Is Morgellons Disease A Psychological Disorder or A Medical Disease?
Morgellons Disease is a disease that makes sufferers think that there are insects crawling all over the inside and outside of their skin. If the itching and scratching is psychological in nature, there are also symptoms of skin lesions, fatigue, and what is disguised as a brain fog. The research today is being focused more on the actual origin of Morgellons and if it exists as a medical condition. Since the symptoms are closely related to Lyme’s Disease, there are arguments that Morgellons is just a manifestation of Lyme’s Disease. No matter which, it is a serious condition that is affecting thousands or maybe tens of thousands. The Center for Disease Control has even started an investigation to either debunk the rumors or prove the Morgellons as a real disease.
There is a psychological condition called delusional parasitosis or Eckbom Syndrome. With this syndrome the patient claims there is a crawling or stinging under their skin. When investigated by Dr. Virginia Savely, she looked under the skin at the spot that the patients were complaining about. She did see blue and white thread type substances, but the patients would scream in pain when she tried to pull one out for closer inspection. She included that not only was the filaments attached to the skin, they seemed that they were resistant to being removed from the skin cells.
Morgellons was first mentioned in 1674 by Sir Thomas Browne. He observed a population of children that seemed to have weird black hairs growing from various locations of their body. The children were called the Morgellons from their ethnic descriptions, and thus the name. In 1682, Dr. Ettmuller made drawings of microscopic organisms he called worms. These worms had hair like substances that grew out of the main part of their body. The Morgellon Foundation was established to take reports of symptoms that resembled those that a Morgellon sufferer would be able to describe and they found that most report a feeling of eggs or granules that are released from the skin. Other report a black oily substance that from the patient’s report smells awful.
Morgellons could lie in a little bit of both the medical and the psychological realm. The question is though, what came first, the mental illness or the symptoms? Since around a large majority of these patients have been diagnosed with psychosomatic illness, doctors are reluctant to treat or diagnose the disease. If the skins lesions are produced from misfiring neurons from an abnormal brain distribution then the Morgellons would be psychological in nature. If the disease manifested a psychological reaction due to the patient reacting to he or she was feeling, then the disease would be ear marked as medical. No matter what the cause it is time for the medical or psychological communities need to find the origin so that they may find a cure. Just one look at a person that has these symptoms is enough to convince anyone. Hopefully with more media attention the disease can find a definition and be cured.