Strange, Weird & Bizarre Medical Cases & Facts

Here at BizarreMedical.com we talk a lot about weird diseases, a little bit about common diseases, and a little bit about the medical industry – both current and in bygone times.  One area we’ve stayed away from so far is body modification.  One reason is that people are sensitive about their bodies – both the things that happen to their bodies that they can’t control, and the things they choose to do to their bodies.

So without judgment at all, I submit the body modification practice known as “pocketing.”  It’s also called an “art implant,” a “3-D implant,” and the more technical “subdermal implant.”  Instead of piercing something on the outside and attaching body jewelry to it, this process involved inserting the jewelry under the skin so that the outline of it shows through the skin.  Almost like a body-jewelry-shaped growth or appendage. Regard:

photo by PRIMITIVECHILE body piercing y body modificacion

Wikipedia tells us that there are subdermal implants, like you see above, and transdermal implants, which would be implants that have something that sticks out of the skin.  So imagine the photo above, but with part of the inner implant showing.  The picture below shows this kind of implant – look at the guy’s forehead.

picture from wikipedia

Procedurally, the guy or gal who does this to you should be pretty skilled.  And everything should be STERILE.  Sheesh.  The chance for infection is pretty severe, and it’s also (albeit remotely) possible that your body will reject the implant.  They basically have to cut into you, hold your skin out with something called a dermal separator, and stick something under there and sew you back up.

Some people go WAY beyond a simple subdermal or transdermal implant and go all out.  There’s Stalking Cat, who has been implanted and tattooed to look like a cat.  Born Dennis Avner, Stalking Cat has subdermal implants along his forehead, and on the bridge of his nose to make his face catlike.  He also has transdermal implants on the cheeks next to his nose to allow for whisker-type piercings.  Check him out.

Another guy, Erik Sprague, calls himself The Lizardman.  and he’s made himself up to look like a (guess?) lizard.  He performs all over the place, eating fire and swallowing swords and stuff.  An ex Ph.D. candidate, he now lives in Austin, Texas and does performance art full time.  He’s appeared in the Jim Rose Circus, Todd Robins Carnival Knowledge, and more, and has toured and performed with bands like Godsmack, Hatebreed, and Slayer, to name a few.  Check him out.

There are others who have decided to turn their whole body into works of art.  There’s Katzen (the Cat Lady), The Enigma, Stelarc, and the infamous Fakir Musafar.  What makes someone decide to do permanent and painful modification to their body?

One school of thought is that the people suffer from body dysmorphic disorder.  This can manifest as an eating disorder, a preoccupation with extensive plastic surgery (think Michael Jackson or Jocelyn Wildenstein), or a desire to completely change your outward appearance.  Body dysmorphic disorder’s symptoms include “obsessive and compulsive behaviors related to perceived appearance defects” and (according to wikipedia’s sources) “any kind of body modification that may change one’s appearance.”

On the opposite side, the Church of Body Modification would disagree.  They “honor all forms of body modification and those who choose to practice body modification for any reason. “  They say that they “believe our bodies belong only to ourselves are are a whole and integrated entity:  mind, body, and soul.  We maintain we have the right to alter them for spiritual or other reasons.”

Additionally, the COBM also states that they don’t hold it against people who choose NOT to practice body modification.  That’s a lot more tolerance than non-body modifiers likely give to The Lizardman.

J.M. Barrie once said “God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.”  Can you imagine remembering ALL the roses EVERY December?  Can you imagine remembering pretty much everything?  That’s what it is like for people who having Piking, or Hyperthymestic Syndrome.

photo by gutter

In an article for the Wisconsin Medical Society, Dr. Darold Treffert talks about the different forms of extremely good memory.  He talks about memory where people memorize facts, music, geographic details automatically.  He says that they are mainly the result of savant memory, though he does qualify this in bringing up cases where the people with extraordinary memories were not savants, but mnemonists – people who retain images but can “turn off” and force themselves to forget the huge amount of data their brain collects and stores.

Then he tells us about Brad Williams, who has hyperthymestic syndrome.  Brad has been interviewed by Good Morning America, who calls him “the Human Google.”  His brother, Eric, has made a biography on Brad.  Called “Unforgettable,” the documentary is due out soon.

Brad is one of only a handful of people considered for study under the diagnosis of hyperthymestic syndrome.  The subjects are able to recall the day of the week for any given date, and are able to tell researchers all about what happened to them that day – what they were wearing, who they saw, and what public events happened that day.  Of the three people studied, two are left-handed, but scientists are not sure if there is correlation there, because so few people are actually diagnosed with this syndrome.

Do you know more about this?  Do you have additional information to share?  Please comment below!

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In March, the Herald Sun published an article about Jasper Lucas Booker, a baby who was born in Victoria.  The baby was 12.65 pounds and born via C-section.

Jasper is not the only large baby born to his mother, a thirty-six year old woman named Amanda.  Amanda and John’s other two boys, Jake and James, were born at 10.56 pounds and 11.44 pounds respectively.  Jake, 3, and James, 1, are normal-sized now.

The average birth weight for a baby born in Victoria is 7.43 pounds.  Jasper is the biggest baby that pediatrician Dr. Barry Kras has ever seen.

Jasper’s not the biggest baby born by any means.  Here are some notable big babies.  Some are bigger than Jasper, some are smaller, but all are babies that you hope were born via C-section.

Meet Muhammad Akbar Risuddin.  He is a record-breaking big baby – he is the biggest baby born in Sumatra.  He weighed 19.2 pounds when he was born in 2009.  He was born via C-section.

This is Sean Lightwood (left).  He was one of Britain’s biggest babies at 13.6 pounds.  This is a picture of him next to a “normal-sized” baby of the same age.  No word on how he was delivered.

Born in 1963, John Sochacki weighed 16.2 pounds.

JaMichael Brown, born July 11 of 2011, weighed in at 16.1 pounds, a record for the state of Texas.

The biggest healthy baby on record was born to Carmelina Fedele in 1955.  Born in Aversa Italy, the boy was 22.8 pounds, but not much is known about him and there are no pictures.  Unless you have one?  Will the son of Carmelina Fedele please step forward?