Apr 14 2006
Morgellons Fiber Photo Galleries
There are a surprising number of Morgellons photos on the web. One thing that is clear from viewing all these photos is that they do not all have the same thing.
(If you are looking for some free Morgellons-style photos to illustrate an article, then there are several here)
Morgellons.org - (the site that started it all)
http://morgellons.org/images.htm
Scabs and lesion scraping with cloth fibers (probably cotton) embedded in them. Two stained photos of what looks like paper fibers. Some SEM photos of slightly crusted skin with a few fibers seeming to poke through, probably vellus hairs and stray paper fibers.
Ron Wells - (Web master of the MRF)
http://www.rewells.com/Ordeal/page2.htm (via Archive.org)
Several close-ups of a largish sebum plug (hardened zit or blackhead), from his nose.
Ant Guy - (Administrator at Lymebusters)
http://antguy.50megs.com/photo.html
Various - sebum plugs, dead insects, tufts of fur, flakes of skin,
Carrie, Orion and Patti from Lymebusters http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/lymebusters/my_photos
A mixed bag - some poor quality microscope pictures of nothing. Some hairs and fibers (described as filaria - parasitic baby worms). Scabs. “Amber fluid” (sebum). Fungal toenails.
Cherokee Chas - Ex-Chairman of the MRF
http://www.texramp.net/~chazman/MorgImgs.htm
All scabs with clothing fibers embedding in them.
Ruth - Stormsky22000
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/stormysky22000/my_photos
Dead insects. Hairy scabs. Congealed blood and fluids with fibers. Sebum plugs. Possible colon polyp or worm.
Uk Guy
http://morgellons.shutterfly.com/action/
Sebum plugs, hairballs, loose fibers, and combinations of the above.
Ann Dill (recently featured on good Morning America) http://annedill.piczo.com/?cr=1&rfm=y
Huge page with lots of photos. Mostly skin flakes, coagulated blood, possibly mixed blood/sebum.
Another Pattie
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/pattismorgellons/my_photos
Plant Material. Tissue fibers. Sebum fragments. Fuzz balls. Things “from urine” !
Since I posted the above list, I’ve been seeing if I could identify and replicate some of these photos. Here’s some results:
Fuzzballs
Morgellons photos (fibers in a lesion)
Objects emerging from lesion on childs lip look like kleenex fibers
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41 Responses to “Morgellons Fiber Photo Galleries”
I would like to thank you for giving our disease more publicity, even though that was not your intent. However,I would like to request that in the future, you get your facts straight. I’m not sure how many of the others’ photos were misrepresented but I have never identified any of mine as being of filarial, parasitic baby worms, or even fungal (TOEnail, not townail)in nature.
I might add that while I am honest about this disease with every FIBER of my being, it’s a shame that you can say what you want about us without verifiable proof. No matter……I am not angry and actually hope that you never will be in a position where you have to explain the horrible aspects of this disease. I hope that you never have to see and feel and experience the horrifying symptoms that we all have.
The truth will prevail and I plan to check back here intermittently to see when you do post your retraction……I suspect it won’t be long, unfortunately for you.
Best regards from LymeBusters,
Patti
Sorry Pattie, the filaria description was from Orion’s album, not yours - I’d just used a link to all five Lymebuster albums, and I’d though it was yours. My mistake. I’ll edit the entry to fix this.
Thank you for your consideration of my response and the subsequent correction. It wasn’t that big of a deal except that nobody has ever really identified these specimens and I didn’t want readers who do not know me to think I had.
I also appreciate that you are exposing those who really are preying on many of us who suffer from this horrible condition. Plus, you don’t outright disbelieve us without attaching an explanation of why you think this is happening to us…..most people don’t even afford us the time to try and identify what is causing this, so this sets you apart from the others right off. Until you have experienced this yourself, however, you probably won’t be believing us anytime soon. This is okay…..we’re used to it and I myself was a non-believer until there were no more explanations left to blame it on.
I will tell you what I wrote on our forum not so long ago: “We are not a bunch of vagrants or drug users with low IQs and high imaginations, we all are very bright people who once held respectful jobs and lived honorable lives. We had families and friends and futures before this but now, most of us have lost it all including our savings, our homes, and even our families. According to the skeptics, we all sit here and imagine this disease, just so we can lose everything and go broke.” It doesn’t make any sense at all and in my case, I had the job of my dreams with numerous perks and benefits….I hated to leave it but it came to a point where I could no longer function the way I needed to, all day, 24/7. People suffering from Morgellons were drawn together AFTER they became ill…..it’s not a case of the blind leading the blind or some type of delusional group mentality. The many photos we have compiled were taken independant of knowing that other photos out there existed identicle to ours.
I know that I am fed up with being sick and if taking an antipsychotic drug (as has been suggested by many) would help, you best believe that I’d be first in line. But it’s not that simple and I can see why it’s so hard for others to believe this. I know that I could write forever and still not convince those who disbelieve but if you knew many of us personally, you would see that we are as sane as the next guy….we just seem to have contracted this disease that is destroying our lives.
Fibers on and under the skin can be explained but there is no explanation for “our” fibers that move, thousands of which I have seen myself. These fibers are not affected by air conditioning or currents or anything else that would explain them…believe me when I say I’ve tried to blame it on these things, anything that would just make a little sense. When certain hairs on your head and body move while ones right next to them are dead-still, there simply is no explanation except whatever the “pathogen” is that has invaded our bodies. I could go on and on with horror stories but you’ve probably already read most of them.
Let me just say that I hope you will continue to monitor the situation of Morgellons and do your best to report the truth as we discover it, not as you believe or disbelieve it to be. And please understand and forgive the angry posts you often see. If you had this disease, I wouldn’t have to even mention why they are often so prevalent. We are very lucky to still have our lives and sanity intact throughout all we’ve experienced (though unfortunately, many poor souls have not been as lucky as we are).
Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak.
Patti from Lymebusters
let me just say i do hope this person gets this illness.. its people like this that would cry the loudest. beware of karma.
Speaking of karma, I mean no harm - so I’ll be fine.
Excellent work Morgellons, but futile to those who think they have something other than what they’ve been diagnosed with.
Patti said…
“Until you have experienced this yourself, however, you probably won’t be believing us anytime soon. This is okay…..we’re used to it and I myself was a non-believer until there were no more explanations left to blame it on.”
Patti said…
“We are not a bunch of vagrants or drug users with low IQs and high imaginations, we all are very bright people who once held respectful jobs and lived honorable lives. We had families and friends and futures before this but now, most of us have lost it all including our savings, our homes, and even our families. According to the skeptics, we all sit here and imagine this disease, just so we can lose everything and go broke.” It doesn’t make any sense at all and in my case, I had the job of my dreams with numerous perks and benefits….I hated to leave it but it came to a point where I could no longer function the way I needed to, all day, 24/7. People suffering from Morgellons were drawn together AFTER they became ill…..it’s not a case of the blind leading the blind or some type of delusional group mentality. The many photos we have compiled were taken independant of knowing that other photos out there existed identicle to ours.”
To the contrary..
You are not “all” very bright people. Most of your cult followers are, in fact, hopelessly and very obviously ignorant. “Once” and “had” are key words. You “once” had respectful (sic) jobs and lived honorable lives. If you would have listened to your doctors and followed their suggestions you would still have respectable jobs and still be living honorable lives. You “had” families and friends, “had” futures, “had” savings, and “had” homes. You “had” the job of your dreams, and you “had” numerous perks and benefits. It’s true that suffering people were drawn together after becomming ill, but, sadly, it is a case of the blind leading the blind. The photos that that you speak of, that were taken independently, prove two things. You all have the same type of immune system and you all share similar environments. You need to learn how the human immune system functions.
Let’s not call Morgellons something it’s not. First of all, it’s “not” a disease. Some of you are obviously very sick, but there are plenty of sensible explanations to account for what you are experiencing. But you have let your condition become all consuming. Is it any wonder that it has consumed so much of what you “had”. If you continue to allow this curse to operate in your life, it will consume you completely. Your lymebusters cult, and all branches of the morgellons cult, are doing much more harm than good. Don’t you realize that by drawing people together and entangling them in your web you are setting them up so that what remains of their lives will be destroyed. No, you are not fed up with being sick. You are making a name for yourself just like Mary, from the Morgellons Foundation. You bleed your followers of the sympthy that you require. You live with the delusion that someone “else” has wronged you, and that someone “else” will eventually pay for the injustice. Meanwhile, lives are being destroyed, and the lymebusters message board is helping to destroy them.
Tall Cotton
This “disease” only effects a bunch of meth addicts and hypochondriacs patting eachother on the back and assuring one another theyre not insane. All of the symptoms that lead up to the fibers everyone reports are all symptoms meth addicts show, the lesions and purple spots reported are from being poorly dehydrated and having bad circulation from the drugs youre all on. The fibers are probably simply a delusion, sounds like speed bumps and meth mites to me. And before anyone gets all pissy I used to believe I was a “morgellons sufferer” but that was nothing more than be being a meth addict and spending too much time online reading other tweakers conspiracy theories and myself not wanting to believe that it could be psychological. It’s really amusing to read the morgie replies here because theyre all the kind of long winded irrational rants people make up when theyve been up for way too long on drugs. You morgellons sufferers need some sunlight, social interaction and time off of the drugs and youll forget all about your meth mites. I would be willing to bet all the people here fighting about how real their disease is couldnt pass a drug test if they tried and spend at least ten minutes a day peeking through their blinds at the meth monsters outside that cause them to be the fearfull shut ins they are.
Christian, congratulations, if you accomplished getting off the stuff. Considering the methamphetamine epidemic, I imagine there are some meth users within this group of patients. Such morgie people aren’t likely to say, “Oh yeah, BTW, I’m an meth addict, too”. There are certain morgie people who definitely worsen, periodically, with their on line experiences. Of course, that could be mood alterations and/or psychosis from whatever mental illnesses they have, though. Dental caries are inevitable in the meth community too, as you probably know, and results in the condition dubbed as “meth mouth” But some morgie people have said that they have sjogren’s syndrome, and it also causes tooth decay. However, all morgies seem to believe that “morgellons disease” is the cause for the deterioration of their teeth. If they’ve acknowledged that they have sjogren’s, one would think they’d understand how to treat it to preserve their teeth.
But Christian, in all fairness, delusional parasitosis has a whole lot of causes. I know that I’d had it for two months four years ago, and I don’t drink or do any type of drugs. I was very sick and my state of physical health culminated into the event. Some people who believe in this are worse off than others, but they are all ill, from various causes. The secrecy is a very striking feature, I think. What I mean is how so many people get angered and demand to be believed, yet, they won’t explain anything as to why we should.
I make long posts, day and night, too, Christian, and it sure isn’t due to being on stimulants of any type. I have an incomplete spinal cord injury, and having no form of pain management causes me to lose a lot of sleep. Things aren’t often as simple to apply reason to as what they might seem, so I’d consider holding off on making that bet about all morgie people being meth users. Some may be, yeah, but I’m sure not all are.
I’m sure a lot of them arent on anything at all, they’re the hypochondriachs I mentioned or they could just be a little crazy. No healthy happy mentally stable person would ever live in fear of common household lint. Oh and thank you I’ve been clean for 6 months now.
Hey patty
This site is only set up to “debunk” morgellons and to ridicule those that have it.
It is truly a waste of time for anyone looking for answers.
Ohhh yes and Lyme disease does not exist either, agent orange was not toxic, and depleted uranium for our returning troops is Nutritious and healthy. Yes you debunkers have been heard over and over again.
Nope nope, nothing at all to see here folks just move along polyethylene fibers growing out of your skin attached to some little wormlike creature is natural of course. Go take your meds and stop worrying about it is the message this board has.
You have heard of “root canal fillings”?? and you have heard of the toxic compounds that dentists use??
Our doctor years ago was convinced that my Father’s mouth cancer was brought on through dental work. This doctor saw the exact same thing happen in his own brother-in-law.
To James - well said mate! But remember one thing Michael sits on the fence, BUT shittykins and toothpick her lover have something to hide don’t they??
One more thing smelly and small, if the two of you are trying to prevent “mass hysteria” why the hell did you come to this blog site in the first place??
You two make us ALL hysterical!!
Have a nice day!
Sorry Michael Post 12 and 13 were from ME, I forgot to change the name after Tony had made his post. Thanks
How very strange - I made 2 posts which were numbered 12 and 13, then they disappeared.
Secrey??? Read what I just wrote about disappearing posts, NOW then who has something to hide? Over this side of the world smelly and small we call people like yourself “two faced hypercrits”
And for the record I am NOT on drugs and I am NOT a hypochondriac.
Hi Tallcotton, or maybe your friend, did you pay him also?
You a doctor also Christian?
Fearful of household lint?? Hahahaha - you need meds! (yes, to even make a statement such as that, you certainly need medication or to be hit with a mallet. Actually both would be advisable in your case. Bye bye.
Gillian, I fixed the name on your posts. They went invisible when you changed names as they were awaiting moderation. Nothing was deleted.
“Shittykins and her toothpick lover” put ourselves out there, telling the truth of what we’d experienced, and why, hoping to reach anybody with the same drive to understand their own, seemingly inexplicable, situations. Once we’d discovered all the various causes of DOP, the morgies’ behaviors, that continue to trouble us, then, fell into place. We’d also understood that anyone we’d ever been able to reach, obviously, had the secondary organic type, from an underlying physical condition, like we’d had.
Go back to when we first came here, in the blog’s archives and we’ve never hidden what we think. Morgies believe we’re hiding what? Mercy, we, along with Michael, Jeezelouise, and Sarah Bione-Dunn, have been told that we work for how many secret organizations, and how many think that we created & unleashed something???
Yeah, some may be “a little crazy”, Christian. Sadly, anywhere it’s written on the web, anyone can see that some are much more than that. Congratulations, again!! Great job!!!
Gillian,
You have everything BUT hypochondriasis. Let me think about one for a minute. Oh, what am I thinking? You have one very, very, broad, multi-faceted syndrome called Morgellons. And since you were sane until you acquired Morgellons, you’ve had it since childhood. Okay, I think I understand.
TC
Thank you Michael, you know computers frighten the heck out of me at times!
I love you too TC!
I don’t think a lot of morgies would know what love is, if it jumped out of a bush and bit them smack dab on the ass.
I posted here a few months back, scared to death about the ‘floaters’ in my eyes. I had never heard of floaters before, or knew what they were, though I have had them for 15+ years now.
I have recently learned that floaters can be seen preceeding migraines, that they are round in shape, and do not stay in one’s vision for very long.
The floaters that I have had for many years now do not match the floaters that people I know and talk to have had.
My floaters have grown larger over time. They are shaped like threads. On a good day, can see hundreds of transparent threads within my visual awareness. The same thread that was near the center of my vision 10 years ago is still there today, only it has grown larger in its tentacles & nodes. This website will debunk these as being floaters, but I know nurses that have floaters, and they say the ones that I describe are not floaters. I can see them at any time I want to. When I’m driving in the fog, all I see is a bunch of threads inside my vision!
I am scared as hell, mostly because I have kids. My son has had that nagging phlegm-cough for over a year…
Zombiefied, is your son under a doctor’s care for “that nagging phlegm-cough for over a year”? Why are you not going to an eye doctor over the problems you have with your eyes?
http://www.carolinaeye.com/floaters.html
Talk to your eye doctor.
Eye Floaters and Spots
By Judith Lee and Gretchyn Bailey;
reviewed by Dr. Vance Thompson
You may sometimes see small specks or clouds moving in your field of vision. They are called floaters. You can often see them when looking at a plain background, like a blank wall or blue sky. Floaters are actually tiny clumps of gel or cells inside the vitreous, the clear jelly-like fluid that fills the inside of your eye.
(Click link to read more)
http://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/spotsfloats.htm
Oh joy! I don’t have an eye doctor, and I got floaters happening. I noticed more so last week, than ever before. I remember havin em as a kid too.
I just can’t keep my eyes open much today, don’t know if it is fatigue, or a fogged head. My head is throbbing so bad. I keep drinking lots of water, eating fruit, sugar, bread….then I take another breath. Oh shit, I’m a mess.
I don’t have an eye doctor, either. Any one of them will do, as I have been seeing them since 1965, every 1-2 years. Some accept walk-ins, without an appointment. It isn’t complicated.
All you morgellons disease doubters and cynics go and have a look at the firs captured images of a living organism moving that is the cause of this disease. You are welcome to contact me if you want to hear about my seven-year suffering with this disease. I live in London and did not even know there was a disease listed as morgellons until 2006, or that it was the same as the disease I had been suffering from for the last seven-years documented.
All-comers doubters welcome to view on youtube at
youtube.com/watch?v=g1MPArQLsLI
Also
youtube.com/watch?v=NKW0bCcfvPE
Something moving. Is that your proof? The video is so out of focus, I’m not even sure if I was looking at the right thing. I’d be embarassed to show that video to anyone, much less use it as evidence of anything.
This website is disgusting. These people call themselves debunkers as if they have done even a shred of homework. I’m not a meth-head, and I don’t have Morgellons. I also work full time, but even I was able to do enough homework to see that a small number of people are undeniably suffering from a skin condition that is not drug related. These people are not crazy. Tell me, debunkers…if Morgellons is a widespread hoax to hide meth addiction, if all the vitcims are suffering delusions, then please tell me WHY:
1. Why have researchers from highly reputable United States labs confirmed the discovery of unidentified cellulose based fibers in tissue samples taken from Moregellon’s “claimers”. Why have they been unable to match these fibers with any known manufactured sample from far and wide? Why do the fiber samples from widely seperated donors bear remarkable similarity under standard and electron microscopes?
2. Why do officials high up within the CDC admit that they are concerned about a “possible developing disease” that has been reported in nearly every US state?
3. Why has the CDC so recently backed away from it’s assertation that all previous Morgellons ‘victims’ were suffering from delusions about parasites or some garbage. Go look at the editing on thier website.
4. Why has the CDC established a special team drawn from multiple disciplines of science to track down the cause of these skin lesions and the fibers that develop within them? The fact that it hasn’t done much of anything till now is besides the point. If its purpose was to make an effort to explain away the physical evidence, they’ve done a poor job so far, but the fact remains that they DID see enough evidence to form it in the first place.
5. Why have numerous state news agencies, radio stations and papers run stories, interviews and documentaries including interviews of people currently suffering from Morgellons? The media can smell hoaxing druggies out pretty rapidly in most cases–why are they giving these people the time of day? Is it actually *GASP* possible, that most of these people are not meth addicts? Children meth addicts? Blue collar families of meth addicts?
6. Why, if Moregllons is such a load of baloney, have CDC officials admitted there may be a regional connection linking outbreaks of Moregllons reports in recent years? If these victims are nothing more than insurance hounding meth heads, why are entire families coming down with the exact same symptoms? Last time I checked, users cannot pass thier highs, let alone resulting skin burns, onto people them come in close contact to. Viruses and diseases on the other hand, do a very good job of exploiting that sort of situation.
7. Why have numerous United States Senators and lower reps been in repeated contact with the CDC in regards to Morgellons? Why are they pressing for action, why are they worried about the spread of this condition IF IT IS ALL NOTHING BUT A HOAX?
This website is an absolute joke. Normal people are suffering with an unknown illness. Like most of the slow to act government, you people running this website are content to sit back and ridicule the victims for as long as possible. There is physical evidence, yet you try to just explain it all away, like it’s a bloody UFO or something. It’s amazing how you ignorant blowhards stalking these boards are so in love with this idea that all of these people are wrapped up in some massive, conveniently similar conspiracy to pull one over on you. It is you who are the conspiracy theorists I’m afraid. Especially this Tall Cotton poster–what an offensive, heartless piece of garbage.
Seriously–there IS something going on with this. You idiots insult the intelligence of hundreds of thousands of your fellow Americans with this drivel, and you also make research more difficult for those that care. There were people just like many of you trying to debunk AIDS as some sort of fairy tale when blacks and gays started looking all strung out. The arguments didn’t last after AIDS was in every state in the country, did they?
At least try to have some respect for these victims, regardless of what you think they may truly be suffering from. None of you are quite as smart as you think.
1. The fibers are environmental and unrelated to any illness
2. Morgellons is not a distinct disease
3. “Sufferers” have a mixed variety of physical and/or mental illnesses. ”
There is no published evidence to support a blanket statement such as this, none whatsoever. The final verdict on the truth of this condition has not yet been delivered, yet this web page and others like it ignore that reality, displaying amazing powers of
omniscience with thier declarations.
Funny how this website contains only the information that was picked and chosen specifically to portray Morgellons as some sort of hoax by a bunch of crazy people…Why is none of the supporting research out there linked up to Morgellonswatch? And don’t even try to claim there is none, because there is and that’s the bottom line. Contrary to what some of the regulars here would like to believe, there ARE credible proffesionals out there who are putting thier careers on the line because they believe the evidence warrants a full blown investigation. Oh wait–these doctors and researchers must all be hitting the meth pipe too right?
From CDC web:
”
Delusional Parasitosis
The Delusional Parasitosis page has been removed from the Division of Parasitic Diseases site.
”
That must really piss some of you off I’m sure.
Article:
”
The debate has grown so heated that, recently, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention got involved, and not because they wanted to. They were inundated with calls from irate people who say they have this disorder and want answers. “More typically we get a very credible indication of an emerging problem from an official source,” says Dan Rutz, spokesperson for the CDC. “This was driven by lay people and some clinicians who are frustrated and not sure what to do with these folks.” The CDC is currently in the process of assembling a multidisciplinary research team to examine a cluster of patients sometime in 2007.
While most physicians seem to lean toward the delusional parasitosis diagnosis, there are a handful of people who think there’s something real going on here. About a year ago, Oklahoma State neuroscientist Randy Wymore stumbled upon Leitao’s Morgellons site and became intrigued. Wymore called Leitao and asked if there were any fiber samples he could look at. Within days, Ziplocs were arriving in the mail from around the country. Though the fibers all resembled one another, he says, they looked like no other synthetic or natural fiber he compared them to. Ultimately, he asked the fiber experts on the Tulsa police department’s forensics team to examine them.
First they employed a type of spectroscopy that identifies the chemical structures of fibers and compared them to their database of 800 fibers. No match.
Next they subjected fibers to gas chromatography. Compounds put through this process are encased in a vacuum chamber and exposed to high heat; the temperature at which they reach boiling point is a clue to what compound they are made of. The forensic experts had a database that included the boiling point of 90,000 organic compounds with which to compare the fibers. But the machine ran to its highest temperature, 1,400 degrees, and apart from some slight blackening, nothing happened. The fiber experts were mystified. “The conclusion we were left with is that they are unknown fibers, not simply contaminants from clothing sticking to scabs,” says Wymore. ”
That’s just one article, one drop in the bucket.
Wymore, who is not a physician, also asked Rhonda Casey, the chief of the pediatrics department at Oklahoma State University Hospital, to take a look at some of the patients for him, to get a medical opinion. “Honestly, when he first told me about it, I thought, they’re all nuts,” says Casey. But she changed her mind. “There was not one patient I saw who did not look ill,” she says. What’s more, they all looked ill in the same way, with neurological symptoms, including confusion, foot drop, in which a person loses control of their foot and has trouble walking, and a sagging mouth when they spoke. Many had been diagnosed with atypical forms of neurological diseases like Parkinson’s or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease).
She examined their skin via a dermatoscope, a light tool with a magnifying lens. And she did biopsies on both their lesions and apparently healthy skin. She says she saw fibers embedded in both places. The white ones, she says, are hard to see. A dermatologist who either didn’t look at all, or didn’t use a dermatoscope, might not see them under the skin. But some—the black, red, and blue ones—are blatantly obvious, she says. One young girl had a small pimple on her thigh with a bundle of black fibers just barely protruding from it. Many doctors have accused these patients of embedding fibers in the sores themselves, but Casey doesn’t believe it. “As a physician, I can’t imagine reproducing what I saw in that little girl’s leg.”
There’s also some evidence of an overlap with Lyme disease. Ginger Savely, a San Francisco nurse practitioner with a long history of treating Lyme patients, now sees Morgellons patients and says 90 percent of them test positive for Lyme disease. “I think that one of two things is happening,” she says. “Either there’s a co-infection people are getting at the same time they get Lyme, because there are a lot of infections spread by ticks.” Or whatever is causing Morgellons is something ubiquitous that many of us are exposed to, but the disease develops only in people with weakened immune systems, like those with Lyme disease.
Until the CDC has given the final word on this, you bloggers need to stop posting that there is no such thing as Morgellons. The CDC is the only authority with the right to declare that with any amount of certainty. You present opinions on this site that are backed up by no institution.
If the CDC does in fact determine at some point that a small number of people have indeed contracted this illness in recent years, I want to know what you rabid skeptics are going to do then? I’m sure you’ll find a way to justify your misleading information and comments, regardless of what developments may come in regards to Morgellons research.
What will you do then–set up a web page to debunk DU and Gulf War I syndrome? Good luck with that.
Been poking around looking into Morgellons for my own reasons - curiousity, mostly. I will say that I find some of the ridicule and “rabid skepticism” as one put it, on this site is probably fun for you, but it makes many of the writers just look like children. I’m not pro or con, just a message that science is not a matter of opinion, and behaving so means one is no scientist. Anyway, the real point being that the issue of whether Morgellons exists as a disease and what it might be about is easily solved, and that is in the fibers, assuming they are there. In looking around I find limited or no research into that (It’s how I came to be here). People have looked under microscopes, which is a beginning, but it’s simple enough in this day to analyze them completely. It takes time, but it’s everyday lab work, now. I find it curious that there’s research and today the CDC announced it’s program, but to date nobody has truly analysed the fibers. I don’t disbelieve their existence per se, but then again why is obvious, standard scientific analysis not being done, and more so, hasn’t already been done? Curious…..
That’s a key point John. Why is the CDC investigating if there is nothing to suggest that the fibers are anything other than lint. It seems they have simply bowed to political pressure. Science by lobbying.
I would like to interject. I am, myself, a highly educated health care professional with a research background in immunology (amongst other things). I do have a good job, a home and a family. There is no way that whatever I have in my scalp is
“in my head”. (no funny here intended). I did not know about Morgellons when the lesions started. I don’t know if I have Morgellon’s, or if I do not have it. But for over a year - maybe 2, I started getting small itching sores on my scalp that physician said looked like skin when it is healing from a burn. I have been tested for fungal infections and lice and so on and so forth. Finally one week, it itched so bad, I scratched the sores. I got a superficial bacterial infection from scratching in which my scalp seemed to swell abound my skull and all the little lymph nodes at the base of my skull swelled up. After a ten day course of penicillin, the bacterial infection cleared up. , but the sores did not heal. I was determined not to scratch. Bacterial infections in the scalp are a definite road to bald spots. I used topical hydrocortisone and topical antibiotics,
but that didn’t really help heal my scalp. Just made it less itchy. Ketoconazole, coal tar type shampoos, dandruff shampoo didn’t touch the stuff. I had a few days off from work when it semed to get better. So then I thought it was just stress. But it came back. Note: it came back after I was outside doing a little minor yardwork (not sweaty hard work either). I finally got fed up. An old treatment for mange was to soak the dog in kerosene and then wash the dog. Not wanting to soak my head in kerosene, I desperately washed my hair with undiluted disinfecting cleaner. It stung like heck, but the problem cleared up after a few days. I thought it was gone. Until I took the kids down to the beach and the next day the lesions came back in the exact same spots. My doctor looked at my scalp and said she saw tiny pink dots and the other small lesions.
Meanwhile, I sterilized and cleaned my combs and bought a new hairbrush. When I wash my hair, I collect any that falls out into a sterile strainer and go through it with a fine forceps and magnifying glass. So far I haven’t found anything resembling nematodes or worms. Possibly a bug. Possibly some skin with embedded fibers. The only intersting thing I have found has been less of the same thing I found when the condition was at its worse - Little balls of fiber and some longer single fibers. They are always red and or blue fibers, even if I have been no where near a red or blue fibered sweater, shirt, towel, sheet in weeks. Some white ones also - but those could too easily be tissue, cotton or other fibers. Occasionally there is a fluorescent teal colored on or a black one. I can pick out a cat or dog hair or spider leg -
I know what I am looking at in that regard. Okay - enough said.
I don’t know what this is, but it is not fungal or the usual bacterial infection. It is not just eczema, but it does seem to be triggered by sunlight or plants or something outside and possibly exacerbated by stress. Yes the fibers and little balls of fibers loook like they could come from sweaters, socks and so forth, but I collect at least one or two of these fuzz balls
every time I wash my hair and had many many many more of them previously. It’s summer. I haven’t been wearing any red or blue sweaters. I don’t sleep on blue sheets or wear a red hat. If the fibers were from my clothing or towels then I should have lime green, yellow, turquoise and maybe pink fibers in my head. But there are none of these colors. I believe that a least some of these fibers and fuzz balls are relevant to the condition that I have and that others may have reported. Since I want to continue working and do not want to scratch myself into baldness or insanity, I may just wash it with cleaner again. Or dowse my head in mineral oil and let it set there for a few hours (note that this is also another one of those old remedies for killing ticks, lice, etc.)
I feel sorry for those people who have much worse cases of this when people make fun of them and tell them that its “their imagination.” I am sure that there are many people who have been told that they have psychological parasitic syndrome, who really may have an invasive biological entity in their skin. They may have even been inappropriately treated with psychotherapeutic medication. Unfortunately, the posting of all the pictures that everyone has put up on the internet, incites those poor folks who really do have psychological parasitism to believe that this is what they have. So they collect lint and fuzz and bring it in to the doctors and they post their fuzz pictures on the internet. This really muddies up the picture. Patients who do need psychotherapeutic medication might not get it or might not take it when its possible that they could really need it.
There will always be people whose minds will make them believe that they have some sort of disease. That does not mean that everyone who has a disorder not yet defined by our scientists is imagined.
We are victims of our poor education system and our media-fed brains. Most of our schools do not teach our children how to learn or how to weed out fact from fiction, or how to analyze what they see on tv or in the newspaper. Hence we lose the ability to think “out of the box” and those that do, are punished and swept into the corner with the crazies because they do not think like the rest of society.
That is how our government wants us or they would spend more money on education and good teaching. That is how the HMO’s want us. Then they can get our appointments over in 5 minutes because we won’t be smart enough to ask questions. The key is to not let them think you know too much, or let them think that you know something that they don’t know. Doctors and scientists (and government officials) in this country never want to let it be known what they don’t know.
And doctors that do want to buck the system and ask questions and do right by their patients, wind up getting punished by losing their jobs and pension. So the only people who get anything out of our “world class health care” systems are the
management and the stock holders of the health insurance companies (and they people who believe that they are getting “good medicine.” And what they don’t know, and don’t want you to know can hurt you - one way or another. Our science only applies to what we know, as we know it - not what we don’t know. Physics and math is the closest you are going to get to a hard trut about anything, but what we know about physics only applis to us on this planet, in this dimension, at this paricular time.
Thanks for sharing your story Turtledust. I think that many, if not most, people who self-diagnose with “Morgellons” actually have some real physical problems - usually skin problems. It certainly sounds like you have a real problem with your skin.
One of the surprising things about fibers is how prevalent red and blue fibers are when you look at just any old fuzzball under a microscope. If you look at blue denin, it often has red white and blue fibers in there. If you look at the dust on your monitor, it also contains red, white and blue fibers.
I’d get a second opinion about your scalp problems. Some problems are under-diagnosed. I assume you’ve been tested for scabies?
Tested for scabies??……….I didn’t know there was a test for scabies.
Whatever you do Turtledust DO NOT use the scabies cream!!
Scabies cream sent my morgies completely round the twist, I was certifiably
bonkers a couple of days after applying the cream, & I stayed that way for 2 years!
The test for Scabies is to look for them in skin scrapings or biopsies:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3225/is_n2_v44/ai_11197500
Hi Michael,
Have you seen this? Smileykins admits Morgellons is REAL!
http://morgellonsgroup.proboards23.com/index.cgi?board=research&action=display&thread=2691&page=1
“Smileykins” & partner in crime “Tallcotton” need to be held accountable for the way they have treated people, followed them, insulted…you name it!
I should damn well know, I really tried to convince myself I had DOP even though I was never given this diagnosis from a doctor.
How dare they interfere with their internet antics, but more importantly they have interferred with people getting MEDICAL HELP because doctors do come to this blog & believe the utter trip that these TWO have spun for years!
Fed up of going around in friggin circles, this is so unfair. I have been asking myself the same question for 4 years… WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON??!!!!!!
I am one heck of an angry Mum right now, I gave birth with this condition & if my son has this GOD KNOWS WHAT I WILL DO!!
No one to date has yet come forward and had the guts to examine me because the TRUTH HURTS!
Gillian. I’m sure Smileykins said no such thing. It must have been a fake post, and it was removed later.
Gillian what YOU have is REAL. Your problems are real. All I’m saying, and what Smileykins (I think) is saying, is that you don’t have the exact same thing as everyone else who calls their problem “Morgellons”.
Morgellons covers a whole load of conditions. People need individual treatment for their individual problems. That’s what I’m advocating here. Individual treatment.
I don’t know what is going on with you. But millions of people every year have health problems that are never explained. Your health problems might never be fully explained, and you might have to accept that. But you should work with your doctor to manage your problems as best you can - knowing that it’s entirely possibly that you may never get a clear diagnosis, or cure.
Michael I do understand what you are saying. I am not very well at the moment, I haven’t really come good since having pneumonia. I saw my doctor last when I had my chest checked, I asked then about medication to help my suffering, he suggested no treatment at this stage, because we don’t understand what we are dealing with.
Anyway I am not improved, my partner & my parents are not happy with the lack of support from the medical community & under duress I have agreed to see the doctor tomorrow. I know I have to, I can’t even stand straight to walk & I sleep more than my son. I must mention the fibers because the fibers are a major deal with this condtion. My fibers are getting bigger. Medical articles on DOP mention the matchbox sign stating that the contents are nothing more than lint, carpet fluff etc. If that is the case then why is it in my body to begin with? I don’t understand a lot of what is written in these medical documents, & I admit I get so very confused, then frustrated about the entire thing. Someone should have explained something to me by now, meaning a doctor of medicine.
Any number of factors could be causing my symptoms. The amount of changes in this world in the past 13 yrs I feel is now upon us. No one is 100% sure what GMO is doing to human health. If tests in mice find that the DNA of a genetically modified organism can stay in the gut for 8 hours who is say that the same does not happen to a human, & the DNA of the GMO could be taken up by the human DNA. Tests in mice do not take in to consideration the GMO within the ecosystem. Nanoparticles & Nano Carbon Tubes in food packaging, yet again something new that the human body hasn’t been exposed to before (or have we?). Mobile towers, statelites, all the new technology we do & don’t know about. Many different things coming together, & the innocent public used as researchers & medical professionals lie to our faces as we are the guinea pigs.
My Dad did say once “who tipped off Dr //////// to leave Morgellons well alone”?. My mum said “Dr /////// was frightened to investigate Morgellons”. My parents are wild about this, so very angry. I agree with what my dad said tonight, “if as much effort was put into our Medical system as has been put into the Olympics we would all be ok”. My Dad is dying of mouth cancer.