You just walked into the kitchen but can’t remember what you needed here. 

Or maybe the words you need in a meaningful conversation are at the tip of your tongue, but you can’t quite place them. 

While this is an occasional annoyance at best for most people, forgetfulness is an everyday struggle for Morgellons patients. Patients frequently complain about being unable to concentrate on simple tasks or remember important details to the extent that their job performance and home life are severely impacted. 

This sort of chronic cognitive impairment is often referred to as “brain fog,” a term used to describe a group of symptoms that affect cognitive function, including: 

• Memory
• Concentration 
• Ability to think clearly
• Irritability 
• Difficulty with decision making

What causes these frustrating symptoms? 

Well, chronic inflammation paired with a chronic infection could be to blame. 

Chronic inflammation

Studies have found that an underlying bacterial infection may be responsible for Morgellons disease. Borrelia burgdorferi, a spirochetal bacteria, has been found embedded in skin tissues and fluid samples taken from patients experiencing Morgellons hallmarks like slow-healing open sores and embedded skin fibers. 

Inflammatory signals in the bloodstream.

Untreated infections trigger an inflammatory response—the body’s natural response to an illness or injury—and chronic symptoms develop if that type of inflammation lasts for weeks, months, or even years.

Chronic inflammation may also cause changes in brain chemistry by affecting neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine levels. Disrupting normal brain function in this way can cause mood changes and other cognitive symptoms to compound and become worse. 

Many studies have also shown chronic inflammation hurts brain function by causing damage to the blood-brain barrier. This protective layer of cells helps keep harmful substances from entering the brain. When this barrier is damaged, toxins, inflammatory molecules, and even infecting germs can enter the brain, further damaging brain cells. 

Chronic infection

Chronic infections may damage the brain and cause dysfunction in several ways: 

• Localized inflammation
• Immune activation
• Direct infection of brain cells

Inflammation is a critical tool the body uses to fight off infections. While this natural response helps us heal from cuts, broken bones, and the common cold, long-term inflammation is more harmful than helpful.  

As discussed, chronic inflammation can damage brain function by disrupting the blood-brain barrier and allowing infectious bacteria such as Borrelia burgdorferi to infect brain cells directly. 

Once in the brain, infecting pathogens can trigger a localized immune response, activating the immune system to fight off the invading spirochetes. 

While inflammation is a vital response that triggers healing, it’s also harmful in neural tissues. 

The inflammatory signals the body uses to communicate with immune system cells and tissues cause swelling as blood vessels and surrounding tissues become more permeable, allowing extra fluids to enter the injured area. 

Swelling is helpful when supporting a sprained ankle. But it’s dangerous in the brain, where swelling has nowhere to go and often results in encephalitis (swelling of the brain) or neuroinflammation (swelling of the nervous tissues). 

Unfortunately, encephalitis or swelling of the brain may cause only mild flu-like symptoms—if it causes any symptoms at all, making it difficult to detect. However, its impacts can be felt by patients who experience memory issues and struggle to focus on daily tasks. 

All of this compounds the already challenging range of symptoms Morgellons patients face. Many cognitive symptoms may be related to the spirochetal infection of the brain and the added stress and anxiety that can result from living with a chronic illness. 

While antibiotic treatments may help alleviate most symptoms, cognitive functions may not return to the level the patient experienced before getting sick, leading to permanent impairment. 

There’s still much we don’t understand about how underlying infections, inflammation, and other factors contribute to the debilitating symptoms such as brain fog that severely impact the quality of life Morgellons patients face. Please consider donating to the Charles E. Holman Morgellons Disease Foundation to help us fund further research that will alleviate the patient’s suffering. 

Morgellons disease’s hallmark symptoms include widespread slow-healing open sores and unusual-colored filaments found in the skin or protruding from lesions. However, the disease attacks a number of body systems, leading to an array of other difficult symptoms including overwhelming fatigue, muscle aches, heart problems, digestive issues, brain fog, and joint pain. 

Through this article, The Charles E. Holman Morgellons Disease Foundation would like to raise awareness of how the underlying bacterial infection affects patients’ joints and connective tissues. 

Spirochetal spread

Morgellons disease is a tick-borne illness caused by the same bacteria responsible for Lyme disease. For unknown reasons, roughly 6 percent of Lyme patients develop Morgellons disease and middle-aged caucasian women seem to be affected more frequently.

Severe physical symptoms caused by this disease often sideline patients from their own lives as they compound pre-existing insecurities like anxiety and mood disorders. The mental anguish they suffer is often incalculable.

Morgellons disease spreads through black-legged tick bites. Borrelia burgdorferi, a spirochetal bacteria, is carried by the tick and infects unsuspecting human hosts. 

After a bite, some people develop erythema migrans, a bullseye rash, and a tell-tale sign of infection. Other victims may not manifest a typical rash or any rash at all and may not know they’re infected until they have symptoms many months or even years after a tick encounter. 

Because early infection symptoms aren’t overly specific, both patients and healthcare providers often flail while trying to pinpoint a cause.  The lack of easy diagnosis means many patients miss getting early intervention, allowing the infection to spread throughout their bodies. This allows Morgellons skin lesions to later manifest. 

The infecting bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi, is classified as a spirochete. It has a slender body many times smaller than human cells. In addition to other adaptations, this spirochete can swim through dense tissues and between cell walls to escape immune system counterattacks.

After initial infection, spirochetes replicate and grow near the bite site before using their particular adaptations to travel or disseminate throughout the patient’s body. 

The bacterial infection will spread to colonize faraway tissues like the heart, nervous system, and joints. As the spirochetes spread, the patient’s immune cells trigger an inflammatory response that will continue in areas where the bacteria invade. 

Inflammation 

Example of a white blood cell

Generally, our bodies use inflammation to increase blood flow to an area bothered by an irritant. Increased blood flow brings more white blood cells that can help fight the invading spirochetes. While it serves a purpose, inflammation can also trigger redness, heat, swelling, pain, loss of function, and even a fever. 

Compounding the problem, battling an infection takes enormous energy. That means patients will likely feel persistently sick, drained, and feverish. That leaves many Morgellons patients with little energy to live their everyday lives.

Morgellons arthritis 

When the bacteria reach large joints, such as a patient’s knees, spirochetes invade the joint tissues, triggering a localized inflammatory response. 

As a result, patients’ knees will visibly swell and often be red-hot to the touch. Excessive swelling can tear connective tissues, causing lesions throughout the joint.  Knee swelling can become so severe that Morgellons patients are unable to walk. 

Patients may experience consistent joint swelling or suffer from “attacks” that come and go for several months or, in extreme cases, many years. 

Often, for patients who are diagnosed with Lyme shortly after becoming infected, a four-week course of antibiotic therapy can kill the invading bacteria and rid a patient of their underlying infection. 

However, antibiotics may fail to stop the infection and alleviate symptoms for many Morgellons patients. As the underlying Borrelia burgdorferi infection persists, so does the patient’s inflammation and Morgellon’s symptoms linger.

Researchers have found that Borrelia burgdorferi spirochetes may persist or hide from antibiotics and immune cells for over six months after being treated for Lyme disease, leading to a Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS) diagnosis. 

In other instances, research shows that certain particles shed by growing spirochetes can cause an extreme inflammatory response. 

In this study, researchers injected mice with specific bits of cell-wall material from Borrelia burgdorferi spirochetes. The mice experienced extreme joint swelling almost immediately. Throughout the course of the study, researchers found that the mice could not clear spirochete particles from their joints and swelling lasted for several months—despite being free of infection. 

Evidence suggests that patients’ immune systems may also create antibodies against the particle which can trigger an inflammatory response leading to extreme tissue damage. 

These mechanisms may work together to exacerbate joint swelling in infected patients.

No treatment options currently exist that will manage symptoms across the board for Morgellons patients who haven’t had success with antibiotics. Until researchers can pinpoint reproducible treatment options, patients will continue to suffer. 

This is where The Charles E. Holman Morgellons Disease Foundation needs your help. Using your donations, we can fund ground-breaking research to help us understand Morgellons disease and find potential cures. We also work closely with grassroots organizations to increase understanding and awareness of this debilitating disease. 

Please donate today to allow our researchers to identify novel treatment solutions for Morgellons arthritis and its other symptoms.

Morgellons disease is a complex skin disorder characterized by slow-healing skin sores with unusual fibers sticking out from the skin or embedded under unbroken skin. 

Many medical professionals call Morgellons disease a delusional parasitosis because they believe patients scratch and itch their skin until they bleed. They assume accompanying fibers are textile filaments stuck to the skin. 

In other words, some medical professionals think an imaginary parasitic infection causes their patients’ symptoms. 

However, extensive research concludes that infections spread by ticks can contribute to Morgellons disease—which may be a manifestation of Lyme disease. If you or someone you love has been suffering from unresolved Morgellons symptoms, you can probably blame an underlying bacterial infection. 

In partnership with medical researchers, the Charles E. Holman Morgellons Disease Foundation funds groundbreaking studies that increase our understanding of this debilitating disease. Through our research and grassroots efforts, we hope to provide hope and healing to patients as we strive to understand the root causes of their symptoms. 

As many medical professionals doubt that an underlying bacterial infection causes Morgellons, we’ll guide you through the studies that provide the most conclusive results. 

What is Morgellons disease?

Morgellons Disease Lesions on Wrist

Patients with Morgellons disease experience spontaneous, slow-healing and painful ulcerating skin lesions across their head, face, trunk, or limbs. These lesions can be quite large and leave disfiguring scars. 

Patients suffering from Morgellons also experience strange fibers or filaments that sprout from their skin and grow deep between skin layers. Morgellons fibers are made out of keratin and collagen proteins stemming from skin cells that an infectious bacteria invaded. 

Nearly all Morgellons patients studied test positive for Borrelia burgdorferi infections. Borrelia burgdorferi is a group of spirochetal bacteria transmitted through black-legged tick bites and quickly spread from the site of the bite through the body if left untreated. 

As the bacteria spreads throughout the body, it takes up residence in the tissues, which causes joint, heart, and nervous system problems such as: 

• Fatigue
• Arthritis
• Meningitis
• Neuropathies
• Muscular pain
• Cardiac disease
• Ulcerating lesions
• Cognitive dysfunction 
• Unusual skin fiber growth
• Erythema migrans (bulls-eye) rash

Many of these symptoms mirror Lyme disease. The parallel makes sense since the same group of bacteria is responsible for both conditions. 

What is Lyme Disease? 

Tick “questing” for the next host

Lyme borreliosis, otherwise known as Lyme disease, is another tick-borne illness caused by Borrelia burgdorferi, a spirochetal bacteria. Borrelia burgdorferi spirochetes live in ticks found in two main regions in the United States: the northeast and mid-Atlantic region and the north-central region. However, both infected areas have grown considerably over the last two decades to reach southern Canada. 

A group of children living in Lyme, Connecticut, became the first documented cases of Lyme arthritis in 1976. 

Since then, medical researchers have found that Lyme disease is a complicated illness encompassing a broad range of symptoms beyond arthritis. These symptoms attack many  systems of the body, including the following:

• Skin
• Joints
• Heart
• The nervous system

The CDC estimates that 300,000 people per year fall victim to Lyme disease. 

Lyme borreliosis spreads to humans through tick bites from infected black-legged ticks. Borrelia burgdorferi spirochetes live inside the ticks, travel through the tick’s saliva, and enter the tick’s bite site to infect human hosts. 

Once inside the skin, the spirochetes quickly spread through the body. The spirochetes do this using adaptations that allow them to outmaneuver the host immune system while passing through tissues too dense for the defense.

An example of an Erythema Rash

A small portion of Lyme patients experience an Erythema migrans (EM) or a bulls-eye rash—the tell-tale sign of a Borrelia burgdorferi infection. The bulls-eye rash is considered a type of lesion. Patients may exhibit the rash for anywhere from three days to a month after being bit by an infected tick. The delay makes it harder to diagnose the cause.

The bulls-eye nickname comes from the dark red patch of skin in the middle of an irritated red ring. These bulls-eye rashes grow as the illness progresses. While bulls-eye rashes are a tell-tale sign of Lyme borreliosis infection, these rashes are often misdiagnosed or dismissed due to irregular shapes or presentations that don’t follow the perceived norm.

If left untreated, the bacterial infection will disseminate, potentially spreading secondary rashes to other areas of the body. 

Usually, an antibiotic regimen will resolve Borrelia infections and their symptoms.

While many patients with both Lyme and Morgellons diseases experience bulls-eye rashes, most patients with tick-spread Borrelia infections do not, making a positive diagnosis difficult. 

When bulls-eyerashes don’t manifest with symptoms consistent with Lyme disease, a clinician may conduct blood tests for Lyme. Unfortunately, limitations of the testing mean that many patients receive false negative results, hampering their ability to get treatment and allowing their illness to intensify relatively unchecked. 

Lyme and Morgellons

Morgellons Disease Fiber Extrusion on wrist

In this study, researchers identified 25 Morgellons patients based on fiber growth and ulcerating lesions. They collected tissue and body-fluid samples  to test rigorously at three independent laboratories. While only two-thirds of the patients met the criteria for CDC Lyme Surveillance, everyone tested positive for a Borrelia burgdorferi infection despite taking antibiotics to treat their symptoms. 

Researchers concluded that Morgellons disease is a manifestation of Lyme borreliosis, the infection responsible for Lyme disease. 

Though researchers don’t yet understand why, only a small subgroup of Lyme disease patients—mostly middle-aged caucasian women—develop Morgellons symptoms. These nasty symptoms include fiber growth, ulcerating lesions, debilitating fatigue, and cognitive decline. 

Patients in this subgroup have trouble conquering their spirochetal infections independently and sometimes even after help from antibiotics. Without successful treatment, symptoms and the underlying infection may persist for months or even years without relief. 

If you or a loved one are suffering from Morgellons disease and don’t know where to turn, you can find doctors who understand your condition through our website. 

We still have much to learn about Morgellons disease.  

Please consider donating to our foundation today.  Every dollar donated goes to help fund research that will provide relief to suffering patients, improve diagnosis, and educate doctors and patients on better paths to healing. 

Patients with Morgellons disease make bizarre claims that unusual hairs or fibers are sprouting from their skin. Many of these fibers cling to the skin—especially around the edges of open wounds. 

These fantastically colored fibers don’t resemble any filaments naturally produced by mammalian cells, baffling medical professionals. But some doctors simply dismiss them as lint from clothing getting stuck in scabs.

To “prove” that these fibers are real to sometimes contrarian doctors, some patients collect skin debris to show their doctors. 

Unfortunately, a patient’s habit of collecting bits of fuzz and skin doesn’t help disprove their illness.   Such efforts may actually push a doctor to support a delusional diagnosis! 

Join the Charles E. Holman Morgellons Disease Foundation as we take a deep dive into the research surrounding these mysterious Morgellons fibers. 

What are Morgellons Fibers? 

Morgellons Disease Fiber Extrusion on Leg

Many people suffering from Morgellons disease have been told that the colored fuzz they see around their sores is just lint from towels that adhered to the skin after they bathed. However, further examination of these fibers has shown that collected filaments do not match any of the 880 known compounds used to make textiles. 

And the fibers don’t just collect around lesions. Patients experience fibers protruding from the skin all over their bodies—especially around calluses. Adding to the puzzle, researchers can see colored fibers embedded in intact skin when using a handheld 60X magnification light microscope. 

Fibers and filaments from Morgellons patients come in wild colors including blue, red, purple, black, white and clear. Most of these colors aren’t seen in mammalian hair, leading many to think they must be from textiles. But medical researchers have used dye-extraction techniques to pull the pigments from these hairs without success. Such efforts would easily discolor textile fibers.

Morgellons fiber structure

Morgellons Disease Fiber Extrusion

Many of the fibers specimens studied show a similar structure to hair strands. The fibers have follicular bulbs and scaling consistent with hairs and grow in or near hair follicles. But not all of the fibers look like hairs; some lack hair-like scaling and are smooth or flattened and wrinkly. 

Because pigments can’t be pulled from colorful fiber samples, researchers have concluded that the fibers’ colors are refractory, meaning the structure of the fibers reflect light in such a way that they appear to be colored. 

Although purple and blue aren’t colors seen in animal hair, iridescent (a metallic sheen), and refractory colors are consistent with keratin. Keratin is the same class of protein that colors birds’ feathers and is also prevalent in human skin.  

Morgellons fiber composition

Morgellons fibers seem to originate from the layer of the skin where hairs grow—the layer  where keratinocytes are most active. Keratinocytes are the special skin cells that make keratin, the predominant protein that makes up hair, skin, and nails. 

Keratin is a filament protein, meaning it forms long strands that help support cells by acting like scaffolding. Keratin fibers help support tissue cells and give skin its strength and durability. Knowing this, researchers ran several tests to determine Morgellons fiber composition. 

Using a special staining technique, researchers applied a keratin-specific dye to fiber samples. When applied to Morgellons fiber samples collected from patients, the researchers discovered that the dye took to the fibers in patches. That means that the fibers are at least partly made of keratin. 

Collagen is another fibrous protein that occurs naturally. It’s the primary building block in tissues. Collagen strands create a lattice around cells to offer support and help create connective tissues, muscles, skin, hair and bones. 

Suspecting collagen as an ingredient in Morgellons fibers, researchers applied collagen-specific stains to patient samples. Sure enough, the dye colored the non-keratin parts of the fibers. In other words, Morgellons fibers aren’t from textiles at all—the body manufactures them.

Morgellon fiber production

Morgellons Disease Fibers Magnified Specimen

With Morgellons patients, it seems that keratin and collagen-creating cells have run amok, pushing into overdrive to make oversized fibers. But why? 

Researchers discovered spirochetes near the misbehaving cells in fiber tissue samples.  Plenty of research and documentation point to a spirochetal infection playing a role in Morgellons disease symptoms. Nearly all Morgellons patients test positive for Borrelia burgdorferi, the main player in Lyme disease and other tick-borne bacteria. 

Borrelia burgdorferi in particular, has several adaptations that allow it to attach to the outer walls of keratin- and collagen-producing cells. In some instances, the bacteria wiggles its way inside the tissue cells and takes up residence—triggering the protein-producing cells to go berserk and make huge strands of protein. 

These proteins grow quickly, sometimes working their way up through the skin. Others grow in a tangle below the surface. It’s entirely possible that the itchy, crawling sensations a Morgellons patient feels are these large filaments growing within their tissues. 

Morgellons patients not only experience protruding hairs and open sores, but they also experience problems with finger and toenail growth, joint lesions and disintegrating teeth—structures that are all dependent on healthy keratin and collagen production. In other words, the body is redirecting too much of its supply of keratin and collagen to something less…helpful than joints, nails and hair.  

Disputing the CDC

Many Morgellons cynics point to a landmark 2012 Morgellons CDC study that stated that the fiber specimens they collected from Morgellons patients were 83% protein and likely made of superficial skin or cellulose, a plant fiber found in cotton. 

However, medical researcher Marianne J. Middelveen (the author of the studies referenced in this post) has pointed out that cellulose is a plant-based carbohydrate, not a protein. If 83% of the sample was made of protein (which is consistent with Middelveen’s findings), that means a small percentage of the sample (less than 17%) was exclusively cellulose and could have come from textile lint stuck to open wounds.

With this detail in mind, the CDC study actually supports the notion that Morgellons fibers are abnormal keratin and collagen strands as both are the most predominant proteins in human tissues. 

More research is needed 

Despite major breakthroughs in Morgellons research since 2012, there’s still debate over whether Morgellons disease is even legitimate. Please consider donating to the Charles E. Holman Morgellons Disease Foundation to help us spread awareness through grassroots efforts and research grants. 

Even small donations can help us find relief for so many patients who are suffering from this debilitating and often disfiguring illness. 

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Finding suitable treatments for Morgellons disease has been perplexing for researchers—and causing continued patient suffering—for some time. It can be challenging to pin down an infectious cause for Morgellons-like symptoms in some patients when serological testing returns false negatives. 

What’s more, Morgellons disease symptoms don’t always respond well to antibiotics. This leads far too many researchers to diagnose patients with psychosis and treat them with antipsychotics with the assumption that the patient is delusional. 

To better understand treatment difficulties for Morgellons disease, you’ll need to understand the pathogen causing the underlying illness, how these infecting bacteria behave in the body, and how they respond to treatment. 

To shed light on a patient’s pathway to help and healing, the Charles E. Holman Morgellons Disease Foundation will present the findings from a patient case study and unfolding research surrounding Borrelia species spirochetal bacteria.

Failed Morgellons Disease Diagnosis Case Study 

This case study is a typical example of how difficult diagnosing and treating Morgellons disease can be. It followed a middle-aged Caucasian female who went to a clinic in Calgary complaining of vaginal itching. She eventually developed ulcerating lesions and fiber growth throughout her body. 

For three years doctors prescribed many different treatments without success.

Here’s a timeline of events: 

Summer 2014

The patient experienced what she assumed was a mosquito bite. The bite was red, itchy, and cleared up more than a month later. The patient didn’t experience any other symptoms and didn’t think anything more of it. 

March 2015

The patient came to a Calgary clinic because she was experiencing vaginal itching that had lasted several weeks. Doctors discovered that her vagina and vulvar regions were red and rashy and that she also had experienced “skin loss, hypopigmentation, cracks, fissures, and ulceration” in her genital tissues. 

Medical professionals conducted many tests, ruling out the most common STIs and bacterial infections. However, the patient did test positive for herpes simplex virus (HSV), for which she received treatment. The patient reported some improvement in her symptoms. However, she did not experience resolution of her genital fissures and ulcerations. 

June 2015

Morgellons Disease Fibers Magnified Specimen

The patient returned to the clinic because she was still experiencing painful gynecological symptoms. The patient had also developed ulcerated, punctate erosions on her back. Researchers discovered black fibers embedded in her skin during a microscopic exam under 50x magnification. These fibers pointed her physician toward a possible Lyme diagnosis. 

The patient recalled being bit by an insect the previous summer and that she had developed a red, itchy rash that took longer than a month to heal. The patient thought the rash was a mosquito bite and didn’t think any more of it. 

Her doctor took a blood sample and a vaginal swab to test for tick-borne infections, and the patient tested positive for a host of Borrelia species. 

August 2016

The patient developed open sores on her shoulders and arms. She had been prescribed a doxycycline regimen for three months. While this treatment provided some clinical improvement, the patient’s symptoms didn’t go away. So her doctor extended her antibiotic treatment for another three months. 

January 2017

The doxycycline “completely failed to resolve her symptoms” and her physician halted treatment. 

Researchers studying her case conducted another series of serological testing and the patient tested positive for Borrelia species of spirochetal bacteria and several other infectious bacteria. She was placed on azithromycin and nitazoxanide therapy. The patient was able to heal completely from her lesions, regain everyday function and go back to work full time. 

The patient noticed that she experienced flare-ups if she ate sugary or processed foods or was under stress. 

October 2017

After breaking out in acne-like lesions on her chin, the patient returned to the clinic. She was experiencing a red, flaky perioral dermatitis-like rash around her mouth. Her azithromycin and nitazoxanide treatment had stopped and she began doxycycline therapy again. 

December 2017

Painful lesions on a Morgellons patient’s legs before antibiotic treatment.

The patient’s symptoms got worse and her other symptoms returned. At this time, the patient tested positive again for infections from Borrelia and other tick-borne bacterial infections. 

The patient resumed her azithromycin and nitazoxanide therapy and saw improvement for an entire year. 

December 2018

The patient discontinued her azithromycin and nitazoxanide treatment, and her symptoms relapsed, developing annular rashes on her hands, legs, back, and abdomen. Her lesions grew from 1 cm in diameter to 6 or 7 cm and she also developed secondary erythema migrans rash with blue embedded fibers. 

Researchers found Borrelia organisms in lesion biopsies. 

As a result of clinical observations and test results, her azithromycin and nitazoxanide treatment resumed with an added short course of prednisone.  

June 2018

Healing lesions post treatment

The patient’s therapy included tinidazole and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, which finally resolved her symptoms. She returned to living everyday life. 

The patient reported that she went back to working her full-time job and caring for her two children. Despite the gains she made in her current treatment, she did say she experienced relapses if she indulged in sugary or processed foods. 

Borrelia burgdorferi

This case study shows that the patient’s use of oral antibiotics, like doxycycline, failed to resolve her symptoms and clear the underlying bacterial infection. Results like this can lead many medical professionals to believe that Morgellons is a psychiatric illness, not the result of a disease. But why does this happen when patients clearly have an underlying infection? 

As it turns out, Borrelia species of bacteria, specifically Borrelia burgdorferi—the main player behind Lyme disease—adapt to living in mammalian hosts and evading both antibiotics and the hosts’ immune systems. 

Special adaptations

Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb), the bacteria known to cause Lyme disease and found in 98% of Morgellons patients, is spirochetal, meaning its spiral-shaped. It has many tail-like flagella that can whip and twirl, much like a propeller, to help it move. This bacteria is fully motile or capable of spontaneous motion. 

Research has found that not only can the bacteria “swim” along microscope slides, but they are actually capable of swimming through dense tissue and maneuvering through complicated cellular structures through which host immune cells are too large to travel. Bb can quite literally outrun and outmaneuver host immune cells. High motility found in Borrelia species may also account for the spirochete’s ability to move or disseminate through many different body parts and systems without using the bloodstream. 

What’s more, as part of the Bb life cycle, the bacteria can regulate the genes that trigger growth in response to environmental pressures. Meaning Bb can slow growth and go dormant inside a host until conditions are right, then begin multiplying and colonizing tissues within the host. 

The spirochete’s ability to go dormant explains why it may take up to a year for Lyme and Morgellons disease patients to experience symptoms after being bitten by a tick. This tendency may also account for false-negative serological tests. 

Slow growth regulation also comes into play when introducing antibiotics to treat Bb infections. Antibiotics like doxycycline, azithromycin, and nitazoxanide create an unfavorable environment, triggering Bb cells to go dormant—making the infection clear somewhat and improving symptoms. 

However, when antibiotic regimens halt, the environmental conditions improve so bacteria can begin growing and multiplying again—triggering more symptoms. 

Please note that doxycycline, azithromycin, and nitazoxanide work by stopping the growth of bacteria so that the patient’s immune system can clear the infection. These drugs do not outright kill the bacteria. 

In the end, Morgellons disease may be so challenging to treat because the bacteria responsible for the underlying infection can literally run and hide from both antibiotics and the patient’s immune response cells. 

Clearly, Morgellons disease still needs more research to understand how to better combat infectious bacteria like Borrelia burgdorferi that cause so much pain and suffering for Morgellons patients. 

Please donate today to help the Charles E. Hollman Morgellons Disease Foundation fund continuing research like this case study that can improve the quality of life for Morgellons patients everywhere. 

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