Medical Mysteries

After studying the "Truman Show Delusion" for years, Doctors Joel and Ian Gold discovered an underlying condition. It's possible that societal fears over progress and technology have a lasting impact on the subconscious…

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In the early 2000s, psychologist Dr. Joel Gold met several patients who believed they were the stars of their own reality shows. They each shared similar delusions of being recorded by hidden cameras, with their friends and family part of the cast and crew, and unseen producers coaxing them toward a grand prize. 

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Growing up in the ‘90s, Gypsy Rose was convinced she suffered from cancer and epilepsy. But in truth, her mother Dee Dee was addicted to faking her daughter’s illnesses—a disorder in itself, known today as Munchausen’s by Proxy. 

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In 1991, a 24-year-old woman checked herself into the hospital dozens of times, each with a new and perplexing illness. Her symptoms didn't match anything doctors had seen before. Then they discovered she was suffering from Munchausen's Syndrome—and was addicted to making herself sick.

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In 1925, five dying US Radium Dial Painters sued their employer. They claimed they were dying of radiation poisoning—but experts at the time believed radium was healthy, not toxic. So the Radium Girls took the stand to try to convince juries—and the world—of radium's dangers.

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In the 1920s, dial-painters at US Radium's New Jersey factory began getting sick. They were diagnosed with syphilis and phossy jaw, but their symptoms didn't add up. The women suspected something about their job was making them fatally ill—but they were running out of time to solve the mystery.

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Our body is the only one we'll ever know, for better or worse. And for those suffering from Body Integrity Dysphoria, they feel like one or more of their limbs doesn't belong. Many of them resort to drastic measures like self-amputation to achieve their ideal body. But researchers are still trying to figure out why.

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Today, one in four homeless Americans are living with a mental health condition. Many are unable to turn to shelters out of fear that it will worsen symptoms and the prison system has subsequently taken on the role of asylums. But understanding foreign cultures may hold the key to a cure.

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In the late 1800s, Dr. Emil Kraepelin identified schizophrenia as its own mental health condition. But this new revelation also increased the stigma surrounding the disorder. Over the course of the next century, people living with schizophrenia became a target in the eugenics movement, both in America and overseas.

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When a young Quaker woman died in an asylum in 1790, William Tuke resolved to found a new facility focused on treatment—not incarceration. But mental health conditions were poorly understood, and many of the early expiramental treatments could be better described as torture.

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Socrates was one of the greatest philosophers of all time—and he heard voices. Pheidippides invented the marathon—and experienced hallucinations. Were these symptoms of mental health conditions, or signs of divine intervention? And how could ancient Greek doctors treat their delusional patients?

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Welcome to our special five-part series, Beating the Odds. Every day this week we’re telling the true tales of medical miracles that shocked the world: Today we’re discussing Reshma Begum, a seamstress in Bangladesh who was pulled out alive from the wreckage of a building…17 days after it collapsed.

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Welcome to our special five-part series, Beating the Odds. Every day this week we’re telling the true tales of medical miracles that shocked the world: Today we’re discussing Michael Benson, a cameraman who survived a helicopter crash, only to find himself stuck inside a volcano’s crater…for two days.

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Welcome to our special five-part series, Beating the Odds. Every day this week we’re telling the true tales of medical miracles that shocked the world: Today we’re discussing José Salvador Alvarenga, a Salvadoran fisherman who spent over 13 months adrift at sea…and survived.

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In 2014, the “Ice Bucket Challenge” went viral across the internet. Hundreds of thousands of people from across the globe participated in videos hoping to help bring an end to ALS. 

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Welcome to our special five-part series, Beating the Odds. Every day this week we’re telling the true tales of medical miracles that shocked the world: Today we’re discussing Beck Weathers, a Texas pathologist who survived the disastrous 1996 blizzard on Mount Everest...

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Welcome to our special five-part series, Beating the Odds. Every day this week we’re telling the true tales of medical miracles that shocked the world: Today we’re discussing the story of Anna Bågenholm, whose heart stopped in 1999 after she was trapped in a labyrinth of thick ice for nearly an hour and a half…

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In 1939, Lou Gehrig would play his last game with the New York Yankees. After more than 2,000 consecutive starts, his physical abilities began to decline. Nearly a century earlier, a doctor in Paris was beginning research on the disease that would one day be synonymous with Gehrig.

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We are thrilled to bring you a brand new episode of Medical Mysteries today and for the foreseeable future. We thank you for your patience during this unprecedented time.

When 10-year-old Morgan Smith was on a Colorado camping trip with his family in 2006, everything was going fine. But when he bit into a piece of fish—everything changed. 

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In 2001, disgraced doctor and medical researcher Andrew Wakefield left the UK and re-settled in Austin, Texas. There, he continued spreading dangerous misinformation about the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine and its alleged connection to autism. As measles outbreaks swept the country, the medical establishment tried to counter his influence. 

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In 1998, British physician Andrew Wakefiled published a paper claiming he had found a direct connection between the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine with autism. His dangerous claims caused an entire movement of people who were no longer willing to vaccinate their children out of fear...

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On February 19th, 1994, a young woman from Riverside, California was rushed to the emergency room after becoming unresponsive in her home. When doctors began operating on her, they noticed something strange: crystals in her blood. Within minutes the medical staff all started to collapse one by one.

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Due to the unfortunate spread of COVID-19, Parcast has decided to halt recording for the time-being. This is a precautionary measure taken to ensure the safety of our hosts and staff. In the meantime, we're excited to share one of our classic episodes that we know you'll enjoy!

Alexandra Allen’s nightmare first began in 2009 when she was 12-years-old. After swimming in a hotel pool, she nearly went into anaphylactic shock. Following a battery of tests, doctors were shocked by what caused her reaction. The Utah native was allergic to water.

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In December 1984, Indiana-native Ryan White was diagnosed with AIDS at the age of thirteen. The disease had no known treatment, no cure, and Ryan was given six months to live. The clock was ticking, and Ryan soon found himself at the center of a media storm.

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In 1981, Dr. James Curran at CDC began investigating a mysterious case of an illness that seemed to be affecting gay men across the United States. As more people began to die, the stakes were raised, and Dr. Curran was on a race to see if he could find the cause.

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In 1982, six heroin addicts found themselves immobilized, as if frozen. For over seven years, Dr. J. William Langston worked to save their lives...

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After a 1993 outbreak, doctors thought they understood Hantavirus as a rare but preventable infection. That was until an inexplicable "cluster" appeared in Yosemite, and then spread through the American west...threatening to become an epidemic.

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It’s an unexplained and deadly infection that first reared its ugly head in May 1993. At least, that’s what researchers originally thought. As doctors began to investigate the disease, they soon found that it had a much longer history and had claimed many more lives than they’d ever suspected.

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Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy, also known as stress-induced cardiomyopathy, apical ballooning syndrome, or, more romantically, “Broken Heart Syndrome,” refers to a group of symptoms, brought on by acute emotional stress—which can cause heart failure.

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For decades, researchers tried to find the cause of “The Laughing Sickness,” also known as Kuru. But it wasn't until the 1990s that researchers found the clue that turned the entire medical community on its head.

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In the mid-1900s, members of the remote Fore tribe in Papua New Guinea faced extinction at the hands of the strange neurological condition that caused spontaneous barks of laughter. 

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Beginning in 1951, Doctor Ralph Reye took note of an alarming, fatal condition that killed thousands of child patients. Mild colds and flus would become life-threatening neurological conditions that left patients dead or with severe brain damage. And the culprit was an ordinary product present in nearly every household in the developed world.

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In the late 1800s, Mollie Fancher was entangled with a city trolley car that dragged her violently through the streets of Brooklyn. This caused a series of inexplicable ailments that left her bedridden for the remainder of her life. But Mollie’s strangest symptom was her ability to go 14 years without eating a thing…

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At the time, doctors believed the 57-year-old’s symptoms could have been caused by a stroke, but there have been many other medical theories since then. Some people even believe that President Warren G. Harding was poisoned.

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Here’s one of our listeners’ most requested episodes of 2019: Once modern medicine recognized Fatal Familial Insomnia as a disease, it faced a greater challenge: finding a cure.

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Here’s one of our listeners’ most requested episodes of 2019: Don’t let the complicated name fool you—this mystery is no laughing matter: Inability to sleep. Loss of coordination. Slow, painful loss of mental faculties.

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It’s a terrifying infection that liquefies skin and muscle. Though rare, doctors are still ill-equipped to fight flesh-eating bacteria, and it still continues to take lives to this day.

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Alexandra Allen’s nightmare first began in 2009 when she was 12 years old. After swimming in a hotel pool, she nearly went into anaphylactic shock. After a battery of tests, doctors were shocked by what caused her reaction. She was allergic to water.

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After Lorenzo Odone was diagnosed with adrenoleukodystrophy in 1984, his parents developed a treatment that saved his life. But in 1993, they faced accusations of fraud when a Hollywood movie based on Lorezno's story gave false impressions to a number of other desperate patients.

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In a matter of months, eight-year-old Lorenzo Odone lost his hearing and sight, as well as his ability to move, swallow, and speak. Doctors told him he had five years to live at most. But his parents refused to accept this and went on a frantic search for a cure.

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Could being a workaholic actually have dangerous effects? Just ask the victims of Leisure Sickness—a psychological phenomenon in which individuals who are especially devoted to their work become physically ill when they try to relax.

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Twenty-four-year-old journalist Susannah Cahalan’s illness continued to wreak havoc on her brain after a month-long hospital stay in 2009. With no change in her condition, one doctor would finally figure out her diagnosis using one simple test.

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24-year-old journalist Susannah Cahalan began coming down with a troubling set of symptoms in 2009. She experienced hallucinations, numbness and delusions, which grew life-threatening as doctors struggled to diagnose her.

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A condition in which a person possesses cells with more than one distinct genetic makeup. This can alter DNA evidence linking a mother’s relation to her child—even if she had conceived, carried, and given birth to them.

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It wasn’t until Doug Preston and his team returned from their expedition in Honduras in 2015 that tragedy struck. What they had contracted in the ruins was a horrifying, sometimes lethal and incurable disease of leishmaniasis, a tropical parasitic disease.

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Explorers set out on an expedition into the wilderness of Honduras in 2015. They were seeking a lost city, but returned with far more than they bargained for.

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A sleeping sickness that swept its way across the globe after World War I vanishes almost as abruptly as it arrived.

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Swelling of the brain. Involuntary movements. Extreme exhaustion. A little-known and poorly understood disease swept its way across in the globe in the aftermath of World War I. But as the number of diagnoses swelled, so did the confusion. Agreeing on the symptoms was hard enough, how could anyone hope to find a cure?

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In 1991, President George H.W. Bush was hospitalized with an erratic heartbeat. For three tense days, the nation watched with bated breath, planning for the worst - until the doctor came back with a surprising diagnosis.

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BetterHelp - Get 10% off your first month! Go to BetterHelp.com/MEDICALMYSTERIES and use discount code MEDICALMYSTERIES.

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Once modern medicine recognized Fatal Familial Insomnia as a disease, it faced a greater challenge of finding a cure. With research ongoing, the answer may lie in similar medical mysteries which have plagued humanity for centuries.

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Inability to sleep. Loss of coordination. Slow, painful loss of mental faculties. These are the symptoms of a mysterious disease, passed on through generations of one family. For centuries, they believed they were cursed, until the modern era brought them a diagnosis.

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Drooping eyelids. Difficulty swallowing. Weak arms. None of these symptoms by themselves seem particularly deadly. Nor do they seem like they could all be symptoms of the same illness. But they are. And the illness does kill - suddenly, and without warning. A diagnosis evaded doctors for centuries. With such a mysterious background, it seemed that a treatment for the disease was impossible. 

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With conventional medicine proving unable to cure her case of intractable hiccups, Jennifer Mee turned to unorthodox methods to get them under control. However, in 2013, the hiccups turned out to be the least of Jennifer's problems.

Parcasters - Which UFO sighting kicked off the alien craze? It wasn’t Roswell! Subscribe to Extraterrestrial today to learn about the close encounter that started it all, the Mount Rainier flying saucer sighting. Search for Extraterrestrial on Spotify to listen now!

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In 2007, 15-year-old Jennifer Mee began to hiccup. Seven weeks later, she still hadn't stopped. As doctors struggled to cure Jennifer's condition, she began to wonder if she'd have them for the rest of her life.

Parcasters - Two men, one account. The Pascagoula abduction is one of the most credible in U.S. history, but where do you stand? Follow the case this week on Extraterrestrial, available on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Around 1886, after two years on the freak show circuit, Joseph Merrick was once again in the care of the London Hospital’s top surgeon, Frederick Treves. But even Britain’s best medical minds were unsure if they could explain Joseph’s disorder before it was too late.

Parcasters - Thank you so much for listening to our new podcast!

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In 1867 in Leicester, England, five-year-old Joseph Merrick began developing strange symptoms - overgrown limbs, massive facial tumors, and rough, loose flaps of skin. His condition baffled doctors, terrified the public, and eventually launched him to nationwide fame as “The Elephant Man.”

Parcasters - Thank you so much for listening to our new show!

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Parcast's Original Show, Medical Mysteries brings high-stakes story-telling and intrepid investigation to the hospital, in a medical procedural for the podcast space. Every week, we follow desperate patients battling mysterious symptoms--from the bizarre to the terrifying--as determined doctors race against the clock for a diagnosis. Medical Mysteries premieres Tuesday August 6th. New episodes available every Tuesday on Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Subscribe today!

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