(or perhaps better entitled:)
Why The DOP Diagnosis Must Go..!
“Can you describe, for me, how it feels..?” I have heard more than one dermatologist question my wife about her Morgellons Disease sensations. My favorite is: “What does it feel like..?” One episode, in particular, stands out; when a dermatologist asked this question of my wife three times. This was in the early days of our seeking treatment and I remember wondering, ‘why is he forcing her to say what is obvious..?’ The problem lies in what the derm wants to hear. If the magic word is spoken, he can clear this chart and move on to the next patient. If you say, “it feels like bugs”…. he’s won..! If you say it early on in the appointment, you’ve just bought yourself the shortest dermatologist visit you’ll ever have. So why is this..? How is this possible..?
Because... engrained within the academia of dermatology, the word, ‘bugs’, has become THE trigger-word for the diagnosis of DOP. The first flaw with the DOP diagnosis is that the majority of dermatologists seem to forget that DOP is a diagnosis of exclusion. In a nutshell that means that everything else must be ruled out. Saying “bugs” has somehow short circuited that process. Second problem is that most dermatologists will forgo the actual psych referral and prescribe the anti-psychotics themselves.
Think about that one for a minute…. Skin doctors prescribing psych meds. Hmmm.
Now… why does this happen over and over, in dermatology clinics all over the world..? Because, we, in our limited modern vernacular, have no other way to describe the sensations which accompany Morgellons Disease. Why..? Because describing an itch is fairly common, as many things can create an itch sensation. But when it comes to ‘stinging, biting and crawling’ our minds have but one place to go with an analogy. It is a conditioning that we have been exposed to since we began to speak. You see the bee ‘stings’… and the ant ‘bites’… and the mite ‘crawls’… and so on…. It is what we associate these words with; bugs. I contend that in the current vernacular, there is no other way of describing these sensations.
And so, the conundrum, the catch-22 or whatever you want to call it, will remain as long as the diagnosis of DOP prevails.
To add insult to injury, after that short derm visit, the little 'diagnosis' of DOP he tags you with becomes a part of your medical record... and follows you around from that point on.
-Chas Holman
