Delusional parasitosis - morgellon's disease

[Xenocrates]

This story has been bubbling along for ages, but it's interesting.

The USA appears to be suffering from a new weird plague - details:

Over 1000 people in Texas, Florida and California are saying that they are suffering from a nasty new skin complaint, but doctors are telling them they are 'delusional'.

It is a weird 'bug' which sounds like something from an 'X Files' script, but it seems to be real, despite official denials from the US medical establishment.

No one knows what it is, and most people suffering from it are told they are suffering from 'Delusional Parasitosis' by their doctors.

However, now there is mounting evidence that it is the doctors and the US medical establishment who are 'delusional', not their unfortunate patients.

There are currently over 1,100 hundred known cases in the U.S., mostly in Texas, Florida and California of what is being called 'Morgellons', and it is spreading.

Symptoms:

Victims feel like bugs are crawling under their skin. They have little blue fibers, and black specks and white threads coming out of their skins. Under the skin, those fibers are connected to what appears to be a cluster of fibers or in some instances, parasitic looking organisms.

One Morgellons patient Eric Roberson said, 'It's almost like they're intertwined with your muscle tissue,"

"The lesions start out as bumps that are itchy, little round raised bumps. The fibers are quite alarming." said another.

From http://www.schmoo.co.uk/morgellons.htm?weak

Scary stuff. The victims of this disease, if it is a disease, have set up a support website: http://www.morgellons.org/

Delusion or real condition?

I don't know whether you've talked about this one, but there's also a rat parasite that is said to 'charm' rats so they aren't cautious around cats and so get eaten. It's spread in the cats faeces. That's interesting, but what's more interesting is that it also affects humans and alters our behaviour too:

Research has shown that women who are infected with the parasite tend to be warm, outgoing and attentive to others, while infected men tend to be less intelligent and probably a bit boring. But both men and women who are infected are more prone to feeling guilty and insecure.

Other researchers have linked the parasite to schizophrenia. In an adult, the symptoms are like a mild form of flu, but it can be much more serious in an infant or fetus. Oxford University researchers believe high levels of the parasite leads to hyperactivity and lower IQs in children.

from http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHard/story?id=2288095&page=1

I don't know what we'll debate about this, but we always seem to find a way to make an argument!

 

[Che Guava]

No wonder no doctors beleive them, from the symptoms it sounds like they're on crack...

 

[Xenocrates]

No wonder no doctors beleive them, from the symptoms it sounds like they're on crack...

Yep, but anyone whos encountereed medical disbelief will tend to become frantic.

From the Morgellon's foundation website:



10 * magnification.



60 * magnification.

This is a more hysterical website but the pictures are really spooky: http://www.morgellonsusa.com/

 

[Shaihulud]

Parasites are freaky and wierd, the worst that i heard of was one called the "Guinea worm". Its first stage inside a human body is by being ingested via its primary carrier, a water flea. Its second stage is when it tunnels through your body, ending up in your foot, your privates... A long thin wirelike worm that will break if you try to pull it out, causing infection, so you slowly pull it out and winding it on a stick. Worse thing is that the pain causes you to try soothing it in the public water supply, that is when it takes the opportunity to lay its next batch of eggs in the water . The guinea worm is quite a large worm, so it takes several days to slowly wind it out.

 

[Godwynn]

I wish I never opened this thread. I feel sick.

 

[Sparta]

Parasites are freaky and wierd, the worst that i heard of was one called the "Guinea worm". Its first stage inside a human body is by being ingested via its primary carrier, a water flea. Its second stage is when it tunnels through your body, ending up in your foot, your privates... A long thin wirelike worm that will break if you try to pull it out, causing infection, so you slowly pull it out and winding it on a stick. Worse thing is that the pain causes you to try soothing it in the public water supply, that is when it takes the opportunity to lay its next batch of eggs in the water . The guinea worm is quite a large worm, so it takes several days to slowly wind it out.

Apparently, some postulate that this practice may be what led to the evolution of the modern symbol(s) for medical practices:

It has also been suggested that the caduceus derives from the treatment for Guinea Worm disease, which requires sufferers to pull the worms out of their legs by slowly, over a period of many days, winding the worm around a stick which is twisted a little more each day to draw the worm out. It is also said that doctors would wrap the extruding larva around a stick over the course of weeks or months, and the result was "worn" as an indicator of the doctor's competence.

Caduceus
Rod of Asclepius

More to the point, I think I am tempted to echo Godwynn's statements ...

 

[Shaihulud]

Its alway good to learn something new . This may be impropriate , but those wiry things looks like how mind worms were depicted in Alpha Centauri.

 

[classical_hero]

I wish I never opened this thread. I feel sick.

You are delusional.

 

[Xenocrates]

You are delusional.

Not by my standards......

If this is a real disease, why doesn't the US medical establishment take it seriously? I mean they can take and test a sample for other things, so why not this? Or maybe the victims are really delusional? Does anyone know about this?

 

[Shaihulud]

Mindworms are known to cause delusions in their victims and their alien physiology is impossible to be identified by Earthly science. Its propably fake, if you want my opinion, but doctors, sometimes they are too lazy to make a proper diagnosis... We could have a thread about the incompetent or irresponsible doctors we encounter.

 

[JtheJackal]

When hypocondriacs find the internet. Or its the need for people to feel special, "hey I got an unknown disease, I feel special."

These people are sick, just not by what they are claiming. Eithers it all in thier head or they have symptoms of real diseases, but self diagnos themselves with morgellon's.

 

[Stile]

I read about this a few months back when someone suggested this was perhaps viral marketing for A Scanner Darkly which apparently alludes to it in the beginning of the book. It's not marketing for the movie obviously.

I think it's delusional, but apparently the CDC is looking into it after much insistence. Interestingly one of the victims is a pediatrician who works about 30 minutes from me. I know a woman from his (small)town, Gainesville, GA, and I keep meaning to ask her if she knows him. Maybe that it's come up again I will.

 

[North King]

From what I've heard and seen of the American medical profession, it is not at all out of character for them to be denying the existence of a disease--"anything to prevent hysteria" seems to be their motto.

However, the symptoms of this do sound a little... odd. More than a little, actually.

 

[JtheJackal]

The key here is that it is self diagnosis, the website was started by the woman who "identified" the disease. She identified it to explain what was wrong with her sick son. Others say her son had a real sickness, I can't remember why the woman felt her son had something unusual.

The string and under the skin thing wasn't originally part of the disease, but has since become the main symptom.

 

[Xenocrates]

This could be part of the 'OMG the Government's trying to kill us' craze. I just read a site that claimed that the under-skin 'parasite' was really a CIA implant or a symptom of 'directed energy' attacks. They also sell cures for $1000 a shot. hmmmmm.

The United States government has a history of human experimentation well documented in the public record. Programs injecting plutonium into service men and their pregnant wives among the many stories from governments own websites and archives. Others like the Tuskegee experiment were 300 airmen were actually prevented by covert ways from obtaining penicillin which would have cured them, most died. MK Ultra and its multitude of programs some of whcich installed electrodes in the brains of people covertly.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v671/trunews/mind1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://trunews.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_trunews_archive.html&h=343&w=463&sz=112&hl=en&start=22&tbnid=yIpLHUv_OE_zJM:&tbnh=95&tbnw=128&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmorgellons%2Bdisease%26start%3D18%26ndsp%3D18%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26newwindow%3D1%26sa%3DN

3 cheers for the long web address!

On the other hand some of the victims may be genuine, although that lip thing looks like a fungus infection to me (but I'm no expert). Why do so many people think that the US government is out to get them?

 

[Earthling]

So just read a recent interview at Scientific American, it appears to me at least the conspiracy theorists are still in the woodwork. Here's that link:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=morgellons-disease-parasites-skin-psychiatric

A good year or so back I also read a feature from the Washington Post which told a similar story - patients with very different random skin symptoms/self-inflicted scratches etc... and no evidence of actual parasites are convinced they have this disease. It's a real problem I'm sure, but definitely sounds psychological to me.

Anyone hear anything more about this around here? The CDC/NIH I guess are still looking into it, other than that I don't know more.

 

[warpus]

I was reading about this on wikipedia and ran across this little gem:

"Perhaps it is caused by chemical spills or bio-terror or even alien abductions. On a radio program called Coast to Coast--popular among people who believe in UFOs and ghosts--a New Mexico doctor reports that a former CIA agent told him the disease was caused by the French. A botched government experiment, he says, contaminated the water. All Evian drinkers are at risk."

 

[choxorn]

No wonder no doctors beleive them, from the symptoms it sounds like they're on crack...

Agreed. This sounds like something that would happen if you did crack. Or perhaps meth.

 

[Winner]

This is an obvious hoax, why are you people even discussing it?

 

[kulade]

Because this is an internet discussion board, not anything that matters in the real world.