There are a huge variety of human diseases in the world, but only some of them are extremely rare. Some of them, mostly highly contagious, have practically disappeared thanks to the efforts of medicine. The rest are genetic diseases, usually incurable. A rare disease forces a person to adapt to life. Consider the most unusual diseases.
Polio
Thanks to compulsory vaccination, it is now an extremely rare viral disease. They are mainly affected by residents of developing countries with poor medicine. The polio virus infects the motor neurons of the spinal cord, leading to muscle atrophy and flaccid paralysis. It proceeds with high fever, extremely high mortality.
Most survivors remain disabled for life. Treatment of rare diseases like poliomyelitis is quite a complicated process. Easier to prevent diseases.
Progeria
It is a rare genetic disease that manifests itself in an unnaturally rapid aging of the body. Distinguish children's and adult variants of the disease. Statistics report one case in four million. The pathology of the disease repeats the picture of natural aging, but accelerated many times over.
Sick children grow old for 10-15 years in a year of life. Such rare diseases bring a lot of troubles. You can see photos of patients in this article.
The first symptoms of childhood progeria become noticeable by the second or third year of a baby's life. At this time, the child stops growing, his skin becomes thinner, his head greatly increases. Adult Progeria debuts at the age of 30-40.
Fields Disease
Probably the rarest disease in the world. In the entire history of medicine, only one such case has been described with two patients. Underage twin sisters named Fields, who live in England, were ill.
The disease manifests itself as a gradual loss of control over voluntary movements due to a defect in muscle tissue. As the disease progresses, patients are increasingly dependent on the help of others and a wheelchair, they completely lose the ability to move independently.
Progressive fibrodysplasia (Munheimer's disease)
The disease is extremely rare, statistics say about one case in two million. It is based on a genetic mutation that leads to congenital pathologies of development. It is manifested by the curvature of the fingers and toes, the spine and other bone disorders. This disease is characterized by unnatural growth of bone tissue, the degeneration of soft tissues into bone. Any injury gives impetus to the formation of a focus for the growth of new bones.
It is very difficult when rare human diseases manifest themselves in this way. The photo shows what a sick person looks like.
Doctors have not yet come up with a way to cure patients. Surgical removal of the bone neoplasm leads to the opposite result, stimulating new growth zones. These rare diseases are frightening, but patients are trying to live.
Kuru disease
Extremely rare, but very dangerous contagious disease. The infectious agent is prions, which are proteins with an irregular spatial structure. Once in the body, the prion moves to the brain. There, the infectious agent disrupts the spatial structure of neighboring proteins, leading to programmed cell death. And in place of the dead nerve cells, voids are formed - vacuoles.
The disease is accompanied by severe disorders of the nervous system and inevitably leads to death. Kuru was common in New Guinea among the tribes of cannibals, and the infection occurred after the ritual eating of the human brain. Currently, cannibalism has almost disappeared, and the number of new diseases is extremely small. It's good that rare diseases like this don't happen often. Look for the list and description of the rest below in the article.
Microcephaly
This disease is characterized by a disproportionately small skull in a newborn. Small brain mass leads to severemental insufficiency, irreversible developmental delay. Babies born with this pathology, as a rule, survive, but remain idiots, and at best, imbeciles or morons.
The main factor contributing to the birth of a sick child is the exposure of a pregnant woman to radioactive radiation, as well as genetic factors. Such rare diseases of children require a lot of courage and patience from parents.
Morgellons' disease
In the first place are skin symptoms: ulcers, elastic living threads crawling under the skin. At the same time, the memory and psyche of patients begin to suffer, and their working capacity decreases sharply.
Official medicine is inclined to be skeptical about the complaints of patients, explaining them with mental disorders, and skin manifestations with various kinds of dermatitis. It is believed that especially suggestible and hysterical patients are susceptible to diseases.
Paraneoplastic pemphigus
Despite the fact that ordinary pemphigus is a fairly common disease, a small number of patients suffer from pemphigus, which is based on a paraneoplastic process. The disease is extremely dangerous and potentially fatal. Of particular difficulty in the correct diagnosis and treatment is the differential diagnosis with ordinary pemphigus. At the heart of the disease is the current malignant process.
Skin manifestations of the disease are the appearance of blisters on the mucous membranes and skin, which, when bursting, become a breeding ground for pathogenic bacteria. Lotpatients die from sepsis or cancer. The rarest diseases are practically untreatable. People are forced to suffer and experience not only physical but also moral pain.
Stendhal Syndrome
This mental disorder manifests itself when the patient visits exhibitions and museums that showcase art. Manifested in the form of anxiety, dizziness and high blood pressure. In some cases, even hallucinations are possible.
The syndrome was officially recognized in 1972, after the Italian psychiatrist Magherini described many identical cases of the disease among tourists visiting exhibitions and museums. In some patients, listening to classical music causes similar reactions.
Exploding head syndrome
The disease is characterized by auditory hallucinations, patients hear various noises and explosions in their head. As a rule, such phenomena occur when preparing for sleep or during sleep, as well as immediately after waking up. Auditory hallucinations are also accompanied by vegetative-vascular changes, in patients blood pressure rises, sweating increases. In some cases, in addition to acoustic effects, visual effects are also observed, in the form of a beam of bright light.
Scientists suggest that the impetus for the disease is stress and prolonged overexertion of the mental sphere. Most often women of middle and advanced age are ill. Effective therapy of the disease has not yet been developed, due to its rarity. Patients are advised to eat well, spend more timewalks and not overexert.
The Capgras Fallacy
Psychic deviation, manifested in the persistent belief of the sick that their spouses were replaced by a clone. Patients refuse to share a home with a "stranger". According to researchers, the disease in the bulk is caused by damage to the right hemisphere of the brain. Sometimes the disease manifests itself after an overdose of drugs.
Such rare diseases are very frightening. They are rare, but they bring a lot of pain to the patients themselves and their loved ones.
Blashko Lines
The skin syndrome is named after the German dermatologist Alfred Blaschko, who described the first cases of the disease. Blaschko's lines are a pattern of stripes and curls programmed into the genome of each person. Normally, these lines are invisible, but they begin to appear with some endocrinological disorders. Affected babies are born with visible stripes.
Micropsy
Neurological disorder, manifesting in the distortion of visual perception. Patients perceive the objects of the surrounding world as reduced by several times, incorrectly estimate the distances between objects.
The disease affects not only visual perception, but also touch and hearing. The patient may not even recognize his body. Microlepsy results from organic brain damage or drug use. Such a rare disease creates many problems for a sick person.
Blue Skin Syndrome
The skin becomes blue or purple, which in general does not affect the state of he alth, but negatively affectsappearance. The disease is genetic and is inherited. It is difficult for people to be in society, because the surrounding people constantly pay attention to them.
Klein-Levin Syndrome
Neurological disease, also known as sleeping beauty disease. Patients experience pathological drowsiness, their daily routine is completely disrupted. They spend almost all the time in a dream, and wake up only to eat and go to the toilet. Patients also complain of poor memory, hallucinations, and overreact to noise stimuli.
Most of the patients are teenagers who have a paroxysmal course of the disease. The attack occurs once every few months, and lasts a couple of days, after which the teenager returns to normal life. With age, the disease usually subsides. It's good when very rare diseases leave a person after growing up.
Corpse Syndrome
A mental disorder manifested in the persistent belief of the patient that he is already dead. Considering themselves a corpse, sick people smell rotting flesh, see worms crawling over their bodies. Very often, patients commit suicide because they cannot bear the nightmare visions.
Happy Puppet Syndrome or Angelman Syndrome
This is a genetic disease caused by a mutation in one of the chromosomes. A sick child grows poorly, he is tormented by bouts of causeless laughter. The limbs are poorly obeyed, trembling or twitching. When walking, the legs do not bend well, resembling a gaitpuppets, which led to the name of the syndrome.
Despite the fact that the patients are mentally retarded, they manage to learn to pronounce a few words, and to understand a few more by ear.
Porphyria (vampire disease)
As a result of a genetic failure, the skin of patients is extremely sensitive to ultraviolet radiation. From sunlight, the skin begins to itch strongly, burst, covered with weeping ulcers and scars. Inflammation affects not only the surface of the skin, but also cartilage tissue. The auricles, nose and nails are bent, which become like the claws of an animal.
The patients prefer to leave the house at night when there is no sun. Rare human diseases cause discomfort in patients and people who surround them. But at the same time, it is very important not to despair.
CIPA
Genetic disease in which there is no sensitivity to pain, as a result of which patients do not notice bruises, wounds, cuts. Frostbite and burns are possible. Patients with this rare disease should constantly monitor their environment and plan their every move.
Mermaid Syndrome
This genetic defect is manifested by a physical defect in which children are born with spliced legs. In addition, infants have pathologies in the development of internal organs, which leads to high mortality.
The rarest diseases in the world are always shocking. Especially if pathologies are manifested from birth.
Cicero
Mental disordermanifested by perverted taste preferences. Patients eat completely inedible and sometimes dangerous objects. In the stomachs of patients most often found:
- ground;
- ash;
- garbage;
- rubber;
- buttons.
Researchers believe that in this way the body is trying to make up for the lack of minerals. These rare human diseases require regular monitoring by close family members.
Hyperreflexia
Patients react violently to a sudden loud sound. The autonomic response includes increased sweating, increased heart rate, and high blood pressure. The patient may literally jump in fright.
The condition is stopped with sedative drugs that reduce the excitability of the nervous system.
Allergy to electromagnetic fields
The first cases of the disease began to be recorded after electrical and electronic devices were tightly integrated into human life. Being in the zone of action of the electromagnetic field, patients complain of deterioration of he alth, ringing in the ears, headache, nausea.
Some patients have to give up appliances entirely.
Despite the fact that rare diseases suffer from a small number of people, medicine continues to look for new ways to treat. Many states have special programs that actively study the rarest diseases in the world.
