Delusions of Proper Treatment

[Kritters]

What wankers! Obviously these people are clueless as to the magnitude of attention Morgellons is garnering.
Kritts

[Morgan]

This letter to the editor cites and I quote:

"However, one potential negative consequence is the dissemination of information with minimal or no supporting evidence that is incorrectly portrayed as factual."


This letter would fall into THAT very category then it goes on to draw conclusions about only ONE person or case who they deem as representative
of the ENTIRE Morgellon's population.

hmmmm......

Morgan

[megluth72]

I just received my first official DOP diagnosis from a dermatologist on Monday. I didn't want to see the yahoo, but my primary wouldn't go any further with me unless I did. I couldn't believe it. I truly was shocked. Well, ok, I know the statistics, but no one wants to hear it. The first words out of the doctor's mouth were, "I don't know what else we can do for you", as if he has done anything for me to help. He did one biopsy for skin cancer a year and a half ago, that's it in two years. I brought in slides of the 'bean-things' (against my better judgement - the other doctor told me to) and he didn't want anything to do with them. No blood tests, no skin scrapings, nothing, but a DOP diagnosis. What set it off? My use of antidepressants. He completely focused on that and went so far to tell me I need to see a shrink and be monitored. Unbelievable. The kicker? He prescribed me three months of antibiotics. Three months! I can't a damn prescription from my primary doctor unless I'm on my deathbed and he just gives it out to a DOP patient? Something doesn't quite jive in the dermatology world.

I hate doctors.

[niecy]

For every negative, there is a positive, as the old saying goes.

I was searching the other night for anything new, and I found this. I think it is great myself, as the final analysis was in my opinion, positive. This is from a highly thought of university in the US, Stanford University.

If you navigate the site there is alot of information, I am posting two that were interesting to me.

Niecy


ParaSite

Morgellons: Fact or Fiction?
Danielle Schoffman and Lauren Smith

Introduction
Real, or Imagined?
Imagine waking up one morning, feeling itchy all over your body. Over time, you develop open sores that just don’t seem to heal. Things gradually get worse. When you look closely at the surface of your skin, you’re certain that you can see translucent, nearly microscopic fibers emerging from under your skin: black, blue, sometimes red in color, the fibers or strange granules appear to be inside you. Sometimes it feels as if bugs are crawling around your skin, and you’re exhausted all the time. You visit doctor after doctor, and none of them seem to seriously consider that you are infected. The real nightmare is that everyone who could help you is dismissive: they think that you are crazy. You begin to wish that you were.
Thousands of Americans suffer from what is popularly called “Morgellons”, a bizarre condition with a constellation of symptoms including skin lesions, the appearance of foreign fibers or granules under the skin, and fatigue characterized by difficulties with attention. The dermatologists and psychiatrists that see patients who self-identify as suffering from Morgellons are often diagnosed with delusional parasitosis.
Is Morgellons an emerging parasitic disease? The debate surrounding Morgellons is considerable and there little information about the pathology of those who suffer from Morgellons symptoms is uncontested. In this neutral website, we will present a historical background of the phenomena, investigate the latest information from both sides of the debate, and offer our own analysis about the future of Morgellons. As students in Dr. D. Scott Smith’s Parasites and Pestilence class at Stanford University, the authors Danielle Schoffman and Lauren Smith hope that this website will contribute to the growing network of ParaSites and will serve as a portal for accurate and unbiased information for anyone doing their own research into Morgellons and parasitology.
CNN Video feature on Morgellons, 4:45 minutes including interview with Dr. Randy Wymore:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7583517179...

ParaSite

Analysis
A Scientific Challenge

“It's hard to say yet which pattern the Morgellons phenomenon will follow. Will it be the next Lyme disease, validated by the medical community? Or will its victims reside in diagnostic purgatory forevermore? Medicine is full of phenomena that sounded like psychological ailments when first proposed but are now linked to invasive pathogens.”

--Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn, “The Morgellons Mystery”

Upon examining the evidence relating to the debate surrounding Morgellons, the authors hesitate to come to a judgment regarding whether or not Morgellons is a real parasitic disease: we believe that more scientific investigation needs to be conducted to determine conclusively if the symptoms of Morgellons are caused by a parasitic infection. This being said, we can look towards the future and offer our ideas about what would need to be shown if Morgellons will be one day established as a parasitic disease and what implications would arise.
If Morgellons will ever be accepted as a disease caused by an infective microorganism, some of Koch’s postulates will have to be invoked and shown as satisfied in replicable studies presented in a peer-reviewed journal to persuade the medical and academic communities. Currently, Dr. Randy Wymore and his colleagues are using gas chromatography to study the composition of clinical samples of fibers removed from Morgellons patients [27], with the hopes that analysis of the fiber’s makeup will lead to investigation of plausible infectious agents. While this certainly signifies progress in the scientific investigation, future research will be vital to demonstrate the nature of the Morgellons fibers and to satisfy Koch’s postulates. Robert Koch, a famous German physician and 1905 Nobel Prize winner in Medicine, developed a framework for establishing the presence of a disease-causing agent used in his celebrated investigation of anthrax and tuberculosis. These guidelines, today known as “Koch’s Postulates” are still used in general by microbiologists and parasitologists to aid in experimentally defining the agent of any infectious disease.
According to the postulates:

• The microorganism must be found in all organisms or cases of the disease.
• The microorganism must be isolated from the diseased host organism and grown in pure culture.
• The disease must be reproduced when the purely cultured microorganism is introduced to a healthy and susceptible host.
• The microorganism must be re-isolated (recovered) from the inoculated, diseased experimental host and shown to be identical to the original specific causative microorganism.

In many cases, it is impossible to fulfill all of Koch’s postulates for a single pathogen. Koch himself abandoned the first postulate after investigating cholera, which presents asymptotically in some carriers. Further, some viruses only infect humans and for ethical reasons scientists cannot establish disease in a healthy organism without a sufficient animal experimental model. Finally, some pathogens (leprosy, syphilis) are very difficult to grow in culture in vitro and as such cannot be easily isolated and grown in pure culture. Despite these difficulties, if there is indeed a microorganism behind the pathology associated with Morgellons, then some or all of Koch’s postulates will have to be utilized to demonstrate scientifically that an infectious agent is causing Morgellons disease.
Implications of A “Disease”
If Morgellons were eventually accepted by the American medical establishment as a true, independent infectious disease, there would be several certain implications and some possible ramifications. Clearly a case definition would be published and national diagnostic criteria described, and a standard treatment therapy would have to be developed. Medical textbooks and academic literature on parasitology would need to be updated to reflect the discovery of a new parasitic disease cause by an invasive pathogen whose symptoms mimic a well-documented and previously established psychiatric disorder.
There are other possible implications of such a status elevation. Dr. John Dyer, a Professor at the University of Minnesota who specializes in the history of medicine, astutely observed that a collection of symptoms becomes a disease not only because of the scientists and physicians identifying a clear cause, but also due to society’s acceptance of the disease [X]. Societal repercussions may include resistance from health-paying organizations such as HMOs and insurance companies who may have to cope with the disease status from a fiscal perspective. In the past, advocates controversial diseases like Morgellons such as Fibromylagia, Lyme disease, and Gulf War Syndrome have met similar challenges from health-paying organizations.
Funding a Resolution
Whether or not Morgellons is caused by an infectious agent, it is apparent that there is a rising incidence of patients presenting to physicians with Morgellons symptoms and registering online as suffering from Morgellons. Whether or not there is an infective agent causing their symptoms or if the underlying cause is psychosomatic in nature, there is no doubt that many Americans are experiencing true pain and suffering of an unknown source. This fact can be seen as evidence for a potential public risk, and clearly more investigation is warranted— and the organization most equipped to launch and encourage scientific investigation to rule out a public health risk associated with Morgellons is the federal government.
The clustering of cases is particularly noteworthy in California, where according to the MRF database, about 13 percent of the US population lives, while 26 percent of Morgellons cases are located here. [13] Therefore, something special may be happening in this area to cause increased infections of the disease. The high number of Morgellons patients in California has caused a response by leaders such as U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein who has repeatedly communicated to the CDC task force that their investigation is urgent and necessary. [3] In total, there have been at least 37 letters from US Senators and Congressmen (including at least 7 letters from US Senator Barbara Boxer this year alone) calling for an investigation of this illness. [13]

[Kritters]

I'm betting Morgellons IS Lyme disease, just as Alzheimers is Lyme disease. As are ALL our 'autoimmune' diseases.

With all the information compiled in our collective research...I think it's time to put it together and stand up for ourselves.

Or maybe I'm just delusional.

Kritts