N.Y. teens hit by mysterious Tourette's-like illness
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20120119/high-school-tourettes-disorder-120119/#ixzz1jwfkGlwI
Date: Thu. Jan. 19 2012 8:54 AM ET
It's a medical mystery that has baffled experts and fascinated just about everyone else for months.
About four months ago, 12 girls at the same high school in New York State all began suffering strange symptoms, similar to Tourette's syndrome. The girls have been enduring uncontrollable body movements, facial tics and verbal outbursts.
The girls' parents wondered whether an infectious agent had caused the "outbreak," while others wondered there was something in the air or the environment of the school.
After a three-month investigation, state health officials ruled out carbon monoxide, mould, illegal drugs and a host of other possible causes.
Now, doctors say they think they know what's causing the symptoms: conversion disorder.
Dr. Jennifer McVige, a pediatric neurologist at the Dent Neurologic Institute, says they made the diagnosis after conducting blood and other lab tests, brain imaging tests, and reviewing the environmental study reports.
"This is a diagnosis of exclusion. So, when everything else is ruled out, this is what we decide upon," she explained to CTV's Canada AM from Buffalo, N.Y. Thursday.
Dr. McVige is treating 11 of the 12 patients in this case, but notes she has only been given permission to talk about four of them.
"So by no means am I saying that this is everybody's diagnosis," she said.
Conversion disorder is a relatively rare condition that, in another time, might have been called an epidemic of "hysteria." It's a stress-induced psychological condition that triggers a physical reaction within the body.
"So if you have stress inside of you, it wells up inside of you and comes out in some physical manner, be it a tic, or seizure, or fainting spells, or blindness," McVige said.
While some have accused the girls of faking their symptoms in a bid for attention, McVige insists that's not possible.
"Oh no, I have been a very busy woman and this is not a hoax. I wish for the sake of the girls that I could say that it wasn't real. It's been very difficult for everyone involved," she said.
"…They are not faking the symptoms. This is not something they are doing purposefully. They didn't even know each other prior to this, besides just being in the same school."
McVige says what sets off the condition is a bit of a mystery.
"It's difficult to say what causes it. Oftentimes there's a certain stressor that sets off the symptoms. So part of the treatment is to figure out what the stressor is, acknowledge it, talk to the person about it," she said.
The treatment includes behaviour modification therapies to manage the actual tics, psychotherapy to help with the root cause, and sometimes medication and muscle relaxants to alleviate spasm.
All the girls are being treated and are said to be improving.
About four months ago, 12 girls at the same high school in New York State all began suffering strange symptoms, similar to Tourette's syndrome. The girls have been enduring uncontrollable body movements, facial tics and verbal outbursts.
The girls' parents wondered whether an infectious agent had caused the "outbreak," while others wondered there was something in the air or the environment of the school.
After a three-month investigation, state health officials ruled out carbon monoxide, mould, illegal drugs and a host of other possible causes.
Now, doctors say they think they know what's causing the symptoms: conversion disorder.
Dr. Jennifer McVige, a pediatric neurologist at the Dent Neurologic Institute, says they made the diagnosis after conducting blood and other lab tests, brain imaging tests, and reviewing the environmental study reports.
"This is a diagnosis of exclusion. So, when everything else is ruled out, this is what we decide upon," she explained to CTV's Canada AM from Buffalo, N.Y. Thursday.
Dr. McVige is treating 11 of the 12 patients in this case, but notes she has only been given permission to talk about four of them.
"So by no means am I saying that this is everybody's diagnosis," she said.
Conversion disorder is a relatively rare condition that, in another time, might have been called an epidemic of "hysteria." It's a stress-induced psychological condition that triggers a physical reaction within the body.
"So if you have stress inside of you, it wells up inside of you and comes out in some physical manner, be it a tic, or seizure, or fainting spells, or blindness," McVige said.
While some have accused the girls of faking their symptoms in a bid for attention, McVige insists that's not possible.
"Oh no, I have been a very busy woman and this is not a hoax. I wish for the sake of the girls that I could say that it wasn't real. It's been very difficult for everyone involved," she said.
"…They are not faking the symptoms. This is not something they are doing purposefully. They didn't even know each other prior to this, besides just being in the same school."
McVige says what sets off the condition is a bit of a mystery.
"It's difficult to say what causes it. Oftentimes there's a certain stressor that sets off the symptoms. So part of the treatment is to figure out what the stressor is, acknowledge it, talk to the person about it," she said.
The treatment includes behaviour modification therapies to manage the actual tics, psychotherapy to help with the root cause, and sometimes medication and muscle relaxants to alleviate spasm.
All the girls are being treated and are said to be improving.
Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20120119/high-school-tourettes-disorder-120119/#ixzz1jweC5glK
Whenever they do not what is going on they blame it on (1) stress, (2) genetics, (3) a virus, (4) it is psychosomatic. God forbid it is caused by electromagnetic radiation. That is crazy! I saw people all the time in Japan answering cell phones and going into these fits where their bodies just started jerking all over the place. It is like "Dude. Get rid of the freakin phone."
ReplyDeleteYou can't objectively measure "stress" and it varies per person, so it becomes a handy catch-all for whatever the medical profession fails to understand.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet not all of these girls would have reported feeling stressed right before their strange symptoms began. But that won't stop the medical establishment from calling it such.
But you know, traditional medicine never was big on looking for causes of illness, but likes to give drugs to tamp down symptoms, all right. What a racket.
Well if people can fake being mentally retarded & collect SS for 19. Yrs. Then these girls could be faking.
ReplyDeleteI am not saying they are, but it's a possibility.
The people I saw in Japan with these tics when answering their cell phones were certainly not living on "Social Security" but were rather young working men dressed in business suits. I saw this numerous times and these people were quite disabled when they tried talking on their phones and were having these uncontrollabale tics. It is the price people are paying to use this technology.
ReplyDeleteInt J Neurosci. 1996 Feb;84(1-4):187-94.
ReplyDeleteEffects of picotesla flux electromagnetic fields on dopaminergic transmission in Tourette's syndrome.
Sandyk R.
Source
NeuroCommunication Research Laboratories, Danbury, CT 06811, USA.
Abstract
Tourette's syndrome (TS), a chronic familial neuropsychiatric disorder of unknown etiology, is characterized clinically by the presence of motor and vocal tics that wax and wane in severity over the time and by the occurrence of a variety of neurobehavioral disorders. It is believed that the tics of TS result from increased dopamine (DA) activity caused by postsynaptic DA receptor supersensitivity. The synthesis and release of DA is regulated presynaptically by a specific class of DA D2 receptors, termed autoreceptors activation of which causes inhibition of DA synthesis and release. In experimental animals and humans administration of small doses of apomorphine, a DA D2 autoreceptor agonist, produces yawning. Recurrent episodes of yawning followed by increased motor tic activity was observed in two patients with TS during exposure to brief, extracranial applications of picotesla flux electromagnetic fields (EMFs). On the basis of these observations it is suggested that recurrent episodes of yawning in response to application of EMFs was induced by activation of presynaptic DA D2 autoreceptors while further exposure to these EMFs caused excessive stimulation of postsynaptic DA D2 receptors resulting in exacerbation of the tics. Thus, the dual effects of picotesla flux EMFs on the DA D2 autoreceptor and the postsynaptic receptor resemble the biphasic pharmacological and behavioral properties of apomorphine, a DA agonist which activates the autoreceptors in low doses while in higher doses causes stimulation of the postsynaptic receptors producing exacerbation of symptoms of TS. These findings demonstrate that picotesla flux EMFs applied extracerebrally may influence nigrostriatal DA transmission at pre- and postsynaptic DA D2 receptor sites.
PMID: 8707481 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]