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Parasitic Infection Flummoxes Victims and Doctors
Toxictoy writes "Imagine having a disease that is so controversial that doctors refuse to treat you. Individuals with this disease report disturbing crawling, stinging, and biting sensations, as well as non-healing skin lesions, which are associated with highly unusual structures. These structures can be described as fiber-like or filamentous, and are the most striking feature of this disease. In addition, patients report the presence of seed-like granules and black speck-like material associated with their skin. Sound like a bad plot for a Sci-Fi channel movie? Think again - it could be Morgellon's Syndrome."
Don't worry, I'm sure it can be cured with aromatherapy, reflexology, homeopathy and a large dose of serpentes lipids. . .
Find out about my new childrens book: SS Death Camp Criminal Batallion Go To Monte Carlo For The Massacre
Looks like pictures of lint to me.
If you have strange sores, or another infection, a biopsy will reveal abnormalities. The fact the CDC has not been sent any sample by a trained medical professional (or so the article claims), leads me to question the validity of the claims. There -are- procedures in place to deal with undiagnosed infections.
I'm not seeing the story here, and I'm reluctant to believe there is a grand conspiracy keeping a single sample from making it to the CDC.
..don't panic
The infected are known to be hostile and will attack you on sight! Do not take chances! Use extreme caution!
The only way to stop the infected is by destroying the brain or severing the head from the body!
The government advises all citizens to return to their places of residence and begin stockpiling water and food. Do not make contact with any infected persons!
Or it could be the crazies have found one of the internets again.
My local hospital had a patient reporting something very similar - claimed that bugs were eating her and her son, and she was itching all over. Examination showed she did, in fact, have rashes - from direct self-inflicted skin irritation - and the 'bugs' she'd captured in a little baggy were most definitely lint.
She got told to stop scratching and put some cream on it, and she got a nice friendly psych consult.
Never, ever underestimate how many crazies there are. Just ask anyone in retail or another customer-facing industry if you don't believe me.
-EvilMagnus
This website reads like timecube. What's with the baby blue background, gratuitous overuse of "quotation marks", and broad statements about the medical community willfully ignoring the person? Can we perhaps get some authoritative sites? Seriously, doctors are just as curious as the rest of us and if there were really something here I'm sure there would be papers on it. All the evidence this site presents are out-of-context photos of some fibrous stuff. For all I know that's your belly button lint.
Evil will always win, because Good is DUMB
It's particularly telling that the 'big' sites that 'cover' this 'malady' don't actually show pictures of symptomatic sufferers or anything noteworthy like that. No, instead we get useless SEM photos of fibres, bits of dust and ECU shots of cat scratches.
Grow Your Own Sweater.
There are all sorts of illnesses that doctors refuse to treat because "it doesn't exist in the area". Lyme disease isn't recognized to be in certain states, so doctors there can't or won't diagnose it, lest a political fallout ensue. Of course there are rumours too that Lyme is some engineered bug, and so the CDC doesn't want word that it's widely spread to get around for that reason...
Oh You POS
There is an awfully accusatory tone in much of this directed at doctors and the medical community at large.
You can't blame the doctors for being skeptical about a mystery illness in which nothing can be detected
by even the most sensitive diagnostic tools. They are simply following the old medical axoim of
"When you hear hooves, think of horses not zebras"
Whats more likely? A mysterious undetectable problem, or that it really is in these peoples heads?
"Morgellan's Syndrome?" Dude, that still sounds like the plot of a bad sci-fi movie. Do they cure it by reversing the polarity of Jordie's visor and routing a graviton particle beam through Data's knee?
Perhaps you should change the icon from Einstein to Miss Cleo.
HTH, HAND.
Lynch's preferred treatment: the antipsychotic drug risperidone--which works, he says, in as little as two weeks.
Yeah.
You ever hear of Koro? It's a "disease" that happens in some areas of east Asia, where the victim has the constant sensation that his penis is retracting into his body.
Sometimes things that aren't there seem to appear, for no reason other than that we have given them a name.
This disease does not exist. The people who have it have mental issues and the "doctors" who treat them with expensive medicines and quackery are snake oil salesmen.
Perhaps it might be useful to tell such patients they suffer from a parasitic infection called psychstimulbugitus. Its where they get infected by small parasites which grow off the nutrients found in amphemetmines, cocaine and other psycho-stimulants. The cure? Stop feeding them the nutrients. By the way. By coincidence, the captcha human validation code below is cocaine...
Maybe it's a nanotech experiment gone wrong. Grey goo that reacts with cellulose or cell walls has leaked into the water system after an animal came into contact with it at a subdermal level, and then died of its injuries, and is now spreading the material particle by particle into the water system of a nearby town.
This is referred to as "delusions of parasitosis".
http://www.emedicine.com/derm/topic939.htm
The *sensation* they have is "real", not to sound like Morpheus: feels like bugs in skin. The sensation goes away quickly when Pimozide is prescribed.
It's not all that uncommon.
It's very hard to convince patients that they need Pimozide, and not a can of "Raid" to spray on themselves.
There's another web site that has been around longer relating to the same issue:
http://www.skinparasites.com/
They misinterpret lint, fibers, dust, and other debris as parasites; sort of a variant of hearing voices/OCD/other disorders where sensations are spurious or can't be correctly decoded.
When it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, it must be a duck.
When there's no evidence that it's a duck, it's delusional. What motivated this late night posting? Perhaps additional delusion.
Not to discount the earnest sentiments of real people, I'll agree that it's a little 'tin-hat' to be taken seriously. But then the medical community has done bad things before, like missing the value of "Lorenzo's Oil" and other odd-but-true associations.
That fact still doesn't explain the posting.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Tag the story fud, stupid, etc. As the previous posters have pointed out, this just sounds like a load of bs. And a link to Popular Mechanics!?!? I stopped taking them seriously when I saw one cover that said "Secret Government Plane!!!111 Exclusive details inside!!!1111!!!" (ok, sans the exclamations, but really, seriously--come on!) It borders on yellow journalism, and whatever it is, it's not the most trustworthy resource.
Before you die, you see DoubleRing...
It's a hoax. Notice how all of the images of exotic multi-colored fibers are close-ups where you can't see the person or the sores they talk about. The pictures of people with sores on them show people with plain sores.
So, these little creatures crap out fibers in all the different colors of the rainbow? She should make a scarf out of them.
/.?
Man, these people are freakin nuts! What a waste of time. How did this ever get on
All the hits generated will only help confirm that lady's crazy ass halucinations to herself...
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. -Confucius
Those dark filaments coming out of your skin? Us norms call that "body hair."
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'd mod you up if I had points. I'm a medical student and I got the chance to take a history on a patient claiming to have this syndrome. It ended up that we gave him risperidone. If I'm not mistaken, pimozide has some fairly bad side effects and isn't normally prescribed these days. Then again, I'm only a med student.
Once a guy stood all day shaking bugs from his hair. The doctor told him there were no bugs in his hair. After he had taken a shower for eight hours, standing under hot water hour after hour suffering the pain of the bugs, he got out and dried himself, and he still had bugs in his hair; in fact, he had bugs all over him. A month later he had bugs in his lungs.
... like "Aphids don't bite people."
Having nothing else to do or think about, he began to work out theoretically the life cycle of the bugs, and, with the aid of the Britannica, try to determine specifically which bugs they were. They now filled his house. He read about many different kinds and finally noticed bugs outdoors, so he concluded they were aphids. After that decision came to his mind it never changed, no matter what other people told him
They said that to him because the endless biting of the bugs kept him in torment. At the 7-11 grocery store, part of a chain spread out over most of California, he bought spray cans of Raid and Black Flag and Yard Guard. First he sprayed the house, then himself. The Yard Guard seemed to work the best.
As to the theoretical side, he perceived three stages in the cycle of the bugs. First, they were carried to him to contaminate him by what he called Carrier-people, which were people who didn't understand their role in distributing the bugs. During that stage the bugs had no jaws or mandibles (he learned that word during his weeks of scholarly research, an unusually bookish occupation for a guy who worked at the Handy Brake and Tire place relining people's brake drums). The Carrier-people therefore felt nothing. He used to sit in the far corner of his living room watching different Carrier-people enter -- most of them people he'd known for a while, but some new to him -- covered with the aphids in this particular nonbiting stage. He'd sort of smile to himself, because he knew that the person was being used by the bugs and wasn't hip to it.
"What are you grinning about, Jerry?" they'd say.
He'd just smile.
In the next stage the bugs grew wings or something, but they really weren't precisely wings; anyhow, they were appendages of a functional sort permitting them to swarm, which was how they migrated and spread -- especially to him. At that point the air was full of them; it made his living room, his whole house, cloudy. During this stage he tried not to inhale them.
Most of all he felt sorry for his dog, because he could see the bugs landing on and settling all over him, and probably getting into the dog's lungs, as they were in his own. Probably -- at least so his empathic ability told him -- the dog was suffering as much as he was. Should he give the dog away for the dog's own comfort? No, he decided: the dog was now, inadvertently, infected, and would carry the bugs with him everywhere.
Sometimes he stood in the shower with the dog, trying to wash the dog clean too. He had no more success with him than he did with himself. It hurt to feel the dog suffer; he never stopped trying to help him. In some respect this was the worst part, the suffering of the animal, who could not complain.
"What the fuck are you doing there all day in the shower with the goddamn dog?" his buddy Charles Freck asked one time, coming in during this.
Jerry said, "I got to get the aphids off him." He brought Max, the dog, out of the shower and began drying him. Charles Freck watched, mystified, as Jerry rubbed baby oil and talc into the dog's fur. All over the house, cans of insect spray, bottles of talc, and baby oil and skin conditioners were piled and tossed, most of them empty; he used many cans a day now.
"I don't see any aphids," Charles said. "What's an aphid?"
"It eventually kills you," Jerry said. "That's what an aphid is. They're in my hair and my skin and my lungs, and the goddamn pain is unbearable -- I'm going to have to go to the hospital."
"How come I can't see them?"
Jerry put down the dog, which was wrapped in a towel,
-1 Paranoid ravings
Who let the slashdot editors start posting stories without parental supervision again? This whole story is crap.
I am still confused by all this, it ressembles more like lint than a disease.
Then, I'm no doctor.
..One way or another. Ok, so I laughed at the "Grow your own sweater" comment =) but let's face it Only two options here - it's fake an in their heads or it's real and it's a problem. In the latter case, there are a LOT of strange diseases out there, we have procedures and people to investigate this and so they should. In the former case they still need help, though arguably of a psychiatric nature.
The healthcare professionals (Doctors/etc) should really not be turning these people away quite so easily imho. Yep we have a lot of 'crazy people' out there but it probably doesn't help having them sit in the corner of their houses spraying themselves with Raid/Baygon.
Jon - TheSpork
Don't be such a skeptic.
Check for sinus infection. This could be caused by insufflation (snorting) of cocaine, amphetamines or heroin.
Having had someone I know go to Guatemala in 97 for some Amnesty International work, come back having contracted Maleria (She was living in Georgia at the time). IIRC it took the Staff a good month before they came to the conclusion that... oh, you have Maleria. This despite her own research of the clockwork fevers and weakness. This despite knowing that she had recently returned from a part of the world where Maleria was pervasive.
Doctors aren't perfect, and if something is outside of their experience, oftentimes they're not going to know what is going on. And to compound the problem there are some doctors who look for additional help, at least not right away. That's not a slam on Doctors, simply a point of human nature. I don't see the issue being a political one, more of a, 'but that doesn't happen here, so that can't be what's wrong' issue.
"The bass, the rock, the mic, the treble. I like my coffee black, just like my metal" - Mindless Self Indulgence
Parasitosis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusional_parasitosi s
I stopped drinking for a few days ago, and hadn't done any meth in about a week, so I know my mind was really clear for a change. And all of a sudden they were on MY SKIN! They were UNDER IT TOO! LITTLE CRAWLY THINGS! YAAIIIIIIGHHHH!
So I started drinking again, and they stopped. They don't like alcohol--figured that one out myself. Don't need no stinkin' CDC, sheeoot.
'Nuff said!
Could this just be a hoax website (a la Bonzi Kittens)? I think Pop. Mech. just got suckered into this one.
Dr. Nick Riviera: "Sir, calm down, you're going to give yourself skin failure. The symptoms you describe lead me to believe that you are suffering from bonus eruptus, a rare disorder in which the skeleton tries to jump out of the skin. The only way to stop it is through transdental electromicide. I'll need a golf cart motor and a thousand volt capacimator, stat."
Since these fibers are obviously ordinary textile fuzz and lint, that means that the poor kid's delusional mom is inflicting the condition upon him. I hope that their doctor had the sense to contact someone in Social Services.
Don't worry, I have mod points! Oh, wait...
Before you die, you see DoubleRing...
Yeah the disease may be mental because drugs for schizophrenic patients alleviate it. But Morgellons seem to be on the uprise. Maybe people are not being infected with skin parasites, but instead are being tainted with somethin that makes them think they have skin parasites. Possibly people are being infected by some parasite that infects/affects their brain. There are numerous examples where some parasite that infects say an insect or mouse alters the behavior of the animal so that it is easy for a predator to catch it, eat it, and become infected.
I've seen worse but only on April fools day.
LoL April Fools has passsed along with the pink ponnies!
I've been lurking on Slashdot for years and seen some pretty asinine things put up, but this tops all. As if sitting here at 2am wasn't enough of a waste of my time... ;)
There should be a new section named whackjobs.slashdot.org for posts like this.
On the other hand, if this is part of a campaign to get people to register congratulations you succeeded.
Ironic that I feel lame linking wikipedia for a school report and she's citing this garbage for a news report with national coverage.
http://www.carnicom.com/ground8.htm
http://www.carnicom.com/FibersNov2005.htm
http://www.carnicom.com/mortal2.htm
It's not exactly a hoax - altought there are a few people who might be considered to be quacks, they really seem to believe in it. Here's the board the wackiest post on: http://lymebusters.proboards39.com/index.cgi?board =rash
And here's a pretty comprehensive set of articles debunking the whole thing:
http://morgellonswatch.blogspot.com/
Finally, in 2001 diagnosed by Dr. Theresa Yang (brilliant woman) with Lyme Disease, Bartonella Henselae, and Babesia Microti.
And Yang is brilliant because she made a diagnosis that supported the author... typical pseudoscience IMHO.
Please don't get me wrong, this may indeed be a disease or syndrome. But reporting like this does nothing to help reach a considered, objective or sane decision.
The *sensation* they have is "real", not to sound like Morpheus: feels like bugs in skin.
Yes, this is (IMO) one of the more bizarre aspects of psychosis - it's not just the the people suffering from it *believe* in things that aren't true, they actually experience some of them directly.
I've known a couple of people with schizophrenia, and while it's a terrible condition, it gave me a lot of respect for the power of our minds.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Who wants to bet this part of a "viral marketing" campaign for the upcoming movie?
Mod me down, that's fine. First off, most of the comments here did'nt even RTFA and just looked at the pics. Yet most answers should be modded down to 0. Why is this far fetched? Never woke up getting bit, had a cockroach in you're mouth, (never lived down south heh?) or had other weird bug experiences? Some people have extreme reations to stuff, like.., trees, grass, anything non-concrete, mold, and insects. (list can go on and on.) So, why is so *ucking impossible? I used to think that carpal tunnel was bs, but a few months ago I had a sharp pain in my right arm, and now I'm due for surgery in June. Poof!
Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...
Partially off topic: I have an undiagnosed skin infection that's flummoxed more than a dozen real doctors in real clinics and hospitals for more than a year. BUT it's not spreading, only verly slowly leaving soem ugly scarring on the affected skin. I've been through viral id and fungal tests (all negative) but since they determined only by elimination that the cellulitis must be bacterial, I can't get any of the GP or dermatologists to do anything but throw antibiotics at me. More than 10 courses of antibiotics later (including Cipro and topical Clindamyacin), I'm basically just containing the infection and slowly accumulating more scar tissue.
...But I can't seem to get anyone to do a damn culture. I've never before been refused a referral, but I get the brush-off or referral to unavailable doctors when I request the one thing that could simply identify the problem. Short of calling the CDC and sounding like a kook, what's a guy to do when the local medical resources just aren't interested in your weird condition because you're neither particularly interesting, nor actively dying?
Check all of today's stories to verify.
Let's play Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I'll be Pestilence.
When did Slashdot get taken over by the Weekly World News?
In "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors", Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan write of a study done on overpopulation in animal societies. Rats went nuts, apes held out a little longer, and chimpanzees held out the longest. It looks like, thus far, humans hold the record. The point is, there's a lot of this type of thing floating around these days, it seems. Perhaps because of the media we just happen to pay more attention to it, or are just now realizing what's been with us all along. Or perhaps this is all a sign of an overcrowded population doing a bad job of coping with a crowded habitat and diminishing resources.
It is called belly button lint. I am glad I am not alone.
'Same speed C but faster'
This is so obviously some sad scam - weasels ripped my flesh ... bah
In this case, there's a suspicious connection reported on multiple web sites about people with this disease being co-diagnosed with Lyme disease. While this "Morgellons" parasite-disease may be a delusion, it probably has a neurologic, organic cause, due to suddenness of onset and other factors. I wouldn't be surprised if the cause turned out to be Lyme disease, which can have a wide range of neuropsychiatric effects including delusions, hallucinations, memory problems, suicidal and homicidal ideation, thought disorder, and severe cognitive deficits . One quote from TFA is quite telling:
. The fact that it may respond to antibiotics may indicate some relation to a bacterial illness, in particular Lyme. It's truly an insidious disease that can go undetected and undiagnosed for many years while patients' lives deteriorate - and no doctors are literate enough in the treatment of this disease to treat it adequately.
In any case, the medical establishment is often too quick to diagnose a patient with a complaint it does not understand as a primary-onset psychiatric disorder. By doing this, they cause a great deal of harm by delaying treatment in the case that the disease is *not* a psychiatric disorder. In order for medicine to be able to heal people, it needs to stop this trend and start taking earnest, persistent reports of people's pain seriously - even if it is delusional. If all of the possible organic causes have been researched and exhausted, only then is it time to take out the prescription pad for anti-psychotic or other psychiatric medication.
Is this story 50 days late or 315 days early?
In the issue at hand, there may be a common, tangible factor causing the numerous instances of Morgellon's Syndrome. Given the horrendous amount of chemicals that accumulate in non-organic foods, would anyone be surprised that these chemicals may be affecting the operation of the human brain?
Has anyone done an analysis of the types of food that victims (of Morgellon's Syndrome) eat? Is there a pattern?
do you people even read the article or just look at the pictures in the last link? Some of these people have been inflicted for over 15 years, and everytime they go to a doctor, the doctor thinks they're crazy and sends them home.
When several hundred stories start popping up at the same time, and all the patients suffer the same symptoms, at least listen and research more on the subject. You people act as if you've discovered everything already, and that anything new is instantly fake unless someone smarter than you(like scientists) verify it.
See, my problem with "doctors" is that they're book smart. New medicine and new techniques to cure diseases come from scientists. But the only way a scientist know about a disease is if a doctor tells them. Except when you have a bunch of doctors who are book smart, they instantly think anything remotely weird means the patient is crazy.
Even the article makes it abundantly clear that an infection is not the problem. The real story here is the stigma attached to anything relating to mental health. That is not to say these people are not suffering. The problem is they refuse the professional's opinion out of hand. These people are so frightened of being considered "delusional" that they act in ways that make the rest of us think they are nuts:
When Miles Lawrence sped to the hospital, he was told he had delusional parasitosis and that the weird spines were "just dirt." But over the next week his symptoms got worse. He scratched at his elbows and noticed more fibers, and little black specks. "It was like they were fighting back," he says.
It is more important to Lawrence to insist he is not delusion (or perhaps there are some other incentives, such as being special enough to be written into a Popular Mechanics article, or the attention one receives when one has a scary-sounding disease such as "Morgellons Syndrome") than to end his suffering through several apparently effective cures. Those that allow treatment see the alleviation of symptoms within weeks!
I thought it was finally gonna kill me....
Thread Started on May 17, 2006, 3:33am [Quote]
Hi guys
My girlfriend wanted to show off her new car so (as always) insisted I go with her and get out of this house. The car is too bitchin.........a convertible with an amazing sound system. Even though I tried to tell her (and other friends) how I won't feel comfortable in her brand new car because I'm afraid of contaminating it....they always tell me to stop worrying about it. If they don't have it by now, they must be immune to it. There are too many times they don't want to hear it and won't let me use it as an excuse not to go somewhere. This disease hurts in more ways than one. We put some good tunes in the cd and headed off for town.
I' m 52 yrs. old, but I doubt I'll ever grow up and out of doing stupid kid stuff sometimes. Before we got into the city, we were pushing 90mph (therefore doing stupid kid stuff was already on the menu), so I stood up in my seat, stretched out my arms and started singin' some stupid song about flying. I'd pretty much forgotten how good it feels to feel that free. I love anything anyway, when it gives you the feeling that you're flying... I've always wanted to be able to! It took my mind off of all of this sh*t we're living in too.. for awhile anyway.
We got into town and she talked another good friend of mine into going for a spin. This time, I let him ride up front and I got in the back seat. It was alot more windy back there than it was up front! We head out towards the country and (duh), I decided I might as well stand up from the back seat too, since it made me feel like a kid on the first run. But this time it was more like being in a tornado. Soon after, I started feeling like my hair was being tied in knots with live electrical wires. I didn't want to say anything so I just stayed low to lessen the wind as much as I could.
By the time we got back to Mike's house, I was feeling very strange. I got out of the car and all of a sudden I felt like I was gonna pass out. I got my wit's about me, but then I started having the most frightening sensations in my head.
I got inside and went into the bathroom. When I looked at my reflection in the mirror, I pretty much went into a state of shock (no pun intended). I felt like I was on an island...totally and completely alone and I couldn't do anything but stand there, frozen. I could actually see what was taking place UNDERNEATH my scalp! I don't ever remember being so petrified and I felt like the inside of my head was being electrocuted.
What happened will be difficult to put into words..but I'll try the best I can.
I'll use the words "masses" and "wires", to make it easier (I hope) to understand how I felt. Just try to imagine...
Inside of my head closer to my brain than to my scalp, located on top and above my ears on each side, it feels like 4 or more masses crackling with electrical energy. "Wires" with the same electro magnetic properties feel like they're weaving in and out of each mass. The wires begin to crawl around inside of my head. There's an enormous amount of static and the top of my head is crackling. These "wires" seem frantic and confused, like they need some sort of guidance. All of a sudden, each individual mass from inside of my head begins pushing up from underneath my scalp with an incredible and frightening force. There is so much force coming from each individual mass as they push, that I can actually SEE each one move my scalp up and down! The static and the crackling is even more extreme than earlier. I got so pale as I stood there holding on to the sink. I couldn't believe what I was seeing...and I was terrified from what I was feeling. I thought it was gonna kill me. The episode lasted about 1/2 hour. I still can't believe this happened.
A bit later my girlfriend took me back to my house, but on my way home I stopped and bought a can of "Static Guard" (stuff you spray on clothes to reduce static electricity). I sprayed myself head to toe with it and
Step 1: Get a written statement from one, two, or perferably, three GP's or dermatologists you have an undiagnosable skin condition or other aliment that is not psychological in nature.
Step 2: Get a phone book or google and find out the nearest university medical research center in your geographic area.
Step 3: Armed with the affadavits in Step 1, contact professors at the university specializing in pathology, dermatology, biology.. just about any -ology except geology, or phrenology, haha. You might have to try a couple, but you WILL find someone interested in your case. Those people have the training, resources, and credentials to find out if there is something novel about your condition. They will pay you no mind without Step 1.
Good luck.
..don't panic
While I think the site is a joke, this reminds me of a story where a couple was infected with worms that caused lesions all over the skin. They went to different hospitals, which all the doctors think they're a little nutty and probably drug addicts that hallucinate about worms under their skin.
... a lot of doctors are kinda dumb about what's not in the book, and will not listen after they deal of a particular symptom.
After the third or fourth hospital, they luck out with a Russian doctor who saw it before and treated them. The moral of the story is
Bitching about it won't make it change.
Trust me - you just get ignored.
Doctors and medical researchers, like those in any other scientific field, have been taught a certain paradigm for understanding health and disease. Anything not explainable within that framework tends to be overlooked or ignored -- just look at the battles the homeopathic community has to fight; some of them are wackos perhaps, but many of them have treatments superior to those of "modern" medicine.
For a long time, disease was regarded as a curse; people just didn't understand that a small animal called a germ could infect your body and cause illness. What a silly concept! As such, illnesses were misdiagnosed and mistreated for centuries. Then modern medicine came along, but it still wasn't aware of another class of germ, the virus (which is non-living). Eventually, knowledge of viruses became well-established and accepted. But then there was a whole new class of non-microbial, disease-causing agent that flummoxed the establishment: only recently has the existence of the prion, a hostile mal-formed protein, been acknowledged. And then there's radiation poisoning, something that wouldn't have been understood at all 150 years ago.
What if there are other undiscovered disease agents? It's immensely hubristic to assume modern medicine has everything figured out yet.
I've read about significant outbreaks of Morgellon's Syndrome in non-mainstream publications like the Fortean Times. It's serious, and whatever it is, it's not made up. That it's frequently present alongside other unusual diseases like Lyme disease doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It took researchers years to figure out that a stealthy virus called HIV was enabling other diseases to destroy people's bodies. Likewise, it'll take some clever thinking and new detection methods to figure out what's behind Morgellon's.
It's the edge cases that test the establishment. If leprosy emerged today and was more rare, chances are the medical profession would reject its existence; after all, the bacteria that causes it cannot be cultured in the lab, unlike all other known bacteria. Its mode of transmission is also a mystery; it's practically non-contagious from personal contact, and the cause of nearly all infections is unknown. The bacteria itself is also not directly responsible for the lesions and other visible symptoms.
To anyone who thinks Morgellon's must necessarily be a load of nonsense: pray that you never get infected by that "nonsense" yourself. For the people affected, it really sucks.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
-----
Quoth the Raven: "Squawk!".
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
See, my problem with "doctors" is that they're book smart. New medicine and new techniques to cure diseases come from scientists. But the only way a scientist know about a disease is if a doctor tells them. Except when you have a bunch of doctors who are book smart, they instantly think anything remotely weird means the patient is crazy.
Republican logic.
The quality of Slashdot's stories is astounding. I started reading slashdot so that I wouldn't have to search for "news for nerds, stuff that matters" myself. This is neither news for nerds(except for the sci-fi reference) nor stuff that matters.
Wikipedia says that Pimozide should be used as a "drug of last resort" and is strongly suspected to be a carcinogen.
How well do other drugs work in treating delusional parasitosis?
Be aware of skinparasites.com - they are scammers. I once tried to figure out some skin problems I had, they almost convinced me a) I had that and b) to give them $10k for "research".. I was desperate and younger but I chose not to give them the money.
Pretty disgusting and very paranoid people. Mention anything and all of a sudden you have a parasitic infection and no one will listen.. it's us vs them fancy pance doctors. So give us money and we'll solve this.
Crooks.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
We are in the early stages of this thing being accepted as even existing, but as more people show up with it, eventually the medical establishment will more likely take it seriously, too. When AIDS first appeared, it was not accepted as a real disease either.
It's unfortunate that a key symptom of Morgellons, the 'crawling bugs' sensation, matches a key symptom of chronic methamphetamine use, but while it could be argued that the bug sensation is purely a mental and unprovable symptom, the Morgellons sufferer is not certainly not imagining the demonstrable weird hairlike protrusions from their skin. No, it's not laundry lint. Samples have been analyzed and even PCR DNA analysis done. This is a real, a weird, and most certainly a parasitic-spread, disease, and a nasty one. This is not a game.
Please resist the temptation to scoff at unfortunate suffering people. You might be one of them soon: it is possible that one way that Morgellons is spreading is in contaminated bedding in hotels and motels. The US is experiencing some pretty serious outbreaks of bedbugs in the travel industry, and if Morgellons is spread by a parasitic mite, tick, or nematode as is theorized, it can and will be distributed the same way rapidly. The many illegals employed as maids in this industry, in California for example, have no concept of prevention, and bedbugs are getting to be a real problem for travellers. Even expensive hotels in New York City have a real problem with it.
The CDC finds that the US has a large increase in drug-resistent TB and leprosy coming in from illegal workers. It is not out of the question that parasitic-vectored diseases are also coming in too. A second possibility is that Morgellons is coming into the US in imported goods, such as furniture and clothing. It is interesting that the reported cases are much more prevalent in warm southern states or California. Could it be that insects in goods die if cold, and warmth helps them? The government should allocate some money allocated to investigate this. In these global times, the US is wide open and susceptible to little-recognized things. The Asian beetle came in with pallet wood from overseas, and now is devastating American native trees.
I'm being invaded by belly button lint! Get it off of me! Aieeeee...
Seriously. Lesions containing cellulose fibers in designer colors? Where are they supposed to come from? Invasive sesame seeds with a 70's designer heritage? This looks like an Internet hoax.
In any case, as far as doctors are concerned, it doesn't matter what they tell patients since even if there were such an organism, nobody would have a clue how to begin treating it.
You're completely right, however, that LA news video was the most hilariously sensationalist segment I've seen in a while. It really got me laughing out loud.
Limina.Log
but, but, if we didn't post this stuff, who would go see the movie??
ôó
Some kind of herpes-like thing would sure cause the pain and itching.
So then you're looking for something to blame and you see a few fibers that you'd never noticed before... that'd do it. Obviously the fiber-like things must be the source of the pain, so they can't be just fibers.
And which marketing company do you work for, again?
I like how the main medical "authority" is a nurse.
Not to put down the hard training and work they do... but they're not doctors for a reason people... They're not really trained to diagnose and treat new diseases. That it hasnt been submitted to the CDC sorta sours me on the idea. We have systems for weeding out this sort of psychosis for a REASON... to keep the important stuff important, and the small/nutball stuff, well, where it belongs, in the round bottom bin.
I feel bad for these people, but I really do feel like it's mostly in their heads.
Compare symptoms with this. Apply Occams Razor.
n/t
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
. As for the mental part of the disease, it seems that humans over the thousands and thousands of years have developed a basic disgust and revulsion to small crawling things on the skin -- spiders, lice, bed bugs, centipedes, worms, scorpions and so on. There is a good reason for that, those things are associated with disease, poison bites, and un-cleanliness. On average, people would probably be less afraid of a wolf than of one of those creepy-crawly things. That is why it is not surprise that a good percentage of these cases are mental.
Mind you doctors still don't know that much about the human skin. There is no cure for rosacea -- some think it is the demodex mite that causes it, some think it is a bacterial infection, some suspect it is just genetic. Some antibiotics have been shown to work, sometimes lasers help too, but nothing definite. A lot of guess work. Doctors are not gods, they only know what other doctors may have published in a journal or by doing research themselves (rarely happens). So just because they haven't been able to find anything doesn't mean it is not there.
Oh, no the people who clean our shit up don't work as hard as we like for the few pennies we care to throw them.
What racist crap.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
"...Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own..."
Resistance... is FUTILE.
You... will be... assimi..lated
Between the Borg hello message and the report of this "crawing sensation", I feel shivers down my spine...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Taurox has been evaluated by homeopathic experts and is registered with the FDA.
Homeopathic experts?!?
Call Sharon now and use the following Code Number and because we are people "greatly in need," you get an additional 15% discount off of the price.
Right, and who gets a cut from this "Code Number"? Note that the person was already "80% better" (from standard antibiotic treatments) before the miracle of Taurox entered the picture, apparently providing that last 20% boost for the "fatigue" that remained after the mainstream treatment.
And the very odd thing is that the Morgellons Research Foundation site has no mention of Taurox at all.
Moreover, this story had already been reported on digg as "Doctors puzzled over bizarre infection surfacing in South Texas", and then marked as Readers have reported that this story contains information that may not be accurate.
/. presents less articles, I thought that it would present the best of what I would see on Digg ... but actually, in my opinion, this is not the case: I have seen interesting facts appear on Digg and not on /. , and Very Bogus Stories(tm) appear on Digg, be marked as such, and then appear on /. What /. does best is present facts in a more professional looking way ; you know,
Digg is usually too sensational, all those capitals and exclamation marks; The Register enjoys a dry Brit humor that makes the article mostly incomprehensible to me; /. has this cool CNN feeling that makes it sound oh so competent.... unless you start comparing content, then you notice that reviewers are not doing their best jobs lately.
I was also surprised, from time to time, to see some posts that were marked as '5 intersting' while being blatantly false , and replies that were just marked 2 when they were correcting the error; this was another shot at my confidence in /. overall competence.
For some time I tried to connect to Digg RSS feeds, but found that it passes too many articles for me to be able to read them all; since
I can't speak about what these people feel, or why.
But, what I can speak about from experience, is that all the pictures on their website ARE NOT made by medical personnel or equipment, or else this personnel has to be fired. I know since I view medical pictures every day in the course of my job.
They are all blurred and noisy and there's no way to know the exact size of samples. This, more than the stories themselves, makes the whole difficult to be trusted.
BTW I've myself got a strange condition : I've got greenish, slimy, self reproducing insects which live in my nose, and which make me want to scratch it all the time. As of today, noone has been able to explain this very rare infection to me.
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
News for nerds? News for credulous nitwits these days. Somebody gave this an "insightful"?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I'm not one for quackery or anything else, nor do I know anyone who's had this "disease", nor do I believe there is some Giant Government Conspiracy to infect the population with chemtrails designed by Karl Rove or other nonsense...
But rather than freakin' dismissing everything as paranoia, wouldn't it be a good idea to actually *investigate* this? The article, along with a writeup in the American Journal of Clinical Dermatology bring a very important point. When diagnosing something as psychosomatic, make sure that the pyschological symptoms are the primary cause of what's going on, not secondary in nature or being caused by something else.
See also an interesting study from the Oklahoma Dept. of Health I found with 2 minutes of Googling.
Is it a bioengineered weapon from evil crazed oil companies? No. But whatever the underlying medical cause(s) of some of this is, it deserves a legitimate medical investigation. Isn't that what science is about?
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
This is amazing! Zonk (who I'm sure will not be reading this lowly comment) - what the hell!? My reaction to this is just plain indescribable. I think this has finally done it - I have been a daily /. reader for the last 7 years, but this article may be the official shark-jumper. WOW. W-O-W.
1) There's been attention to Morgellons for only the last few years; my post, and the recent coverage, is not part of a PR campaign for something like a movie or anything. It's not about money or PR. It's about public health, a subject I particularly care about.
2) As for ignorance of hygiene practices by too many foreign workers, I speak from personal observation. Having stayed in California motels a lot over the years and seen too many cases of things like an illegal who cleaned the toilet with a rag and THEN the sink with the same rag; she spoke no English and when I complained could not understand that there was anything wrong. Another maid had a heavy TB-like cough and nailed my pillow while doing the bed. Hate to think what she was spreading. I quote only two instances; I have too many more accumulated to not believe what I believe. Why do I care? Because after an illegal worker coughed in my face years ago I rapidly came down with something exotic that took going through three doctors and several years to find a cure for. Finally a longterm course of antibiotics cleared up my lung infection. Yeah, call me racist for being angry. And you know what else? A lot of restaurants in this area use illegals as kitchen support staff; food workers are required to have TB immunization. I've got news for you: the illegals don't. Enjoy your fine dining experience, pal. In general I am not impressed with the health and hygiene practices of people with 3rd grade or 6th grade or whatever educations. Whether American or foreign. But in particular, many illegals never had any chance for a good education including such things as the health courses we get in school. I know that infectious diseases are on the upswing in the US. You may not care about the source, it is your choice as a idiot, sir. But I do.
"I've been reading /. for years and have noticed a general downward trend in the quality of stories posted, but this represents an all-time low."
I've been around for at least 5 years, when were Slashdot's stories high quality?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Ah, you must be the dermatologist that refused to run an allergy test on me several years back when I had reoccurring skin rashes. After all, it could not have been real, it must have been imagined. Why waste the money ruling out an actual cause of itchiness when you can just wave the "it's all in your head" wand...
Thank the dieties I found another doctor who ran a skin allergy test and found one of the more severe cases of mite allergy to come through his office in a long while. A few months of allergy meds and environmental changes later, no rashes, no itchiness, no "mental dellusions".
I have. I can remember some of the times, but I think it's a theme that is repeating itself in the first minute after waking up, then I forget about it.
Just this very morning I woke up and saw a spider walking across my vision. It was a bit different this time, because it was really walking in thin air, not following any walls like previous times I can remember. The more I focused on it, the clearer it became, but then today it just walked out of my vision in thin air.
I've always known these are tricks of the mind, just after waking up. Suddenly they disappear where they are, leaving me looking at empty walls, or walk quickly out of vision. It happens when I'm lazy in the morning and sleeping, dreaming, waking up almost at the same time.
Calling people "crazies" is stupid. They are being fooled by their minds, and need therapy and care. Just because someone is difficult to deal with doesn't mean they should be brushed off.
Actually it sounds to me like the people working them for minimum wage (or less) are also not training them to do their jobs.
The limited expierence I have had with hispanic workers of questionable legallity leads me to believe that they work far harder than the general population.
If someone has no concept of their job in a fairly siple procedural one like that it is the manager that is most at fault.
It kind of reminds me of the (made up) story about Sun Tzu where he is tested/dared to make soldiers out of women.
"if a general gives orders and they are not followed because they are unclear, it is the fault of the general".
Cleaning staff not cleaning do to "no concept" is a clear case of that, and the same people who will grossly take advantage of illegals to save a few dollors (minimum wage isn't much) are probably the same that would not train them to actually seperate dirty and clean and clean sheets propperly at the detriment of customers.
As for the resistant TB mentioned by GP, the real solution is to pressure Mexico into controlling Anti-biotics better so that the TB is killed, and not naturally selected to be more resistant (of course minimal free health care for our own less fortunate would probably help prevent resistant strains too).
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
However it was a result of psychosis and usually occurred when I was having a bad episode. Proper medication and counseling has made the thoughts, feelings and scratching go away. I know that many cocaine and Meth users can suffer from this delusion also at times.
You must shoot for thier heads!
Having watched an interview with several 'sufferers', they all display traits of someone actively imagining a psychosomatic illness.
A few people have said "if that's the case, where do the fibres come from?" Their couch obviously. What people don't grasp entirely with a psychosomatic illness is that there's a preconceived desire to be fascinatingly ill. If the disease was scars, they'd cut themselves then believe the cuts appeared from a virus. In this case they're pulling up fluff and developing a backstory in their heads. They may or may not believe it, but this is the nature of the illness.
Here's a published paper http://www.morgellons.org/AJCDerm1.pdf (American Journal of Clinical Dermatology 2006, Volume 7, Issue)
Homeopathic treatment isn't rejected by classic medical science. It's just seen as what it (provably) is: A psychological treatment. It's a way to create a placebo, so to speak.
The reason why people think that Morgellon's is bullshit is that despite the described measurable symptoms, there is no analysis that goes beyond "looks like" or "feels like". If "fibers" are coming out of your skin, then get this stuff to a lab. The most plausible reason for the lack of such an analysis? It would reveal (or actually has revealed) that there is no special condition and people are simply panicking about normal bodily functions.
If leprosy emerged today and was more rare, chances are the medical profession would reject its existence; after all, the bacteria that causes it cannot be cultured in the lab, unlike all other known bacteria.
Actually, it grows very well in armadillos
I belive that vaccine researchers use them as a lab animal for the purpose of producing lots of fresh live bacteria. If you argue that this is not culturing in the lab, remember that the principal source of virus for influenza vaccine is fertilized chicken eggs.
I have treated patients with this. No one scoffs that these people need help. But this disease is not of primary skin pathology
My guess? After 40 years of diazepam, The shit is finally hitting the fan.
Newsflash: they spit in your hamburger too.
Why do you think that people who are paid shit wages give a damn about you?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Medical students already learn about shit that YOU wouldn't believe exists, stuff that afflicts much fewer people than "Morgellon's". There are very strict disease control rules and doctors couldn't ignore you even if they wanted. But there are also known and treatable diseases of the mind and people afflicted with them are KNOWN to reject the correct diagnosis.
The fact that hundreds claim to have a strange bug does not indicate at all that such a bug actually exists. In the days of the Internet, the occurrence pattern actually makes it more likely that it's a form of psychosis.
But if you tell someone who feels crawling under his skin that it's all in his mind and he needs antipsychotic treatment, he will not believe you. It's as simple as that. You can do all the analysing and be as believing as you want: If you follow through and come to the correct diagnosis, the patient will reject it because you are "book smart", don't "believe" the patient, think that classic science knows it all, etc.
Again, doctors all learn to consider really strange and even unknown diseases, but sometimes the disease isn't strange at all and the patient simply doesn't want to hear it, and that is part of the known symptoms.
http://www.ktvu.com/station/4170085/detail.html
There was some indication in their stories that it is being reported in bay/coastal areas of the US.
Not everyone they talked to was crazy or cracky.
They're making ANOTHER movie from one of his books? I'm in heaven! I'll join in!
Hey, my arm itches now after reading that... and there's all these funny black dots. (I haven't taken a shower yet this morning, but I'm not going to remember that on purpose.)
But seriously, his books are amazing and so far they have ALL translated into amazing movies. Even without him around! It takes REAL talent to write a book so well that they can't screw it up when they make a movie out of it.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Well, i have something in my foot thats iching me and i am scratching it to the point that it bleeds.
I had this for years (believing it would go away) , but recently i thought i should visit a doctor
Well, the doctor just by seeing this immediately described all the symptoms i should have (dead on).
Diagnosis? Too much stress.
Amazing as it may seem (at least to me) there was nothing wrong with my skin. It was all psychological.
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
This is the classic 'argument from ignorance'. To a some degree, you are correct- Lack of evidence is not the same as evidence of lack. However, this is only an argument of the possibility of something existing, not that something does actually exist. That's a pretty weak argument. It can be equally applied to almost any claim. Heck, it can be applied to Santa Claus existing.
just look at the battles the homeopathic community has to fight; some of them are wackos perhaps, but many of them have treatments superior to those of "modern" medicine.
Ah, now here you make a definitive argument: Homeopathic medicine is effective. However, you don't back it up with any evidence at all (and you've infected it with the old 'modern' medicine is ridgid strawman).
To anyone who thinks Morgellon's must necessarily be a load of nonsense
You've got it backwards. People aren't saying it "must necessarily" be nonsense. They're saying the evidence is weak, so it's not necessarily what the victims say it is. There are lots of possibilities about what is going on, from it being exactly what the victims claim to it being nothing at all, to a whole rainbow of things in between. So don't just accept it so readily. That's really showing a pretty closed mind. (And this goes for Homeopathy too, btw)
Doctors and medical researchers, like those in any other scientific field, have been taught a certain paradigm for understanding health and disease.
Yes, and that paradigm is: Examine the evidence.
Anything not explainable within that framework tends to be overlooked or ignored
Yep. When there's no evidence, doctors and medical researchers tend to ignore you, as do scientists and indeed all sane people.
just look at the battles the homeopathic community has to fight; some of them are wackos perhaps
And the remainder are frauds.
but many of them have treatments superior to those of "modern" medicine.
No. Modern medicine can provide sugar pills and distilled water just as well as any homeopath.
"I've read about significant outbreaks of Morgellon's Syndrome in non-mainstream publications like the Fortean Times."
Yeah. Uh. I applaud people who constantly look outside mainstream stuff for answers.... you're going to find some, and a few answers will sound nuts but turn out to be legit...
but really, saying, "I've read about outbreaks of a disease in a magazine known to cater to ufologists and people who'd call Art Bell!" is kind of shooting yourself in the foot.
I wonder if this isn't a stealth marketing campaign for a movie or something...except the out-break to get worse and make the national news before we find out...
Reminds me of a story from my local alternative weekly about a couple who contracted hookworms, but were diagnosed with delusional parasitosis when they went to doctors complaining of bugs under the skin. Just because something resembles the pathology of schizophrenia doesn't mean that it's not real, and getting a doctor to take you seriously isn't always easy. Morgellans sounds a little kooky, but I'm surprised to see so many Slashdotters dismissing it out of hand.
For several years I was having a problem with the feeling of little ants crawling over my face and forehead. After awhile I also started getting changes in the feeling of touch. I had areas on me where light touch can feel like I'm being burnt or electric shock. And other areas went somewhat numb. My cordination suffered and my short term memory seemed to not be as sharp. My Dr. had me taking antidepressants, was telling me I need to get a hobby and such , basically telling me it was in my head. Then I lost vision in one eye. I finally went to a Neurologist( crappy insurance requires the Dr to refer me ) and after an MRI and bloodwork was found to have MS. And I was told I had classic symptoms that should have told my Dr I was not imagining my problems.
I thought about suing him but instead reported him for what little worth that is.
Hey, i've got it, these are the result of victims becoming infected by those fibres, you know, the ones that look like carpet and clothing fibres but definitely aren't because the internet says so, which are scattered across the american countryside by commercial airplanes when they produce those strange and in some kind of high tech conspiracy, you know, chemtrails!
for more BS and wild speculation, head on over to http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/
It also can happen in people withdrawing from tranquilizers. Weeks in a row. Horrors.
Except that the medical scientist been wrong before. Refusing to identify diseases. Denying links. There was a time not so long ago when your doctor told you smoking was healthy. These doctors have not been rounded up and shot for being a disgrace to science so what is to say doctors of today are any more right?
Anyone remember how long it took before aids was accepted as disease? What about the whole gulf war syndrome.
On the other hand in this case why is there no evidence? Chronic pain is hard to photograph or collect in a bag but surely the black tar sweat and colored fibers can be collected and analyzed?
Yet there doesn't seem to be any.
I don't trust doctors blindly but a disease with such obvious physical sympthoms and no physical evidence sounds fishy to me.
But I find it slightly appaling that so many on Slashdot have a blind trust in doctors.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If I was Jack Bauer, I know what I'd do about hamburger spitters!
I do not do drugs, I do not drink. I have zero respect for the medical "profession". I have not seen a doctor in over 10 years and do not believe in presciption drugs of any kind.
About 6 years ago I started getting the crawlies. They have not gone away.
I have not encountered this weird lint stuff though, that is truly strange.
I am poor, I have never rented a place that did not have plenty of bugs. (I have dreams about clean new uninfested homes equipped with a washer and dryer... it must be like heaven.)
Enjoy your wealth and good health, you may not always have them.
It is very frustrating to see those blessed with wealth and good health make assumptions that anybody with chronic crawling sensations on their skin must be either a speed freak, psyhcotic or hypochondriac.
I deal with my affliction in quiet desperation, it is especially hard to resist scratching in social situations. Mind over matter will only work for so long, eventually I have to excuse myself and go scratch.
Frequent showers help, but only for a few hours, then the feeling returns. I have considered trying lindane spiked shampoos and detergents for lice treatment but am hesitant because of the toxic effects and I have never actually found a louse.
It is real. I am not insane. I do not want help or attention.
Life is painful and uncomfortable, when it stops hurting, it is time to worry.
Please do not judge, just count your blessings that you are not similarly afflicted.
I think most of the posts here miss the message. It looks like victims have had their DNA modified. Their bodies are basically MANUFACTURING a "almost wirelike" material. I'm sure this diesease may not even be curable.
So what is reprogramming them? That area of Texas has major farms, chemical plants, etc. Could even be massive amounts of RF signals in the neighborhood? Things to think about.
Gents, be so kind and do not post links to sites that attempt to upload shit (Symantec calls it Bloodhound). If this doesn't ring a bell about the article, then nothing will.
Apr 1st long gone - time to stop reading Slashdot perhaps.
I have treated patients with this. No one scoffs that these people need help. But this disease is not of primary skin pathology
Did you read any of the links? Like the third one, that points out that the fibers, of a proven non-textile orgin, can occur both without the neuro/psychological symptoms and without the open sores?
You old trips crack me up. 10-12 years of college, and for all that, they gave you three shotguns - screw with DA, screw with the NE/5HT balance, or sedate the poor bastards. And if someone presents with any unusual physical symptoms, just write it off as self-inflicted and load another round of shotgun #1.
Very know disease on slashdot!
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
I read from TFA that brain fog is one of the symptoms. Must've been that.
?SYNTAX ERROR
a proper link to the PDF about a href="svm369.vetmed.lsu.edu/images/truman/Human%20 and%20Armadillo%20Leprosy.pdf">Human and Armadillo Leprosy
Oh, but it's not hubristic to assume homeopathic medicine had everything figured out 200 years ago? You don't need to know about bacteria and viruses, you don't need to know the molecular structure of proteins at all, you don't need to examine the evidence, you don't need to do any tests. Just stating that "like cures like" is enough... Talk about hubris!
If there are diseases for which we do not know the cure, the solution is not to go back to ignorance and superstition. Perhaps we do not have *the* cure for AIDS or the common cold or many types of cancer, but we do get better treatment all the time. Four years ago I had appendicitis. I was treated by laparoscopy, which was done through three small cuts in my belly, about one centimeter each. I spent two days in the hospital and have no visible scars today. How would a similar treatment be performed fifty years ago? Instead of sending a small remotely controlled equipment into the patient's body, the surgeon had to cut him up enough to get both hands inside.
There may be some very rare diseases that haven't caught the attention of modern medicine yet, but the most likely explanation for most of the patients that claim to have such a rare disease is a very common ailment: hypochondria. When I read about this so-called "Morgellon's syndrome", the symptoms seemed familiar, I have read about this before. Perhaps what's missing in modern medical training is teaching all GPs to send patients who have undiagnosed diseases with symptoms like chronic muscle pain, itching, skin rashes, unusual hair loss, difficulty in concentration and memory loss, etc, to psychiatric treatment.
Dude, you cannot criticise Zonk and his buddies, okay? They'll just mod you down to...oh, wait...
I've got to disagree with you there. Homeopaths do a much more creative and fascinating job of providing sugar pills and distilled water. Homeopathic websites have provided me with hours of entertainment. I guess in truth it should upset me, but I don't really get emotionally envolved until they start applying their nonsense to veterinary medicine. That makes me go ballistic. Poor little guys have no way to say no.
What worries me more than anything else is the number of people here that took that seriously.
If your brain didn't scream "OBVIOUS FAKE" when reading through thse pages and looking over the "evidence", well, let's just say I'm starting to see why so many phishing scams work.
Oh, and for chrissakes, fire the idiot that let this be posted. For shame.
a proper link to the PDF about Human and Armadillo Leprosy
just look at the battles the homeopathic community has to fight; some of them are wackos perhaps, but many of them have treatments superior to those of "modern" medicine.
I know what you mean. I was down in Mexico a few years ago, and my stomach ulcer went peptic. I was driven to the hospital by a friend, where the "doctor" gave me silver pills and what amounted to pepto to treat the condition. I must say, it worked suprisingly well. A little over a year later, I no longer had any sign of an ulcer at all!!!
True I am blue in coloration now, but I mean - it worked just as well as any western doctor and his "quak" medicine...
If it is consistently cured with antibiotics, then it ISN'T a parasite. And bacteria don't create little worms crawling out of your skin. (Note, however, that parasitical infections can go away on their own.)
The woman in the article mentioned she saw spaghetti-like things crawling out of her son's chest. She pulled, but "couldn't pull it out." That is a very convenient excuse for not being able to produce a sample. Has this woman never heard of scissors, or are these things as tough as steel too?
Parisitologists and infectious disease researchers LIVE to discover new interesting afflictions. Believe me, if we had a new genuine disease causing spectacularly impressive crap to crawl out of victims skin, there would be journal articles about it in a minute. Also, wouldn't such obvious symptoms make it pretty damn easy to diagnose?
Lyme disease, yeah, that was a toughie to initially diagnose because the symptoms are so varied and suble. But fiber-like-stuff crawling out of people is pretty unambiguous.
And, "black flecks coming from pimples"? Err... sounds like blackheads to me.
That website is pathetic. Several pages of pictures, most of which look like shredded yarn scraps. It would have been a lot more convincing if there were pictures of the yarn crap actually coming from people. We do have some blurry shots of skin-like-substance with something on them, but nothing in particular to identify. Have these folks ever heard of "macro" mode?
I have heard of nasty parasitical infections indeed causing a crawling sensation inside the skin, and likewise inexperienced doctors thinking it is psychosomatic. However, in none of those cases was the diagnosis difficult once the actual worm/bug was dug out of the skin.
Either this "syndrome" was concocted by a complete nutjob, or this is the job of some "performance artist" trying to get an articles written up in various places.
SirWired
cough cough bullshit cough cough...
As a doctor, I ought to know. This person is taking closeup pictures of colored fibers of all sorts. However the perpetrator of this hoax obviously has no idea what real living tissue is supposed to look like. Amazing how all the "microscopy" photographs fail to show healthy tissue. This person is obviously very skilled to be able to excise the lesion so accurately.
And strangely, a search of the national library of medicine on "morgellan" turns up empty.
Perhaps Morgellan syndrome can be classified under personality disorders, a sub group of histrionics who seek attention via the internet by publishing bad hoaxes.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
http://cbs2.com/contact
As this disease is nothing more then a form of phycosis, I recomend that all those that are concerned in the panic generated over a non-existant pathogen, or the lack of reporting follow-through, send a complaint to the address above. With enough viewer complaints, hopefully this reporter will be terminated, a retraction aired, and a bunch of hypocondriacs can leave their appartments once again...
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
"The National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID) states that infectious diseases are a continuing danger to everyone in the United States. SARS, malaria, TB, and other bacterial pneumonias are now appearing in forms resistant to drug treatment. TB is a significant problem among foreign-born persons in the United States, with foreign-born persons accounting for 53 percent of the 14,874 U.S. cases in 2005. Of these, 26 percent of the cases were from Mexico. The 2005 NCID report estimates that 30 percent to 60 percent of adults in developing countries have TB."
Don't dO meth - crystal - crank and you will be all right
flummoxin, 3 times per day one teaspoon. Continue for one week after symptoms disappear.
Zonk for a while has been my favorite editor. He posts stories that (while not necessarily all the informative or important) keep me entertained, mostly games and the occasional neat, fluff science article. He also very rarely posts a dupe or a post with bad grammar. In essence, he's actually an editor on the site.
However, posting an article that treats the fevered imaginations of schizophrenics as a real tranmissable disease and linking to crazy homeopathy websites is a new low for Slashdot. I mean, this is serious crank material. There's no parasite; the microscope pictures are obviously of carpet fuzz and lint given the structure and wild variety of colors. I mean seriously. LOOK at them. You can see how the threads are spun if you look closely enough at them, and there's absolutely no reason why a parasite would evolve the ability to make so many different vividly colors of thread.
Zonk's on my "Dead to Me" list now for Slashdot editors. This is complete bunk, and I feel awkward now for being a regular visitor at a site that would post this kind of patent nonsense.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The many illegals employed as maids in this industry, in California for example, have no concept of prevention
Unlike the red-blooded American maids, who know exactly how to prevent the spread of this disease. Oh, and also unlike the legal immigrants, who must have been briefed on it during their in-processing.
But, wait, didn't you say that no one knows how it's spread? Quick, find a non-illegal maid and ask her!
Look, maids do what their management tells them to, regardless of their citizenship status, unless they're lazy slackers, in which case they may omit changing the bed sheets. In my experience, it's the home-grown employees who are more likely to slack off. Illegals tend to be particularly hard workers, because they have fewer options and grew up in a harsher world. Don't blame them if the management doesn't set policies that prevent the spread of disease.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
who can't even approximately spell psychosis?
I'm also wondering how you manage to diagnose toddlers as hypochondriacs.
Clear, Dark Skies
Since I can remember when Lupus was considered psychosomatic.
It's quite possible that we're looking different people with different parasitic or infectious diseases and that this website as simply bundled them all up and claimed they are the same thing.
Clear, Dark Skies
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Bed bugs !!! No more Motel6 for me! I'm staying at the Holiday Inn Express. It'll make me smarter, too.
.
I don't know about the rest but homeopathy did work for me in 2 different ocasions and problems. When I was younger I had chronical infections in the tonsils. Remove them is not a good idea because they are a barrier to worst kinds of infections in your respiratory aparatus. After years of antibiotics my parents decided to give homeopathy a try and, guess what? I'm cured.
Later in my life I developed alergy. Same history, I took common drugs that made feel better and later, there comes the alergy again. I've been treated with homeopathy for the last few months and my alergies are almost gone.
So, I really don't know if the theory behind it is BS or whatever, I can only tell you that it works.
Scientia est Potentia
The *sensation* they have is "real", not to sound like Morpheus: feels like bugs in skin. The sensation goes away quickly when Pimozide is prescribed.
That's interesting. I had that experience one time during a really bad round of depression. Thankfully, I'm skeptical enough to realize that those bugs were psychosomatic, but they still were irritating. I've had friends also experience the crawling bugs under the skin due to changes in anti-depressant doses.
Even knowing that it's an illusion, the effect is still creepy as heck.
Last night decided to get a little bonged out and surf teh interweb. Had a look at rense.com for a bit of high weirdness and came across the amazingly named "Morgellon's disease". A disease so weird doctors wouldn't look at it? On Rense? It's got to be nonsense. (Either that or the chemtrails are involved.)
/.?
/., just like a Morgellon's victim, is not getting any better is it?
http://www.rense.com/general71/mmor.htm
And now it's on
Let's face it,
(Can't we go back to PPC v x86 arguments somehow?)
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
Take you picke rmatitis&submit=Search
http://groups.yahoo.com/search?query=seborrheic+d
I'm also wondering how you manage to diagnose toddlers as hypochondriacs.
Simple. The parent is a hypochondriac, and projects imagined conditions upon the child. Almost every parent with access to the internet and a baby with a bruise will jump to the thought of their child having an incurable disease that will steal them away...
And as for my inability to spell, that is the price of growing-up in the days of computers and spell-check. My ability to spell has diminished as it is no longer required. I do on the other hand have a "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" before me (inherited by my grandfather), a computer with a connection to the internet, and the ability to read...
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
WTF? I am sory but where is this stuff coming from and why is this junk on Slashdot? It is obviously the rantings of some complete nutbag. And all those photos on the linked page look like sweater pills or dryer lint.
It's nice to see God take a break from killing soldiers in Iraq to torture sodomites in Hollywood.
Similes are like metaphors
...conservative.
By which I mean they're "EV1L [9/11 pentagon bomb conspiracy jfk chemtrails]".
By which I mean, Jesus, you expect anybody with any sense of anything whatsoever (anything besides the "fucking insane", that is) to attach any sort of meaning to such a ridiculous, loopy blanket statement?
(ps, mods: I'm -1, Flamebait. Don't confuse me with a -1, Troll. For an example of a -1, Troll, see the parent post. Thanks for your time and mod points).
let me modify what another replier said, and you'll get better. Use a nutrient-rich hand lotion when you wank off . This "growing area of scar tissue" will then heal.
Finally fessing up to the fact that all you ever do is bitch and moan while pretending to be fair and balanced?
Sores that contain white and blue fibers? There's only one thing this could possibly be.
It's a mutagenic parasite that attempts to turn its host into a pair of blue jeans for some twisted reason, possibly for pantsless alien overlords that we may or may not have properly welcomed here on Slashdot.
Well, it makes sense to me, at least.
You newbies have taken yet another beautifully funny post and turned it into a trainwreck of sad!
...dammit all to hell.
I'm going to mod you ALL down, and what's more, I'm going to mod you down -1 OVERRATED!!
I have nothing to fear! Meta-moderation, do your...
As a person who lived for 27 years with undiagnosed polycystic kidney disease, I'll admit that my faith in the medical profession is pretty damn weak. By the time some curious ER tech decided to plop an ultasound on my very painful, ridid abdomen, the disease was in a profoundly advanced stage. In short, my kidneys were the size of small watermellons (21cm in diameter) and filled with thousands of cysts. I know that hindsight is 20/20, but really - how the FUCK did THAT go unnoticed?!
In the previous 27 years, I had seen so many specialists, had so many different therapies and treatments for my puzzling symptoms, that it would make one's head spin. And not one, not a single one of these degreed professionals had the basic common sense of a 25 year-old ER tech. He was just a tech, not even an LPN - and he pegged it in 30 seconds:
Him: Do you have any history of kidney disease in your family? Me: No. Him: Well... you do now!
Yep, they can screw up just that badly..
There's a Starman, waiting in the sky / He'd like to come and meet us, but he hasn't got the time.
So, you didn't take the Pimozide? Or you took it and it didn't solve the issue?
If you didn't take it then quit bitching. Doctors will run you down the most likely path first before you get special treatment. It isn't because they are bad people, it's because it's smarter to assume someone has a common problem before you assume a less common one.
If you did take it and it did not fix your problem, tell us why the doctor either referred you elsewhere (perhaps to a specialist, like a good doctor would), or why you decided not to ask the doctor for another solution? Since you didn't mention malpractice suits (the usual result of seeing a doctor with a continuing condition and being refused any form of treatment) I can only assume that you either chose not to re-visit the original doctor or you chose to take his advice.
If you chose to take his advice and it has helped, why are you slagging him? He helped you get to the help you needed!
If you chose to ignore the doctor, again, why are you slagging him? His next step may have been to cure you the same way the other doctor did.
From the wikipedia article on Morgellon's Disease:
The Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly describes the same symptoms to a surprising degree. The upcoming release of a film based on the book has led many to suggest that the recent 'buzz' about Morgellon's may be part of a viral marketing campaign. Evidence cited includes:
1. The website claims that a "national news broadcast" will occur in June or July. The release date for the film is July 7.
2. morgellons.org and morgellonusa.com are both registered by a proxy company and contain no contact info.
3. The first Morgellon's article on Wikipedia was created in February as a link to one of the above websites.
While there were infrequent references to the syndrome on Usenet as far back as 2002, the simultaneous 'ramp-up' on Morgellons and marketing of the film have made some suspicious. For another well known example of this, see the ilovebees viral marketing campaign.
Just another angle on this whole thing...
THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
And man, to think, with that 10-12 years of college and specialized training, you apparently know better! You must be an absolute genius!
Seriously though, doctors are trained to help with the tools they have. They know better than you do. They went to college that long for a reason. It even says in the article that it can be treated with anti-psychotics AND anti-biotics, which leaves me to wonder if it could be treated just as well with placebo.
It was also interesting that when the doc in the article but a cast over the lesions, they healed right up! Interesting. Sounds like self-inflicted to me.
The problem here isn't the doctors, it is the cultural stigma toward needing to be treated for a psychological disorder. People don't want to do it because they don't see it as a real disease.
It may not be a conspiracy so much as doctors not wanting to deal with trying to argue patients out of eating refined sugars. It's bad enough I'm sure with patients always demanding some sort of magic cure which requires no work on their part and some magic pills. To actually suggest to a patient "Well, you're going to have to not eat anything with sucrose, which means you'll have to read nutrition labels and stop eating any sweet substance" would pretty much turn into an uncomfortable situation. With diabetes, it's actually life-threatening and the disease has a certain image, so patients are probably more willing to change a lot. But for a non-life-threatening condition, I can imagine that patients would fall back on the typical whining and demanding.
Then why don't you use your spell check?
That's a crappy excuse anyway. I grew up with computers too and I still learned to spell. Did your school not teach spelling or did you just sleep through it?
"The majority of individuals reporting symptoms of Morgellons Disease reside in California, Texas, and Florida."
True fuzzball disease or merely a psychosis; either way, they're putting even more of a financial burden on the U.S. healthcare system.
'nuff said
"Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots." - Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori
CURE FOUND !!! Don't be born in Mexico !!!
.
Just from reading the article from 'CBS 2' I become very suspicious about this whole business about 'Morgellons syndrome'. Also note that CBS 2 is the local CBS station for Los Angeles, so it probably doesn't have the approval of the CBS network enitity, which in my opinion makes this story pretty doubtable. In addition, the website for that organization devoted to curing Morgellons or whatever looks really illegimate. They have that hideous color scheme and all of the text on their site is like size 32, and they capitilize certain words that they apparently want you to notice. Isn't that kind of like a trademark of internet scams? You know like, "HELLO DEAR FRIEND, I am the prince of Durkadurkastan and I have recently gained a SUBSTANTIOL amount of US CURRENCY. If you are interested in claiming YOUR SHARE, please send your credit card information so that I can credit you for your FREE MONEY."
Maybe these things wouldn't matter to me if they showed pictures of the symptoms that the 'sufferers' are supposed to be suffering from, but instead they show picture of what, for all I know, is something they pulled off their sweater. Another point is that the symptoms described by the sufferers seem totally different from each other. I didn't read one quote that seemed to complement what the article was saying or what the other sufferers were saying.
I know I read at least one Slashdot post saying that the poster knew people with the disease and that they were addicted to speed. Since CBS 2 claims there are about 3500 sufferers, your chances of knowing any of them seem extremely miniscule. The poster just plain sounded like he was lying...but he was modded 5 for interesting or insightful or something!!
The whole deal reeks of lies and deception!
Is this a ploy of the mass media to see what they can get away with?
No matter, I advise everyone to regard this disease as pure bullshit, and to remember that just because what someone says seems to be supported by a legitimate and maybe trustworthy entity, there is no guarantee that it is true.
Your best bet is to look at the facts and make your own independent conclusion.
Stay alive out there.
Stage III syphilis causes hallucinations, and it's making a come back.
Diabetic neuropathy also primarially appears in the feet, and contrary to popular belief does not always cause numbness. Have you been tested for diabetes, in the event that the acutual problem was something along the lines of stress - stress eating - diabetes - nerve damage in foot (in which case "no stress" would have led to "no stress eating" which might have moderated your diet enough to control your diabetes, which if the nerve damage wasnt severe would have allowed the nerves involved to heal)?
Even knowing that it's an illusion, the effect is still creepy as heck.
Thats the interesting thing about psychosis. I get the crawling sensation when I've been up for more than 30 hours or so, but for some reason I'm still able to determine that it's not real. It's not the crawling sensations, etc. that separate the psychotics from the rest of us, its something else causing them to not recognize the sensations as not real.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Some doctors find that appling Colubenpinguis(r) works will in reducing the rash and fighting underlying infection. You clean the area, apply the liquid, wrap in gause, repeat every day for 2 weeks.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
As a grad student studying infectious disease microbiology, I'm really quite skeptical of this disease. Thus far, several things bother me:
1) Failure to confirms Koch's postualtes. Without going into detail, these postulates allow us to confirm if an infectious disease s caused by the suspected agent. No attempt has been made by the foundation "scientists" to confirm these postulates.
2) Fibers look sketchy. More specifically, they look like carpet fibers under a microscope. One of the webpage claims they are not by using autoflorescence microsopy. Wrong technique. To disprove the carpet fiber claim, they need to run a mass spectrometry-based technique such as MALDI-MS, LC-MS/MS or even old-school mass spec. That would disprove fibers and electron microscopy would go a long way to illustrating what, if any, pathogenic structures exist within the "fibers".
3) Lastly, if this is a parasitic infection, the use of broad spectrum antibiotics is unlikely to help. Antibiotics are designed against specific bacterial protein and carbohydrate targets. Parasites, by the classical definition, are eukaryotic (ie not bacterial) pathogens and are unresponsive to antibiotics. Previous posters are correct in stating that there are many drugs we don't know how they work; most of these are designed against eukaryotic pathogens that possess vastly more complicated biologies.
In short, I'm skeptical, but open to new evidence with better techniques.
This guys blog http://morgellonswatch.blogspot.com/ is a cynic's look at Morgellons. He takes jabs at all of the "theories" behind the disease and is quite convincing. In an especially interesting article, he shows how Morgellons sufferers had their "hairs" looked at by professionals, and when they were shown to be nothing more than bits of household fabric, the Morgellons sufferers insisted that the lab had lied, and that they were out to get them. Highly recommended if one wants an alternative view on the condition.
This guy seems to have pictures of his delusions of parasitosis:
http://www.dpref.com/index.html
You guys do realize, this is the first outbreak of a secret government nano-research project. It's slowly converting the patient's skin into textiles, and the "black dots" is the waste material the machines produce.
I'd considered the possibility that it was a hoax (seeing how I suddenly started seeing references to it all over the place) but I hadn't considered the idea that it was deliberate marketing.
Clear, Dark Skies
At the time of my diagnosis I was 6'3" tall and around 180lbs - that's not even overweight, much less obese. However, my gut did have the classic profile of a PKD sufferer.. always wondered why I couldn't lose it. Now I know.
But thanks for bringing it up, dickface. Do troll again.
There's a Starman, waiting in the sky / He'd like to come and meet us, but he hasn't got the time.
I don't want to get into TMI, so let's just say I've learned to avoid doctors for anything more complicated than "I cut myself - can you sew this back on?"
Clear, Dark Skies
Not unless they got Popular Mechanics to back date a fake article to June, 2005.
So, apparently the hoax and viral marketing theories are both out the window, unless it's a hoax that's been years in the making.
Clear, Dark Skies
There's nothing wrong in what Rocketship posted, yet the moderators give you a +5? There are multiple examples, some of which Rocketship posted that demonstrate how modern medical knowledge can fail to made proper treatment from either ignoring or misinterpreting evidence. There was evidence since the 1980s that some stomache ulcers are related to a bacterial infection, yet it took decades for that fact to gain widespread acceptance, so that people could be best treated with our medical technology.
I hope you're never sick with a mystery illness like I have been, it's extremely frustrating for doctors to fight over the cause, giving contradictory diagnosis, and never determining what the cause was, despite numerous blood samples, photographic evidence, and tissue evidence as well. It's from personal experience that I can assure you that medical tricorders like the kind you see on Star Trek would be the world's greatest invention. It would make the pathogen deniers blow away like leaves in the Fall. It's not all in someone's head just because there's no definitive test to confirm the person is ill.
Oh You POS
I understand it must be frustrating. My skin is quite sensitive and I have different kinds of problems from time to time. I've had a particularly annoying and at times painful skin problem for several years, and doctors had consistently misdiagnosed it, so I thought about this.
First of cultures, viral tests and other tests are generally inconclusive, whether positive or negative, since many organisms just don't show up, and many other harmless ones are present. And there are thousands of possibilities anyway even among the normal pathogens--which do you test for?
So, what could it be? First of all, it could be a combination of exczema and something normally benign. Or it could be another skin disorder that is only coincidentally infected. It could be an allergy, maybe against an organism or something else. There are also two classes of organisms that you didn't name: yeasts (which are slightly different from fungi) or parasites. It could be an STD in an unusual location. It could be any of a number of common pathogens that just happen to be resistant.
In my case, I believe it turned out to be a slight yeast infection on top of exczema--just enough to keep it all going, and the yeast just happend to be resistant to the first several treatments I tried.
I think you don't have a choice other than to keep going to different doctors, try different treatments, try different tests, and also try other things (lifestyle changes, whatever), and not lose hope.
The mystery of Morgellons disease: infection or delusion?
Savely VR, Leitao MM, Stricker RB.
South Austin Family Practice Clinic, Austin, Texas, USA.
Morgellons disease is a mysterious skin disorder that was first described more than 300 years ago. The disease is characterized by fiber-like strands extruding from the skin in conjunction with various dermatologic and neuropsychiatric symptoms. In this respect, Morgellons disease resembles and may be confused with delusional parasitosis. The association with Lyme disease and the apparent response to antibacterial therapy suggest that Morgellons disease may be linked to an undefined infectious process. Further clinical and molecular research is needed to unlock the mystery of Morgellons disease.
PMID: 16489838 [PubMed - in process]
It't pretty clear that the "fibers" are really fibers from clothing..
I feel kinda sorry for these people
Photos here
Typical stupid, doctor logic: there is only one cause for any particular set of symptoms. You hear about someone with the sensation of bugs crawling in their skin and you are 100% sure that they are crazy and need anti-psychotics. Pretty much everyone who has any kind of slightly out of the ordinary disease has been told by an MD that they are imagining it. And MD's love to give out anti-psychotics...because you want to think that every patient that doesn't fit into your prearranged neat little view of human health is crazy. You're probably a shitty doctor that could be replaced by a shell script which greps for keywords(i.e. "rash" "itchy" "bug bite") and prints out prescription forms and referrals. Honestly what good are you as a doctor if all you do is look at the most obvious cause of something and then throw some drugs at it? You think other people can't read? Like we couldn't look through a dermatology textbook and look for pictures of what we have or google for the symptoms? You're not bringing anything more to the table than a fucking book.
Allergens can be tricky. I don't have eczema, but I've done a lot to fight airborne allergies, and here's some stuff I've learned along the way:
The first thing I have to say is that unless you have a very effective (perhaps HEPA) vaccum, vaccumming can be MUCH worse than not vaccumming at all in terms of getting rid of allergens. Vaccums as a rule pick up big particles but just throw little particles in the air - and the little particles are usually the problem.
Second, some people have reactions to outgassed chemicals from solids that you buy. The prime example is when you buy a new computer or monitor, for at least years it spits out a bunch of chemicals whenever it's on. (Primarily but not solely from power heating the plastics) But there plenty of smaller examples where you're buying something that you wouldn't assume gives off chemicals. (Microwaving plastics gives off pseudoestrogens too.) There is plenty of argument about the EFFECT of these emmissions, but the emissions are there. And if your child is having symptoms you can't track down, it's something to think about.
I personally know that many cosmetics here outgas; I'm not sensitive in an allergic way but I can smell the volatiles in them, even in ones that aren't particularly supposed to have a scent.
The only broad-spectrum solution I know to combat volatile airborne chemicals is the extensive use of activated charcoal. I believe it is sometimes possible to buy this in big bags instead of tiny filters - as I understand it it's really just evenly crushed charcoal that's been baked very high.
Outdoor air is actually better than indoor air in many circumstances. Some new construction now blows in a certain amount of outside air to help this. (And to counteract the lower inside pressure of running the heat or AC) Oh and a conventional house furnance filter is useless for allergens. You have to install an electronic one or get a specific high efficiency one - 3M makes one.
I have to bring up laundry detergent because I THINK you're including that in "household chemicals" but I couldn't be sure. Extra rinsing helps but isn't perfect... and of course many clothes come with preexisting chemicals in them from the manufacturing process.
And of course you can have a pretty frightening amount of mold in a house in the walls and such without knowing. Fake wood paneling and carpet padding are the most common offendors, but it can be anywhere.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
Of course, the claim that it's a VM campaign for Scanner may be part of the VM campaign for Scanner, but sometimes paranoia is only the little voices in your head plotting to embarass you. =)
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Doctors these days seem to diagnose everything as some sort of mental issue and heavily push the major pharmacy poisons which are heavily advertised and heavily pushed in their offices and the hospitals. I have seen it first hand and heard it first hand, my wife had her ankle swell up and start hurting to the point of causing difficulty in walking. This quack glances at her ankle and tell her she needs prozac even having a few boxes in his pockets stashed and ready to hand out. The other boxes, they were given to the 6 year old child in the room next door with a deep mucas ejecting cough as his depression was clearly causing his coughing fits and fever.
Not saying all doctors are quacks, but most are and douchebags to boot.
I don't understand. Do they distill the dog until there is no dog left?
"Bloodhound" is a generic term that Symantec's AV products use when their hueristic engine thinks something might be malware.
It might be nothing.
I'm sure these people have conditions, but the problem still comes down to that its in their head. Patients will literally make up conditions and their bodies will react in accordance. Literally one time I was stressed out about this girl I was chatting too and my body reacted very negativly. I started getting little bumps all over my body like I had some kind of parasite. Went to the doc.... I didn't have anything but I was convinced I needed a treatment, so he gave me a cream. Later the bumps went away... but for all I know he could have given me a placebo. Doc's have started to ask what peopel are allowing in their lives that cause these problems, rather than what drug should I give you. Treat the source.
Most people aren't thought about after they're gone. "I wonder where Rob got the plutonium" is better than most get.
Man this is worse than COOTIES!
Not a clue about the bug/syndrome/skin thingy, but the "responsible" medical community response sounds all too familar in alot of ways to what lyme patients were hearing 15-ish years ago.
One Dr who's name escapes me but was a "respected" Dr at Shore Memorial Hospital (Somers Point NJ) was quoted in the local paper saying "It's all in their heads". He wasn't alone in that opinion, but I think he learned that when you make comments like that w/a portion of the staff going thru IV antibiotic treatment for lyme that life can be....Interesting.
Have you seen the Site for Taurox?. Aside from looking nothing like a pharmaceutical company or even a homeopathist, it has fascinating text like this:
... no matter what disease you have!
CureImmune develops and distributes products containing TauroxTM, which is believed to be the most potent therapy available for any indication. It naturally modulates or balances the immune system to function optimally.
Yes, it says their product is the most potent therapy for any indication: i.e. a cure-all. aka "snake oil". If you search around, you'll see in some places it's marketed as a homeopathic medicine at high dilution factors (homeopathic 6X = 10E-6 dilution factor, IIRC), and in other places as a conventional medication or nutritional supplement at high concentration. Yes folks, this wonderful medicine, taken in any form and any concentration, is the most effective treatment available
It wouldn't surprise me if many of these sufferers did indeed have a neurological disorder, or a psychiatric disorder, or even as others have suggested, some underlying condition like Lyme or a skin parasite compounded with psychological difficulties. I'm sure it varies from patient to patient. But this company "CureImmune" is taking all these poor fuckers to the cleaners by setting up websites with scary micrographs of lint and stories about fibers growing out of your skin - all to cash in on a scare and people's implicit drive to mistrust the medical establishment.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
Motels. Hotels. Beds. And Crack/Meth Whores!!! Would you let 364 people sleep in your bed, with only a sheet change, and you sleep in it the 365th day? YUUUUUCccccckkkkk!
.
Seems like archive.org has a good history of page changes Morgellons.org has undergone. Anyway, around 2002, contact information was listed:
Contact us at Morgellons@aol.com or fax to (760) 457-3441
This website designed and maintained by Amy De Ferrari. Contact her at amy_de_ferrari@hotmail.com
You are visitor number
====
Now I'm curious about who this Amy De Ferrari preson is. If you google for Amy De Ferrari, you'll find this site and a curious entry about the site being taken down. I wonder...
www.amydeferrari.com
The Morgellon's website links to this video:
E pidemic_wmv.htm
http://www.crossinglines.net/2006%20A%20Silent%20
The video describes (incredibly vaguely) some "silent killer" that they imply is an escaped mutant or something from a proteomics lab. It has some dude in a white jacket and then proceeds to show you a series of random microscope images of objects that don't even look vaguely related to each other, with cheap pan and scan effects and the occasional depth of focus change.
There's no soundtrack, and it doesn't look like the labcoat guy is saying the same thing as the caption text. They may have grabbed some footage of a lab tech leading a a tour of a lab and slapped it together in iMovie with some microscope images.
The best thing: the video and the website "crossinglines.net" don't actually name this deadly disease they are documenting. That means that multiple different hoaxes like "Morgellons" can link to the same video, all using it as "proof" of this horrible disease they're using to sell snake oil.
Hang on to your cash around these people, mmmkay?
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
If it was so easy then you'd be a doctor but obviously you aren't. Let us handle the medicine while you jerk off to your bullshit tech websites.
This fictional novel covers the sufferings of the crew of a ship affected by Ergotism, caused indirectly by a sailors fight which led to all the ship's supplies save a small amount of old Rye flour being destroyed..
Worth a read if you like fiction and are amused by rye-borne contagions..
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
http://www.leasticoulddo.com/comics/strips/2006051 2.gif
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
It's very hard to convince patients that they need Pimozide, and not a can of "Raid" to spray on themselves.
This is another interesting point, since one of the characteristics/symptoms of psychosis is lack of insight. My partner is a social worker who works closely with the mentally ill, and this can be one of the largest barriers to assisting a psychotic person to function relatively normally with their illness, as the psychosis literally prevents the sufferer from recognising the nature of their illness.
Disclaimer: She is not a clinician and does not attempt to diagnose or medically treat illness, but her role is to support clients in functioning in the community; an awareness of the pathology of psychosis does support her in her work.
As you say, this complicates any potential treatment since it become necessary to persuade the patient of the need for a particular kind of treatment that they believe is not appropriate to their symptomology, to which the disease they suffer serves as a barrier.
SofaMan -- Occasionally Battling Evil With His Mighty Powers Of Indolence.
If you have strange sores, or another infection, a biopsy will reveal abnormalities.
But Dude, they have pictures of little bits of fluff pulled from acrylic yarn. I'm sure they could send in the actual bits of fluff to the CDC if they really wanted to and thus demonstrate with actual, physical evidence that they are infected with itchy sweaters.
KFG
Slashdot, if you want me to take you seriously, don't use as reference a site (which spells website as websight) rife with misspellings, horrible formatting, and the usage of quotation marks for emphasis.
Seriously, I'm hella drunk and I can write better than whoever shit that site out.
I know some very smart doctors.. that being said, I know a lot of really stupid doctors too. To many doctors haven't the mental power or the concern enough to figure out anything that can't be diagnosed with a step book like untrained tech support people use. "Is it plugged in?" "Did you turn it on?" I guess it's good to pass people through the unwashed dimwits to spare the more skilled doctors, repair guys, etc from having to waste their time. The sad thing is that this often keeps people from ever working their way up to the more skilled help.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Several years ago, I was working in my garden in Houston, and got jabbed deeply with a rose thorn that was within 1 or 2 inches of the ground (i.e, likely covered with dirt and soil nasties). It hurt like any jab would, and I thought nothing of it. That night, it itched like crazy. Next day, a circle about 2 inch diameter around the jab (on the heel of my palm) had tiny dozens of pin-prick sized bubbles, deep under the skin.
Long story short - I made a DR appt for three days later (total, 5 days from the jab). By the time I got there, my palm and part of my wrist had hundreds of these tiny bubbles all over them, itching like hell, bursting sometimes. Also, my feet, back, scalp, elbows and knees itched badly.
He said "Oh yeah, it's a soil fungus. I used to practice up in NY, and saw this once or twice a year. I see it 2-3 times a week in Houston during the summer."
He gave me a shot and a topical ointment. It cleared up almost immediately, but for about five years, every time I got hot and sweaty outside and didn't clean up promptly and meticulously, the itch would come back.
Any doc who hears of these kind of symptoms and says "it's in their head" oughta lose his license. In the semi-tropics at least, creeping crud like that can grow by-golly fast.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Here's a newspost from Oregon State University about a researcher who is looking into Morgellon's: http://centernet.okstate.edu/whatsnew/rounds/2005/ 1005.html
A recent issue of the American Journal of Clinical Dermatology has an article about it as well:
The Mystery of Morgellons Disease: Infection or Delusion? By: Savely, Virginia R.; Leitao, Marry M.; Stricker, Raphael B.. American Journal of Clinical Dermatology, 2006, Vol. 7 Issue 1, p1-5, 5p, 3c; (AN 19826763)
It's too recent for me to get a PDF online from (even with my access), so I'm going to have to find a paper copy. I will say that Virginia Savely is likely to be the "Ginger Savely" NP that was listed in the Popular Mechanics article. Both Marry Leitao and Virginia Savely are ONLY associated with this article (i.e. I'd discount them as possible sources), while Raphael Strickler apparently is a Lyme Disease expert (among other Infectious diseases) who has authored several papers. So there are some legitimate researchers out there doing some work. Either that, or the hoax has gotten so big that it has infiltrated beyond the mainstream media (not likely).
What doctors always forget is that placebos work, often, much better than real medication. Anti-psychotics are just as likely to work for heart disease as a sugar pill. Perhaps that's what's happening in this case with the anti-psychotics. Maybe it's not in their head. They might not be psychotic at all. They might just believe that they have been cured... so they are... the same as the patients who have been prescribed the antibiotic cocktails. Maybe neither "cures" the disease, but makes them think it does. It doesn't mean it's in their head. The mind body connection is a weird and mysterious thing. Depressed cancer patients NEVER recover. That is a fact.
If patients feel that they are being taken care of, then they will probably recover. If you tell them that the problem is in their head, then the problem will likely persist. This is reinforced by statistics, efficacy studies, and common sense. Whatever this problem is, even if it's psychosis, it needs to be treated in a way that patients believe is in their best interest. Turning patients away creates an epidemic. I advocate creating a sugar pill that aims to cure this disease. I'll wager my entire year's income on 50% or greater success.
One thing: about all of them responded to antibiotics. They also showed many of the symptoms of lyme disease. To be blunt, neurological lyme disease can definitely screw someone up enough that they think they have all kinds of wild things and make them do strange things like rubbing against fabic enough until fibers get embedded into the skin.
I should know. I've had neurological lyme for 25+ years, and I've actually done those things, felt "bugs" crawling under my skin, etc. etc. After nearly 10 years of antibiotics, I'm now pretty close to normal.
So this probably isn't something new, just something most doctors ignore...
*laf laf* Seeing that what you produce is actually nutrient-rich, why not just skip the step of buying that lotion and use what your body produces? And you know it's not chemically adjusted!
I had psorisis, the same as my father and grandfather. My fingers were in such bad shape that they would bleed if I just touched something. Doctors gave me crap medication that did little or nothing. I went on a diet and gave up ALL dairy - no milk, cheese. Psorisis got better. I then started checking ingrediants and made sure that I consumed no dairy. I am now vertually symtom free. Your are what you eat.
The fact that this post http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=186248 &cid=15371504 received +5 Informative is indicative of how the moderation system in /. is flawed. This post is indeed flaimbait as it commits fallacies in every single response. Those fallacies are straw man, straw man, statements with no factual basis, and (uhm you guessed it) straw man.
Note that another post effectively deals with the same post this one was attempting to respond to and this other post does it correctly.
Hey! Call the CDC. I did. I was possibly exposed to a nasty parasite and the local doctors didn't satisfy me. I went up to Mayo. The doctor there at the exit interview said, "Go home. You've had the best that white man's medicine has to offer. Go home. Put it out of your mind."
I went home. This was before the internet, by the way. I did some more research and found that there was one more blood test that could be done. Only the CDC could do the lab work. As it turned out the guy from Mayo was right in this respect, the test, if positive showed I was infected, if negative, the test was inconclusive. Naturally, it was negative and inconclusive. I did get some serious help from the CDC though. The expert there explained the test, the findings, the odds of a false negative. She also told me that if I were infected that I didn't have much of a chance as there was at the time only on surgeon in the States with any experience with this problem. She indicated that given the time frames involved the surgery would likely be unsuccessful. (I'd be dead.)
I determined that I'd put it behind me as I could do nothing further about it. That was 15 or 20 years ago. I remember reading that sometimes 30 years elapses before the problem becomes acute (and fatal). It could make a person crazy. Denial is the only available defense.
Echinococcus granulosus... look it up for your own nightmares.
I only revisited my little nightmare to tell you that you can call them and that in the past, they were as helpful as technology and time allowed.
"When AIDS first appeared, it was not accepted as a real disease either."
True. I remember that. If AIDS had turned out not to be real my eldest sister would still be alive.
Just out of curiosity, how many unreal diseases are there with so many patients claiming to have it? That is, where it's not especially beneficial for the government to claim it doesn't exist, like Gulf War Syndrome? I can't think of any that haven't proven to be very real as time went on and more people got it.
But you can't expect people on the internet to be intellectually honest about such matters. To be perfectly frank, reading the posts here you can see how many take it as an opportunity to indulge in cruelty and mockery. Others don't want to feel threatened and so deny it and attack anyone who presents the idea that it might not be a hoax.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
I, for one, welcome our new fuzz-balls overlords
Mr. Leinad
"(inherited by my grandfather)"
Don't you mean "inherited from my grandfather", Sparky?
This sounds familliar. I've had an "unknown" skin condition on both arms since I was 14 that looks similar to bad acne and it itches and hurts, particularly when I get stressed. I've had people claim it's everything from psychological to sensitivity to detergents to an STD(unlikely considering when it started). I know I've got sensitive skin that reacts to certain soaps etc, but that always manifests as a different type of rash.
I saw a whole bunch of dermatologists several years ago. They gave me everything from clindamycin to erethromycin to minicyclin. None of which was as effective as a sunburn or salt water, and just as temporary. I had biopsies and cultures done, and they could never get the damn thing to culture. They couldn't even tell me if it was viral or bacterial, as it has symptoms of both.
So I kinda gave up on it and just tried to live with it. Then a bit earlier this year when I was seeing a new doctor (non-dermatologist) he asked if any of them ever prescribed accutane. I said no, it wasn't that commonly known last time I was looked at but I figured if none of the other "strong" antibiotics had worked, it wouldn't either. But I figured what the hell I'll try it anyway.
So I got put on 20mg/day of Accutane. The "normal adult dose" is supposedly more like 125mg/day, but it has bad side effects so I figured I'd start low and see. Within about 48 hours I noticed an improvement in the skin. I stayed on it for about a month, and no new ones have formed, and the older ones are healing well. The worst side effect I got was chapped lips, which sounds like nothing but when it's severe enough that you can't eat anything without pain it's another story. So I'm going off the accutane for a while to let that heal and see if the improvement in my condition is stable. If it is, I'll probably try 40mg/day for 2-4 weeks and hopefully that will get rid of it or at least reduce it to the point where it's no more than a minor nuisance.
IANAD (doctor), and I don't own any stock in drug companies (I was getting generics anyway), so I can't say this will work for everyone else. But if you have something that seems bacterial or similar to acne, I suggest giving the low dosage a shot to see if it does anything for you.
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
Someone was using leprosy as a comparable, incurable, illness. Sorry to break it to you, but leprosy is curable, and it doesn't make body parts fall off (though it does slowly mutilate the dermis). Check Wikipedia if you don't believe me. Also, these symptoms do sound like schizophrenia. I wonder what age group this is occurring in? As I recall, the DSM says that schizophrenia typically targets 18-30 year olds (or at least they have their first schizo typical episode in this age range). Not sure what is causing it, it could very well be some side effect of Lime disease messing with neurochemistry, which would explain both the anti-psychotics and antibiotics working (one would treat the symptoms, the other the causal agent).
Stricker RB has 125 articles in Pubmed and a Long CV.
The only viral marketing campaign here is the one claming that the disease is just a viral marketing campaign!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
A real nerd would have pluged the domain into netcraft. y2m.com is on a completly diffrent netblock then e-xpedient.com.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The owner of the site you link to, has in no way recieved financial gain from this site, nor does he sell anything. Those images in the video are real and there are thousands showing the same symptoms. Some call it morgellons, however those who made the video and the owner of the site refuse to name something that is new and emerging. After further screening of this pathogen, surely a name will be given to it. The video was made to stir action from various health agencies, who have seriously dropped the ball concerning this and the informing of the general public. The owner has suffered from this disorder for going on five years now, hence his efforts in creating and paying for the site. AND I do agree with your advice however.. Anyone that is selling ANYTHING that claims to cure people of this disorder should be suspect. Nothing so far seems to be able to touch it, let alone get rid of for good.
This is a huge problem and a terrible mistake has been made, and the only thing which will bring those responsible to question, is for people to begin talking about this issue without having to become infected themselves.
I read Lab 257, and having prior knowledge of the origin of Lyme disease, discovered it is more dangerous and is spreading quicker than HIV/AIDS. The Nazi scientists were the ones that caused and founded a symbiotic relationship between the bacterian and Ticks(blood-sucking insects). The Nazi's controlled the German Army, and directed their airplanes to fly above their enemies on enemy-controlled areas to spray infect-ticks all over the troops and their horses. As the war went, on an average of two weeks of an infected host, the disease would cause at-least damaging of the joints to bones and nausea, then would clear for a month or two, then return.
The book "Lab 257" documents how that UNITED STATES was lenient to the Nazi Scientists if they brought their research and moved (with family) to America. They setup shop on a "Plum Island", a few miles near Long Island in New York. The Nazi Scients were cloaked under "Project Paperclip", and continued the same experiments in germ warfare as were done in Germany and Austria. The experiments were open-air on the island, on mostly cows and pigs and sheep, where hundres were "experimented" upon in such vile ways; the sewage from animal waste was treated and "pumped" into the open ocean in the channel, and corpses were disposed by an incinerator. Many times were there power-outage on the island, causing the sewage to overflow into the ocean as raw untreated matter; this was the cause of the Lobster-farms and many more commercially-raised and wild fish to die off.
Going back to the open-air experiments; it was sad to disclose that hundreds of species of migratory birds visited that island in their migration pattern. Following back to the experiments, the island was abandoned and returned to operation many times over 50 years between the Department of Agriculture and the US Army. The infected ticks were exposed and allowed to enter the wild premise unhindered, and following the migration pattern of the Canadian Geese would expose the actual path of Lyme moving throuout the entire area. It is also relevant that the Scientists were the cause of the Texas tick to spread beyond Texas (by bird). Lab 257 wasn't limited to just infecting ticks...there was another (sister) lab, "Lab 241" if I remember correctly. Between the two labs, there was Anthrax enrichment and many more experiments to form symbiotic relationships and delivery methods on Mosquitoes with you-know-what.
The significance of Lab 257 and its fellow lab was that it was the first installment of a closed-air circulation system, and the first example of the Pride of unrepentant men to screw everything up in the name of germ warfare. Just because the Department of Agriculture took control of the island for its side of experiments on animals doesn't prevail they weren't just hiding the same experiments under the name of Agriculture. So many times were there outbreaks of unknown illness in New York City, New York, and throughout the whole damn area -- and it was not disclosed because it was perhaps all part of the experiments.
without prejudice
...that you post this in a discussion on mental illness...
Lyme disease causes a moment of mental illness, though competancy returns when the host is cleansed or subsides dormant for its cycle in the host.
Also of note, Plum Island (where both Labs 257 and the other are situated) is in the direct path of where tropical storms and hurricanes have move upon. Plum Island was improperly abandoned no less than in 5 hurricanes, causing untreated weapons-grade bacteria and virus to spread into the entire area as far as Pennsylvania to Nova Scotia.
In America, Lyme disease is spreading at a quicker rate and with greater infection than Tuberculosis and AIDS/HIV. There is more warning to AIDS/HIV and Killer Bees than there is of Lyme disease.
A visit to a hospital is no different than entering a museum.
without prejudice
Oh, personally, I thought it was blindingly obvious that the submitter was trying to be sarcastic. I suppose this is one of those moments when I should rant on how Americans seem to miss subtle humour, but really, how could anyone think the submission was anything but serious?
More than mere navel gazing.
This leads to doctors misdiagnosing things all the time - and why not? They also have no vested interest in being correct because malpractice insurance will clean up the mess when they're not. It's very easy for doctors to say it's horses when they hear hoofbeats, but every once in a while it's Zebras.
or else!
It is proven that anything could br treated with just a placebo. It won't work on everone and it on't work always, but it works in amazingly high number of cases.
For those with incurable derma conditions - please try Teatree oil and Neem and see if either of those clear it up for you. It's worth a shot.
"Typical stupid, doctor logic: there is only one cause for any particular set of symptoms. You hear about someone with the sensation of bugs crawling in their skin and you are 100% sure that they are crazy and need anti-psychotics. Pretty much everyone who has any kind of slightly out of the ordinary disease has been told by an MD that they are imagining it. And MD's love to give out anti-psychotics...because you want to think that every patient that doesn't fit into your prearranged neat little view of human health is crazy. You're probably a shitty doctor that could be replaced by a shell script which greps for keywords(i.e. "rash" "itchy" "bug bite") and prints out prescription forms and referrals. Honestly what good are you as a doctor if all you do is look at the most obvious cause of something and then throw some drugs at it? You think other people can't read? Like we couldn't look through a dermatology textbook and look for pictures of what we have or google for the symptoms? You're not bringing anything more to the table than a fucking book."
Are you a Scientologist? You're confusing the physical and mental health industry with the academic field and the individual practitioners, let alone your poor understanding of how "neat and little" your view of psychosomaticisms is.
"Just out of curiosity, how many unreal diseases are there with so many patients claiming to have it? That is, where it's not especially beneficial for the government to claim it doesn't exist, like Gulf War Syndrome? I can't think of any that haven't proven to be very real as time went on and more people got it.
But you can't expect people on the internet to be intellectually honest about such matters. To be perfectly frank, reading the posts here you can see how many take it as an opportunity to indulge in cruelty and mockery. Others don't want to feel threatened and so deny it and attack anyone who presents the idea that it might not be a hoax."
It's a shame about your sister, but it's also a shame that you keep your mind so "open" that your brains leak out.
And don't call me Geraldo.
That's what the pictures resemble. These people are infected by: LINT!
Maybe they are allergic to the clothes they are wearing and so itch..
One of the sites in the article said some of the fibers were identified as cellulose. Hmm.. the touch, the feel of COTTON! HAAHAHA!
Come on, they glow under UV. So does laundry detergent. They come in all the sorts of colors that clothes do. Could they be uh, lemme see.. LINT?
You had a lesion/cut/scrape, that has not scabbed over, then some LINT got stuck to the goo before it dried. Then you noticed and it looked to you as if LINT was oozing from your lesion. Dumbass!
For people who have Morgellons, these boards can hurt, but they are an honest reflection of how people are. I've been reading the message boards for Morgellons for over a year, looking for answers that I could not get from an Infectious Disease doctor and Dermatologist, and found boards to be supportive and helpful. This board is interesting, and people do examine all sides of an issue.
For those who'd like some more information on Morgellons, I'd like to share this brief interview with Dr. Wymore, who is researching the fibers and "scabs" of Morgellons patients. He shares his findings to date, and some thoughts about the patients and their doctors.
http://www.morgellons.org/rwupdate.html
If you cannot listen to the interview, Ever Hopeful's website has photos and a history of Delusions of Parasitosis. It is the DOP concept that seems to be the brick wall in getting doctors to listen or do examinations:
http://www.dpref.com/index.html
From Alabama, an recent article and television clip - Leigh Ann and her family give an interview, please "click" the video if you have a fast connection. It is a behind-the-scenes look into what happens to Morgellons sufferers:
http://www.wkrg.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WKR G/MGArticle/KRG_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=11378 36251643
From Los Angeles, California - In the news on May 19th, and May 20th, 2006 in the Archive - make sure you watch the clip in the archive and not the shorter "tease" clip. It should include interviews with people in the archived chip - will have to go back several pages to the 20t:
http://cbs2.com/video/?id=18783@kcbs.dayport.com
This story was followed up with Part Two on Monday, May 22nd, featuring an interview with a family who is suffering this disease, as well as a perfect example of the typical smugness experienced with Dermatologists convinced this is DOP, via an interview with a UCLA Dermatologist included in this news segment. In this story, the mother has tested positive for Lyme, and the children have not been tested for Lyme disease because the family could not afford it. Morgellons is very likely a systemic disease, involving the whole body. Not doing any tests and simply declaring this to be a delusion delays treatment.
From Portland, Oregon - May, 2006:
The written article:
http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_051806_n ews_sweeps_strange_sickness_morgellons.53b2569a.ht ml
There is a video clip of an Oregon doctor who caught Morgellons disease who is interviewed, however I only have a tiny url link for it and that is at:
http://lymebusters.proboards39.com/index.cgi?board =rash&action=display&thread=1147886482&page=2
From Texas - May, 2006
The article:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.a...E_ID =50195
Again, a follow up story in Texas:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYS A052206.morgellonsfolo.KENS.12913d3a.html
Excerpt quoted: " . . . The story has received tens of thousands of page views on the MySanAntonio.com
The story was how Les Coble of Pleasanton found out he was not alone.
"God, I'm not crazy, there are other people with this,"
Oakland:
http://www.ktvu.com/news/9264350/detail.html
" . . . Former Oakland A's pitcher Billy Koch has it. And so do his wife and their three children. And though they can afford top medical care, doctors have no answers . . . It started in Oakland four years ago. Koch saved 44 games and was the top reliever in the major leagues. His fastball wowed crowds. And then the strangeness began . .
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. (404) 639-3311 June 1, 2006 Dan Rutz of the CDC on the phone. The CDC has chosen a head researcher to lead a group, currently in assemblage, to investigate Morgellon's. It is too early to know anything, according to Mr. Rutz, as processes are in preliminary staging. Here's a very lucid person with a dry sense of humor, an Intel microscope, and continuing to keep an open mind about possibilities: http://www.dpref.com/index.html Stealth virus, recombinant dna release, nantech are not off the list of things offered as considerations of some looking at this, as so others less exotic, i.e., springtails, combinations of opportunistic infections. Exactly What Morgellon's IS... whether natural or unnatural mutation, whether something very old awakened in the environment or something very new released, whether a unique complex of the known come together naturally or unnaturally, whether something that has been going on under the radar and is just now coming to light or something that really is a recent novel addition to the scene ...the, "kind," with the physical evidences (of a very odd sort) that has prompted formation of a CDC group dedicated to finding out, hopefully will be known sooner rather than later.