Morgellons syndrome is a bit of a weird one. It's sort of simultaneously a disease and not at the same time. It was essentially made up in 2006 by Mary Leitao, whose son was complaining of itching and skin crawling. She noticed that there were a number of mysterious fibres on him that she was convinced were extruding from his skin. However, it's almost certainly a form of psychosis known as delusional parasitosis and the fibres are usually consistent with the material of the sufferers clothes. That said, just because it's all in the mind doesn't mean that it's not horrifying. Sufferers will often be convinced that they have parasites crawling around under their skin and they develop a chronic itch all over their bodies that they just can't get rid of. Because sufferers will often reject the diagnosis of delusional parasitosis, they sometimes turn to dangerous self-treatments that include applying or ingesting bleach, taking veterinary deworming medicine made for horses or using industrial insecticides. This tends to relieve the symptoms either through the placebo effect, or because their skin probably starts sloughing off - that tends to take you mind off things.
