MANTEL’S MIGRAINES
How visual disturbances can inspire
A WHITER SHADE OF WANG
Skin whitening is nothing new in many Asian countries. The practice is largely attributed to the lingering traditional perception that having fair skin means not being part of the working class, and not having to work in the fields. Thai men can now get a new laser treatment to lighten their penises – offered at £480 for five sessions. Lelux, a cosmetic hospital outside Bangkok, has become the talk of Thai social media after its employee posted about the treatment dubbed “Pikachu laser” on Facebook (the most famous pokemon is used as Thai slang for “penis”). The treatment promises to magically decrease the melanin in a penis and make it lighter and “pinkish”. Lelux Hospital advertised the laser on Facebook as: “The most talkedabout treatment right now. [To achieve] pink, white Pikachu. End your dark penis problem. It doesn’t hurt or require recovery. Ready to score right after it.”
The video of a 30-year-old Thai man allegedly having the treatment received nearly four million views in 24 hours. The unnamed patient said the difference is noticeable after the first treatment. “It was much lighter. I’ve had three treatments and now feel better. I’m much more confident to wear swimsuits now when I travel.” We don’t know what type of swimsuits would look better with a whiter wang. Last year, Lelux Hospital made headlines for offering the “3D Vagina” treatment, which supposedly made a camel toe more visible. They also offered vagina whitening. The clinic currently gets an average of 20-30 patients a month coming for vagina and penis whitening with some coming from as far afield as Myanmar, Cambodia and Hong Kong. However, public health officials have warned people that the procedure could lead to scarring, inflammation and “nasty looking spots”. Coconuts Bangkok, 4 Jan; BBC News, 5 Jan; D.Telegraph, 6 Jan 2018.
WONDERS OF THE AURA
Dame Hilary Mantel says her migraines provide her with a ‘gift’ of creative inspiration. The author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies has suffered from the debilitating condition since her teens. Although she rarely suffers from headaches now, the aura symptoms (visual or auditory disturbances) remain. “Sometimes I get savagely impatient with prolonged aura,” she said, “but sometimes it leaves me a gift – a breakthrough, a sudden insight – something I can use. If I can manage to write, I get an excellent payoff. But it’s a rough way to work.”
The condition can conjure “musical ear worms, or a banal phrase repeating in my head until it becomes charged with meaning, like a spell. A prolonged and dislocating sense of déjà vu. Sensory memories welling up from a deep place. I feel haunted by myself – it’s as if there are two realities, slightly overlapping, and around them a nebulous, saintly illuminated area like spun fog, so I don’t feel securely based in my body.”
About 8.5 million people in the UK suffer migraine attacks every year; of those, around one in five experience aura. Other writers with the condition include Lewis Carroll. “Alice in Wonderland syndrome” is the name given to feelings of micropsia and macropsia, when objects appear smaller or larger than they really are; it has been suggested that the scenes in which Alice grows and shrinks were based on Carroll’s visual disturbances. D.Telegraph, 12 Dec 2017.
GAMING MEDICALISED
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has, for the first time, included “gaming disorder” in a list of mental health conditions in a draft of its 11th International Classification of Diseases guidelines, which is published in 2018. The WHO characterised a gaming disorder as a “pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour” either on or offline. Notable traits include patients prioritising gaming over “life interests and daily activities or continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.” ( Fortean Times has recorded several deaths following marathon gaming sessions.) Patients must have shown symptoms for at least a year before diagnosis, although the guidance states that this is subject to change depending on the severity of the case.
The decision comes four
years after “Internet Gaming Disorder” was listed as a condition for further study in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is published by the American Psychiatric Association. There are several private organisations that offer gaming addiction therapy, including UK Addiction Treatment Centre (UKAT), which also provides treatment for alcohol, gambling and substance abuse. “What we have seen at UKAT is a 300 per cent rise in the amount of admissions where gaming addiction is part of their reason for treatment since 2014,” said a UKAT spokesman. The organisation has treated 36 inpatients for gaming addiction since 2014. D.Telegraph, 29 Dec 2017.
BLIND SIGHT
A boy without the visual processing centre of his brain has baffled doctors by still having near-normal sight. The seven-year-old Australian, known as BI, lost his primary visual cortex shortly after he was born due to a rare metabolic disorder called medium-chain acyl-Co-A dehydrogenase (MCAD) deficiency. Normally, the primary visual cortex is crucial for sight because it processes electrical signals relayed from the eyes. People with damage to this area are said to have “cortical blindness”.
Dr Iñaki-Carril Mundiñano at Monash University in Melbourne said the cortex was lost when his brain was malleable. “You wouldn’t think he is blind,” he says. “He navigates his way around without any problems and plays soccer and video games.” This is not the only case of a person with a damaged visual cortex being able to ‘see’ on some level; but it is reportedly the first known case of a person with no visual cortex having a conscious experience of vision that is very near normal. The only problem the researchers found with BI’s vision was that he’s a bit near-sighted. New Scientist, 6 Dec; Newsweek, 7 Dec; Metro, 14 Dec 2017.