Iron or Blood Transfusion - Is it a good idea?

[beebee]

Will an infusion of Iron just feed the Morgellons? Blood test is showing I am severly anemic and the MD that ordered the CD57 tests thinks I need a blood transfusion or at the least an Iron Infusion via IV.

I don't want to make the Morgellons worse by "Feeding them"

Has anyone had either the blood tranfusion or Iron IV and what did it do to you?

I have an appt with my ND next week. The MD is not a Lyme literate Dr.

[tcmgpt13]

Although we do not know this for sure and there is no proof positive for what I think, I truly believe the background infection which may unite us all is lyme--so far it is the one which has been found most often in those with Morgellons symptoms. Lyme does not require iron to grow. There are probably other infections connected to Morgellons as well and those can grow in the presence of iron. So...hard to say for sure what iron might do. I would be very cautious about a blood transfusion though. So many diseases can be present in blood donations. Unless my life was in peril it’s something I would give a miss. It's even being advised these days to store your own blood for any transfusions which may be needed for elective operations (non-emergency). Although blood is tested sometimes illnesses will not show up in donated blood as it often takes time for disease organisms to become apparent in the donor's blood (AIDS virus is one example). Anyway it is good you will have another opinion from your naturopath later this week. Hopefully that will make your decision that much easier to make.

BLOOD, RUINED LIVERS, AND . . .

Ironically, blood-borne AIDS . . . has never been as great a threat as other diseases—hepatitis, for instance," explained the Washington Post.

Yes, vast numbers have got very sick and have died from such hepatitis, which has no specific treatment. According to U.S.News World Report (May 1, 1989), about 5 percent of those given blood in the United States get hepatitis—175,000 people a year. About half become chronic carriers, and at least 1 in 5 develop cirrhosis or cancer of the liver. It is estimated that 4,000 die. Imagine the headlines you would read if a jumbo jet crashed, killing all aboard. But 4,000 deaths amount to a full jumbo jet crashing every month!

LiverPhysicians had long known that a milder hepatitis (type A) was spread through unclean food or water. Then they saw that a more serious form was spreading through blood, and they had no way to screen blood for it. Eventually, brilliant scientists learned how to detect "footprints" of this virus (type B). By the early 1970's, blood was being screened in some lands. The blood supply appeared safe and the future for blood bright! Or was it?

Before long it was clear that thousands who were given screened blood still developed hepatitis. Many, after debilitating illness, learned that their livers were ruined. But if the blood had been tested, why was this happening? The blood contained another form, called non-A, non-B hepatitis (NANB). For a decade it plagued transfusions—between 8 and 17 percent of those transfused in Israel, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden, and the United States contracted it.

Then came headlines such as Mysterious Hepatitis Non-A, Non-B Virus Isolated at Last;Breaking a Fever in the Blood. Again, the message was, 'The elusive agent is found!' In April 1989, the public was told that a test was available for NANB, now being called hepatitis C.

You might wonder if this relief is premature. In fact, Italian researchers have reported another hepatitis virus, a mutant, which might be responsible for a third of the cases. Some authorities, the Harvard Medical School Health Letter (November 1989) observed, worry that A, B, C, and D are not the whole alphabet of hepatitis viruses; yet others may emerge. The New York Times (February 13, 1990) stated: Experts strongly suspect that other viruses can cause hepatitis; if discovered, they will be designated hepatitis E and so on.

Are blood banks faced with more long searches for tests to make blood safe? Citing the problem of cost, a director of the American Red Cross made this disturbing comment: We can't just keep adding test after test for each infectious agent that might be spread.—Medical World News, May 8, 1989.

More on dangers of blood transfusions:

Approximately 1 in 100 transfusions are accompanied by fever, chills, or urticaria [hives]. . . . Approximately 1 in 6,000 red cell transfusions results in a hemolytic transfusion reaction. This is a severe immunologic reaction that may occur acutely or in a delayed fashion some days after the transfusion; it may result in acute [kidney] failure, shock, intravascular coagulation, and even death.—National Institutes of Health (NIH) conference, 1988.

Danish scientist Niels Jerne shared the 1984 Nobel Prize for Medicine. When asked why he refused a blood transfusion, he said: A person's blood is like his fingerprints—there are no two types of blood that are exactly alike.

Even the test for hepatitis B is fallible; many still contract it from blood. Moreover, will people be satisfied with the announced test for hepatitis C? The Journal of the American Medical Association (January 5, 1990) showed that a year can pass before antibodies of the disease are detectable by the test. Meanwhile, people transfused with the blood may face ruined livers—and death.

Chagas' disease illustrates how blood carries disease to distant people. The Medical Post (January 16, 1990) reports that '10-12 million people in Latin America are chronically infected.' It has been called "one of the most important transfusion hazards in South America." An "assassin bug" bites a sleeping victim in the face, sucks blood, and defecates in the wound. The victim may carry Chagas' disease for years (meanwhile possibly donating blood) before developing fatal heart complications.

Why should that concern people on distant continents? In The New York Times (May 23, 1989), Dr. L. K. Altman reported on patients with posttransfusion Chagas' disease, one of whom died. Altman wrote: "Additional cases may have gone undetected because [doctors here] are not familiar with Chagas' disease, nor do they realize that it could be spread by transfusions." Yes, blood can be a vehicle by which diseases travel widely.

watchtower.org/e/hb/article_02.htm

quote=beebee;83882]Will an infusion of Iron just feed the Morgellons? Blood test is showing I am severly anemic and the MD that ordered the CD57 tests thinks I need a blood transfusion or at the least an Iron Infusion via IV.

I don't want to make the Morgellons worse by ;Feeding them

Has anyone had either the blood tranfusion or Iron IV and what did it do to you?

I have an appt with my ND next week. The MD is not a Lyme literate Dr.[/quote]