by Joni Mitchell is expected to make her first ever Grammys performance at the 2024 Grammy Awards on Sunday, February 4. The Canadian singer-songwriter, 80, has only done a handful of live performances since suffering a brain aneurysm in 2015.
Following her hospitalization in 2015, much attention was focused on Mitchell’s rare condition – which she has spoken candidly about in the past – known as Morgellons disease. The little-known skin condition is characterized by patients having stinging and tingling sensations under the skin. However, the controversial condition has raised eyebrows among the medical community, many of whom believe that its symptoms are caused by a psychiatric disorder.
In 2010, Mitchell described the symptoms of Morgellons disease in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. Mitchell said he saw “fibres of various colors pushing out of my skin like mushrooms after a rainstorm: they cannot be forensically identified as animal, vegetable or mineral” and suggested that the illness was “as if from it’s outer space”.
According to the Mayo Clinic, the few thousand people who reported that they were suffering from Morgellons disease characterized their symptoms as skin rashes or sores that can cause intense itching; Sensations of crawling on and under the skin, often compared to insects moving, crashing, or biting; and a belief that there are black fibers, threads, or stringy matter in and on the skin.
“I couldn’t wear clothes. I couldn’t leave my house for several years,” Mitchell wrote of her symptoms in her 2014 memoir, Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words. “Sometimes it was so I had to crawl across the floor. My legs would tense up, just like a polio spasm. He hit all the places where I had polio,” said Mitchell, who was stricken with polio at the age of nine.
Morgellons disease is believed to have been named by Mary Leitao in 2002, who rejected a doctor’s judgment that her two-year-old son was suffering from delusions after he began developing lesions on the inside of his lips. She found the term “moregellons” in a letter from the doctor Sir Thomas Browne, who noticed a similar illness in 17th century French children.
However, research on Morgellons disease is limited and studies conducted have conflicting results. In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published one of the largest studies on Morgellons disease. The CDC analyzed 115 people with self-reported Morgellons symptoms between 2006 and 2008. Of this population-based study, the majority of people who reported having Morgellons were white women in their early to mid-50s.
The results showed that most of the fibers in the skin sores could be explained by repeated itching. Researchers also found that some samples contained fibers from cellulose, which is a component of cotton fibers found in clothing, and dyes were also detected in some samples.
Ultimately, the study found “no common underlying medical condition or infectious source was identified, like more commonly known conditions such as delusional infestation”.
The Mayo Clinic later conducted a case study in 2011, in which researchers analyzed 108 patients who believed their inflamed, itchy skin was the result of a bug infestation. The study concluded that scratching and picking at their skin caused the sores in many patients. In a 2016 study, researchers collected fibers from a person with self-reported Morgellons disease and compared those to fibers collected around their apartment, such as human hair, pet hair, or plastic fibers. The study found that fibers in the lesions of Morgellons disease were actually from the environment and not from the body.
Meanwhile, a smaller study in 2017 analyzed 35 Morgellons disease patients at the Royal London Hospital in the United Kingdom. Researchers found that participants had common psychological conditions, with 48.2 percent and 25.7 percent having depression or anxiety, respectively. Current or past substance abuse was also reported in 14 percent of participants. When a treatment plan was implemented that focused on treating the skin lesions as well as addressing mental health, 40 percent of the participants showed significant improvement.
Due to the lack of understanding regarding Morgellons disease, effective treatment options remain unknown. However, sufferers have found support in groups such as the Morgellons Research Foundation. In a 2013 interview with The starMitchell revealed that she has alleviated her Morgellons disease symptoms with the help of a doctor, and addressed the controversy surrounding the condition.
“I haven’t been doing much lately because I’ve had about seven years of debilitating illness,” she said at the time. “I am not cured but I have found a way to help outside the box for a doctor. Western medicine says this doesn’t even exist, it’s a mental illness. He is not.”
In addition to the “Case of You” singer, fellow artists Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, Olivia Rodrigo, U2, Travis Scott, Luke Combs, Burna Boy, and Billy Joel are expected to perform at the 66th annual Grammy Awards. This year’s Grammy Awards will be hosted by comedian Trevor Noah and broadcast live on CBS from the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, beginning at 8pm ET / 5pm PT.
