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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
 Posted - 09/05/2008 : 08:58:45
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A few years back, I read a fair amount of material regarding a very debilitating genetic disorder known as Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (FOP). In essence, symptoms show themselves as various cell types turn into bone - literally. This often (always?) happens as the body tries to recover from injuries, be they major or minor. What might ordinarily turn into a simple bruise could, in someone suffering of FOP, turn into the growth of bone where none should be. Cutting any such growth out surgically is out of the question, as the scar left would simply itself turn into bone.
The reason I'm writing this here is simply because I just opened up the International FOP Association web site and they want as many people as possible to know about FOP in order to prevent misdiagnosis* and find more FOP families.
* FOP was, at least previously, misdiagnosed as cancer and the growth was often cut out - obviously with nothing good coming out of that.
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METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 09:16:40 [Permalink]
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Yeah, I remember seeing a television show on this condition. Horrible, horrible stuff. Like you say, even a bruise can become ossified. Over a lifetime, sufferers loose more and more tissue to bone, gradually impairing their mobility, flexibility, and strength. It's like slowly being turned to stone. Here's a photo of a skeleton from someone who had the disease. Notice the extra bone growth:
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 09/05/2008 09:17:15 |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 10:32:33 [Permalink]
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| Interesting....I've never come across that one. |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 11:19:01 [Permalink]
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| I wonder if this terrible disorder is somehow related to Proteus syndrome which is what Joseph Merrick, the "Elephant Man" had. |
Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 12:13:54 [Permalink]
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A priori no.
Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva has been linked to the untimely expression of a bone morphogenic enzyme by the lymphocytes while Proteus syndrome has been linked to a deficient tumour suppressing factor (yeah; wiki comes through again!) |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva
