"I’m infested!”

Clint Howard’s greatest cinematic moment?

Or the unwelcome calling card of a creepy disease which is actually probably just one of the weirder delusions you’re likely to hear about this week.

But first, since we're striking at least a glancing blow off of the Corbomite Maneuver

to get this party started...


...you should know that this vid

is a friggin riot.

As we all know, all loyal Americans share the bond of never tiring of hearing Shatner belting the crap out of the classics.

And speaking of making one’s flesh crawl, on with our main event...

This from LiveScience should keep some of you awake tonight...

Mystery Disease Makes Peoples' Skin Crawl

Ker Than
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.comFri May 26, 4:00 PM ET

Reports of a mysterious medical condition are cropping up across the country but doctors are divided on whether it is a real disease or all in their patients' heads.
Called Morgellons Disease, patients who report having it describe sensations of creepy-crawlers beneath the skin and fibrous filaments oozing out of open wounds.
Interest in the disease was recently rekindled after afflicted Texas teenager Travis Wilson committed suicide about a month ago.

Symptoms
...
The majority of reports have come from Texas, California and Florida.

Patients with the disease often describe feelings of insects or parasites scuttling beneath their skin and open lesions that heal slowly and which ooze out blue and white fibers, some as thick as spaghetti strands. Attempts to remove the fibers are said to elicit shooting pains radiating from the site.

The lesions range from minor to disfiguring in appearance and fibers appear either as single strands or as bundles. Patients also sometimes report the presence of fibers or black granular specks on their skin even in the absence of lesions. Some patients even report symptoms of the disease in their pets--dogs mostly, but also cats and horses.

According to statistics from the Morgellons Research Foundation, about 95 percent of patients also report suffering from disabling fatigue, or "brain fog," that hinders their ability to pay attention. Other reported symptoms include joint pain, sleep disorders, hair loss, decline in vision, and even the "disintegration" of perfectly healthy teeth. It appears that once patients contract the disease, they have it for life. To date, there have been no reports of spontaneous remissions.

Strange fibers

A preliminary analysis of the fibers suggests they are more than just lint from household materials such as clothing, carpets or bedding, said Randy Wymore, an assistant professor of pharmacology and physiology at Okalahoma State University and the director of research at the Morgellons Research Foundation.

"The fibers are not common textiles, nor are they black specks of pepper, as several dermatologists have proposed," Wymore told LiveScience.

Further deepening the mystery, some analyses suggest the fibers might be made of cellulose, a molecule generally found in plants.

"They're basically fibers that you wouldn't expect to see in humans," said Raphael Stricker, a Lyme disease expert at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco and a medical advisor to the Morgellons Research Foundation.

...
Michael Giradi, a dermatologist at the Yale School of Medicine, had never heard of Morgellons but when its symptoms were described to him, he was reminded of another disorder that is well known to doctors.

"They just renamed it," Giradi told LiveScience. "We just call it delusions of parasitosis."

Also known as Eckbom syndrome, delusional parasitosis is a psychiatric disorder in which patients fervently believe their bodies are infected by skin parasites that do not exist.

"It's basically when a patient thinks that there's something coming out of their skin, a material or bug of some sort, when truthfully there's nothing there," said Stacy Beaty, a dermatologist at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine.

In medical schools, physicians learn to watch out for the "matchbox sign" of delusional parasitosis, when patients bring in hair, skin or clothing lint, sometimes in matchboxes, that they claim contain the insects or parasites responsible for their torment. However, when examined, the samples reveal no such thing. The lesions and scratches sometimes seen on patients with delusional parasitosis are usually self-inflicted, Beaty said.

"To rule out any infectious causes and also to put the patient's mind at ease, a lot of times we'll do skin biopsies," Beaty said in a telephone interview. "If we feel that it'll be helpful, we might also start different anti-psychotic or anti-anxiety medicines."
...

Laugh? Cry? Vote for more funding?

Damned if I have a clue.

It’s a mad world and all's I know is this;

First, any science writer who can work the word "scuttling" into a story deserves at least some consideration come Pulitzer time.

And second, when the going gets tough, there is always the Velvet Rug

to balm the torments of the flesh and make all the pain go away...