Butcher explores these and other odd ailments in "The Strange Case of the Walking Corpse," a new book chronicling some of the most strange and disturbing cases of what can go wrong with the human body and mind.

"I think like a lot of people, I've always been interested in really, really strange diseases." Butcher said. "I thought about becoming a doctor myself but decided it was too real and gruesome for me. But I've always been fascinated by weird symptoms and peculiar things people do to cure themselves or others."

Butcher said she had been collecting tales of strange medical mysteries for years, but the disorder the book is named after is what really spurred her to organize her research.

Dr. Jules Cotard is credited with first describing, in the late 1800s, the "walking corpse" psychiatric disorder. In this, deluded patients think they have lost body parts or their souls, and often believe they have died. Also called Cotard's syndrome, the mental disease has been found in people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Another bizarre mental disorder Butcher describes is the Alice-in-Wonderland syndrome, in which a patient's sense of time, space and body image are distorted. People may appear tiny or patients may feel that part of their body shape or size has been altered.

Being extremely startled by an unexpected noise or sight is the main characteristic of the disorder with the peculiar name of Jumping Frenchmen of Maine.

It's not just bolting when someone sneaks up behind you, explains Butcher. Patients with the disorder flail their arms, cry out and repeat words. First identified in some of Maine's lumberjacks of French-Canadian origin, the odd reflex has been identified in other parts of the world, too.

Butcher said strange and gruesome elements have always fascinated people. Reading or watching TV shows on these topics can satisfy curiosity at a safe remove from the actual horrors of disease.

"I think a little big of smugness is involved. There's this feeling of 'These people have these horrible conditions and I don't,'" she said. "It's like watching a car wreck. It's gross and disgusting but it's not happening to you.

"And the extremes -- the really gross diseases, the really disgusting sores ... it's the same as the fascination with crazy freak shows on TV: they're grossly compelling."

Although the book is full of strange medical minutiae and odd cases, Butcher said she didn't want to trivialize the people who have these disorders.

"I never want anyone who has any of these diseases to look at this and think they're being made fun of," she said. "There is a certain freakish, fascinating, and even funny aspect to the diseases, but for the most part, they're not. They are just fascinating because they're so rare, they're so extreme and the symptoms are nothing like anybody's ever heard before."

But sometimes the rare and unusual make headlines. The deadly Ebola virus was a relatively unknown disease until an outbreak in parts of Africa in the 1990s. And the uncommon mad cow disease in humans -- formally known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease -- is practically a household word.

Advances in medicine and biotechnology are sure to keep bringing intriguing advances and strange conditions to the fore, Butcher said.

Teeth grown in a petri dish from stem cells may someday replace dentures and implants, Butcher writes. And scientists are studying natural limb regeneration for humans, trying to copy the salamander's ability. Even the blood moving through our bodies may one day be generated artificially.

"So I think the future looks as equally fascinating and disgusting as the past," she said.
Click to expand...

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/02/20/strange.cases/

[edit: From Amazon:

From Publishers Weekly
Butcher, whose previous books had the more wholesome topics of weight loss and sleeping (101 Ways to Stop Eating After Dinner; 101 Ways to Fall Asleep), here delves into the dark corners of medicine to unearth weird maladies and surprising cures. More a gathering of medical trivia than an actual chronicle, her book jumps from topic to topic, covering obscure ailments such as "cat-eye syndrome" (a rare chromosomal disorder) and "jumping Frenchmen of Maine" (an ill-understood neurological disorder), as well as more familiar diseases such as Black Plague, Hansen's disease (leprosy) and rabies. For each disease, Butcher offers a short synopsis of its discovery and attempted cures. In addition to uncommon ailments, the book outlines medicines that took a long time to be accepted by the medical establishment, or that remained on the fringes of acceptability. Some of these, such as urine or aged frog eggs, are best left to history. Others may have uses in the modern world: Butcher offers a table of herbs, for example, that alleviate various aches and pains. Subsequent chapters cover parasites, mental illnesses, sexual dysfunctions, sleep-related maladies and strange beauty treatments (some Victorian women owed their milk-pale complexions to a careful ration of arsenic). Butcher's anecdotes read like a collection of personal notes without an overarching theme, and are thus best for browsing; the book contains enough bizarre, disgusting and amusing medical minutiae to keep readers turning pages.
Click to expand...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1583331603/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583331603/ ]

Emps
 
Sounds like a good book.

It worries me though that the same woman wrote some of the Mary Kate and Ashley books!
 
I've nursed people with Cotard's, (La Delire de Negation), although not as a primary diagnosis, its alot less interesting when you actually meet someone with it and is more sad than anything else for the person.

A classic book is Uncommon Psychiatric Syndromes by Enoch and Ball.
 
Hobbes said:
I've nursed people with Cotard's, (La Delire de Negation), although not as a primary diagnosis, its alot less interesting when you actually meet someone with it and is more sad than anything else for the person.

A classic book is Uncommon Psychiatric Syndromes by Enoch and Ball.
Click to expand...

What was the most common primary diagnosis? Schizophrenia is mentioned alot(perhaps especially when severe negative symptoms are present), but I can see it being more common in depressed phase bipolar or severe unipolar episodes. Maybe also dissociative crises or some type of epilepsy?

What treated it?
 
Yeah a paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis or some severe psychotic depression is usual and it is characterised with a person displaying really severe nihilistic delusions. Treatment is similar to any form of severe psychotic depression. Anti-depressants and anti-psychotics combinations and ECT is also considered.

The outcome in the two I nursed was'nt good and it tends to effect older people, (if two people I've seen can be considered a trend, neither had the diagnosis of Cotard's but it was pretty clear thats what they had), The diagnosis of Cotard's is rarely if ever used as most people don't recognise it and its not part of the diagnostic criterias. There are a few of these rare syndromes that are attributed to schizophrenic-type illnesess.

Its very sad and its very difficult sometimes impossible to get people to work through it.

Not to be confused with Couvade syndrome where father's-to-be-take on the physical characteristics of pregnancy!

Like I say Enoch and Ball's book contain many accounts of rare mental health problems, treatments and prognosis and is an excellent read if you are interested in Mental Health.
 
Misdagnosis is bloody common as is people who having been in Mental Health services for years having half a dozen different diagnosis over their history because nobody really knows whats wrong with them.

Sometimes MH professionals just don't have a clue, (myself included in this). We often act, (or react), to what presents and make mistakes.

Mental Health is flawed and the constant push by drug companies to pathologicalise everything so they can come up with pills to combat it is increasing. (christ knows what will be considered an illness in the new DSM-V).

However I would'nt stay in the job if I did'nt think I was doing some good and we are improving in recognising that symptoms may have a phyiscal basis rather assuming its just delusional.

Also nothing wrong with being Eccentric I'd stick with that.
 
FuManChu said:
My biggest problem, however is, the side effects of the medications they want to put me on, are worse than the symptoms of what I was born with.
Click to expand...

Having been diagnosed with clinical depression, I can relate to your medication concerns. Still haven't filled the script for Xanax. So far I make due with therapy, and it works OK. There's something about highly addictive medications that scares the bejasus out of this old hippie.
 
"You'd never know if he didn't have a scar there . . . when you take the shoe off his face it's obvious." :nonplus:
 
Man with half a body subject of new documentary
Published: 12:28AM BST 03 Apr 2010

Kenny Easterday, 35, was born with a rare condition called sacral agenesis which prevented his spine from developing normally.

When he was six-months-old doctors amputated his legs and used part of his shinbone to complete his partially formed spine.

As a boy Kenny was offered prosthetic legs but he hated wearing them and preferred to use his hands or a skateboard to get around.

"My dad pretty much taught me how to walk on my hands," said Mr Easterday, from West Virginia, USA.

Speaking in a documentary for TLC in the USA titled The Man With Half a Body, his father said: "I just told him to walk behind his mother, because she walks like a duck so just walk like her,"

Most people with his condition die at a young age but he has defied doctors' predictions since he was a child.

"I should be dead now, the doctor gave me until I was 21. I'm 35 now," he said.

He is divorced from his first wife Sarah but is now engaged to Nicky, 33, who has two young children. Kenny has always hoped to be a father.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ntary.html
 
Man grows pea plant inside lung

A Massachusetts man who was rushed to hospital with a collapsed lung came home with an unusual diagnosis: a pea plant was growing in his lung.

Ron Sveden had been battling emphysema for months when his condition deteriorated.

He was steeling himself for a cancer diagnosis when X-rays revealed the growth in his lung.

Doctors believe that Mr Sveden ate the pea at some point, but it "went down the wrong way" and sprouted.

"One of the first meals I had in the hospital after the surgery had peas for the vegetable. I laughed to myself and ate them," Mr Sveden told a local Boston TV reporter.

Mr Sveden said the plant was about half an inch (1.25cm) in size.

"Whether this would have gone full-term and I'd be working for the Jolly Green Giant, I don't know. I think the thing that finally dawned on me is that it wasn't the cancer," Mr Sveden said.

He is currently recovering at home with his wife Nancy, who joked that God must have a sense of humour.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10945050
 
Resting laptop on lap 'can cause toasted skin syndrome'
People who work with a laptop computer resting on their legs have been warned that they could be permanently damaging their skin.
Published: 7:00AM BST 04 Oct 2010

A medical report has found that placing the devices next to skin for long periods of time can lead to "toasted skin syndrome," an unusual-looking mottled skin condition caused by long-term heat exposure.

In one case, a 12-year-old boy developed a sponge-patterned skin discoloration on his left thigh after playing computer games a few hours every day for several months.

"He recognised that the laptop got hot on the left side; however, regardless of that, he did not change its position," Swiss researchers reported in an article published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Another case involved a Virginia law student who sought treatment for the mottled discoloration on her leg.

Dr Kimberley Salkey, who treated the young woman, couldn't work out the source of the problem until she learned the student spent about six hours a day working with her computer propped on her lap. The temperature underneath registered 125F (52C).

That case, from 2007, is one of 10 laptop-related cases reported in medical journals in the past six years.

The condition also can be caused by overuse of heating pads and other heat sources that usually aren't hot enough to cause burns. It's generally harmless but can cause permanent skin darkening. In very rare cases, it can cause damage leading to skin cancers, said the Swiss researchers, Drs. Andreas Arnold and Peter Itin from University Hospital Basel. They do not cite any skin cancer cases linked to laptop use, but suggest, to be safe, placing a carrying case or other heat shield under the laptop if you have to hold it in your lap.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healt ... drome.html
 
Facing a lifetime of fruit and veg: The girl, 7, who could get brain damage if she eats any protein
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 1:39 AM on 12th October 2010

A seven-year-old girl faces brain damage if she eats anything but fruit and vegetables.

Borsi Batki from Coventry is forced to watch as the other children tuck into cakes and biscuits at birthday parties, because she can't eat anything with protein in it.

Due to an extremely rare metabolic condition, almost everything is off the menu except for a protein replacement supplement she has to drink six times a day.
The majority of her lunches and dinners consist of a special pasta in tomato sauce.

Borsi suffers from phenylketonuria (PKU), a metabolic disorder which if undetected leads to problems with brain development, progressive mental retardation, brain damage, and seizures.

Thankfully, Borsi's condition was spotted when she was six days old when a routine test in her native Hungary showed abnormalities in her blood.

Her condition means her body cannot process the amino acid phenylalanine, which is found in most protein-rich foods.
Just one in 15,000 children are born with the condition, which is caused by a genetic mutation.

Her mother Maria, 37, said: 'Pretty much everything is off the menu. She can't eat any meat, normal pasta, bread, fish and yoghurt.
'When she goes to children's parties she finds it hard to watch the other children enjoying cakes and biscuits and sometimes she cries.
'We have to explain to her that she cannot eat those things and she understands, but it's still really difficult for her.
'Easter and Christmas are hard too. There's so many things she's not allowed to eat everywhere you look. '

Borsi lives with her mother Maria and father Zsolt, 37, plus eight-month-old brother Ben and sister Biborka, nine.

The family emigrated from Hungary in August for her father's job as an online communications specialist.

etc...

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... z128JbuMKj
 
Awesome - I'll give her Dr Bates's diagnosis ... although I'm not sure she'll appreciate the old and under-padded mattress aspersions.
 
drbates said:
They look about the right size and shape to have been caused by lying on a coil-spring in an old and under-padded mattress...
Click to expand...

You might be right there - the mark definitely looks regular and artificial...
 
Brush with death: Girl with rare reaction to static electricity could die - if she simply combs her hair
By Julie-anne Barnes
Last updated at 7:55 AM on 18th August 2011

It is part of every teenager’s daily routine.
But one Scottish schoolgirl has been given a dire warning that she could die by simply brushing her hair.
Megan Stewart dices with death each time she combs her locks or touches balloons because of an extremely rare medical condition.
The 13-year-old suffers from Hair Brushing Syndrome, which was only discovered by her mother as she was getting her daughter ready for her first day at primary six.

Doctors at Yorkhill Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow, told her parents they had only ever heard of one other case of the syndrome which forces the youngster to avoid any kind of static as it triggers a potentially fatal reaction.
Last night, Megan’s mother Sharon described how she discovered her daughter’s illness.
She said: 'I was brushing her hair in the living room when she flopped over and her lips turned blue.
'I thought she was having a fit, which she has never had before, so we called the paramedics.
'It was really scary. We were really shocked because we didn’t know what was happening.
The 41-year-old added: 'We had never heard of this condition before and we have been told by doctors that they have only ever heard of one other case ever.'

Now, the teenager, from Wishaw, Lanarkshire has to have her hair brushed downwards over the side of her bed, and ensures it is damp so she can avoid another seizure.
Doctors have been left baffled by her condition which causes dizziness and can trigger a seizure.
The teenager, from Wishaw, Lanarkshire, was rushed to Wishaw General Hospital where it was diagnosed and it is thought the little-known illness may be a result of her birth complications.
Megan was born weighing just 2lb 5oz and fit in the palm of a man’s hand.
She had a diaphragmatic hernia, or a hole in her diaphragm.
This meant her stomach moved right up through and into her chest, only allowing space for one lung to grow.

But the bizarre condition means Megan now has to avoid static charges in her day-to-day life.
Mrs Stewart added: 'When we comb her hair we have to lay her down and cover her head with water to stop any static building up.
'She can’t rub balloons on her head at parties.'

etc...

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... z1VNVRDt80
 
Another one I've never heard of:

Toddler born with 'clown-nose' birthmark spends two hours in surgery to get a 'face like Mummy's'
By Joanna Corrigan
Last updated at 3:31 PM on 23rd August 2011

For three years, she had to put up with cruel taunts because of a condition that left her with a bright red 'clown nose' just weeks after she was born.
Her mother had to resort to hiding Connie Lloyd's face when they went to the doctors because people made such 'horrible' comments.

But now Connie has a new lease of life after surgery to remove the blemish, which actually marked the existence of a tumour.

Following her three-and-a-half hour operation, a delighted Connie proclaimed that she now had a 'nose like her mum's'.
Her mother, from Slough, Berkshire, said: 'When we saw her nose we were amazed. She looked like a different child but we knew it was our Connie.'

Doctors had spotted a shadow on Connie's nose at the 26-week scan but when she was born in September 2008, she appeared perfectly healthy.
Two weeks later, her parents Zara and Tom spotted their daughter's nose was turning bright red. What started as a tiny dot quickly grew to 4cm wide.
Their GP referred them to a skin specialist at Great Ormond Street Hospital, who diagnosed the baby with haemangioma - a benign tumour.

Connie became only the eighth baby in the UK to try the drug Propranolol - used for heart conditions - to stop the growth becoming larger.
But her parents were told there was no cure and also warned she could even bleed to death if her nose was scratched or bruised.

Her mother searched for anyone who could help and eventually located surgeon Dr Iain Hutchison who specialises in treating facial disfigurements.
He operated on Connie in March, working to remove the tumour and leaving her with just a small scar.

Her mother said: 'Before the operation, Connie was quite shy and when people made comments and pointed she would turn her head.
'Even just going to the doctors' surgery was awful for both of us. I would hide Connie in the car to avoid people making horrible comments.
'By the time Connie was four weeks old, her nose was a perfect clown's nose and not only was the birthmark growing externally, but internally too.
'We were constantly worried. The doctors said if she cut or grazed it, she could bleed to death. There were treatments to stop it getting bigger but nothing to get rid of it.'

'It was the longest two hours of my life when Connie was in the theatre. When she came out of the operation she said her nose was like her mum's.
'Now she is doing really well, she has a big group of friends and we are so proud of her.'
She added: 'It's nice not to have to deal with the cruel comments any more but, red nose or not, Connie has always been our perfect little girl.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... z1VrhATqJD
 
A big WTF!! here (do not read if you're about to eat):

Faecal transplants used to cure Clostridium difficile
By James Gallagher, Health reporter, BBC News

Transplanting faecal matter from one person to another - the thought might turn your stomach, but it could be lifesaving.
Some doctors are using the procedure to repopulate the gut with healthy bacteria, which can become unbalanced in some diseases.

Dr Alisdair MacConnachie, who thinks he is the only UK doctor to carry out the procedure for Clostridium difficle infection, describes it as a proven treatment.
He says it should be used, but only as a treatment of last resort.

The logic is simple.

C. difficile infection is caused by antibiotics wiping out swathes of bacteria in the gut. It gives the surviving C. difficile bacteria room to explode in numbers and produce masses of toxins which lead to diarrhoea and can be fatal.
The first-choice solution, more antibiotics, does not always work and some patients develop recurrent infection.

The theory is that by adding more bacteria to the bowels, they will compete with C. difficile bacteria and control the infection.
Dr MacConnachie, from Gartnavel General Hospital in Glasgow, has performed just over 20 of the operations since he started in 2003.
"Ultimately all the patients I've treated, bar one, has got rid of their C. difficile," he said.

The procedure
If normal treatments fail to work, the patient will be given antibiotics up to the night before the operation, when their pills will be swapped for those to control stomach acid.

On the morning of the procedure, the donor will come into hospital and produce a sample.
A relative is generally used, preferably one who lives with the patient, because living in the same environment and eating the same food means they are more likely to have similar bowel bacteria.

About 30g (1oz) is taken and blitzed in a household blender with some salt water. This is poured through a coffee filter to leave a watery liquid.
Dr MacConnachie inserts a tube up the patient's nose and down to the stomach. Other doctors use a different route to the bowels.
About 30ml (1fl oz) of liquid is poured down the tube.

"My personal view is that this technique is there for patients who have tried all the traditional treatments," Dr MacConnachie.
"If a patient doesn't respond to that and still gets recurrent C. difficile then they're in real trouble and there isn't really any other technique or any other treatment that has the proven efficacy that faecal transplant does."

I asked him why, if that was true, were more doctors in the UK not carrying out the procedure: "It's a published technique, I guess people are scared of it.
"It sounds disgusting, it is disgusting and I think people are probably worried about approaching patients and discussing it."

etc...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15113440

:shock:
 
Sounds not dissimilar to the coffee where I work boom-tish!
 
About 30g (1oz) is taken and blitzed in a household blender with some salt water.
Click to expand...
I hope no one has the idea of making a quick milkshake.
 
Woman lies upside down for three months to avoid miscarriage
Donna Kelly, a pregnant mother who had suffered repeated miscarriages, has given birth to a girl after lying upside down for three months.
6:12AM GMT 21 Dec 2011

Mrs Kelly, 29, suffered from a weak cervix and was warned at five months into the pregnancy that she was at high risk of losing another baby.
She agreed to spend 24 hours a day on a hospital bed which was tilted skywards to lift her feet above her head and reduce pressure on her cervix.
Under the supervision of Professor Siobhan Quenby, a world-expert on recurrent miscarriages, she ate, read and watched television in the position, only leaving her bed to visit the toilet.

She gave birth to Amelia, weighing 4lbs 15ozs, six weeks prematurely by emergency caesarean after her waters broke in late August. The baby spent two weeks in an incubator in intensive care before being allowed home.

The birth of her first child, Joshua, four years ago is believed to have permanently weakened her cervix. She miscarried twice, at 23 weeks and 19 weeks, before Amelia was conceived. Attempts to stitch the neck of her cervix and strengthen it with hormone were unsuccessful.
"I was surprised when she told me to lie in bed at a tilt but I was ready to give anything a try," said Mrs Kelly, a former gynaecological nurse from Coventry.
"It made me feel sick and I had a massive head rush at first but after a couple of days my body adjusted and I soon got used to it.

"I'd even have to stay in the bed to eat by rolling onto my side, but I'd always have a dead arm by the end.
"It could be boring at times but I knew it wouldn't be as painful as losing my baby."
"After the first miscarriage you think it's just bad luck, but when it happens again you begin to suspect there is something seriously wrong."

Donna and her husband Mark, 32, a Sky installation engineer, are now looking forward to their first Christmas together as a family.
"Mark and I had a calendar and we'd cross off each day - the way I saw it, one day more in bed hopefully meant one day less in special care for the baby if she arrived too prematurely.
"The hardest thing was spending so much time away from my four-year-old son Joshua - but three months away from him for the sake of giving him a sibling is worth it.
"Professor Quenby was wonderful and so dedicated - I can't praise her enough."

Professor Quenby, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, said: "Donna's condition is rare - second trimester miscarriages only occur in about 0.5 per cent of women - and while the treatment may sound strange, it is very effective.
"We are currently undertaking research at University Hospital to replace this with something more pleasant for the patient which doesn't rely on them staying in hospital."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healt ... riage.html

I may have to borrow that bed - I'm not pregnant, but I have an infection on my shin, and antibiotics are not proving much use. The doctors tell me to keep my leg up as much as I can, but apart from the odd couple of hours watching TV it's pretty much impossible... :(
 
You may want to massage your leg regularly to keep the blood flowing. That should speed up recovery, I think.
 
Mythopoeika said:
You may want to massage your leg regularly to keep the blood flowing. That should speed up recovery, I think.
Click to expand...
The blood flow's OK. The problem is a build-up of fluid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedema

Since the spring, I've seen at least 5 different doctors about it - only the last one prescribed stuff to increase the passing of fluid, as well as antibiotics. But reading the medicine notes, this could be for blood pressure problems as well as oedema, so I'm not sure now exactly why he prescribed it.

The worrying thing about the Wiki piece is the repetition of phrases like "is not well understood"!

Well, I've only got two more days of antibiotics to go. If no improvement by then, I'll have to resort to an alcoholic Xmas treatment till the holidays are over! 8)
 
She's never been through puberty or needed a bra: Woman, 25, is trapped in body of a 12-YEAR-OLD
By Emily Allen
Last updated at 6:52 PM on 8th January 2012

A 25-year-old woman is trapped in the body of a 12-year-old and is appealing to medics to help cure her rare condition.

Kate Quinn is believed to be the only woman in Ireland to have Caudal Regression Syndrome (CRS).
The rare disorder, which she discovered she had two years ago, means she has never been through puberty, had regular periods or had to buy a bra.
It also means her lower spine has not developed properly so she stands at just 4ft 9ins tall.

Now Miss Quinn, who says she has spent her early 20s 'hiding away' and living her life in 'limbo', has appealed to experts to come up with a cure.
She believes she will not be able to find love unless she becomes a 'real' woman, she told Irish Independent.

The condition is thought to affect just one in 25,000 people across the world.
Doctors say the fact she hasn't gone through puberty is a side-effect of her condition but they cannot explain why.
They said the fact her hormones are not working properly is not normally associated with CRS.
She has been injected with hormones for seven years in a bid to encourage her body to go into puberty - but to no avail.

Trips to the surgery every day have prevented her from being able to enroll on college courses or get a job.
She told the newspaper: 'The longer it goes on, the worse you feel because at 12 or 14 you feel you might develop, but now at 25 you start wondering if it's too late and ask yourself if you'll ever develop.'

Miss Quinn, from Mooncoin, Co Kilkenny, said because her body hasn't developed to the age it should be she 'kind of hides away'.
She said she has been in 'limbo' since the problem began at 14.
Miss Quinn hopes a doctor may come forward with a solution following the publicity.

-----------------------------------------------

CRS: WHAT IS IT?

Caudal regression syndrome is a rare disorder where the lower spine does not develop properly.

It occurs in every one in 25,000 births.

The condition can lead to medical problems including partial absence of the tail bone regions to major malformation of the pelvis and spine.

Severe cases mean some people are paralysed and can suffer from incontinence.

Before more comprehensive medical treatment was available full amputation of the legs at the hip was performed in severe cases.

It has been speculated the condition might be associated with dietary deficiencies, including a lack of folic acid.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... z1ixxnp4NK
 
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