Top 10 Mind Blowing Diseases/Conditions and Treatments in the TV Show House M.D.

It's interesting to note that these are the last few episodes ever of this TV show (the ones I've been watching recently) and yet they don't seem to be focusing on foreshadowing what will be happening on the season finale. It's irresponsible, in my opinion, to just create random and unnecessary episodes just to fill in before focusing more on House and how the show will end.

This happened to me with Lost, not wanting to watch the ending because I did not want to be disappointed and at the same time I never wanted it to end.

House has been a part of my life, most especially the earlier seasons (season 3 being my favorite, to be specific). Regardless of how I feel about the latter seasons, I figured I should write some sort of tribute in case I decide I don't want to watch the ending. What better article to write than my top 10 most favorite, most mind blowing, and most interesting diseases/conditions ever to be featured or treated in House. Do keep in mind that I am not a doctor or any sort of expert in this field and I'm basing it all on what I've seen in House and in my reflections and thoughts about the disease or condition.

And since I did mention that season 3 is my favorite season ever, there's a good chance that most of this list will be coming from that season. So anyway, here's the list in no particular order:

Aboulia is the "inability to make decisions" or basically a neurological condition that affects one's freewill. This is just so mind blowing. It somehow asserts that our freewill itself, our ability to choose, is all just biological or physiological, and that if inflicted with Aboulia, one will basically lose his/her freedom.

It does make you think about how consciousness itself is so dependent on matter or the brain to be specific. It does make me think about freewill and self-ownership.

People with this very rare genetic condition do not feel pain ever. It's really so unbelievable. At first, you'd think that it would be a nice to thing to never feel pain when really it's not. The girl has to check her whole body, check her teeth, her eyes, limbs, etc for injuries because the fact that she does not feel pain means that she could be severely injured and she doesn't know it yet. I remember there's even a part in the episode where she broke so many bones and still didn't feel anything.

In this episode, the patient is played by Dave Mathews. A guy who gets into a bus accident then all of a sudden becomes a musical genius with flawless skills in playing the piano and superhuman perfect pitch. The concept is that the patient never had training in piano whatsoever and then all of a sudden a brain injury gives him amazing capabilities. Again, this really says a lot about the power of the brain and how much we haven't unlocked or learned about it yet. Perhaps skills and talents are also very physiological. This episode is actually what inspired my idea to get a functional MRI while I'm listening to or making my music.

I don't really know how much truth is in this treatment because, again, I'm no doctor or medical expert but in this episode a 10-year coma patient was able to wake up for around 24 hours because of high doses of L-Dopa and amphetamines. Surely, if this has any basis then coma patients all over would be waking up from time to time just by injecting this concoction.

Yup, this isn't actually just made by terrorists in some biological warfare laboratory. Anthrax could actually just be living on your ceiling somewhere. This is something I learned in this episode that Anthrax may actually just be breeding in your house (although it's very rare, of course). Interestingly enough, it's also very curable. I remember after the 9/11 attacks there was a big hype on this being mailed to you inside an envelope.

House can really be a great teacher. That's why when they explained what really happened to his leg through a narrative he was discussing while being a substitute professor. He works in a teaching hospital, after all. In this episode, he talks about how he got his leg pain which contributes a lot to his character and his "abuse" (although a debatable concept) of the drug vicodin.

The same girl who can't ever feel pain gets diagnosed with the symptom of guilt. Yes, B12 apparently induces feelings of guilt or remorse. It's quite interesting how our nutrition and what we eat can really affect our consciousness. Surely, this really made me religious when it comes to taking supplements of vitamins and minerals.

House enters the Isolation Tank aka Sensory Deprivation Tank dosed while under the influence of mind-altering substances in order to more effectively access and retrieve his memories so he can remember what happened during a certain accident that his subconscious seems to be blocking.

Yup, in this episode, House prescribed psilocybin mushrooms (commonly known as "magic mushrooms) to a kid who was suffering with cluster headaches. Apparently, it was very effective. It does make you think about prohibition and how it can hinder research and progress in the field of medicine.

And of course, that ever-popular recurring joke throughout all the seasons of House hating a Lupus diagnosis. I remember one patient actually getting it, the magician guy. It's a really rare form of autoimmune disease, if I remember correctly. From what I know, one of our past presidents, the dictator Ferdinand Marcos died of lupus. I don't know. I just thought I'd share that random trivia.