May 26, 1999
A Provo woman is suffering from an extremely rare disorder that causes
the body to curl up and turn almost to stone.
It's called "Stiff Man's Syndrome."
Doctor's don't know what causes it. And there's no known cure.
Science Specialist Ed Yeates has her remarkable story.
Lynn Zaritsky spends most of her time in a hospital bed.
"Without medication, I am completely rigid and stiff, and I go from being
wrapped up into a tiny ball to arching backwards," she says.
Lynn has a disorder called Stiff Man's Syndrome which afflicts only a few
hundred people worldwide.
For some unknown reason an antibody fires up her muscles all the time.
Instead of the body remaining fluid and mobile, it freezes up.
The stiffness fluctuates from curling to arching backwards.
Lynn says, "It's painful in the sense that my joints are all being pulled out
of place particularly when I arch backwards."
"And I go between the two until presumably death," she adds.
While her bizarre condition has attracted a lot of attention in medical
circles, her attitude is even more remarkable.
With curled fingers, she still writes a disability advocacy column for
the Salt Lake Tribune.
"If I lost all hope or all desire to be useful to society as a wife and mother
and a disability advocate, I would have no reason to live," Lynn says.
The oldest known patient with Stiff Man's Syndrome lived 20 years. Lynn
has had it 16 years.
Though time might be running out, her sense of humor remains strong -
even for what she calls the mislabeled name, "Stiff Man."
"It's not terribly politically correct is it?" she laughs.
Though doctors didn't agree, they let Lynn out of the hospital temporarily
for family graduations and birthdays.
For now, she's still home - on probation as she calls it.
