The human brain is a remarkable thing, and the incredible story of Taisia Sidorova, who gained an amazing artistic talent after having the left side of her brain removed, is proof of that.

Three years ago, 21-year old Taisia Sidorova, from Sankt Petersburg, Russia, suffered a severe car accident that left her with a smashed skull and bone fragments wedged in her brain. Doctors were skeptical about her chances of survival, and was even given the last rites, but even after she had the left hemisphere of her brain removed, she hung in there. The part of her brain responsible for logic and analysis was replaced with a protective metal place, but even though her family was warned that a long, painful recovery period was to follow, and that Taisia may never be the same, they never gave up on her.

Irina Sidorova, the girl’s mother, remembers she was like a vegetable in the beginning, and doctors didn’t believe she would survive. But she stayed by her bedside praying, massaging her limbs and talking to her. The miracle she was waiting for occurred on New Year’s Eve, while she was crying on Taisia’s bedside. The girl moved her arm trying to wipe away her mother’s tears. It was the breakthrough nobody expected anymore, and in two years’ time she regained her strength, started to speak and even learned to hold a pencil and paintbrush.

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While it might look like they are protesting against something or staging a gruesome mass suicide, the people of Rawa Buaya are actually looking to cure their illnesses by laying on the train tracks.

In western countries, most people think high levels of electric energy cause cancer, but to the inhabitants of Rawa Buaya, in Indonesia’s West Java, electricity is the ultimate cure. From young children to old folk, they all lie on train tracks passing through their settlement, hoping the electric energy from them will cure their various sicknesses. Not even the potentially lethal trains passing on opposite tracks don’t seem to be scaring these Indonesians away.

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The Destruction Company is a member only Fight Club-like organization that allows rich Americans to smash stuff to smithereens, using an arsenal of weapons.

Destruction has been used as therapy to relieve stress for a few years now, and people seem willing to pay top dollar to take out their frustrations on stuff that can’t fight. Clubs offering people the chance to destroy old refrigerators, washing machines and things like that have been around for a while, but The Destruction Company only addresses frustrated rich folks who can afford to smash brand new things.  From a $10 set of plates to a $2,000 grand piano and even luxury cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, The Destruction Company offers whatever items you feel like releasing all your frustrations on.

This exclusive club is based at a secret location in New Jersey and new members can only join if they receive an invite from a current Destruction Company member. They are then called for an interview to decide if they have what it takes to join the club. They have to sign a legal waiver and respect the organization’s rules: no use of firearms, no living things or paperwork can be destroyed and no alcohol or drugs can be used during the destruction session. Members pay a confidential annual membership fee, plus the cost of every item they wish to destroy.

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India is known for the wide variety of folk remedies for various ailments, and one of the most popular right now is the raw-fish-swallowing therapy practiced by the Goud family, in Hyderabad.

Asthma is one of the most serious respiratory conditions a person can have, and since conventional medicine doesn’t offer a permanent cure, many are willing to try any kinds of treatment, no matter how bizarre. One of these is the fish swallowing cure offered by the Goud family, for the last 166 years. Every year, during the month of June, hundreds of thousands of people flock to Hyderabad to try this unusual remedy, on the day of Mrigashira Karthi. Around 500 volunteers administer the miracle cure: live 2-inch to 3-inch long murrel fish which have been fed a drop of the secret herbal formula the Goud’s claim cures asthma within three years.

Ingredients for the medicine are collected two-three months before the big day, mixed the day before using water from the Goud family’s well, and administered to asthma sufferers free of charge. The patient is advised not to eat or drink anything four hours before swallowing the raw fish and two hours after. Also, he must be aware that he must come back for the cure three consecutive years, if he wants to get rid of the asthma permanently.

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Wu Yuanbi, a 53-year-old woman, from Chongqing, China, has recently performed surgery on herself, with a common kitchen knife.

Wu, who works as a migrant worker, has been suffering from a chronic condition known as Budd-Chiari syndrome, for the last 13 years. This causes her stomach to gradually fill up with large quantities of fluid, rendering her unable to work and making id difficult to perform even the most simple tasks. Back in 2002, Wu and her family used all their life savings to pay for a medical procedure in which doctors removed 25 liters of fluid from her belly. Unfortunately, a relapse of the condition followed, and the woman found herself in need of a second surgery. However, she and her family were too poor to pay the 50,000 yuan ($7,686) fee, so Wu Yuanbi was forced to do something truly shocking.

One day, after her husband, Cao Yunhui, left for work, the woman slit her stomach open with a kitchen knife, desperate to relieve the pressure that had built up inside. She had to endure excruciating pain for several hours, until her husband came home and found her lying in a pool of yellow fluid and intestines. She was immediately rushed to the hospital with a 10 cm-long cut across her stomach, and saved by the medical staff. Wu later said “If I had passed away, I would have at least spared my family the trouble of looking after me.”

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A clinic in the town of Naftalan, 160 miles noth-west of Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku, has found a therapeutic use for its abundant quantities of crude oil.

Azerbaijan is one of the world’s leading oil exporters, and in the country’s western plains “black gold” has been seeping out of the ground for centuries. In fact, they have so much of the stuff, that in the town of Naftalan, they use the excess crude oil as a cure for various illnesses. It all goes down at the famous Naftalan Clinic, where people from all over the former Soviet Union and even from the Emirates and Europe come to treat various skin diseases, rheumatism, arthritis and even their nerves with crude oil. Doctors here say their miraculous oil therapy is used to trat up to 100 different conditions.

The most popular treatment at Naftalan is the crude oil bath. Patients lower their bodies into 35 gallons of crude oil, at a temperature of 40 degrees. Many of them say the warm oil relaxes their joints and they’d love to spend more than 10 minutes soaked in black oil, but since it contains almost 50% naphthalene, a hydrocarbon deemed potentially carcinogenic by EU regulations, longer sessions could be hazardous to their health. The clinic’s doctors claim millions of people have been treated at Naftalan over the years, and none of them have suffered any complications, as a result. Still, to be on the safe side they limit the sessions to 10 minutes, and no more than a bath per day, during a 10-day treatment.

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Most doctors claim tobacco smoke causes serious diseases, but at the Griya Balur clinic, in Indonesia, it’s used as a cure for cancer, autism or emphysema.

In most western countries, a clinic that uses tobacco as a remedy would have been closed down immediately, but in the city of Jakarta, it’s one of the busiest treatment centers. People suffering from serious illnesses, some ironically caused by years of smoking, come to Gryia Balur searching for miraculous cures associated with tobacco smoke. Its founder, Dr Gretha Zahar told AFP that she has treated over 60,000 people from all over the world, in the last ten years.

The treatment for cancer or emphysema sufferers includes blowing smoke from “divine cigarettes” infused with “nanotechnology”, through a tube, to remove cancer-causing “free radicals”. Smoke is blown into the mouth, nose and ears of the patients.  Zahar claims that smoking actually manipulates the mercury found in tobacco cigarettes, curing deadly diseases and even slowing down the aging process. On her website, she says her theories don’t need to be published in medical journals or subjected to clinical tests, and that she doesn’t have the financial resources to “fight Western medical scientists”.

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Christmas is a time for parents to be happy for their children’s excitement. But this doesn’t apply to Ray and Tina Cleveland, as their daughter Holly is suffering from a rare disease that causes her heart to stop and leaves her breathless for about 30 seconds, when she gets over excited.

This is two-year-old Holly’s first Christmas since she was diagnosed with the disease and both her parents are very worried, even though they were assured the toddler’s heart will always start beating again. In fact they put up the Christmas tree and started “celebrating” early so that little Holly could get used to all the excitement gradually.

“We even put our tree up early to try and get her used to the twinkly lights before they started appearing everywhere. It’s heartbreaking to see her little face light up and then have to immediately calm her down again. I’ve even avoided asking her what present she wants because I don’t want her to get too excited when she sees it,” Holly’s mother, Tina, explains.

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Haunted houses, cockroaches or any kind of bugs for that matter, snakes, you name it, there’s nothing in this world that will freak this woman out.

I can’t even imagine what it would be like to never experience fear, but there is someone out there who really is fearless, due to a rare disorder, called the Urbach-Wiethe disease, which destroyed a part of her brain called the amygdala, where researchers believe the feeling of fear is born. A 44-year-old woman, whose identity hasn’t been revealed for reasons of confidentiality, suffering from this rare disease, has become a case study for researchers at the University of Iowa.

Scientists have tried everything to provoke her fear – spiders, live snakes, tours of haunted houses – but nothing seems to work. As a matter of fact, she has been exposed to very dangerous and scary situations in her day to day life, for example being held at gun point or knife point, or even life threatening domestic violence, but none of it caused her to be afraid. While it may sound like some cool superpower, her lack of fear and response can also be very dangerous for her as it comes with a lack of preservation instinct.

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For the last three years, doctors have been trying to figure out what makes Twinkle Dwivedi‘s body ooze blood through her eyes, feet and even her head, but she remains a medical mystery.

When Twinkle’s case first appeared in the international media, many hurried to call her a fake, but after countless tests and procedures, including blood transfusions, doctors are still baffled by her strange bleeding. A group of medical specialists, led by dr. George Buchanan, recently traveled to North India to investigate the 14-year-old Twinkle, but all they have been able to say was that “she really suffers from a condition we have never seen before.”

The young teen remembers her disorder first appeared when she was just 11, and her classmates started mocking her and calling her disgusting. Although her bleeding didn’t hurt at all, she felt scared and alone, because no one would come near her. At first she would cry when she saw her clothes soaked with blood, but now she just keeps quiet, and prays she will eventually get better.

Despite her parents efforts, who took her to see the best doctors, Twinkle Dwivedi still bleeds from her eyes and pores, up to 14 times a day. Read More »

A German toymaker has designed a series of cuddly toys, each suffering from serious mental illnesses like depression and hallucination.

36-year-old Martin Kittsteiner, from Hamburg, says the idea to create the bizarre toys started from a joke between him and his girlfriend, who has a lot of stuffed toys, but he soon started to see the potential of the idea. Each of his cuddly toys has its own disease and symptoms, and comes with a medical history, referral letter and treatment plan. Martin hopes his unique creations will help families with children suffering from mental illnesses.

You can order your very own mentally ill toy from Martin Kittsteiner’s website, for $40 each. There, you can also play a mini-game and try to diagnose the toys’ problems.

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33-year-old Yvonne Simon, from Essex, Great Britain, has a rare type of allergy that makes her shopping sessions real-life nightmares. You could say she can’t stand money.

Yvonne has already been labeled as the most allergic woman in Britain, due to the many things that cause her allergic reactions. Among the things her body can’t stand are deodorant, perfume, paint, fizzy drinks, minerals in bottled spring water, chocolate, onions, car fumes, hydrocortisone cream, nuts, bleach, fish, tea, coffee, oranges, tomatoes, latex, talc, newsprint dye, coins, banknotes, pasta, sunflower oil, dairy products, wheat, bread products, white rice, porridge, white sugar, sweets, cigarette smoke, nickel, gold, silver, food colourings, sulphates, calcium chloride and rainwater. And these aren’t even the worst ones…

Like most women, Yvonne loves to shop, but in the last few months she had to cope with excruciating pains, every time she bought anything. It was like her body was punishing her for spending money, and in a way, it was. After extensive tests, doctors found out Yvonne’s body is also allergic to the dye in bills, and also metal coins. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, she is also allergic to latex, so she can’t wear rubber gloves to handle money.

Now, Britain’s most allergic woman lives on a very basic diet, made up of filtered water, lentils, brown rice, carrots and apples. She hates being like this, and wishes there was something she could do about her condition, but right now it’s incurable, and because such a wide spectrum allergy is so rare, chances for an antidote are rather slim.

But, I suppose things could be worse, she could be allergic to something even more common like rain, right? Well, unfortunately, Yvonne Simon really is allergic to rain, and has to wear an umbrella, each time she goes outdoors.

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Ten-month-old Lei Lei, also known as the “Michelin baby“, has become somewhat of an Internet celebrity after photos of him were published on a Chinese government site.

The young boy had scientists scratching their heads, when he was brought to the hospital, earlier this month, on account of a fever. At just ten months, he weighs a whopping 20 kilograms, about the average weight of a normal six year-old. He is currently in a hospital, undergoing some tests that will hopefully reveal some hints about his abnormal size and weight.

Lel Lei’s parents say the boy has quite an appetite, and that he spends most of his days juts breast-feeding and sleeping. He also instinctively puts everything he touches into his mouth, and tries to munch on it.

The Michelin Baby is just the tip of the iceberg, as the obesity problem because more and more serious in China. As the country’s economy keeps growing, millions of people are becoming sedentary and developing weight problems. Over 60 million Chinese are obese, and over 200 million are overweight.

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A lot simpler and definitely more fun that traditional Yoga, the art of Laughter Yoga aims to keep people healthy through laughter.

It’s a known fact that laughter has a positive effect on our body and mind, but sometimes life gets you so down, you can’t find one reason to laugh. That’s where Laughter Yoga comes into play, because you don’t need a reason to laugh. This unusual form of exercise relies on the premise that your body can and knows how to laugh, regardless of what your mind has to say about it. You don’t need to know jokes, be happy, or even have a sense of humor to practice Laughter Yoga. It’s a body-mind approach, not mind-body.

Because laughter has proven a valuable asset in keeping healthy, Laughter Yoga aims to remind people that laughter is a powerful weapon against various diseases. But in order for it to work, practitioners have to laugh wholeheartedly for long periods of time (between 30 and 60 minutes), for no reason at all. You just have to leave all your problems and worries at the door, and laugh like a child with no care in the world.

Sounds like the kind of therapy I’d like to try, and statistics say it really works. In Asia, Laughter Yoga is already a popular practice used in prisons around the Philippines and by Indian policemen. It’s also becoming increasingly popular in the US.

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Seeing him rest on the steering-wheel of his toy truck, smoking a cigarette, you might think he’s a truck driver stuck in the body of a toddler, but Ardi Rizal is really just a two-year old boy who loves to smoke.

The 56 pound toddler, from Indonesia’s South Sumatra province, smokes 2 packs of cigarettes a day and sits on his toy truck all day long. There’s hardly ever a moment in the day when Ardi isn’t puffing away on a cigarette, and that’s the main reason why he can hardly move by himself anymore, let alone run along and play with other children.

His mother has desperately forced the toddler to quit, but he always got so angry that he started screaming and banging his head against the walls, saying quitting makes him dizzy and sick. He also asks for a specific brand of cigarettes, that costs his family $5.50 a day. While his mother is set on somehow getting Ardi to quit, his father says: ‘He looks pretty healthy to me, I don’t see the problem.’ Now this is what I call a “great” parent.

Although authorities have even offered the Ardi Rizal’s parents a brand new car, if they convince him to stop smoking, the parents don’t dare ask him anymore. Read More »