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Medicine Science

Think Your Body Is Infested With Insects? You're Not Alone. (nationalgeographic.com) 123

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.

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Think Your Body Is Infested With Insects? You're Not Alone.

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  • by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Sunday June 24, 2018 @05:23PM (#56839384) Journal
    • Yup, I see the delusion and raise you .. reality. It's all over the web: https://www.nbcnews.com/health... [nbcnews.com]
    • Approximately 50% to 70% of adults have eyelash mites [wikipedia.org].

    • by functor0 ( 89014 )
      Although not quite an insect, pinworms (and other parasites found in humans) are possibly an explanation for these symptoms as well. However, I would have expected doctors to diagnose these conditions.
      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        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

        • by Anonymous Coward

          I went to the bathroom one morning, and discovered what looked like a little worm in my underwear.

          Must... resist...

          Dark body, light head, about 3mm long.

          Must... resist...

    • by rojash ( 2567409 )
      Wonder if BEPs would sing something about these lumps
  • by Anonymous Coward

    But I swear all my programs have bugs.

  • by pubwvj ( 1045960 ) on Sunday June 24, 2018 @05:30PM (#56839412)

    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.

    • Hate to break it to ya, but we all have mites on our skin. Perfectly normal.
      • by pubwvj ( 1045960 )

        Two different issues were being confused in the article and you went down one path.

      • by JBMcB ( 73720 )

        We do have mites on our skin but, as the article states, there is only one kind that has any sort of effect that you could feel.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          There are mites in our skin that we aren't expected to feel but sometimes people report feeling them. There is zero evidence of delusion, a simpler explanation would be that in some conditions people might be sensitive to things that are normally unnoticeable.

          If people report something that is objectively true should we really label them delusional just because we don't expect them to know it? Once medical staff decide you're delusional you face an uphill battle to get them to take you seriously about anyth

        • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          You don't have to have mites to fell like you have them and it doesn't even have to be a psychological reaction. You can simply have a predilection to genetic nerve damage, which will result in misfiring nerve cells, generating what ever sensations they will generate and that can occur any where from the tips of your fingers and toes, all the way up your spinal column and right back to your brain. Suffer nerve damage and that includes genetic replication faults and you can feel all sorts of things. I thing

    • by PPH ( 736903 )

      just as in the military you get trained to ignore an itch

      You can't frag face mites.

    • I think this delusion is distinct from conditions where there are actual (but phantom) sensations of things crawling on your skin, though the latter could certainly cause the former.

      The person experiencing real but neurologically-caused sensations does not generally develop the belief that they are manifestations of actual infestations, though they may thing so at first. Once it is explained and understood that migraines (say) are the cause of these phantoms the patient understands and accepts that is the c

    • by charlie merritt ( 4684639 ) on Sunday June 24, 2018 @06:43PM (#56839644)

      I have neuropathy - and I have itches on my back, which move around. The itch is real, but there is no bug, rash, spider. I could EASILY see someone thinking otherwise, it could be "explained" as bugs, or for me - tiny worms under the skin. Thank goodness I know it's "only" sick nerve endings.

  • This minor news item reminds me of the classic phenomenon of eyelash mites. A great many of us are infested with tiny, arguably disgusting but really, really small buggy-wuggies that live on our eyelashes. Few of us are any the wiser for it. Unsurprisingly, "The Beeb" has a reasonable statement about the scuttling insects that probably live on your face and have regular mite-pizza parties:

    http://bbc.com/earth/story/201... [bbc.com]

  • They're not insects. They're called Midicholrians.
  • by at10u8 ( 179705 ) on Sunday June 24, 2018 @05:50PM (#56839478)
    They're not insects. They're called Body Thetans.
  • by Snufu ( 1049644 ) on Sunday June 24, 2018 @05:53PM (#56839482)

    "Likewise, there are mites that live on our skin, especially the face, but they're a normal part of everyone's body"

    Exactly what I would tell myself to cope with a rare and horrifying face infestation.

  • the human body is in fact infested with insects and the cousins of spiders (to say nothing of the fungi, bacteria, worms, etc.)

    you're just not supposed to *worry* about it, heh

  • That's it -- THAT'S the ticket! I've been invaded by chocolate-loving fat mites. That's why I can't lose weight no matter how much chocolate I eat.

    But really? I understand (wanting to) believe something, even without evidence or even anti-evidence. THAT'S called faith. (Re the joke: My mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts.) That's great and all, but actual evidence is better. And sometimes you can explain away the differences (they're only watching me when I'm asleep) but then there's st
  • by DERoss ( 1919496 ) on Sunday June 24, 2018 @07:07PM (#56839734)

    The second paragraph of the SlashDot article states there are only two arthropods (insects and their relatives) that actually infest humans. In addition to the follicle mites cited as eyelash mites in other replies, botfly larvae are another. And botflies are actual insects. Rare but not unknown are also human infestations by blowflies and screwflies. Search Wikipedia for "Myiasis".

    • by dkman ( 863999 )

      This is what I came to add. Toxoplasmosis as well, is a worm that like human eyeballs. What the show called "Monsters Inside Me" if you want to learn what kind of baddies get into the human body.

      For all of the anti-bacterial soap people you should be aware of all of the beneficial stuff that lives on or inside us before you nuke first and ask questions later. One of the theories for Autism is that they lack the good gut bacteria "normal" folk have. Whether they never had it or it was evicted by bad gut

  • And it's Scientology. I dunno if they can help you with imaginary parasitic bugs, but they say they can help with imaginary parasitic volcano-nuked alien ghosts. They're kind of the same thing, right?

  • Bugs Bugs Bugs Bug sBugs Bugs Bugs
  • only two kinds of arthropods actually infest humans: lice and a mite that causes scabies.

    What about worms and leech-like creatures?

    I know someone who had a large calcified structure discovered in their body near a major organ at first thought to be a tumor or aneurysm, that could have been life-threatening; now believed to be the remnants of a past dog tapeworm infection.

  • With many thanks to Philip K. Dick...

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I had about 40 of these little fuckers living on me after walking down through the bush at the back of our house.
    They were tiny. I thought I had some itchy pimples with tiny black heads on me. I was a bit suspicious and my microscope was right on the table so I pulled one of these blackheads off and put it under and saw what it was. Took me a while to classify it as there are all kinds of nasty creepy crawlies that live on humans I discovered when looking into it.
    This article is totally laughable.

  • That phrasing is kind of weasily, isn't it? Botflies, hundreds of species of worms from eyebrow [healthguidance.org] to foot [wikipedia.org], flukes, toxoplasma, vampire bats... from the very small to the very large this world is filled with creatures that like to eat people. If someone believes they're infested they need to be taken seriously and given a battery of tests. To do otherwise is foolish in a non-doctor and could well be malpractice for a real doctor. This article does no one good.
  • You will always have the imaginary bugs to keep you company

  • These people might have heightened sensory responses to normal stimuli, and that can lead to sensations of near constant itching all over, in the instance of tactile nerve response. That's not an invasion of parasites under their skin, it's their own damned brain reacting excessively to nerve signals.

  • I used to go out with a girl who for about 6 months had this problem. Would wake her up at night extremely upset and paranoid.

    The cause was eventually identified, iron deficiency. A few iron IV's later and lots of clams and the feeling went away completely.

  • I'll bet that at least a significant few of these sufferers have some level of diabetes causing issues.
  • When I was young, ten maybe, I laid beneath an apple tree among high uncut grass in the dark to hide during flashlight tag. When I left, I was covered with hundreds of black spots. The doctor told me hundreds of mites had burrowed into my skin, there was nothing that could be done, but don't worry they will eventually surface in about a week and go away. They itched... a lot. And I was told to not scratch. Other than the creepy factor, all I remember is they really, really itched. So I guess I once had the

  • Its only a 4th dimensional creature who has latched itself onto your soul. Simple as that.

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