Morgellons Disease: Is It Real?

Sufferers of
Morgellons disease complain of invisible parasites biting their skin. And they get skin lesions from which sprout strange fibers. And mysterious black spore-like specks appear on their skin. Cases of this strange disease
seem to be spreading, especially in the Bay area. One theory is that it has something to do with Lyme disease. Or it may be a case of mass delusion. The medical community
seems to think it's mass delusion. Most people who show up complaining of these symptoms get diagnosed with 'delusional parasitosis', which is a psychological problem in which people imagine that they're infested by parasites. Not having any medical qualifications at all, I won't weigh in on whether this is a real disease or mass delusion, but some of the behavior of the patients does sound suspiciously bizarre. Take the case of Theresa Blodgett:
She gathers up the black specks, the mysterious fibers and the small, fuzzy 'cocoons' she finds on her skin and around her home. She tapes the macabre samples to typing paper, but she said no doctor will analyze the collection. Physicians who glance at the specimens dismiss the lot as stray hairs, clothing fibers, scabs and other common household debris, she said.
So either she really is suffering from something and is desperately but unsuccessfully trying to get doctors to pay attention to her, or she's obsessively collecting house dust and stray flecks of dirt and convincing herself that these things are parasites attacking her. (Thanks to 'K' for the links)
Posted By: Alex | Date:
Thu Feb 10, 2005 |
Permalink |
Total Comments: 586
Category:
Health/Medicine,
Psychology
Comments
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.
Page 6 of 30 pages « First < 4 5 6 7 8 > Last »
BOILED tap water...or did you miss that? Carbonated water...miss that one too?
Posted by Victoria Moore in Charlotte, NC on Sat Mar 05, 2005 at 06:30 PM
BOILED tap water...or did you miss that?
Carbonated water...did you miss that?
You also obviously missed that scientists have identified the stenotrophomonas maltophilia bacteria as the cause of Morgellons.
Posted by Victoria Moore in Charlotte, NC on Sat Mar 05, 2005 at 06:34 PM
They have not proven a link in any way, shape, or form. They have a theory that this set of symptoms shows up in people who they have also found this bacteria on. How many people who do not have symptoms also have the bacteria? Do some freakin research and SHOW ME SOME PROOF that the only people who have this bacteria all have the same symptoms that you say. This is called the scientific method... studying something from all angles before making claims about it.
Also... Boiled? So what? Is boiled tap water better than boiled bottled water? Should they not be the same? If you're going to boil your water (by the way, boiling does NOT kill all of the harmful bacteria in water, you also need to run it through a biological contaminant filter) then what does it matter what the source is? You can distill and drink urine, too, and it would be just as safe.
Posted by Rod in the land of smarties. on Sat Mar 05, 2005 at 06:45 PM
Rod!!!!!!!
You've impressed me!!!
You believe in Fibromyalgia!!!
About 3 years ago I could not go wee...(best way I know to post that). A doctor in our local E.R. checked me out. He found NOTHING. 3 days later I still couldn't go. I called his office and made an appointment.
I told him I still couldn't go and that I was beginning to have the "hot spots" that my mom had with her Fib.
He said, and I quote, "I do not believe in Fibromyalgia."
I asked him if Fib. wasn't a disease, what was wrong with my mother. He had NEVER seen my mother; didn't even know her name.
He said, and I quote, "I don't believe that Fibr. is a REAL disease. I don't know what's wrong with you and your mother. Maybe you should consider "psychiatric care" because I cannot find anything wrong with you."
Hmmmm....
I left, went home, made an appt. with a gyn. who saw me the next day.
Turns out my urethra was nearly closed and had to be dialated, a simple office procedure that took 2 minutes.
This was in 2001.
What do YOU think about that?????????
Posted by jaleenasmom on Sat Mar 05, 2005 at 10:10 PM
It's the
PARASITE
that is felt, Rod. Not the bacteria.
You are right. Bacteria cannot be "felt".
Posted by jaleenasmom on Sat Mar 05, 2005 at 10:16 PM
Never heard of Walkerton, ONT.
Please tell all!!!
"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them."
Galileo Galilei
Theory...do you ever one day we might all know the truth?
Or, have you no belief in God at all? Or a higher power?
What is your God? Chaos? Mass Delusion? Hysteria?
Do you have "faith" in anything?
Do you have "hope" in anything?
Do you live by Law or by chance?
Do you obey laws man has set upon you?
Speed limit, no illegal drugs, seatbelt, pay your taxes and don't cheat, no stealing, no murder, no rape, no abuse, etc.?
Posted by jaleenasmom on Sat Mar 05, 2005 at 10:28 PM
My manboobs are getting bigger and saggier. Do you think I might have Mormellons Disease? Oh, the hugemantitty.
Posted by Hairy Houdini on Sat Mar 05, 2005 at 10:43 PM
Good one, Hairy. Isn't that the disease Pamela Anderson gets kinda "on again, off again"???
Okay... If the parasites are too small to be seen by the naked eye, they cannot be felt. Otherwise the dust mites that are all over you would drive you (ha ha) buggy. Walkerton relates to the water thing and my point that the harmful stuff does not all disappear with boiling. Google it if you're interested (I think it was e coli in the water... many dead).
Nope. No belief in any gods at all. The only "higher power" is that which we choose to give that power to, basically the "system", meaning Police, Givt, Etc.
Yes. I have faith that when I get up in the middle of the night, I'll have to take a leak. I have faith that my family loves me. I have NO faith that some invisible guy is sitting up in the sky waiting to listen to my 32 seconds of self serving bullshit every night, or every second if I so chose.
Hope? Sure. I hope I get nailed this weekend. I hope I get nailed every night. Lotsa hope. And I'm not even being sarcastic.
Like every human on the planet, both law and chance (even the Pope, you can't tell me he's never been laid in his whole life and at the same time convince me he's never polished the bishop).
As for obeying the law...
Speed Limit - Usually. I see no point in getting to the next light faster just to wait longer. However, I live in a part of the country where the towns are 30-45 miles apart. Lotsa farmland, no trees, flat, see forever. As long as the tires are speed rated and nobody's comin, I travel about 130 (Kph, by the way, about 75 mph).
Illegal drugs - Sometimes. Legal ones too.
Seatbelt - ALWAYS. People give me crap cause I put it on before I start the car.
Pay Taxes - Yup. No cheating, either.
Stealing - Like Michael Jackson says "It's only a crime if you get caught."
Murder - Of ?
Rape - Nope.
Abuse - ? Self? Spousal? Satanic Ritual? Animal? Internet? Email Privelage?
Posted by Rod in the land of smarties. on Sat Mar 05, 2005 at 11:33 PM
I'm sorry Rod. The article I posted failed to mention that the tap water needs to be boiled. Boiling it kills the S.Maltophilia bacteria. So yes, it is safer to drink boiled tap water or boil the bottled water - but that kind of defeats the purpose - but the ALL TIME safest way to drink water is boiled and if you must carry it with you - put it in a glass jar, or a thermos that is glass lined or stainless steel lined. The other alternative is to drink bottled CARBONATED water. For some reason the bacteria can't live in that environment. I go back and find the additional information and post it here. I wasn't thinking too clearly yesterday. My fever went up to 103 and I was not feeling at all well. A friend suggested I get Elderberry and Peppermint teas and that it would help bring my fever down as well as help my bronchial infection too. She must have been right. I drank it about four times over the course of the day yesterday and the difference in how I feel and the amount of congestion is like night and day. This morning my temp is 98.3 (Below normal!)
I will go back and look for the other info.
Posted by Victoria Moore in Charlotte, NC on Sun Mar 06, 2005 at 06:00 AM
Stenotrophomonas (Pseudomonas) maltophilia is an aerobic gram-negative bacillus that is an infrequent pathogen in humans and is found in a variety of aquatic environments.
http://www.sanbi.co.jp/capj/45/abs/450801.pdf
Hope this link works!
http://www.nih.go.jp/JJID/57/37.pdf - This is a "scientific study".
"The adhesive surface
factors involved in adherence of these bacteria are largely unknown, and their flagella have not yet been
characterized biochemically and antigenically."
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol8no9/pdf/01-0535.pdf courtesy of the CDC
http://lib.med.tottori-u.ac.jp/yam/yam46-4/yam46_091-102.html "Recent papers argue that major increases in the isolation of multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria have been of some concern in clinical practice. Among these bacteria, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia is an intrinsic producer of β-lactamases, and has been recognized as a nosocomial pathogen. But few reports are available on the impact of the potential risk of mixed infections." "...The last section elaborates on the idea that S. maltophilia can assist in the survival of other imipenem-susceptible bacteria such as Serratia..." Remember Serratia from the article about bacteria being released over Oahu??? That's what it's got to do with this, but it's my OPINION.
Posted by jaleenasmom on Sun Mar 06, 2005 at 06:34 AM
I've checked all the links..
they work...
take a look at some "research"...
Posted by jaleenasmom on Sun Mar 06, 2005 at 06:37 AM
"Stenotrophomonas maltophilia has been implicated in an increasing number of opportunistic infections, especially in immunocompromised patients."
http://jrnlappliedresearch.com/articles/Vol3Iss2/Pendland.htm
"Stenotrophomonas (formerly Xanthomonas), a gramnegative bacillus is noted for its high degree of antibiotic resistance and pathogenic potential. It can be isolated from water sources including rivers, wells, a hypertrophic lake, bottled water, sewage, sink traps, factory residues and a variety of soil, plant and food materials. It is known to cause life-threatening infections in selected patients associated with immunosuppression, admission to the..."
http://www.kfshrc.edu.sa/annals/223_224/01-216.pdf
CASE REPORT
Posted by jaleenasmom on Sun Mar 06, 2005 at 06:53 AM
I have
checked both of
the above links and
they both work. You will find these
studies interesting I'm sure.
Posted by jaleenasmom on Sun Mar 06, 2005 at 06:59 AM
Rod, I would like to continue discussion on other matters that do not pertain to this board, however, I also want to continue here.
Could we correspond through email or some other means???
Posted by jaleenasmom on Sun Mar 06, 2005 at 07:05 AM
If you want to correspond via email just post your email addresses here, and I'll delete them after a day or two (after you've had a chance to communicate).
Posted by Alex in San Diego on Sun Mar 06, 2005 at 07:19 AM
This post will be in two parts because the entire post was too long:
Well, it seems the first article I posted here actually did mention the boiling and carbonated water at the very end. ("Brain fog" - one of the symptoms of this disease.)
Thanks jaleenasmom for all the great links above - I will go check them out too. This is becoming so interesting as each new discovery takes us closer to a proper diagnosis.
I would like to ask Rod - Can you SEE Alzheimer's Disease? No. Do you see the effects of the disease? Yes. Diagnosis is based on clinical histology and most research and diagnosis is done post mortem.
Due to me being out of it with a fever of 103 and feeling a slight bit crappy over the past few days I have NOT gone into the research I have done on my own. In my OPINION, someone who has delusional parasitosis would not have the presence of mind to do such.
I purchased my own microscope because I wanted to see for MYSELF if samples taken from my sores looked like the pictures I was seeing or if they could have been enhanced or self-fabricated. My husband was right beside me as we conducted these experiments. First we did dry mounts...and sure enough...there were the fibers mixed among what you would see (I have learned) in a normal scab, which is sort of spidery vein looking marks! Then we did wet mounts. Once the scab was in wet mount, the spidery veins disappeared and the tissue takes on a golden yellow color and the fibers become highly visible. We must have tested at least 20 samples. All fiber masses were unique in design. On several samples I took notes. One of the samples had a fiber that protruded barely beyond the border of tissue. Upon examining the same slide the next day, the length of the fiber had grown beyond the border considerably. Under the microscope and to the eye it looked like about an inch, but microscopically I could not tell you the measurement. My husband and I both also plucked hairs from our heads, his arm, my arm, and a little "peach fuzz" hair from the back of my neck to see if these fibers could just possibly be hair. Laying the hairs next to the scab sample on the slide proved to be a negative. The hairs looked like giant trees compared to the fibers.
Another interesting discovery. For over a year now I had been telling my husband about a strange thing going on in our bathroom. Until all of this illness thing started I really had not been too concerned about it - just puzzled.
We have an "S" shaped bathroom situation with two half-baths on each end with the "shower and tub" portion in the middle. This can be closed off from both sides.
Posted by Victoria Moore in Charlotte, NC on Sun Mar 06, 2005 at 08:18 AM
I told my husband, "Honey it is so weird, there are all of these teeny tiny blue and red fibers all over the walls in our bathroom. I can't figure out why. We don't use blue OR red towels - we use white, beige and gold. And the really weird thing is that I can spray the wall down with Clorox Clean-up and get them off, but several days later, they are right back."
When I remembered the fibers in the bathroom I ran to collect a sample of them to look at under the microscope. THEY WERE IDENTICAL TO WHAT I WAS SEEING IMBEDDED IN MY SCABS!!!!!
I have gone on the investigate other rooms in the house. They are not present. (Which leads me to believe it has something to do with the moisture and water in the bathroom - which is what I have been saying all along - that our well water was not right. We should have had it tested right when we moved into this house like I wanted to do. But we didn't and I regret that now. We ARE having it tested next week, but they will have to go down into the well, because we are now on city water as of 3 weeks ago.
Being sick with this bronchial infection has produced a lot of phlegm in my chest. The first night I coughed up some bloody phlegm. Yesterday I coughed up a nice "loogie" and looked at it under the microscope...guess what...fibers were in it.
NOW I DO realize these fibers may be air born BUT we have also taken some scab samples from my husbands body from a couple of places where he cut himself on the job. Guess what? No fibers. If these things are present in my body, why NOT his. We spent equal time at home and equal time taking showers in the bathroom.
Another experiment - I took a cotton ball and soaked it with rubbing alcohol. I rubbed it back and forth across my arms and legs. The cotton ball ended up being coated with the blue and red fibers. I DID carefully examine the STERILE cotton ball (which I send my husband to the store yesterday for) and before I wiped my arms and legs with it, it was clean.
I did the same thing to my husband's body - NO FIBERS.
SO - does this mean my body is producing these things and giving them off, or do I have some kind of lowered immune function which allows them to invade my body and not his?
This is what I WANT TO KNOW.
And I am sorry, but I DO feel the itchy, crawly feelings all over my face, sometimes my legs, arms and back. It is real - I do feel it.
SO - that is my own personnal research so far.
Posted by Victoria Moore in Charlotte, NC on Sun Mar 06, 2005 at 08:23 AM
"More than 85% of our isolates were susceptible to ticarcillin–clavulanate and 12.8% were intermediately susceptible. Although in most studies ticarcillin–clavulanate remains the most effective agent among the ß-lactams tested, Barbier-Frebourg et al.7 observed a dramatic increase in the prevalence of ticarcillin–clavulanate resistance among S. maltophilia isolates in Rouen, France."
http://jac.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/50/5/758
Posted by jaleenasmom on Sun Mar 06, 2005 at 09:02 AM
Victoria, could it not just mean that they are in your home and your body picks them up? I think it very likely.
Anyway, here I go again.
Link 1.) If you don't have CF, how does any of this apply? Again, internal infection to your external.
Link 2.) Okay, this link again shows no external infection. All along you've been saying this is a new, rare bacteria. To quote "S.M., a bacteria that is commonly found almost everywhere in nature..."
Link 3.) Ah, the CDC. First place I looked before my very first post here. A good portion of the reason I think Morgellons is psychological (admitted bias, but no final decision, yet). To quote "...associated with opportunistic infections in patients with cystic fibrosis, cancer, and HIV." And the best quote, "S.M. can cause septicemia, endocarditis, conjunctivitis, mastoiditis, meningitis, post-operative wounds, abcesses, urinary tract infections, and pneumonia." Funny, your symptoms are not listed.
Also pertaining to link 3, google XANTHOMOMAS MALTOPHILIA. This bacteria and its effects, as well as drug resistance, have been well known and documented for a long time. Why is this important? Changing the name of X.M. to S.M., which is what they did, does not give this bacteria new properties or capabilities.
Oh, and yes, I get the idea that bacterium with a tail tend to be pathogenic. Mobility matters.
Link 4.) These people do not say S.M. is the cause. They say it MAY open up the body for a known type of infection by other types of bacteria. If it is a known type, then how can it be Morgellons?
Link 5.) WOW. Here they say flat out that they have a drug of choice to kill this bacteria. Meaning they know about it and can kill it. Is it some kind of conspiracy to not let YOU get your hands on it?
Link 6.) Meningitis fits your symptoms how?
"Only by focusing on anything that we can fit to our belief and ignoring everything that doesn't fit can we make these coincidences seem meaningful." - From Robert Todd Carroll, Skeptics Dictionary
Posted by Rod in the land of smarties. on Sun Mar 06, 2005 at 09:41 AM
Okay, in light of the fact that you repeatedly ignore my refutations, I really expect no constructive responses from you. Every link that you have sent (that worked), I have shot down, mostly with common sense, but some with a little bit of research.
You have not proven your case. Come up with something more interesting than things which do not relate.
Also in light of your non-response to my pointing out the facts in the links you posted, I feel it is entirely unneccesary for you to get my email address just so you can ask me questions about your god. Or did you not think I knew that was what "private correspondence" was about?
Let's keep it public, so I can keep shooting you down as you try to make a case for something WITHOUT ANY PROOF.
Posted by Rod in the land of smarties. on Sun Mar 06, 2005 at 09:47 AM
Page 6 of 30 pages « First < 4 5 6 7 8 > Last »