I am sure many of you have already seen this. It will be very interesting to see what it turns out to be



01/27/2012 07:14 PM
Mystery illness gaining national attention
By: Marcie Fraser
The number is now more than two dozen girls, all with Tourettes like symptoms, including twitching, jerking and vocal tics. As our health reporter Marcie Fraser reports, the case spans New York State and is gaining national attention.


CORINTH, N.Y. -- "My daughter is Alycia Nicholson. We are from Corinth, N.Y."

Randy Nicholson is reading the letter he wrote to a parent who lives across state in LeRoy, N.Y. A man he's never met, but shares in common, a frightening mystery.

"Alycia's passing out with seizures and tics, movements, along with a list of other symptoms since May 2011."

An honor student and athlete, Alycia deals with the same symptoms more than a dozen other high school girls in Western New York are experiencing.

"Seizures, visible tics, body movements and very bad outbursts," Nicholson said.

Her first symptoms appeared in May, before any cases in LeRoy. The possible connection? In July, Alycia, along with a traveling softball team, stopped and had dinner in LeRoy. Teammate Lori Brownell, also from Corinth, began to have symptoms shortly thereafter. Lori has just recently been diagnosed with Tourettes syndrome. Alycia has tics. Some days are better than others.

"I think I may be getting worse,” Alycia Nicholson said. “For a while, it was better, I thought, then it started going downhill."

Over the last several months, environmental tests have been performed on and near the LeRoy High School. The tests found the environment or an infection is not the cause of the students’ tics. There are many causes of tic-like symptoms and stress can often worsen tic-like symptoms. These symptoms are real.

The famous environmentalist Erin Brachovich is visiting LeRoy and NIH has contacted the Nicholson's for assistance.

The NYS Department of Health has released this statement, saying in part, “DOH reviewed both the epidemiology and the clinical evaluations and found no evidence of environmental or infection as the cause of the girls’ illness... "

While the number of health professionals, examinations and tests are climbing, there is no concrete diagnosis, but experts do indicate there is a psychological component. They are calling it the Conversion Disorder.

“In the DSM. It's basically when someone manifests physical symptoms that have no underlying physical cause," said Dr. Ray Angelini, a psychologist.

To date, the only diagnosis Alycia's been given by doctors is anxiety. So, for now, the Nicholsons sit and wait, hoping for an answer.

"What I need to do is not have to worry about this anymore and know what is going on with my body,” Alycia Nicholson said.
Link to story: http://capitalregion.ynn.com/content/to ... /?ap=1&MP4

First ADULT is diagnosed with mystery Tourette’s-like syndrome affecting teenagers at same high school as doctors say brain infection may be to blame

Daily Mail
Friday, February 3, 2012

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A 36-year-old nurse practitioner was diagnosed as the first adult to have the mysterious Tourette-like illness that has spread across a rural New York town.
Marge Fitzsimmons, who works with developmentally disabled patients and has no immediate ties to the town’s high school at the centre of the outbreak, has had to stop going to work because her body tics and twitches have gotten so severe that she can no longer work with her patients.
Details of her condition emerged today as researchers offered a new explanation for the strange symptoms that have been diagnosed in 14 teenage girls and one teenage boy.
Doctors have singled out the possibilty of paediatric acute-onset neuropsychaitric syndrome, or PANS, as a solution.
Full story here.

Link:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2095728/Could-infection-mysterious-Tourettes-like-syndrome-affecting-teenagers.html