Strange, Weird & Bizarre Medical Cases & Facts

In the world of crazy skin ailments, Blaschko’s Lines are certainly interesting.  Discovered by Alfred Blaschko in 1901, this condition is manifested by a V-shaped pattern of lesions over the back, with S-shaped swirls all over the front side of the trunk.  People can have the tendency toward this condition without it ever manifesting, until something like a pigment disorder or another problem manifests and BAM!  Stripey skin.

Funny enough, the condition is common in people who have Chimera.   The lines reportedly follow the “migration of embyronic cells” and can also be found in animals.

To reiterate, the disease is invisible, until the sufferer develops a skin condition that causes the patterns to manifest.  Some of the skin conditions that can make the disease manifest are focal dermal hyperplasia, CHILD syndrome, MIDAS syndrome, sebaceous naevus, McCune-Albright syndrome, Lichen striatus, linear morphoea, and a bunch of other skin disorders you may have never heard of.

Blaschko’s Lines are often talked about in relation to mosaicism, which is a condition similar to and related to chimerism.  In mosaicism, the person or animal has two distinct genetic populations of skin cells that live side by side with one another.  Blaschko’s Lines are the Type 1a and 1b forms of cutaneous mosaicism.  Not all sufferers of cutaneous mosaicism  have Blaschko’s Lines, and not all people who have Blaschko’s lines also have cutaneous mosaicism.

The general thought is that all skin has these stripes, but the conditions we talk about above are the ones who bring the stripes to light.

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• Genetics of McCune-Albright Syndrome (brighthub.com)
• Mosaicism – All Information (umm.edu)
• Blaschko’s Lines [Pharyngula] (scienceblogs.com)

So there is this new show on The History Channel called Stan Lee’s Superhumans.  They find people who are able to do things that “normal” people can’t, and they set out to find out why that person can do what they do.  Stan himself eschews the travel to do the introductions in his super cool studio and  leaves the travel and interviewing to Daniel Browning Smith – also known as the world’s most flexible man.  He holds a bunch of world records for his flexibility (including the Guinness World Record) and trained with Master Lu Yi to learn how to do Chinese acrobatics.  That talent, combined with his amazing flexibility, makes Browning Smith a Superhuman that finds other Superhumans.

Daniel Browning Smith as "Rubberboy"

How is he able to do that?  How do contortionists make their bodies do that?  Are they double-jointed?  What is “double-jointed,” anyway?  Lucky for you folks, I went ahead and looked all that up for you, along with a few other tidbits to keep you thrilled and entertained.

Huit Huit - named Makaya Dimbelelo - is a contortionist who suffered extreme poverty in Angola and the Congo before making his way to Europe to join the circus. He performed with the 2008 circus Afrika!Afrika!

If you search “double jointed” you’re likely to come up with the term “hypermobility.”  So no, being double-jointed doesn’t mean that you have two joints where you have one joint, making you able to bend the joint either way.  It means that your joints are hypermobile, they are able to stretch much farther and in different directions than normal joints.

What makes a joint hypermobile?  Sometimes the ends of the bones are shaped differently, making them behave in the joint differently.  Other times, there is a collagen or connective tissue issue that allows the bones to move in the joints differently.  Hypermobility might be genetic, as it tends to run in families.  Sometimes the condition is simply a hypermobility of joints with no other health concerns, but other times the condition is a symptom of a larger health condition.  There are a number of diseases that have hypermobility as a symptom, including Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis (strange, huh?) and Down syndrome, among many others.

Even if one of the diseases is absent, people with hypermobility are more susceptible to fibromyalgia and joint pain, as well as chronic fatigue syndrome.  Other people live healthy and happy lives, and go on to use their hypermobility to make a living and to amaze and astonish.

A contestant in 2003's Contortionist Convention

Somebody call the chiropractor!

performers at Cirque de Soleil

Not all contortionists are hypermobile, as the human muscles can be trained to be extremely flexible, but the most flexible contortionists are hypermobile.  They either have a connective tissue issue or interestingly shaped bones.  Some sources separate contortionists into frontbenders or backbenders, noting that most contortionists have greater ease bending one way or the other.

backbender

another backbender

The cool thing about Browning Smith is that he’s a both bender.  He can bend his body every which way and is super flexible in almost every direction.  He’s the most famous contortionist in the world, and a charming co-host on one of the coolest current TV programs.

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• Tips for Healthier Joints (worldoforthopedics.com)
• Hypermobile joints – All Information (umm.edu)
• Mind-Blowing Contortionists (interbent.com)

I watched a movie once where a girl was a zombie, but didn’t know it.  That’s, like, the opposite of today’s weird disease, which is a condition that makes someone think they are dead or that their insides are rotting.  It’s called Cotard’s Syndrome, named after the guy who discovered it.  Jules Cotard was a French neurologist lectured about the syndrome,  le délire de négation, which was characterized by depression and despondency, for sure, but in more extreme cases the patient would doubt their very existence – be it physical or spiritual.  Most felt that some part or all of their body was putrefying or dead, and most had a very weak grasp on the here and now.

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