can't sleep. clown will eat me.
<< Sep 29, 2006 @ 12:59 >>
Ah, you learn something new every day.
Like Fatal Familial Insomnia, for instance.
The disease has four stages, taking 7 to 18 months to run its course:
1. The patient suffers increasing insomnia, resulting in panic attacks and phobias. This stage lasts about four months.
2. Hallucinations and panic attacks become noticeable, continuing about five months.
3. Complete inability to sleep is followed by rapid loss of weight. This lasts about three months.
4. Dementia, turning unresponsive or mute over the course of six months. This is the final progression of the disease, and the patient will subsequently die.
There is no cure or treatment for FFI; hopes rest on the so far unsuccessful gene therapy. Sleeping pills have no effect.
Amazing.
Of course then there is Kuru, which you can only get by eating the brains of your ancesters.
Reader Comments...
September 29, 2006 @ 15:05:46
not mallory (guest)
as a raging hypochondriac that disease scares the hell out of me. it could be as bad as the time i convinced myself i had cystic fybrosis.
September 29, 2006 @ 15:22:39
xopl (#001)
El Oh El
October 1, 2006 @ 15:42:33
Christy (monster)
Hey, there was an article about that disease in my this month's Psychology Today! The article was about how doctors misdiagnose CJD (creutzfelt-jacob disease) as Alzheimer's.