posted
I saw this on Nightline tonight and thought you might be interested. It sounds like the same Ducks doubting this or saying its all in their head, just like Lyme. I really try not to think everyone with the same symptoms has Lyme, but this woman sure seems like she could benefit from a visit with a LLMD. The one Dr. even mentioned brain fog.
posted
And here is the usual drivel from McSweegan:
Pathogens & People: Internet helps spread delusion that Morgellons a disease
By EDWARD McSWEEGAN, For The Capital
I thought the following might be an interesting experiment: Invent a disease and a set of vague symptoms. Build a Web site and start a tax-exempt charity for the disease. Send out press releases about the newly discovered disease and its disturbing symptoms and provide a link to the Web site. Then sit back and see how many people come to the site or call the foundation claiming to have the disease. Such an experiment probably would reveal quite a bit about the powers of suggestion, hypochondria and the expanding reach of the Internet.
Unfortunately, someone has done my experiment.
A South Carolina housewife came up with a disease she calls Morgellons and a set up a tax-exempt charity called the Morgellons Research Foundation. Apparently, her son had a rash and, instead of going to the doctor, she started snooping around the Internet for a possible cause. She came across some medical references (from the 17th century) that may have described something similar to her son's "condition" and she latched onto the name. She now has about 7,000 fellow Morgellons sufferers. That's an impressive number of hypochondriacs with online access.
In 2006, Hillary Rhodes, a reporter in Ohio did a story on the Morgellons Research Foundation. She wrote, "Don't visit that (Web) site, though. You might get swept up in what some people believe is a case of mass hysteria. If that's what Morgellons is, it would be the first apparent case to spring from the Internet."
So what exactly is Morgellons disease? From the patient perspective, it's a bizarre skin condition in which worm-like fibers of various colors emerge from lesions on the skin.
"I was feeling things moving under my skin," one patient reported.
From the perspective of most physicians, Morgellons is just another form of delusional parasitosis. Delusional parasitosis is a well-known psychiatric condition in which patients believe they are infested by bugs, worms or parasites crawling on them or under their skin.
To be fair, there are a variety of fleas, bedbugs, lice, mites and ticks that bite and feed on skin. They often leave bite marks that swell and itch, and which may become infected if scratched repeatedly.
But in the absence of obvious bite marks from insects and arthropods, or allergic reactions, many physicians are forced to consider a psychiatric origin for the patient's complaints.
"The patient is intensely anxious, is obsessively focused on his or her symptoms, brings "specimens" of the offending agent ... and is unshakable in his or her belief as to the cause," University of Pennsylvania professor Caroline Koblenzer wrote last November. "Elderly women living alone are the most common demographic. Psychiatric co-morbidity, such as depression, anxiety or personality disorder, can usually be uncovered during a careful interview."
Interestingly, delusions, such as contagious diseases, can be spread from one susceptible person to another susceptible person. This is how the Internet can serve as a "vector" or transmitter of illness.
Sociologist Robert Batholomew recently suggested the "World Wide Web has become the incubator for mass delusion and it (Morgellons) seems to be a socially transmitted disease over the Internet."
Such beliefs also are reinforced by a handful of doctors who claim Morgellons is real and treat patients with a variety of antibiotics and expensive supplements. (These are the same doctors who treat people for chronic fatigue, chronic Lyme disease, Gulf War Syndrome, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and other poorly defined syndromes and symptoms.)
Connected and contaminated by the Internet, Morgellons patients have spread the effects of their shared delusions at least as far as Capital Hill, where Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., urged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to investigate the matter, and to the CDC where self-diagnosed Morgellons patients were telephoning 20 times a day demanding help.
So now the CDC is investigating Morgellons disease. Last summer, a 12-person task force assembled to review patient data, and develop a case definition for Morgellons disease in order to distinguish its symptoms from those of other well-known diseases. It's not clear how much time and money will be spent investigating a disease imagined in a South Carolina suburb and propagated through the Web.
"There really is no scientific basis at this point to believe that this is real. Many patients with symptoms similar to Morgellons respond well to antipsychotics," Stephen Stone, president of the American Academy of Dermatology told Nature Medicine magazine last summer.
"Seinfeld" character George Costanza nicely summed up the problems of dermatology and skin when he declared, "Wash it, dry it, move on!" Today, in the Internet Age, he probably would say, "Wash it, dry it, log off!" __________________________________________________________________
Dr. Edward McSweegan has a Ph.D. in microbiology and lives in Crofton. He works on and writes about infectious disease issues. He may be contacted at emcsweegan@xxxxxxxx
Published July 01, 2007, The Capital, Annapolis, Md. .
Posts: 8430 | From Not available | Registered: Oct 2000
| IP: Logged |
treepatrol
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 4117
posted
Yes it was nice to see the bear again.
mcswiggen
-------------------- Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Remember Iam not a Doctor Just someone struggling like you with Tick Borne Diseases.
posted
After having Lyme for 10 years now, you meet allot of people and read and learn allot of things I never would have believed before. Some of these Duck drs. would deny it even if they saw it with their own eyes. I thought this was a interesting segment.
From Nightline Jan17,2008 Forensic scientist Ron Pogue at the Tulsa Police Crime Lab in Oklahoma checked a Morgellons sample against known fibers in the FBI's national database. "No, no match at all. So this is some strange stuff," Pogue said in 2006. He thought the skeptics were wrong. "This isn't lint. This is not a commercial fiber. It's not."
The lab's director, Mark Boese, said the fibers are "consistent with something that the body may be producing." He added that, "These fibers cannot be manmade and do not come from a plant. This could be a byproduct of a biological organism."
Cindy
-------------------- Posts: 906 | From San Francisco Bay | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I have to say Adam, you took the words right out of my mouth!
How interesting it is indeed, on the one hand there's all the blibbidy blabbedy about delusional parasitosis, and yet instead of Kaiser (the HMO doing the study) using their own labs the military is going to take the samples and analyze them?!?!?!?
(per MSNBC)"Any fibers or specks that are collected will be analyzed at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Selby said".
Huh. Kind of sends a mixed message. It kind of says "This is all in your head and you are crazy but we're just gonna have the freaking MILITARY look at your bugs because honestly, we're lying about the crazy part and what you have scares the bejeezus out of us."
Or, alternately, maybe they're instead meaning to say something like: "We're totally lying about thinking you're delusional. We're handing everything over to the military because, well, sheesh, who do you think created this @!%&*&^! thing in the first place?"
I know, I'm probably suffering from delusional militarosis.
Also, it makes my skin crawl (ohthankgoodness only metaphorically) when they call it Mor-GEL-ons and not Mor-JELL-ons. It's like someone saying "Lymes" over and over again.
A.
--------------------
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. --- Edward R. Murrow Posts: 923 | From California | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
Truthfinder
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 8512
posted
***``Invent a disease and a set of vague symptoms.....''***
VAGUE? He calls worm-like fibers of various colors emerging from lesions on the skin VAGUE? Gee, I think that's pretty flaming specific.
McSweegan proves once again that he's the delusional one.
BTW, if anyone knows someone with Morgellons, I ran across a lady's post where she `accidentally' added something to her bathwater and it got rid of her Morgellons. I saved her story but I won't post it. For starters, there's no sense in getting the Faerie Dust Patrol out of bed this early in the morning.... and secondly, I have no way of knowing if this treatment works. But it seems pretty harmless and cheap so......
-------------------- Tracy .... Prayers for the Lyme Community - every day at 6 p.m. Pacific Time and 9 p.m. Eastern Time � just take a few moments to say a prayer wherever you are�. Posts: 2966 | From Colorado | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged |
bettyg
Unregistered
posted
nNORI, YOUR PM BOX IS FULL; please clean house; thanks!
Thanks for the email you sent me; I'll add it to my collection!
IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by jwf: You have to love this response from Kaiser to a comment by Dr. Rafael B. Stricker about how they mistreat Lyme patients.
The real kicker is who they send specimens to when they have a question;
"Of course we treat Lyme disease at Kaiser Permanente -- but it is infrequent in California," said David J. Witt, MD, Chief of Infectious Diseases for Kaiser Permanente Northern California. Kaiser Permanente's medical group of 4400 physicians serve more than 3.1 million members in 17 hospitals and 152 medical office buildings in Northern California.
"We follow clinical guidelines for diagnosing and treating Lyme Disease that were published jointly by The Infectious Diseases Society of America and American Rheumatologic Association.
Our world-class clinical laboratories diagnose complex diseases �- including Lyme disease. If there is any question, we send specimens to the laboratory run by Allen Stere, MD of Massachusetts General Hospital," he said.
The Lyme Disease Network is a non-profit organization funded by individual donations. If you would like to support the Network and the LymeNet system of Web services, please send your donations to:
The
Lyme Disease Network of New Jersey 907 Pebble Creek Court,
Pennington,
NJ08534USA http://www.lymenet.org/
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[hi]](graemlins/hi.gif)
was nice to see the bear again.![[puke]](graemlins/puke.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[group hug]](graemlins/grouphug.gif)
![[kiss]](graemlins/kissing.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic