Continuously Sneezing Girl Enthralls Nation

Lauren Johnson, a 12-year-old girl who says she sneezes up to 12,000 times every day, has taken her story to the national news media for help.

On recovering — or not quite recovering — from a recent cold, she found herself sneezing almost continuously. After doctors came up clueless, she took her case to NBC's Today Show on Wednesday, where the network's chief medical editor, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, tried to shed a little light on the mystery.

Snyderman broke it down: the girl's not actually sneezing, but probably instead experiencing some kind of involuntary tick. "I just don't think this is a sneeze," Snyderman said on the Today Show. "A classic sneeze — you sneeze, your eyes close and you have some spray out of your nose." Lauren, she said, is "sneezing" from her mouth.

In a follow-up report, NBC reported that doctors are now saying Lauren might have irretractable psychogenic disorder, a rare psychological condition triggered by stress. No one, apparently, knows how to treat it.

The story has swept around the Internet, picked up by various major networks. Why is the nation so enthralled by a little girl who can't stop sneezing? Is it the same reason we can't help but look at Charla Nash, the woman disfigured by a chimpanzee attack, who revealed her face to the public on Wednesday's episode of Oprah?

We're rapt by the strange and unusual, and thrillingly terrified of the implications: we live in an unpredictable universe, where anything can happen. As proof of that, it's unlikely Lauren could have guessed she would meet celebrities such as Jon Bon Jovi and Andre Agassi, who were guests on the Today Show the day she was diagnosed by Dr. Snyderman.

Here's the original Today Show interview with Lauren:

And here's an udpate:

Photo courtesy of stock.xchng