Slashdot Mirror
Think Your Body Is Infested With Insects? You're Not Alone. (nationalgeographic.com)
Erika Engelhaupt, National Geographic: A few years ago, a man began telling his family members a horrifying tale: There are bugs living inside him. [...] He shows the classic signs of what scientists call delusory parasitosis, or Ekbom syndrome, an unwavering but incorrect belief that the patient's body has been infested with something. For years, entomologists have insisted that these delusions aren't as rare as psychiatrists and the public may think. And now, a study by the Mayo Clinic suggests they're right. The first population-based study of the condition's prevalence suggests that about 27 out of a hundred thousand Americans a year have delusions of an infestation. That would mean around 89,000 people in the U.S. right now are plagued by the condition.
For many sufferers of such delusions, the infestation takes the form of insects or mites, usually tiny and often described as biting or crawling on the skin. Others report feeling worms or leeches or some kind of unknown parasite. Many of the afflicted turn up, eventually, in an entomologist's office. And as the entomologists tell them, only two kinds of arthropods actually infest humans: lice and a mite that causes scabies. Both are easy to identify and cause characteristic symptoms. Bedbugs or fleas might infest a house, but they don't actually live on or inside the human body; they just feed on us and leave. Likewise, there are mites that live on our skin, especially the face, but they're a normal part of everyone's body, much like the bacteria living in our guts.
For many sufferers of such delusions, the infestation takes the form of insects or mites, usually tiny and often described as biting or crawling on the skin. Others report feeling worms or leeches or some kind of unknown parasite. Many of the afflicted turn up, eventually, in an entomologist's office. And as the entomologists tell them, only two kinds of arthropods actually infest humans: lice and a mite that causes scabies. Both are easy to identify and cause characteristic symptoms. Bedbugs or fleas might infest a house, but they don't actually live on or inside the human body; they just feed on us and leave. Likewise, there are mites that live on our skin, especially the face, but they're a normal part of everyone's body, much like the bacteria living in our guts.
I have a, er, uh, ah, a friend, who has this. It is a very persistent and realistic sensory illusion. But if you examine the skin, while the sensation is going on, nothing is there. There are no mites, no spiders, no insects, nada.
It can be a symptom of an oncoming migraine. Some forms of migraines are depression of activity in some parts of the brain. Some types of migraines are like electrical storms in the brain, like seizures in parts of the brain. I think the spiders on the skin sensation is part of the second, the brain storms.
With a lot of training you can learn to ignore the sensations, just as in the military you get trained to ignore an itch. But the sensation is still there and very real to the person experiencing it.
There are medications that help with migraines, such as Valproic acid, which appear to reduce the sensation or at least make it less realistic and more tolerable.
I went to the bathroom one morning, and discovered what looked like a little worm in my underwear. Dark body, light head, about 3mm long. I was convinced I had pinworms, but after Googling pinworms and they looked different, I realized it must be something else. I looked at whipworms, hookworms, anything that could infect a human. No dice.
Then many months later I happened upon an image of a certain type of moth larva. That was it! Moths had infested my underwear drawer. :-P