First, you have to accept that there is a definite mind-body connection. Positive thoughts lead to positive lives. Negative people tend to get sicker and have a shorter life span than people who have a love for life and a reason to live. Makes sense, right?
It is very easy to get depressed and isolated when one has Morgellons, or Unexplained Dermopathy, or any medical condition that no doctor can diagnose, properly treat, or even possibly give one the hope that there is even a cure out there! As far as we all know, most doctors simply think of us as "crazy" or "it's just in our heads" ... without even looking or examining us as patients! So many Morgellons patients are referred either to dermatologists, who are no better help, or psychiatrists, who will willingly prescribe antidepressants, anti-psychotics, or anti-itching medicine, and even sometimes antibiotics, if the "infection" and lesions appear on the face and are visible immediately to the doctor and you as the patient genuinely convince the doctor you are not just "picking your face" like they think. I do not pick at my face at all, but I have the marks, scabs, and bloody pores that are obvious to me that they are connected, but not to just a simple observer like a doctor or even just a housemate. It had gotten to the point no one was really talking to me at all in my own house, where I rent a room, and there are other tenants, each with their own room. However, my room is especially large, so there are two other beds in it for potentially three of us females living in one room. But this is a transitional house, so it is meant only for temporary staying anyway.
So, for quite a while I have taken photographs, collected samples, and shown my symptoms to family and a very select handful or less of other people that live with me in this house. I already feel stigmatized by the name "Morgellons Disease" because immediately if I say that is what I have, anyone could look it up on the Internet and see that it is connected to Delusional Parasitosis (DP), which may be a true label for some sufferers, but definitely NOT all of us, or even most of us.
This is a very real and scary medical condition that is the result of some sort of relative to the arachnid family of "bugs" - although I hate to use the term "bug" to describe this parasite. It actually IS a parasite, and it is something that burrows into the skin, eating dead skin or dead tissue, and usually our immune systems can compensate and keep us from suffering these mite-like creatures for long, and in the past, it was always referred to as a "childhood disease" because children tend to have weaker immune systems than adults.
When an immune system is compromised or weakened, most often by extreme stress, which I have found to be in almost every single person's account of when they began to feel these symptoms, whether it be on support groups or message boards or websites that individuals have made for other people with the same disorder, since no doctor is willing to really step up and call for real research and recognition. Most doctors are "in-and-out" docs: they have their assistants take down the patient's symptoms (and I have noticed that some barely copy down a couple or so of anything I list for them, in my own experience), then they come in for a brief reading of the notes the assistant made, glance at the patient (me), and then refer the patient to someone else or write a prescription without even looking at the lesions, or asking for labwork to be done! They literally spend an average of like, 12 minutes with any patient, while the patient waits hours in the waiting room or has spent combined hours and literal days waiting in all the doctors they try to get a diagnoses from!
So there it is: it's a parasite that burrows into the skin. I had come to this conclusion myself, but read a recent comment made by a person on one of my recent blog posts, which actually confirmed my thoughts, so I felt it was time I shared my thoughts with the world via this blog.
I suspected it to be some sort of "mite"-like creature, because it seemed that when I showered or bathed, there would be obvious debris in the bathtub floating around as evidence. Also, while picking at sores or lesions is discouraged, and I try never to do, I have spent time using medical gloves and sterilized tweezers to extract something really small, but black, and if I got it completely out, the site where it was holding onto me would bleed profusely. Otherwise I would only end up hurting myself with the tweezers trying to find it. That can lead to obsessive-compulsive behavior, which has led me many times to think maybe I was going mad after all, and that I was doing this to myself. That is why I began the photographs and evidence collecting: simply to prove to myself I wasn't crazy!
How does one treat this? Well, as of now, there is no real "cure," but there are many ways to strengthen the immune system into being strong enough to kill it off and no longer be "infected." This is what I did on my own before I even knew it was a real condition with a cause, which I got via my brother, who is a CMT & Reiki specialist, and had read about this on the Internet.
I had been drawn to drinking white grapefruit juice and water almost exclusively. I don't know why, but I can say that white grapefruit juice has a lot of vitamin-C, which boosts the immune system and is an anti-oxidant, and it also contains citric acid, which sort of causes my system to be a little acidic overall by the vast amounts of this un-sweetened juice I can consume daily. I literally crave it, and I never really understood why, but I think the difference in my body's Ph balance makes my body overall a less hospitable "home" to these creatures that are living off of my dead skin cells and debris! Isn't that just disgusting?
Some people focus too much on the "fibers" that they find coming out of their skin, whether they be blue, orange, red, or white, that's not the point. I think too much focus is on those fibers and not on the cause, which is why the source has been so hugely overlooked by the medical community at large. Patients often collect "samples" of these fibers exclusively, sending them to independent labs accepting "Morgellons Disease samples" for private research, thinking that these are the root of their problems. Somehow I always knew that these fiber-like materials were just some sort of "debris" or "excrement" left by these things that I had suspected to be related to ticks or mites. I guess I thought it was like regurgitated skin cells, or even other matter combined with my skin cells that the thing could very rapidly eat and expel, almost instantly, it seems! How crazy does that sound?
I have spent hours seeing these black specks "burrow" into my skin, and where they burrow, if I run some sort of cloth or tissue paper over it to try to get it off or out of me, there is instantly some sort of fiber that appears sometimes at a location or pore somewhere inches away, or even on the other side of where I was rubbing the spot, usually with medicated cotton or toilet paper at first. By medicated, I mean with hydrogen peroxide or astringent or even benzyl peroxide acne medication. At first I was using Tea Tree Oil astringent rollers, but this seemed to spread it on my face.
Since my fingernails were becoming weaker, I began to almost always wear fake nails, and this would be how I would be able to grip something, as my own fingernails seemed to stop growing. When there were lesions appearing on my legs, I also thought they were simply ingrown hairs, and by examining them with my fingernails, perhaps I had transferred a fungal infection from the nails to my skin on my legs and had a fungal infection, combined with staph or MRSA, an infection I have had before and know to not be killed but just put into a dormant state, and can come back at any time there is a cut or infection.
I also began to eat exclusively raw food, I noticed, almost exclusively. Now I do exclusively eat raw vegetarian (mostly vegan) food, and I only eat: granola (fiber, protein, vitamins), cultured yogurt (probiotics), berries of all types (raw and fresh are best, but I also consume dried cranberries or dried fruit if I can't afford the fresh ones, like raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, etc. - which are very high in vitamin C and anti-oxidants as well, another immune-booster), and that white grapefruit juice. I do not drink ruby red grapefruit juice at all if that is the only grapefruit juice option. I'd rather drink orange juice or spring water, and for a while I was drinking Kombucha tea, which also is probiotic, but I stopped that months ago. My body just stopped wanting it. I learned to listen to my body and what it wants.
So sometimes I will add agave nectar to the mix of berries, yogurt, and granola, as a "treat" or I'll add cinnamon, or lately, turmeric! Which sounds gross, but I love the hell out of turmeric, and when I was eating cooked food, I put it on almost everything. I also am a vegetarian to begin with, but other than yogurt or kefir, I mainly crave a vegan diet now. Organic is very important but I also know is more expensive and I do the best I can.
I have realized through trial and error, that HibiClens is very effective if left on the skin (which is against the label's warning, and it is labeled to contact a poison control center and seek medical attention immediately if ingested, so I cannot endorse or support this method, but it does kill many types of pathogens, both microbial and microbiotic). Recently my doctor prescribed Chlyndamicin gel, and this seems to kill them as well. I have also taken to wearing silver bandages, using silver gel, or ingesting hydrosol silver like Sovereign Silver, available at places like WholeFoods or a local Co-Op (now I am on Molecular Silver, which is a slightly different form), as silver seems to kill or repel many things as well.
Anyway, I want to post some photos now to accompany some of what I have typed, and it is late, so I am going to bed, which is vital to the healing process: REST. SLEEP AND REST. So, I guess I will continue going over the treatment protocol that I am finding to be successful FINALLY in killing off these things and keeping my immune system strong enough to keep them away. No one else in this house has it, so I believe that it is because their immune systems are not compromised like mine is. Once it is strong enough, like theirs, I will be okay.
i wanna know what is your protocol??
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