7 diseases that can cause the body to betray us

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The body is our only window to the outside world, and it is not very pleasant when it turns into a distorting mirror of our sensations. However, this is quite possible due to these diseases.

1. Parosmia

If everyone around you is frowning at a scent you like, it may not be your odd tastes. All the fault is the violation of the sense of smell, which is scientifically called parosmia.

Parosmia is different. Perceptual impairment can be universal when all odors become the same and difficult or impossible to distinguish. It may be different, when the patient distinguishes smells, but feels them in an unusual way, for example, bananas will smell like garbage to him, bread - like paper, and roses - like fish.

Parosmia also has a serious effect on taste. The main tastes - sour, sweet, bitter, salty (plus the fifth taste - umami) - we feel with our tongue. The perception of more subtle shades of taste is provided precisely by the sense of smell, therefore, for a person suffering from parosmia, garlic or basil will never taste the same as for a healthy person.

Parosmia occurs after infectious diseases or head injuries, and it can have different causes - from tumors to damage to nerve tissue. The likelihood of a favorable outcome with treatment depends precisely on the original cause.

2. Cataplexy

Is it possible to come up with such a funny joke that people will faint from laughter? Yes, it is possible! Only for this you have to find special people with cataplexy.

Cataplexy is a condition when your body literally turns into a bag of meat for a while, ceasing to obey the nervous system. Usually, cataplexy develops along with narcolepsy (sudden attacks of sleep), but in rare cases it can be observed separately.

What is most treacherous, cataplexy can overtake a person completely unexpectedly, for example, during strong experiences. And it doesn't matter what kind they are. It can be either the joy of winning your favorite team, or the unexpected news of being fired from work. You can even fall into cataplexy from excessive embarrassment, during sex or from a fit of laughter - viewing funny pictures for such people turns into a real attraction.

Cataplexy can be cured, but the method is experimental and very expensive.

3. Hemianopsia

A person receives about 80% of information about the world around him through sight. Close one eye, and you already know almost half as much about what is happening around you.

Roughly the same thing happens with hemianopsia, a disease that interferes with the analysis of visual information. Up to half of the entire field of vision is outside the perception zone. Often this is accompanied by cognitive impairment, when a person is not even able to determine that his vision is not in order. As a result, the patient often stumbles, bumps into things that suddenly appear in his field of vision, but blames his clumsiness for everything.

Hemianopsia most often occurs after a stroke. It can be especially dangerous when moving around the city: on pedestrian crossings, in public transport or when driving a car. But the most unpleasant thing about hemianopsia is that, if you do not start treating it in time, it can remain for life.

4. Complex regional pain syndrome

“Pain exists only in your head” - oddly enough, but this phrase from motivational posters in fitness clubs is really true. Pain occurs as a reaction of the nervous system to damage to body tissues, and we feel it only when this signal is transmitted through all barriers to the brain.

A malfunction of this system can lead to really dire consequences, for example, when the nervous system begins to literally overwhelm the brain with signals of pain for no real reason. This disorder is called complex regional pain syndrome.

It feels a million times worse than it sounds.

The patient actually experiences an endless stream of pain arising from the slightest effect on the body: movements, touching, and so on.

The best thing to do in this case is to just lie as still as possible.

Complex regional pain syndrome usually occurs as a result of trauma, and not necessarily severe. There is a known case when a girl from Great Britain developed the syndrome while playing football after an ordinary fall on the lawn. The attempt to get up was accompanied by hellish pain, with which the doctors were able to partially cope only after two weeks of treatment.

The girl did not manage to recover to the end. However, modern treatment helps to relieve pain at least partially, so you can still live with the syndrome.

5. Aphasia

If you've ever gotten drunk as a lord, you can roughly imagine this state when you are trying to convey your political manifesto to your friends, but all they hear is inarticulate mooing.

Jokes aside, aphasia is a serious disease. It occurs as a result of a disruption in the functioning of the speech parts of the brain. With aphasia, a person loses the ability to build grammatically correct sentences, and in extreme cases, all speech abilities are reduced to pronouncing a single word. For example, the words "tan" or "tan-tan" - this is exactly what the person in whom aphasia was first investigated by the French scientist Paul Broca in 1861 was able to pronounce. By the way, the patient's name was Tang.

Experiments showed that, with the exception of speech disorders, in all other respects Tang was an ordinary person: he knew how to count, determine the time, experienced the full range of emotions and successfully learned new skills. After Thane's death, his brain was examined by Broca, and the scientist found damage in it. Since then, the place where they were found is called Broca's center - it is this area that is responsible for our speech abilities.

6. Ehlers-Danlos syndrome

American Jory Lemon was seven years old when, at the dentist's office, she discovered that she was completely immune to local anesthesia. No matter how much the doctor tried to anesthetize her, nothing came of it. When, in adulthood, Lemon, together with her doctor, decided to investigate this phenomenon, it turned out that it was not unique: there were other people from all over the world with the same "superpower".

The culprit turned out to be Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which is also known as skin hyperelasticity (although in fact this is only one of its possible consequences).

The syndrome is associated with a genetic defect and leads to a lack of collagen protein in the body. One of the types of this syndrome causes the patient to be completely immune to local anesthesia, and the reason for this has not yet been precisely established.

7. Cold allergy

Allergies are unpleasant. All your life you have to avoid contact with your allergen, and it's good when you at least have the opportunity to do this. Cold allergies are much worse.

Cold air flow from an air conditioner, a refreshing drink, a change in the temperature of the water in the shower - all this can cause a serious reaction in patients with cold allergies, and all this is almost impossible to control.

The reaction can range from subtle redness to death.

For example, if the liquid you drink was too cold, then the swelling in the throat can cause suffocation. And a cold bath can cause anaphylactic shock.

No one knows for sure why the immune system begins to react this way to cold. Therefore, there is no guaranteed treatment for the disease. For those suffering from cold allergies, moving to warm countries is not a whim, but a vital necessity.