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Why Am I So Tired?

You’re trying to work, but the work isn’t happening. Concentration flits in and out, allowing you to only make mild headway on what you’re supposed to be doing. The dishes and the laundry are stacking up. You haven’t the energy to shower. You’re so tired. All the time. And you’ve been tired for weeks, maybe even months. 

When will this chronic fatigue go away? 

If you have Morgellons disease, the above description may sound too familiar. Many Morgellons patients haven’t even thought that fatigue and an inability to concentrate could be tied to a physical ailment that’s all too often categorized as a mental disease. 

After all, it’s always easy to find another culprit for your tiredness. Maybe you blame how you’re feeling on not getting enough sleep. Maybe you just think you’re in the wrong state of mind. Maybe you think you’re overly busy. Could be that you tie it to just getting older. 

But you may be selling yourself short. 

Morgellons disease is typically characterized by slow-healing open sores and colored filaments embedded in and protruding from the patient’s skin. However, patients also experience all-consuming fatigue and many symptoms of chronic inflammation. 

Because many of these symptoms are non-descript, Morgellons patients are frequently misdiagnosed for other ailments and don’t receive the treatments they desperately need. 

Morgellons is pathological—not psychiatric. Patients must be treated with antibiotics, not antipsychotics, to manage their symptoms. Until patients can resolve the underlying infection, they will be trapped in a never-ending inflammation/fatigue cycle. 

In this article, The Charles E. Hollman Morgellons Disease Foundation will explore how the underlying bacterial infection triggers symptoms of inflammation and the resulting fatigue and what this means for patients with the disease. 

Inflammation 

Generally, inflammation is the body’s process of responding to an irritant. The irritant could be an invader like a bacteria or virus or a foreign object like a splinter. The inflammation process starts when our bodies are trying to fight off the irritant. 

The inflammatory immune response involves a highly coordinated series of molecular communications between different immune cells and blood vessels. These communications cause: 

  • Fever
  • Redness
  • Swelling
  • Pain 
  • Loss of function 

What happens when you have inflammation 

There are many different immune cells involved in causing inflammation. These cells release “inflammatory mediator” hormones that send signals to small blood vessels in the tissues to open up. As the blood vessels dilate or become more expansive, more blood can reach the injured area. This is why inflamed areas become red and feel hot to the touch. 

Increased blood flow also allows more immune or white blood cells to flood the area where they can fight invaders and start the healing process. 

Inflammation mediators or chemical signals make it easier for white blood cells to squeeze through the walls of blood vessels so that they can enter the infected tissues. When the white blood cells enter the tissues to attack and remove infectious invaders like bacteria or viruses, more fluid also enters the tissues causing swelling.  

Inflamed areas of the body often become painful to the touch because the inflammatory signaling hormones also trigger pain receptor nerves, sending pain signals to the brain. The more the inflammation hurts, the more likely the patient will be to protect the injured area. 

Swelling and pain aren’t the only symptoms patients experience during inflammation. Patients who are fighting an ongoing infection may also experience extreme fatigue. 

Fatigue

Fighting off an ongoing infection takes a lot of energy; as a result, the body changes how it accesses nutrients to get necessary energy faster. Unfortunately, the short-cut pathways our bodies use to access energy under stress are much less efficient than those used when the body is not sick. As a result, patients fighting ongoing infections may become extremely tired. 

Patients suffering from chronic fatigue may feel so depleted that they can’t manage their everyday lives—and this intense exhaustion can last for months or even years. Chronic or persistent fatigue is different from acute fatigue. 

Acute fatigue is a healthy, adaptive response to physical or mental exertion. Persistent fatigue doesn’t go away after sleeping in on the weekend or taking an extra nap in the afternoon. 

Patients with persistent fatigue may find it hard to get up in the morning to go to work or do their regular daily activities. Instead, they muddle through, fighting an intense urge to sleep. When patients try to sleep, they may never feel fully rested or refreshed despite being asleep for hours.  

Those suffering from persistent fatigue may develop depression, lack motivation, and become anxious as their symptoms persist.

Relationship between fatigue and inflammation

Inflammation triggers a change in metabolism—how the body makes and uses energy—which causes fatigue. 

Patients suffering from persistent infections experience prolonged inflammation, causing an increase in insulin resistance, reduced glucose uptake by white blood cells, and less overall energy production. 

The body uses nutrients from the foods we eat to create the energy necessary to run our physiological processes and help us live our daily lives. When experiencing prolonged infections and the resulting inflammation, the body diverts energy from other systems to support the immune system. 

Essentially, fighting an ongoing infection triggers inflammation, and the accompanying fatigue forces the patient to rest to conserve energy for the massive immune response. 

What does this mean for Morgellons patients? 

Among the long list of symptoms that Morgellons patients experience, debilitating fatigue resulting from an intense inflammatory response is near the top of the list. 

Morgellons patients can be profoundly tired, so much so that they cannot work or even care for themselves. Patients may also experience painfully swollen joints and intense muscle pain triggered by a prolonged inflammatory response. These symptoms may last for months or even years without letting up. 

Despite what the CDC and the mainstream media report, many studies have found that Morgellons patients suffer from an ongoing bacterial infection. Nearly all Morgellons patients have tested positive for Borrelia burgdorferi, a spirochetal bacteria spread through bites from the Black-legged tick—the same tick that causes Lyme disease. 

Left untreated, the infectious spirochete spreads throughout the patient’s body, triggering inflammation and causing damage. These specially adapted bacteria can swim through dense tissues and outrun immune cells as they disseminate. In patients with ongoing infections, spirochetes have been found in the heart, joint, muscle, and brain tissues. 

As the patient’s immune system battles the invading spirochete, energy packets are diverted from functional systems to the front lines of the immune response, leaving the patient literally drained and unable to exert any extra energy toward living their daily lives. 

Until the patient can get the underlying infection under control, they will never be able to break the inflammation/fatigue cycle and will continue to suffer. The Charles E. Holman Morgellons Disease Foundation and thousands of people with Morgellons disease need your help. 

Your donations fund critical research and provide educational opportunities and resources for those with this debilitating disease.  Please consider donating today to help us release more Morgellons patients from the grip of inflammation and fatigue cycles.

 

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Understanding Morgellons Arthritis

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.

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Finding A Doctor Can Be A Challenge For Morgellons Patients

Morgellons disease has enough in common with Lyme disease that finding a knowledgeable doctor can be difficult. But the cost of not finding one is even greater. 

If you feel you have Morgellons and need to find a doctor who understands, keep reading to learn what’s at stake and how you can best get help and understand this often mischaracterized disease.

Patients with Morgellons disease suffer from slow-healing open sores, extreme fatigue, and a host of other symptoms, including joint pain, heart problems, crawling skin sensations, and mental decline. 

Morgellons Disease Lesions on Body with Scarring

Morgellons Disease Lesions on Body with Scarring

Unfortunately, because Morgellons isn’t widely recognized, many patients suffer without knowing the root cause of their symptoms. Morgellons patient symptoms are often dismissed as a delusional disorder because patients feel like something is crawling through their skin and insist that something is wrong with them. 

Unable to explain these symptoms, doctors conclude that patients are experiencing a psychotic event and scratching themselves, causing open sores. It’s no big surprise since the Center for Disease Control’s landmark research missed the mark by characterizing the disease as a mental and physical deterioration loop that preys on itself. 

Physical symptoms of Morgellons, they said, compound on pre-existing insecurities, anxiety, and mood disorders. The mental anguish, in turn, feeds the physical manifestations, deepening the hold of the mental problems just to repeat the loop again.

Dismissive medical professionals aside, real, erratically growing fibers embedded deep within the skin cause Morgellons patients’ skin discomfort. These fibers are a  hallmark identifier of Morgellons disease but can only be seen by handheld light microscopes under 50x magnification. 

Compared to collagen and keratin fibers, the normal structural fibers found in skin, Morgellons fibers are so large that patients can sometimes feel them growing between their tissues. That constant creepy-crawling sensation is nerve-wracking enough to come across as a mental disorder. Add to that disfiguring skin sores, extreme fatigue, and debilitating joint pain, and it’s no wonder many Morgellons patients experience a poor quality of life. 

Sadly, too many Morgellons patients suffer silently and without hope as doctors dismiss symptoms as psychological issues and they never receive needed treatments. As a result, patients continue to suffer because their symptoms are masked instead of resolved. 

Through ground-breaking research funded by the Charles E. Holman Morgellons Disease Foundation, we now have evidence that Morgellons is more than a delusional disorder: 

Morgellons is a genuine somatic illness caused by an underlying bacterial infection and can be treated, or at least managed, with an antibiotic regimen. 

Pathogenic infection

Nearly all Morgellons patients studied tested positive for a Borrelia burgdorferi infection, or Borreliosis. Borrelia burgdorferi is the same bacteria that causes Lyme disease and is in the same classification as the bacteria that causes Syphilis—both are spirochetes. 

Morgellons patients “catch” the disease after being bit by the black-legged tick. The tick carries the infection in its gut, sharing it anytime it feeds on a new host—including humans. 

Unfortunately, many tick bites go unnoticed. Patients may not even realize a tick bit them after visiting tick-infested areas and are left puzzling through emergent symptoms months or even years later. 

Borrelia burgdorferi is a flagellated spirochete; this means that the long, narrow body of the bacteria has many whip-like tails that it can use to “swim” through fluids and tissues. The spirochete is much smaller than human tissue cells and can quickly move through dense tissues or even pass through cell walls—well out of reach of a patient’s white blood cells.  

This spirochete is so good at moving around it can outrun a patient’s immune cells and doesn’t need to travel through the bloodstream to spread throughout the body. Left untreated, the pathogen can disseminate or travel to other body areas and invade cells far from the infection site. 

Morgellons patients suffer from many different symptoms because the infecting spirochete spreads prolifically. In many studies, live Borrelia burgdorferi colonies were found in the heart, connective tissue, brain, and nerve cells. 

Diagnosis

The key to successful borreliosis infection treatment depends on early identification and antibiotic therapy. However, for several reasons, only some patients can get the help they need. 

One of the most significant setbacks for patients is that since the underlying spirochetal infection can lie dormant for months or even years before symptoms manifest, many patients don’t know they need medical help. When symptoms do manifest, the bacteria have built a stronghold within the body, spreading so prolifically that it’s nearly impossible to eradicate. 

Morgellons Disease Fibers Magnified Specimen

Morgellons Disease Fibers Magnified Specimen

The other major hurdle patients face is that many medical professionals are either unaware of Morgellons disease or deny that an infectious agent causes it. That is to say that many doctors aware of Morgellons chalk it up as a delusion and send patients off for psychiatric care instead of antibiotic therapy. That of course, reinforces or even creates anxieties and may actually feed the negative mental/physical feedback loop the CDC described.

The fact that testing for Borreliosis presents many challenges doesn’t help matters either:

  • Blood testing inaccuracies result in many false negatives
  • Cultural growth and staining are time-consuming and expensive 
  • DNA testing for the bacteria is both expensive and may be inaccurate as the DNA in laboratory strains of the bacteria differ from strains in the wild

Looking for characteristic Morgellons skin fibers using hand-held light microscopy is the easiest and most effective way to diagnose Morgellons disease clinically, but not enough medical professionals know to use this technique. 

It’s true that bull-eye rashes, or erythema migrans rashes, are a tell-tale sign of a tick bite and an underlying Borrelia burgdorferi infection. Still, only a handful of people develop the rash, so it’s no reliable metric for infection diagnosis. 

If these symptoms resonate with you, there is still hope. 

Finding hope

By funding research and grass-roots efforts, the Charles E. Holman Morgellons Disease Foundation is helping spread more awareness for this debilitating disease. Through donation collections, we can fund essential research and educate the public and the medical community about Morgellons so that more doctors become sympathetic toward patients’ suffering and willing to treat the underlying infection. 

For patients who feel they have exhausted every avenue, we ask that you click here to find a doctor who may be willing to help you. Additionally, please enter your demographic data into the registry we have created that assists scientists in tracking and researching this disease.  

Please donate to our foundation today to help stop misdiagnosis, improve our education and doctor network, and fund the research that will counter the harmful CDC findings that more than a decade of research has dispelled. 

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Understanding the Connection Between Morgellons and Lyme

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

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 Leg

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. 

 

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Clinical Diagnosis of Morgellons Disease

Medical professionals often misdiagnose Morgellons disease symptoms. They may miscategorize them as other illnesses ranging from skin conditions to psychological disorders.

This leaves many patients without the care and treatments they need for relief.

All too frequently, doctors say nothing is physically wrong with their Morgellons patients. Instead, they attribute real symptoms to delusions of infestation—meaning the patient just thinks something has infected them. 

However, evidence supporting an infectious cause is stacking up. 

The majority of the medical community refuses to acknowledge Morgellons as an actual infectious disease, despite evidence on the contrary. 

To develop a clinical diagnosis, a research team led by Marianne J. Middelveen has proposed criteria for identifying and classifying Morgellons disease.

Morgellons overview

Morgellons is a complex skin disease characterized by ulcerating lesions (open sores) with protruding or embedded filaments. 

These filaments or fibers are made from the patient’s skin cells that have gone hay-wire. They’re made of the same protein, keratin, and collagen that make our hair, skin, and nails.  

Using hand-held light microscopes at 50x magnification, researchers can see filaments or fibers in the skin of Morgellons patients. The fibers may be blue, red, green, black, or white and are found growing under unbroken skin, protruding from calluses, and sprouting around skin lesions or open sores. 

Aside from the strange fibers and obviously painful open sores, patients suffering from Morgellons disease also experience symptoms consistent with unresolved Lyme disease. These symptoms involve many different body systems and severely impact a patient’s quality of life. A patient with Morgellons may experience all of these symptoms:  

  • Extreme fatigue
  • Muscle pain 
  • Arthritis 
  • Cardiac disease
  • Memory loss
  • Brain fog
  • Depression and anxiety
  • Disfiguring open sores
Morgellons Disease Fiber Extrusion

Morgellons Disease Fiber Extrusion

Through dozens of studies, researchers have discovered that 98% of Morgellons patients have an underlying Borrelia burgdorferi infection. Borrelia burgdorferi is a spirochetal bacteria spread through black-legged tick bites. They’re also the leading infectious agent in Lyme disease. 

These spirochetes have been positively identified in patient tissue and body fluid samples using cell culture growths, PCR testing, SEM, TEM, light microscopy, and various staining techniques. 

Morgellons patients account for up to 6% of Lyme disease diagnoses in Australia. This fact hints to researchers that persistent Lyme disease may manifest as Morgellons disease instead of a standalone illness. 

The spirochetes in Lyme disease and Morgellons persists after antibiotic therapy through various adaptations that allow it to outrun the patient’s immune system. The little parasites hide inside specific cells and slow growth until the treatment stops. 

Because of spirochete evasiveness, Morgellons disease is challenging to treat. Researchers and doctors haven’t yet discovered a practical course of antibiotic treatment that can permanently resolve the infection. 

Clinical Diagnosis for Morgellons

Partly because of the treatment and diagnosis issues associated with Morgellons, Middelveen’s research team created a clinical diagnosis scheme for Morgellons. The idea behind the research is to help medical professionals accurately diagnose and evaluate the severity of their patients’ illnesses. 

Medical classification schemes for disease staging help doctors objectively identify and assess disease severity and progression to prescribe the correct therapies and treatment

Morgellons Disease Lesion Close Up

Morgellons Disease Lesion Close Up

routes. Syphilis, another spirochetal infection characterized by skin lesions, is categorized by three stages that reflect an array of skin sores and lesions associated with the disease. 

Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria are the primary infectious agent that causes Morgellons disease. These flagellated spirochetes can “swim” through dense tissues and complex cellular structures, allowing them to travel or disseminate throughout the body of their hosts and infect a wide range of body tissues in various locations. In patients with a localized classification, the bacteria often haven’t yet spread beyond the body part that was initially bitten by the infectious tick. 

The “class” designations in the staging for Morgellons disease denote how long the patient has been experiencing symptoms and whether the symptoms are local to one area of the body or disseminated to include others.  

The “class” designations for the disease spread are paired with one of three varying stages of lesion progression. These stages help medical professionals assess the severity of the Borrelia infection. Stage A lesions are milder than Stage C lesions; Stage B lesions are somewhere between. 

Below we share the specific classes and stages of Morgellons disease.

Class I

Early localized: lesions and fibers have been present for less than three months and are found on one central body area such as the head, trunk, or extremities. 

Class II

Early disseminated: lesions and fibers have been present for less than three months and involve more than one area of the body. 

Class III

Late, localized: fibers/lesions have been present for more than six months and are found on one area of the body, such as the head, trunk, or extremities. 

Class IV

Late, disseminated: lesions and fibers have been present for more than six months and have spread to more than one body part. Patients may have lesions and fibers on their head, trunk, and extremities. 

Stage A 

During the first or early stage of Morgellons disease, the lesions have little immune cell reaction to the spirochetal infection. There are no macrophages (white blood cells) or hemorrhaging (bruising) in or around the lesions. 

The skin cell layers are still organized, and the keratinocytes—cells that make keratin—have not been pushed into overdrive by the invading spirochetes. 

Painful lesions on a Morgellons patient’s legs

Stage B

Patients with Stage B lesions have an intermediary pattern that has progressed beyond Stage A but hasn’t yet reached the advanced degree seen in Stage C. 

Stage C

White blood cells, macrophages, and Borrelia species colonies are easily found in late Stage C lesions samples. There’s remarkable bruising or hemorrhaging around the lesions, and the invading spirochetes have activated both Keratinocytes (keratin-producing cells) and fibroblasts (collagen-producing cells). The cells work in overdrive to produce unusual fibers and filaments. The skin cell layers in Stage C lesions have also been disrupted and are unorganized.

While identifying a clinical diagnosis can go a long way toward helping patients suffering from this disfiguring illness, there’s still much we don’t yet understand. 

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Our researchers have made huge strides over the last decade to understand this debilitating illness better. But we are still far from reaching a cure or gaining traction in the mainstream medical community. 

Only through grass-roots efforts can we spread awareness about the genuine impacts this disease has on Morgellons patients and their families. 

Please do

nate today to the Charles E. Holman Morgellons Disease Foundation so we can continue to fund more research like this and spread awareness. 

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What are Morgellons Fibers?

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

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

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

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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What Causes Morgellons Disease: Understanding Borrelia Spirochetes

Imagine you hire armed security guards because you just attained a priceless piece of art. No one likes the thought of a cat burglar breaking in past the security guards and making away with the art without being caught. 

But this may be just what’s happening within the immune system of Morgellons patients trying to deal with the unwanted intruder of Borrelia burgdorferi spirochetes. The security system is simply outmatched by a smaller, faster opponent. And that leaves the priceless artifact of good health in the hands of the invaders. 

Through this article, we’ll explain how  Morgellons patients suffer from a low-level, persistent infection rather than a mental illness many claim. Despite having many avenues for testing, Morgellons patients and their doctors often come up short when diagnosing this debilitating disease. 

By piecing together the latest research around Borrelia burgdorferi, a tick-borne pathogen, the Charles E. Holman Morgellons Disease Foundation would like to help you better understand spirochetal infections and Morgellons disease. 

What is Borrelia burgdorferi?

Example of flagellated bacteria

Through many scientific and clinical evaluations, researchers have noted that up to 98% of Morgellons patients have tested positive for Borrelia burgdorferi infections—the leading player in Lyme disease. 

Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) is a flagellated spiral-shaped bacteria or spirochete that has many tails. The bacterium uses these tails as tiny propellers to swim through fluids. Bb colonies can be found in small rodents and spread to new hosts through bites from the blacklegged tick—a prominent tick species across much of North America. 

Ticks feast on many different hosts—including humans—throughout their life cycle, transmitting the infecting bacteria during each blood meal. Bb primarily lives in the tick’s gut, but when conditions are right, it migrates up the tick, collecting in its saliva and spreading to the new host. 

Once in the new host, Bb quickly colonizes host tissues. The groups of growing and dividing bacteria depend on host cells like human skin cells to provide the nutrients they need to survive. 

How Borrelia burgdorferi spreads through the body

Morgellons Disease on Scalp

Morgellons Disease on Scalp

If left untreated, the founding colony of fully motile or swimming bacteria quickly disseminates through the host’s tissues. In regards to human patients, this means that the infection can spread throughout the body and into other tissues—not just skin—causing the vast array of symptoms we see in Morgellons and Lyme disease patients. 

Spirochetes are up to one thousand times smaller than the cells that make up our bodies. The size disparity, paired with their high motility, allows them to swim through our dense tissues, cellular structures, and membranes.

Usually, our immune system does a fabulous job catching and eliminating invasive bacterial threats. However, natural immune system response isn’t up to the chase for many patients. Human immune cells can only travel through the extracellular space—the fluid surrounding individual cells in tissues. They’re too large to fight infection inside individual tissue cells where Bb can hide. 

Special adaptations like its slender body shape, minuscule size, and high mobility allow Bb to enter cells, outmaneuver immune responses and travel through the host tissues without using the bloodstream. As Bb infection spreads throughout the body, the types of lesions left in its wake reflect the progressive stages of the disease. 

Treating Borrelia burgdorferi infections

Borrelia burgdorferi spirochetes are the ultimate cat burglars of the cellular world, as we alluded to above. Not only can they outrun immune cells, but Bb can also evade many forms of clinical testing and antibiotic treatments. 

Borrelia spirochetes have an entire repertoire of adaptations that allow them to survive adverse conditions. Some antibiotic treatments, like doxycycline, azithromycin, and nitazoxanide work by collecting in the extracellular space—creating harmful conditions and preventing growth. In the presence of these medications, the bacteria can turn on genes that will slow growth or change into a cyst. 

In cyst form, Borrelia species can survive almost indefinitely in poor conditions. When the environment improves, cysts will revert back into spirochetal form and proceed to colonize within the host tissues. This behavior could explain why many Morgellons patients find relief through antibiotic therapy, but experience flare-ups after treatment stops. 

Many medications used to treat bacterial infections cannot pass through cell walls and enter intracellular spaces within tissues. The spirochetes may improve their survival by slipping through cell walls and hiding inside the host’s cells—where antibiotic drugs cannot reach them. 

Limits of Borrelia burgdorferi testing 

While it’s true that a Borrelia infection may seem bloodborne—it is spread by a tick after all—this isn’t the case. In reality, Borrelia species don’t spread through the body via the host’s bloodstream. It doesn’t need to since it can swim through tissues. Knowing this, it makes sense that patient blood tests often come back negative, spurring many medical professionals to say Morgellons is a mental disorder rather than a biological malady. 

But there’s more than one way to use blood testing to diagnose disease. 

Even though the pathogen doesn’t travel through the bloodstream, the markers a host’s immune system uses to hunt spirochetes do. Scientists can identify these markers called antibodies in a patient’s blood sample and count how many there are. The antibody count will be high if the patient is fighting an ongoing infection. The antibody count will decrease as the immune system conquers the infection and clears the pathogen. 

While this may seem straightforward, Borrelia’s adaptations discussed above come into play. If the spirochetes have gone dormant or become cysts, the immune system may not be making antibodies against them. That means even serological antibody testing can lead to false negatives.

Cultures and PCR

Example of cell culture growth

Scientists can also take tissue samples, grow bacterial cultures, or test for Borrelia DNA. While growing cultures can be an accurate testing option, the growth and identification process may be not only lengthy but expensive. 

DNA testing may not always be accurate as the lab-grown strains of Borrelia spirochetes are genetically different from the strains found in the wild, which may also account for false-negative test results leading to harmful misdiagnosis.

Light microscopy

Due to these constraints, light microscopy is one of the best ways to diagnose Morgellons disease clinically. Using a handheld microscope, clinicians can examine lesions for colored Morgellons fibers. While how the spirochetal infection triggers fiber production is still unknown, they seem to be caused by Borrelia spirochetes hiding in specific skin cells. 

Borrelia burgdorferi and Morgellons disease

While it is true that the vast majority of Morgellons patients have experienced an underlying Borrelia burgdorferi infection, researchers still don’t fully understand the infection’s mechanics in Morgellons patients. 

Many questions remain as to whether Morgellons symptoms are, in fact, due to a persistent infection, a reaction with dead spirochetes, an autoimmune disease triggered by an initial infection, or all of the above. 

We know Morgellons disease has a pathogenic cause—it’s not a delusional disorder. Morgellons patient suffering is real, tangible, and can be successfully treated with the right approach. 

Through your charitable donations, the Charles E. Holman Morgellons Disease Foundation can help fund future studies to find answers for those suffering. 

Every little bit counts. Please consider donating $5 or more to help relieve the suffering of future Morgellons patients.

 

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Morgellons Disease and Elusive Treatments: A Case Study

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

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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How Do You Get Morgellons Disease?

The mainstream media and the medical community at large view Morgellons as a delusional disorder. But research over the last decade has found that Morgellons disease symptoms are a manifestation of an underlying bacterial infection. The culprit, spirochetal bacteria in the Borellia genus, are known to cause disease in other mammals and are spread by blacklegged ticks. 

 

If you have Morgellons symptoms, you may have suffered for years before finding a name for your illness. The Charles E. Holman Morgellons Disease Foundation is here to help answer your questions surrounding Morgellons disease and raise awareness for healing. 

 

Through the remainder of this article, we’ll introduce how Morgellons symptoms spread through tick bites and how animals that contract the symptoms are cured. Then we’ll examine why people aren’t treated with known cures for the same symptoms, often being mislabeled with mental disorders instead.

How do you get a spirochetal infection? 

Understanding Morgellons disease requires knowing how ticks spread bacteria. Spirochetal bacteria, named for their spiral-shaped appearance, are responsible for many diseases. Borrelia, a group of spirochetes, causes infectious diseases like Morgellons, relapsing fever, and Lyme disease and is primarily spread through blacklegged tick bites.  

Ticks and disease

Ticks use unique sensory systems to detect the breath, body odor, body heat, and movement vibrations of animals. These adaptations allow the blacklegged tick to identify frequently used paths. 

 

Along these paths, ticks climb to the tips of shrubs and grasses and wait for their next hosts with arms outstretched—a behavior called questing. When an animal brushes by, the tick climbs aboard. 

 

Once on the host, ticks spend ten minutes to two hours looking for the right place to begin eating. Usually, ticks prefer moist, protected areas on the body that won’t be easily noticed, like the groin or ears. 

 

Once a tick has found the perfect spot to eat, it grasps the host’s skin and cuts through the surface layers. Next, the tick inserts a feeding tube and secretes a cement-like substance to hold it in place while it dines. 

 

While feeding, ticks excrete anesthetic laced saliva so that the host won’t be bothered by the feeding parasite. If the tick finds a well-sheltered spot, it can go unnoticed for its entire stay. 

 

Ticks usually suck blood for several days. Once they’ve had their fill, they’ll fall off. The host may be none the wiser. 

 

Problem is, ticks spread disease while they feed. If a host animal has a blood-borne illness, the tick ingests those germs during its meal. When the tick finds a new host, it then spreads those germs and illnesses through its saliva.

 

Blacklegged ticks seek a new host with every life stage. And since these ticks can live for three years, a single tick can spread disease through any number of animals—humans included.  

Symptoms of tick-borne illness

In many cases, people who contract tick-borne illnesses may never know that a tick bit them, and symptoms of a tick bite may take days or weeks to appear. 

 

If you like to go for adventures in tick-infested areas, take precautions to protect yourself from tick bites.

 

If you suspect you’ve experienced a tick bite, here are symptoms to watch for: 

 

  • Fever and chills 
  • Muscle aches and joint pain
  • Extreme fatigue 
  • Erythema migrans rash—“bullseye” rash

 

Generally speaking, an erythema migrans rash is a tell-tale sign of a Lyme infection. About 30% to 80% of infected people develop a rash that starts at the site of a tick bite. The rash can take anywhere from a few days to an entire month to show up after the bite, so you wouldn’t know that a tick bit you until after the tick is long gone. 

 

An example of an erythema migrans rash

“Bullseye rashes,” or Erythema rashes, get their nickname because they gradually grow in a bullseye shape over several days and may be as large as 12 inches across. As the rash develops, it also clears, leaving a red mark in the center surrounded by a red rim along the outermost edge with clear skin in the middle. The rash is warm to the touch but isn’t itchy or painful. 

 

Evidence suggests that Morgellons patients suffer from a form of chronic, systemic Lyme disease. When a person goes untreated for a tick bite leading to Lyme disease, the spirochetal infection can spread, causing symptoms in several different body systems and even leaving microscopic fibrous growths embedded in the skin and causing itchiness. Research also suggests that humans aren’t the only mammals to react to a Borrelia infection with lesions and fiber growth. 

Borellia infections in other animals

As seen in Morgellons disease, extraordinary keratin fibers and ulcerating lesions aren’t unique to humans. These are well-known symptoms of spirochetal infections in domestic dogs and livestock. 

Lyme disease in dogs

A dog with a tick between its toes

Our canine companions are susceptible to tick-borne illnesses too. Dogs with tick-borne diseases like canine Lyme experience many of the same symptoms as humans, including: 

 

  • General malaise
  • Fever
  • Swollen lymph nodes
  • Joint pain
  • Swollen connective tissues

 

However, furry friends can’t speak up and tell us that they aren’t feeling well, so initial symptoms may go unnoticed by owners for weeks or even months. Once noticeable symptoms like lameness become apparent, the underlying spirochetal infection has spread throughout the dog’s body. 

 

In 2016, researchers collected skin samples from nine dogs experiencing ulcerating lesions with unusual filament growth—strikingly similar to Morgellons disease. The dogs in question also had a history of tick exposure. 

 

Skin samples were examined under a microscope and used for culture growth. Researchers visually confirmed spirochetes under magnification, and the cultures grew a species of Borrelia bacteria. Researchers did not find the presence of Borrelia species in the asymptomatic dogs that were used as controls. That hints that the bacteria isn’t found in healthy canines and may be responsible for illness in the afflicted dogs. 

 

Through serological (blood plasma and antibody) testing, researchers found that most of the dogs had antibodies against Borrelia bacteria—which indicated that the animals’ immune systems in the study were fighting an ongoing infection. Again the control animals did not test positive for Borrelia antibodies and did not have an immunological history of the disease. 

 

In this study, owners of the infected dogs tried several different treatments to heal their pets’ sores and alleviate symptoms. In almost every case, topical treatments failed. Antibiotic therapies that included doxycycline were successful. 

Bovine digital dermatitis 

Since 1994, bovine digital dermatitis (BDD) has been a widespread and well-documented illness affecting dairy cattle in the midwestern United States. Characterized by open sores and long filaments, this disease can cause lameness, weight loss, a decrease in milk production, and even death in dairy cattle. The condition is highly contagious and can quickly spread through an entire herd, with devastating financial impacts for farmers. 

 

Because of BDD’s financial strain on the entire dairy industry, researchers quickly identified spirochetal infections as a primary cause. Over the last 20 years, antibiotic sprays and foot washes have been widely accepted treatments for infected animals. 

 

And yet antibiotic treatment for people with Morgellons still isn’t widely accepted. If you suffer from Morgellons disease symptoms and have been unable to find help, locate a doctor who understands now.

Your donation saves lives

Canine companions receive antibiotic treatment when a spirochetal infection causes open sores, general malaise, and unusual filament growths. 

 

Dairy cattle receive antibiotic treatment when a spirochetal infection causes open sores, filament growth, and decreased milk production. 

Yet when a person experiences a spirochetal infection with open sores, filament growth, and debilitating systemic symptoms, many experts call them “delusional.” 

Help us make Morgellons a disease acknowledged by practitioners as the debilitating disease it is. The harm and emotional turmoil that comes from misdiagnosis is too massive to adequately explain.

 

Help spread awareness and change the dogma surrounding Morgellons disease through grassroots efforts. Your donations help fund the research for practical solutions that can provide relief to those suffering from Morgellons disease.

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Current Morgellons Disease Research: Understanding the Methods Used

Recent Morgellons disease research has found ample evidence that a patient’s symptoms stem from the body’s reaction to a bacterial infection. The research supports that patients’ pain has a pathogenic cause and doesn’t stem from a neurological disorder, as some claim. 

Morgellons disease is characterized by colored filaments embedded in the skin and protruding from painful skin lesions. Morgellons patients also suffer from other seemingly inexplicable symptoms that severely impact their quality of life. 

Without an apparent cause, the mystery behind Morgellons has led many medical professionals to prescribe antipsychotics to treat neurologic symptoms. Patients walk away with no relief for the physical symptoms and some even question their own sanity. 

In all actuality, the culprit behind Morgellons disease appears to be caused by spirochetal bacteria front the Borrelia genus known to be spread by ticks and associated with Lymes disease. Although Borrelia spirochetes are detected across the board in Morgellons skin tissue, other pathogens may also play a role. 

Scientists continue to use these steps to refine our understanding of this enigmatic disease.

How do researchers identify infecting bacteria? 

When presented with an unknown bacterium, microbiologists work to isolate infection-causing bacteria. This helps them better understand the species with which they are dealing. Morgellons researchers have followed this same process to identify the spirochetes ravaging Morgellons patients’ lives. 

Standing on their own, any individual bacterial test may not offer conclusive evidence that Morgellons patients suffer from a spirochetal infection. However, by running a combination of these tests on multiple patients, researchers have concluded that species related to the  Borrelia genus are some of the pathogens responsible for Morgellons disease. 

Here’s a rundown of laboratory experiments used to identify spirochetal infection in Morgellons patients. 

Microscopic staining

In this Morgellon’s study, scientists took skin samples from participating patients. When examined under a microscope, it’s difficult to differentiate between skin cells and invasive bacteria. To help the bacteria visibly stand out from the surrounding cells, microbiologists use special staining techniques to dye the bacterial cells a different color. 

Once bacteria are stained, scientists can study their physical characteristics under different types of microscopes to determine to which group the unknown bacteria belong. Bacteria are initially classed or organized based on their physical structure under one of five groups of bacterial “shapes.” These shapes include rod (bacilli), round (cocci), spiral (spirilla), comma (vibrios), and corkscrew (spirochetes). 

The bacteria infecting Morgellons patients have a twisted corkscrew shape and are classified as spirochetal bacteria.

Going Deeper with SEM & TEM

An example of a transmission electron microscope.

After classifying the shape, researchers enlist SEM or scanning electron microscopy to go deeper. Electron microscopes help them describe bacterial cell structure, measure size, and study changes in the bacteria’s physical appearance. This kind of microscopy gives researchers a much better view of specimens than light microscopy alone. SEM helps researchers confirm the physical shape of infecting bacteria and gather essential details about their physical qualities. 

Beyond SEM, researchers turn to transmission electron microscopy (TEM) for a high-resolution image of internal structures. Using TEM, researchers can see details as tiny as individual atoms. 

SEM and TEM help researchers understand the physical qualities and structures of the organisms they study. Their biggest drawback is that neither can provide any information about bacterial evolutionary development or offer any genetic identification. 

After using these physical classification techniques, researchers work next to identify the bacteria using DNA testing.

PCR or Polymerase Chain Reaction testing

An example of the machine used for PCR genetic testing.

DNA holds instructions and information inside all living organisms. Polymerase chain reaction tests, or PCR tests, are a fast and accurate approach to diagnosing infectious diseases using DNA collected from disease-causing agents. The machines used in PCR testing can identify the pathogen DNA mixed in a sample.

Researchers collect samples of blood, tissues, mucus, and saliva from patients to run a PCR test.

Each sample contains the patient’s DNA and DNA from the infecting bacteria. Researchers place samples taken from the patient in a particular machine and add an enzyme called polymerase. Within an hour, the polymerase enzyme causes the cells in the sample to clone the genetic material billions of times—including the bacterial DNA.

The PCR machines then sequence or decode the DNA strands to identify the infecting bacteria. 

Serological reactivity & antigen testing

Collecting a blood sample for testing.

Even after identifying the infecting bacteria, researchers are still unsure of the source. That’s why they turn to serological reactivity and antigen testing next. This kind of testing scans a person’s immune system for antibodies related to specific diseases. For instance, the spirochete that causes Morgellons or Lyme disease triggers certain antibodies. 

In serological testing for Morgellons disease, scientists collect blood from a patient. The serum, or liquid portion of the blood, is separated from the blood cells. Then researchers add an agent derived from Borrelia spirochetes to the serum. If the serum reacts to the agent, the researcher can infer that previous patient exposure to the bacteria caused an immune response. 

While this form of testing can be helpful in identifying illness, Lyme disease testing uses lab-grown bacterial strains that aren’t as genetically diverse as naturally occurring strains. The lack of natural diversity leads to both false positives and false negatives. That’s exactly the kind of thing that can reinforce some doctors’ thinking that Morgellons doesn’t stem from bacterial infection at all. 

So researchers have to take it even further for better understanding.  

Inoculations & culture growth

Cell growth culture made from an inoculation.

We’re used to hearing the term “inoculation” used in relation to vaccination. But in microbiology, inoculation means adding microorganisms into a culture, or prepared petri dish, to be grown and multiplied. In this Morgellons disease study, researchers added skin samples to a petri dish that contained everything the bacteria needed to grow and reproduce. 

When Borrelia species grew in a petri dish from a Morgellons patient skin sample, researchers knew that there were living bacteria in the sample they took from the patient and that they were dealing with an ongoing infection. 

Researchers can also use the bacteria grown through inoculations for further testing without collecting more samples from the patient.

Control groups 

In a number of the studies presented, the researchers also tested for Borrelia species in control groups or volunteers with no symptoms or history of Morgellons or Lyme disease. If members of the control group host the same spirochetes, the researchers can presume that the bacteria may not have a role in these infections. 

However, Borrelia species were absent in the control groups of volunteers and unique to the Morgellons patients across nearly all experimental procedures. This reinforces Borrelia spirochetes as the culprit behind Morgellons disease.

Treating the infection

Researchers have isolated and identified Borrelia spirochetes in multiple Morgellons patient studies. Because the disease appears to be caused by an underlying spirochetal infection, using antipsychotics to treat Morgellon symptoms is a misguided approach that can cause psychological and physical harm. 

The most effective way yet discovered to treat an underlying bacterial infection in Morgellons Patients is an antibiotic regimen. Morgellons patients lucky enough to find a doctor who understands Morgellons is an ongoing bacterial infection have already experienced reduced symptoms through antibiotic treatment.

And that’s a relief for more people being called delusional when dealing with a pathogenic disease. 

Donations are needed

Despite ongoing research proving otherwise, the CDC still doesn’t officially recognize the underlying cause of Morgellons disease. The symptoms of Morgellons disease are debilitating for patients and their families. Many patients must fight for care simply because this disease is considered a delusional disease without a physiological cause. 

Through research sponsored by the Charles E. Holman Foundation, we give patients the answers they need and discover better treatments. Experiments like the ones outlined here are costly and time-consuming—and more research is required. 

Your donation today will help fund future research for treatments and cures. You will also help us spread awareness and provide resources to help support those suffering from Morgellons disease. 

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