You’re an intelligent woman, and by having said in that article that scratching doesn’t help, you’ve proven to yourself that your own scratching is not only making you worse, but that it’s permanently destroying your skin.

Scratching the skin can cause reactions that exacerbate the itching setting off the itch receptors, which in turn rush the itch message to the brain. Though scratching provides temporary relief from itching, it can lead to the onset of the itch/scratch cycle that simply perpetuates this unpleasant sensation and can actually damage the skin, making it more susceptible to infection.

http://www.lanacane.co.uk/skin/itching/index.asp

Get some of that and it will help, as long as you can also help yourself. And, good luck! Smileykins

Menopause is just one of many conditions that can lead to these symptoms. I’ve maintained all along that people who self-diagnose with Morgellons are unlikely to have the same condition. Menopause was just one example of a possible cause.

Regarding the black specks, Dermatologist Dr Jeffery Meffert says:

brown and black specks are likely tiny little blood clots from exposed capillaries. The lubricant helps soften them enough to be released from the underlying tissue. I see it all the time in patients who surgeries we are allowing to heal on their own.

If you scratch your skin, the damaged cause will account for the various specks you see. These are not necessarily symptoms of what is causing the itching, but rather an indirect effect, via the scratching.

Morgellon’s seems to be an autoimmune condition, probably related to chemical attack of the keratin in the skin, thus causing erupting sores and fibers. Keratin is one of the common constituents in skin and does often form into fibers, like hair or wool.
These fibers would be quite small, and may be mistaken by the untrained eye to be fiber from clothing, although I’m sure analysis would reveal them to be keratin fibers too small to be hair or wool. The photographs on the morgellon’s organization site, esp. of the fibers under the skin, would seem to prove this theory.

In any case of autoimmune the body can be either under stress or trauma from previous illness, or emotional breakdown, causing it to disfunction and use it’s own natural functions of breakdown or immune response to attack itself. Sometimes, however, these conditions are simply genetic disorders.

My suspicion is that this process involves enzyme or hormone disfunction, or would have some abnormal levels of hormones or proteins of some kind related to these ulcerations. Or the keratin which would normally be incorporated with other proteins in the skin would simply have some kind of kink in it’s formation which caused it to be overproduced or to self adhere more, etc. Keratin can form chains or sheets, the chains would definitely appear to be fibers. The reasons for the coloration of the fibers is likely chemical as well, and would likely be related to the chemical processes involved in forming it.

Whether or not some viral agent or parasite is involved in this reaction remains to be seen. It seems clear, however, that there is a physical cause to this affliction, and that it is unique from other pathological diseases.

In this case, why not take it to a doctor and ask for their recommendation?

As Michael has listed in no small detail, the number of separate symptoms is staggering, and no particular criteria that I can observe is used to classify the disease. If this is, as you say, such a problem, then it strikes me that the risks from accepting the possibility that, while the symptoms are real, and that you may be ill in some serious and genuine way, Morgellons is not real, are acceptable. In all other case, it smacks of California-style sensationalism, and a desire to attract attention to oneself.