Posted 1/17/2008 05:39:00 PM by Douglas

If you're one of those kind of people that think "there's bugs on you," you probably shouldn't read this if you ever want to sleep again.

It sounds like a freakish ailment from a horror movie: Sores erupt on your skin, mysterious threads pop out of them, and you feel like tiny bugs are crawling all over you. Some experts believe it's a psychiatric phenomenon, yet hundreds of people say it's a true physical condition. It's called Morgellons, and now the government is about to begin its first medical study of it.

Weird. But it can't happen here, right? Right?!?

A federal health agency on Wednesday launched a study into an unexplained skin disorder that causes a crawling sensation and lesions that won't heal, the first attempt to determine whether Morgellons is a legitimate illness or caused by the patient's imagination.

Many families in Houston are self-diagnosed with the condition, making the area a Morgellons hot spot, according to the Morgellons Research Foundation, a nonprofit group that has become the primary source of information about the disorder.

I'm officially creeped out now.