What killed more indigenous peoples in this hemisphere? Bullets? Or European diseases brought by the Colonizers?
Posted on 05/19/2006 3:46:43 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
Moregellons Makes Your Skin Crawl With Threadlike Strings Coming Out Of Sores (CBS) LOS ANGELES It's a "mystery” straight out of the "X-Files."
But those who suffer from it will tell you it's painfully real.
Imagine sweating "beads” of a *black tar- like substance" -- or pulling colored threadlike strings from sores all over your body.
Worst of all... not only are doctors unsure of what it is, many tell patients they're making it all up.
The disease literally makes your skin feel like it's crawling-- but here's the real scary part for us. Out of the entire country, the L.A. area has the highest percentage of cases.
According to some patients: "They start out like little pimples or something and you scratch them, and they bust open and they spring forth these weird fibers like a strand of a piece of cotton. "
"I saw white fiber on my face, I saw black specks coming out of what looked like pimples really. "
It sounds like these people are talking about something out of a science-fiction movie. But they're not-- they're describing the painful symptoms associated with a mysterious skin disease called Morgellons.
Most sufferers have lesions on their skin that ooze multi-colored fibers.
"Blue red yellow pink white coming out of the skin, not landing on it."
Black pepper-like particles are also often found on the skin-- and then there's the bugs.
"The most disturbing symptom is just the crawling feeling on your skin like you got bugs crawling all over you."
“My son felt it first: ‘Mommy I have bugs on my skin.’ I thought he must be having a vivid dream. Then I started having the symptoms.”
This woman-- who only wants to be identified as Marcella, says in addition to the bugs, there's severe pain.
"Yes, tremendous amount of joint pain particularly the large joints. Like the hips and the knees."
These are just a few of the more than 3500 Americans believed to be suffering from the illness. The highest rate is right here in the L.A. area.
"My symptoms started out as small lesions that looked like birth marks, exactly like birthmarks"
William Zielenbach believes he's had the disease for the past two years. Right now he has lesion covering his arms and legs. He lives with his girlfriend, Katherine Walker, in this Hollywood apartment building. She recently came down with it and dropped about 40 pounds in a matter of months. They're now shells of their former selves.
"I was getting little lesions on my ears. Again my case wasn't as bad except for the chronic fatigue, which is how a lot of people say it starts for them."
Another troubling symptom-- hair loss. Annette Riaubia of Harbor City shows us why she has to wear a wig.
"My biggest symptom has been hair loss."
She often get lesions on her scalp.
"They don't actually heal. They just end up leaving strange looking scars."
On top of having to live with this devastating disease-- these people have had to deal with a lack of support from the medical community. Some have been diagnosed with scabies--- a contagious skin disease caused by a mite.
"Doctor diagnosis? Yeah, scabies from about 10 feet away."
Or they're told they’re delusional and that their ailments are from self-mutilation.
"Went to the doctor, went to the dermatologist first and he basically said that I was delusional.
"I’ve had everything from nerves to drug addiction to delusional parasitosis is the biggest common diagnosis.”
The disease does seem to cause a brain fog or lack of clarity. However, this Florida woman wanted to prove to doctors that it wasn't all in her mind so she saved the fibers that were growing out of her body.
"This has absolutely brought me to my knees."
Some doctors even admit to a lack of acknowledgement of the illness.
"A lot of times, not all of us but there are a lot of us who feel like if it doesn't exist in my medical book then it doesn’t' exist anywhere."
"Believe me if I just randomly saw one of these patients in my office, I would think they were crazy, too."
Nurse practitioner Ginger Savely treats Morgellons patients from all over the country at her San Francisco Medical Center.
“But after you've heard the story of over 100 patients and they’re all down to the most minute detail saying the exact same thing, which becomes quite impressive.”
As you can imagine living with such an illness can cause emotional distress. Lisa Wilson’s son, Trevor, developed the disease just over a year ago. At times she'd try to help him alleviate the pain.
"It looked like a piece of spaghetti was sticking out about 1/4 to an 1/8 of an inch. It was sticking out of his chest when having a bad attack. I tried as hard as I could to pull it out."
Trevor tried several medications-- antibiotics, antiparasitics and pain killers-- but when things became too much to bear, he took his own life.
" I knew he was going to kill himself and there was nothing I could do to stop him."
Other Morgellons patients have felt this same type of deep depression. The children have their own struggles:
"I used to have the whole softball team come over. Now no one wants to come over anymore. "
"Every day we just have to think that the end is soon. We just hope it will be over soon."
Researchers at Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences have been testing scabs and fibers from patients.
"We don’t' know how to treat it we don't know what causes it. We don't know if it’s an environmental factor, if there are bacteria involved, if there are parasites, or worms or viruses."
Meantime sufferers are praying someone can unlock this medical mystery and release them from this living hell.
"It's just one big Twilight Zone episode that hopefully we get an end here soon!”
Nurse practitioner Savely says she's found some success by giving her patients a combination of anti-fungus, antibiotics and antiparasitics.
I was just searching for unknown skin diseases around the world, and a number of sites place the start of this one in Southern Texas.
Apparently according to Wikipedia some doctor that has since lost his license claims it's something in French bottled water.
What killed more indigenous peoples in this hemisphere? Bullets? Or European diseases brought by the Colonizers?
Im wondering the same thing
Or maybe a full-fledged burro...
If diseases like AIDS and bird flu scare you, wait until you hear what's next. Doctors are trying to find out what is causing a bizarre and mysterious infection that's surfaced in South Texas.
Morgellons disease is not yet known to kill, but if you were to get it, you might wish you were dead, as the symptoms are horrible.
"These people will have like beads of sweat but it's black, black and tarry," said Ginger Savely, a nurse practioner in Austin who treats a majority of these patients.
Patients get lesions that never heal.
"Sometimes little black specks that come out of the lesions and sometimes little fibers," said Stephanie Bailey, Morgellons patient.
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Patients say that's the worst symptom — strange fibers that pop out of your skin in different colors.
"He'd have attacks and fibers would come out of his hands and fingers, white, black and sometimes red. Very, very painful," said Lisa Wilson, whose son Travis had Morgellon's disease.
While all of this is going on, it feels like bugs are crawling under your skin. So far more than 100 cases of Morgellons disease have been reported in South Texas.
"It really has the makings of a horror movie in every way," Savely said.
While Savely sees this as a legitimate disease, there are many doctors who simply refuse to acknowledge it exists, because of the bizarre symptoms patients are diagnosed as delusional.
"Believe me, if I just randomly saw one of these patients in my office, I would think they were crazy too," Savely said. "But after you've heard the story of over 100 (patients) and they're all — down to the most minute detail — saying the exact same thing, that becomes quite impressive."
Travis Wilson developed Morgellons just over a year ago. He called his mother in to see a fiber coming out of a lesion.
"It looked like a piece of spaghetti was sticking out about a quarter to an eighth of an inch long and it was sticking out of his chest," Lisa Wilson said. "I tried to pull it as hard as I could out and I could not pull it out."
The Wilson's spent $14,000 after insurance last year on doctors and medicine.
"Most of them are antibiotics. He was on Tamadone for pain. Viltricide, this was an anti-parasitic. This was to try and protect his skin because of all the lesions and stuff," Lisa said.
However, nothing worked, and 23-year-old Travis could no longer take it.
"I knew he was going to kill himself, and there was nothing I could do to stop him," Lisa Wilson said.
Just two weeks ago, Travis took his life.
Stephanie Bailey developed the lesions four-and-a-half years ago.
"The lesions come up, and then these fuzzy things like spores come out," she said.
She also has the crawling sensation.
"You just want to get it out of you," Bailey said.
She has no idea what caused the disease, and nothing has worked to clear it up.
"They (doctors) told me I was just doing this to myself, that I was nuts. So basically I stopped going to doctors because I was afraid they were going to lock me up," Bailey said.
Harriett Bishop has battled Morgellons for 12 years. After a year on antibiotics, her hands have nearly cleared up. On the day, we visited her she only had one lesion and she extracted this fiber from it.
"You want to get these things out to relieve the pain, and that's why you pull and then you can see the fibers there, and the tentacles are there, and there are millions of them," Bishop said.
So far, pathologists have failed to find any infection in the fibers pulled from lesions.
"Clearly something is physically happening here," said Dr. Randy Wymore, a researcher at the Morgellons Research Foundation at Oklahoma State University's Center for Health Sciences.
Wymore examines the fibers, scabs and other samples from Morgellon's patients to try and find the disease's cause.
"These fibers don't look like common environmental fibers," he said.
The goal at OSU is to scientifically find out what is going on. Until then, patients and doctors struggle with this mysterious and bizarre infection. Thus far, the only treatment that has showed some success is an antibiotic.
"It sounds a little like a parasite, like a fungal infection, like a bacterial infection, but it never quite fits all the criteria of any known pathogen," Savely said
No one knows how Morgellans is contracted, but it does not appear to be contagious. The states with the highest number of cases are Texas, California and Florida.
The only connection found so far is that more than half of the Morgellons patients are also diagnosed with Lyme disease.
For more information on Morgellons, visit the research foundation's Web site at www.morgellons.org.
Is that a fat chupacabra?
Fungal Morphology: B. dendrobatidis is a zoosporic chytrid fungus that causes chytridiomycosis (a disease of the skin) in amphibians and grows solely within keratinised cells. Diagnosis is by identification of characteristic intracellular flask-shaped sporangia (spore containing bodies) and septate thalli. The fungus grows in the superficial keratinized layers of the epidermis (known as the stratum corneum and stratum granulosum). The normal thickness of the stratum corneum is between 2µm to 5µm, but a heavy infection by the chytrid parasite may cause it to thicken to up to 60 µm. The fungus also infects the mouthparts of tadpoles (which are keratinised) but does not infect the epidermis of tadpoles (which lacks keratin). The fungus produces inoperculate, smooth-walled zoosporangia (zoospore containing bodies), which are spherical to subspherical in shape. Each zoosporangium (10µm to 40µm in diameter) produces a single discharge tube, which penetrates (and protrudes out of) the skin. Eventually the plug that blocks the releas of immature zoospores is shed and the mature zoospore are released. The zoospores (0.7µm to 6µm in diameter) are elongate to ovoid in shape. Each possesses a single posterior flagellum, rendering it motile in water
Whew!
First described in 1998, the fungus is the only chytrid known to parasitise vertebrates. B. dendrobatidis can remain viable in the environment (especially aquatic environments) for weeks on its own, and may persist in latent infections.
Maybe it's SMON.
I'm sure it all originated at the Circle W Ranch...
Other indigenous peoples?
| Doctors puzzled over bizarre infection surfacing in South Texas |
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| Posted by Responsibility2nd On News/Activism 05/12/2006 8:44:12 AM CDT · 209 replies · 4,835+ views KENS 5 Eyewitness News ^ | 05/12/2006 | Deborah Knapp If diseases like AIDS and bird flu scare you, wait until you hear what's next. Doctors are trying to find out what is causing a bizarre and mysterious infection that's surfaced in South Texas. Morgellons disease is not yet known to kill, but if you were to get it, you might wish you were dead, as the symptoms are horrible. "These people will have like beads of sweat but it's black, black and tarry," said Ginger Savely, a nurse practioner in Austin who treats a majority of these patients. Patients get lesions that never heal. "Sometimes little black specks that... |
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Mass hysteria. The media has created an utterly bogus disease.
Ping!
Like Barbara Streisand saying George Bush is using the NSA to tap her phones?
I was thinking about you yesterday -- did you see the story on H&C about LaStreisand and hubby going to the movies (in the valley) and sweet-talking the manager into free seats?
Entrez Pub Med
National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) PubMed
1: Am J Clin Dermatol. 2006;7(1):1-5. Related Articles, Links
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]
May 9 2006 14:13:00
Entrez PubMed: Am J Clin Dermatol. 2006;7(1):1-5. The mystery of Morgellons disease
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