Morgellons Itch

waltky · May 9, 2011

Kinda sounds like shingles...

The mystery of the morgellons itch
Sun, May 08, 2011 - Its a mysterious condition that affects tens of thousands worldwide. But are we dealing with a hidden epidemic or mass hysteria?

It all started in August 2007, on a family holiday in New England. Paul had been watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with his wife and two sons, and he had started to itch. His legs, his arms, his torso it was everywhere. It must be fleas in the seat, he decided.

But the 55-year-old IT executive from Birmingham, England, has been itching ever since, and the mystery of what is wrong with him has only deepened. When Paul rubbed his fingertips over the pimples that dotted his skin, he felt spines. Weird, alien things, like splinters. Then, in 2008, his wife was soothing his back with surgical spirit when the cotton swab she was using gathered a curious blue-black haze from his skin. Paul went out, bought a US$65 microscope and examined the cotton. What were those curling, colored fibers? He Googled the words: Fibers. Itch. Sting. Skin. And there was his answer. It must be: all the symptoms fitted. He had a new disease called morgellons. The fibers were the product of mysterious creatures that burrow and breed in the body. As he read on, he had no idea that morgellons would turn out to be the worst kind of answer imaginable.

Morgellons was named in 2001 by an American called Mary Leitao, whose son complained of sores around his mouth and the sensation of bugs. Examining him with a toy microscope, Leitao found him to be covered in unexplained red, blue, black and white fibers. Since then, workers at her Morgellons Research Foundation say they have been contacted by more than 12,000 affected families. Campaign group the Charles E Holman Foundation states there are sufferers in every continent except Antarctica. Thousands have written to the US Congress demanding action. In response, more than 40 senators, including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a pre-presidential Barack Obama, pressed the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to investigate; in 2006, it formed a special task force, setting aside US$1 million to study the condition. Sufferers include folk singer Joni Mitchell, who has complained of this weird incurable disease that seems like its from outer space ... Fibers in a variety of colors protrude out of my skin: they cannot be forensically identified as animal, vegetable or mineral. Morgellons is a slow, unpredictable killer a terrorist disease. It will blow up one of your organs, leaving you in bed for a year.

So its new, frightening and profoundly odd. But if you were to seek the view of the medical establishment, youd find the strangest fact about this disease: morgellons doesnt exist. I meet Paul in a pub in a Birmingham, England, suburb. He shows me pictures hes collected of his fibers. On his laptop, a grim parade of images flicks past. There are sores, scabs and nasal hairs, each magnified by a factor of 200. In each photo there is a tiny colored fiber on or in his skin. Is it an excrement? he asks. A byproduct? A structure they live in? A waitress passes with a tray of salad as he points to an oozing wound. Is it a breathing pipe? Paul absent-mindedly digs his nails into a lesion just below the hem of his shorts. Little red welts pepper his legs and arms, some dulled to a waxy maroon, others just plasticky-white scar tissue.

More http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2011/05/08/2003502683
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Til the Last Drop · May 9, 2011

LOL. Where do you find this stuff Walt? Great. Now I'm starting to itch. Thanks.

waltky · Jan 26, 2012

Kinda looks like when bed-bugs is munchin' on ya...

CDC study can't explain mysterious crawling-skin disease
A half-million-dollar study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found no obvious medical explanation for a mysterious and controversial skin disease whose sufferers report a crawling sensation on or under their skin and fibers emerging from it.

Although the findings may not mollify those who say they have Morgellons, as the condition has been dubbed by some, CDC's Mark Eberhard says the findings are useful in that they tell both patients and doctors that the condition is rare and neither contagious nor environmentally based. The research came about because of intense public interest in the topic beginning around 2002 because of both media attention and sufferers connecting online. Similar conditions have gone by other names, including Ekbom's syndrome or delusional infestation.

The CDC "was receiving inquiries from a variety of sources, including the public, about this condition," says Eberhard, who directs CDC's Division of Parasitic Diseases. "It was clear that these people were suffering from something; the question was what might it be." The study was conducted among 3.2 million people whose health care was with Kaiser Permanente in 13 Northern California counties from 2006 to 2008. Researchers identified 115 patients who reported fibers or other solid material coming through their skin as well as skin lesions or the feeling that "something is crawling on top of or under the skin," according to the paper, which is published in this week's edition of the journal PLoS ONE.

Doctors found that the condition was rare, with only 3.65% of the Kaiser patients reporting it. Sufferers tended to be white (77%) and female (77%), with a median age of 52. Seventy percent of sufferers reported the material emerging from their skin as fibers, the rest described "specks, granules, dots, worms, sand, eggs, fuzz balls and larvae." However, the researchers could not find any evidence of these. Instead, dermatologists found fibers on the edges or under scabs and none in unbroken skin. When examined they proved to be cotton or polyester fibers, or in a few cases the likely remains of fingernail polish. "We were able to answer conclusively that they were not living entities," Eberhard says.

Jason Reichenberg, director of dermatology at the University of Texas Southwestern-Austin, said the paper "confirms what anybody who has ever seen a patient with this knows, which is that these patients are suffering greatly and their suffering is real; they shouldn't be dismissed. "This is something that needs to be treated," says Reichenberg, who will lead a session on the topic at an upcoming dermatology organization meeting in San Diego. "It's really important to discuss that there might be other ways to approach the disease. Until we can find an exact cause or a cure, it's important that we try to improve their suffering."

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MisLed · Jan 26, 2012

I heard about this a number of years ago. I don't think it is mass hysteria. Neither do i have a theory.

MisLed · Feb 1, 2012

There is some speculation that this is associated with some kind of Agrobacterium. I feel sorry for these people.

mamooth · Feb 1, 2012

Delusional parasitosis is old news in the medical world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusional_parasitosis

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Details of delusional parasitosis vary among sufferers, but is most commonly described as involving perceived parasites crawling upon or burrowing into the skin, sometimes accompanied by an actual physical sensation (known as formication).[2] Sufferers may injure themselves in attempts to be rid of the "parasites". Some are able to induce the condition in others through suggestion, in which case the term folie à deux may be applicable.[7]

Nearly any marking upon the skin, or small object or particle found on the person or their clothing, can be interpreted as evidence for the parasitic infestation, and sufferers commonly compulsively gather such "evidence" and then present it to medical professionals when seeking help.[2] This presenting of "evidence" is known as "the matchbox sign" because the "evidence" is frequently presented in a small container, such as a matchbox.

Delusional parasitosis is seen more commonly in women, and the frequency is much higher past the age of 40.[6]
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Clint Torres · Feb 1, 2012

Is this like a yeast infection where you can charge the patient money to have it removed?

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Morgellons Itch

waltky Well-Known Member

Til the Last Drop Well-Known Member Past Donor

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MisLed New Member

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waltky Well-Known Member

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