Posted on
February 08, 2010 by
Bizarre Medical News
Nobody really knows why they occur, but every now and then people get a weird little bump on their wrist or ankle that feels sort of like a swollen node, but it’s not. It’s a cyst, it’s a Ganglion Cyst, also called a “Bible Bump.”
Wikipedia says that it’s likely a valve problem with the joint – fluid can get out of the joint but it can’t get back in, forming the cyst. They say the fluid inside is like synovial fluid (like egg yolk), but it’s a little thicker.
The cysts mainly appear on the wrist; both the top side of the wrist and the underside. I actually have one right now, which is what led me to the research and this subsequent post. I want it to go away, but since it doesn’t hurt I don’t want to go to any extreme measures to remove it.
“Bible Bump.” Why is it called that? Legend has it that people used to used to use the largest book in their house (usually the family Bible) to bash the cyst to get rid of it. See?
The word “ganglion” means a mass of tissues. I guess a joint is a mass of tissues, so to have a cyst on it would make the name make sense.
Incidentally, there are lots of “home remedy” suggestions out there, mostly involving different plants and herbs (Hong Hua, Sutherlandia frutescens, Job’s tears, etc.) and hitting the cyst with different heavy instruments (books, coffee mugs, rubber mallets). I think I’ll just leave mine alone for now.
Because of our interest in all things bizarre in the medical world, we spend a lot of time scouring the internet for news of the weird. At the risk of being a bit controversial, we submit to you a condition we found via News of The World, a UK website. In a 2007 article they tell us about Sarah, a then-24-year-old girl with a very strange medical condition.
She can’t stop having orgasms.
She has 100 to 200 orgasms per day. She can’t use a hairdryer, ride in a car, or even be in a noisy room full of people because the vibrations send her into fits. She has a condition called Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome (PSAS), and before you start feeling jealous, imagine not being able to control when (or where) you reach your “happy place”. She’s a beautician, and she has to deal with having all these orgasms every day right in front of people. You can imagine, it’s pretty hard to get things done when your body is busy climaxing all the time.
PSAS is likely a nerve disorder, though not enough people have done studies on it to know for sure. The condition is pretty rare. It was only first documented in 2001. It seems that most triggers are certain types of drugs. For sure, Sarah’s symptoms didn’t start until she’d been on anti-depressants and then went off them. Ever since then, she’s been suffering with this disorder.
Because the condition is thought to be nerve-related, physical therapy is one possible treatment. Similarly, because the nerve disorder thought to cause PSAS is pundendal nerve entrapment, surgery is another option. Surely there must be something that can help people like poor Sarah. Too much of a good thing is still…too much.
Did you know there are some people out there who are allergic to water? It’s true! There are two conditions: aquagenic urticaria and aquagenic pruritus – both of which are allergic reactions to water.
How is that possible? How to people stay hydrated? How do they bathe? In aquagenic urticaria contact with water causes hives. In aquagenic pruritus contact with water causes extreme prickliness and itchiness. See, in the first one (let’s call it AU for short), the person is reacting to the ions in non-distilled water. So in that case, you’re probably safe with distilled water. Make sure it’s distilled, though, because the hives pop up and can last for hours.
In AP, unlike AU, the reaction is caused by a histamine. (A histamine is what causes an inflammatory response in a person). This is another one of those diseases that have been met with a lot of speculation. People would feel this crazy itchiness and pain after contact with water, but there are no surface symptoms. So, people wouldn’t believe that people were really feeling all this discomfort because of plain old water.
It’s a real condition, though, and people really suffer with it. Sometimes people with this condition react to just moist air – so humidity is bad, right? Some people find relief in applying heat to their skin directly after bathing, and for others that makes it worse. Sometimes creams or allergy medicines (like Claritin) work, and sometimes it’s just no use – the water makes them itchy.
This is definitely up there in the “allergies we’re glad we don’t have” department, because we love water slides and bubble baths!
Weird medical diseases, strange medical facts and bizarre human conditions, you will find your fill of the odd medical news here. Photo header credit: by brian cors
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