Charles E. Holman Foundation
  • Facebook
  • X
  • Youtube
  • Flickr
  • What is Morgellons?
  • Support & Resources
    • Patient Resources
    • Obtaining Social Security Benefits
    • Skin Deep The Battle Over Morgellons
    • Cindy Casey Morgellons Disease Diary
    • Press
    • Additional Morgellons Sites
  • Research
    • Research & Publications
    • For Researchers
  • About CEHF
    • Our Mission & Board of Directors
    • Advisory Panels
    • Contact Us
  • Events
    • 13th Annual Medical-Scientific Conference on Morgellons Disease
    • Previous Events
  • Patient Registry
  • Blog
  • Donate
  • Search
  • Menu Menu

Toronto Star: Patients with mysterious skin fibres have long been called delusional. A Canadian researcher wants to change that.

By Abby O’Brien
Staff Reporter, Toronto Star

It begins with the sensation, head to toe, of ants crawling on his skin, followed weeks later by a sudden outburst of lesions across the body.

Then, the fibres – red, black, white, sometimes, even a bright blue or purple metallic shade – start protruding from the wounds.

“It’s like living in a horror movie, but prolonged, not the 90-minute version from Hollywood,” Lance Tycholaz said. Tycholaz’ symptoms began to materialize in 2009, two weeks after he was bitten by a tick.

The symptoms are not a product of Hollywood, but of Morgellons disease, which is, depending on who you ask, is either a skin or psychiatric condition. It’s not a common ailment – there’s only about four cases estimated in every 100,000 people.

Read the full article >

https://thecehf.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Toronto-Star-Article.jpg 684 845 Charles E. Holman Foundation /wp-content/uploads/2020/09/CEHFLogo.png Charles E. Holman Foundation2025-03-27 16:57:332025-03-27 17:00:10Toronto Star: Patients with mysterious skin fibres have long been called delusional. A Canadian researcher wants to change that.

The Lyme Controversy

The Quiet Epidemic just dropped on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and Vimeo. This riveting documentary takes viewers on a journey through the history of Lyme disease and shares how effective diagnosis and treatments have been stonewalled by the scientific community, the American healthcare system, and even the federal government. 

Since its discovery in 1975, Lyme disease has impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans—and those are the lucky ones who were able to get a diagnosis. 

Due to its complexity, many Lyme patients struggle to resolve their symptoms and may go years without adequate treatment. One such patient’s story is told through this documentary. 

Julia Bruzzese contracted Lyme as a child. Once an active, rambunctious child, Julia started feeling sick and quickly lost feeling in her legs. 

For years, her family fought with doctors to understand what was wrong with her. Her health only seemed to improve through expensive antibiotic treatment. However, her doctors didn’t want to continue her treatments long-term and her health deteriorated. 

At one point doctors, unwilling to accept a possible Lyme diagnosis, suggested that her paralysis was simply imagined. Julia, they said, was experiencing a psychotic episode and needed psychiatric treatment instead of life-saving antibiotics. 

Julia’s insurance companies refused to cover her care and her family struggled to find Lyme-literate doctors who could provide treatment. 

How could a disease be so prevalent and still be downplayed by medical professionals? 

The answers may surprise you.

The Lyme controversy 

Lyme was first identified in 1975 as rheumatoid arthritis-like symptoms impacting children in rural Lyme, Connecticut. By 1982, researcher William Burgderfer, Ph.D., discovered that Lyme disease was caused by corkscrew-shaped bacteria, or spirochetes, spread through bites from infected ticks. 

The disease rapidly reached epidemic levels as ticks carrying the disease have been identified across the continental United States. 

Unfortunately, the disease spread while new laws and regulations changed the American approach to healthcare and research profitability. 

Research and business

With the passing of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980, universities and their faculty members could make patent claims on their discoveries made possible with federal funding. 

This new legislation triggered the biotech boom almost overnight. By the 1990s, university scientists raced to patent genes, proteins, and even organisms so they could launch profitable products. 

Researchers became entrepreneurs and stakeholders in biotech start-up firms instead of pure researchers with pure motives.

One product born of this patent sprint was a Lyme vaccine. 

How vaccines work

Most vaccines work like this: using molecular technology, a surface protein from a germ is multiplied and injected into the body. Immune cells find the foreign protein and create antibodies against it. If that germ later attacks, the body has antibodies at the ready to wipe the infection out. 

The underlying pathogen for Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi, is a poor choice for vaccination. Unlike other pathogens we vaccinate against, B. burgdorferi can change its outercoat and “hide” from antibodies and the immune system. 

Because B. burgdorferi can shape-shift and morph between tissues and over time, the patient’s immune system can’t keep up—and neither can a traditional vaccine. 

A narrowing definition 

Commercialization of Lyme disease through vaccine profits conflicted with patient interests in another way. 

Patients with Lyme disease suffer from a wide variety of symptoms—the symptom list is 38 items long and includes symptoms such as joint pain, fatigue, fever, and headaches. Researchers needed to be able to tell if the spirochete had infected vaccine recipients through tick bites outside of test studies or were experiencing a severe side effect from the vaccine itself. 

This distinction was vital if researchers wanted to earn FDA approval for their product. 

So, researchers agreed to narrow the definition of Lyme disease, focusing on the tell-tale bullseye rash (which only manifests in 20% of patients) and limited blood testing, ultimately affecting many patients’ diagnoses. A narrower definition helped move the product past the FDA. However, accurately diagnosing Lyme became more complex as many different strains of the infecting spirochete were left out of Lyme disease testing. 

Profitability through products

As the race for a vaccine intensified, major pharmaceutical companies dumped millions of dollars into vaccine research. Lyme researchers were also granted millions of dollars in federal funding. However, scientists quickly discovered that creating a Lyme vaccine wouldn’t be as cut and dry as they thought. 

The infecting bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi, was far more complicated than initially imagined. The unexpected complexity made finding appropriate proteins to use in the vaccine difficult. 

Additionally, Lyme’s wide range of symptoms made it difficult for researchers to pinpoint whether vaccine recipients had a severe reaction to the vaccine or had contracted the disease from an unnoticed tick bite. 

Western blot tests are traditionally used to identify Borrelia burgdorferi infections and diagnose Lyme disease. Western blots help researchers identify antibodies in patient blood samples from specific germs using a membrane strip that creates bands for each germ-related antibody present in patient blood samples. Patients typically need a series of bands for a positive result in their test. 

Two of the most prominent bands on the western blot for Lyme were for OspA and OspB proteins. These proteins are universal across all strains of Borrelia burdgorferi and would signal infection in the western blot tests. However, as researchers developed an OspA-based vaccine, it was decided to remove the OspA bands from the western blots. 

Researchers removed OspA bands from the western blot test because they needed to be able to tell between patients who had been vaccinated and those who had not. Vaccine recipients would always test positive for the OspA antibodies as OspA was the targeted protein in the vaccine—even if they weren’t infected with Borrelia burgdorferi. 

Without the OspA and OspB bands in the Lyme western blot, it became harder for patients to get a positive diagnosis through blood testing despite experiencing an ongoing infection. 

LYMErix 

In 1998, the FDA approved the LYMErix vaccine, which went to market in December. By 2001, the FDA was flooded with complaints and lawsuits that LYMErix had harmed vaccine recipients. Instead of finding a miracle preventative measure, these early adopters wound up with symptoms that reflected serious Lyme complications. 

By 2002, LYMErix was pulled from the market, leaving people with a preventative mindset seriously injured by the vaccine instead.

While the mechanisms behind adverse LYMErix side-effects are still unknown, we’re no closer to having a Lyme vaccine than thirty years ago. 

Even without a product to market, the definition of Lyme disease and how scientists test for it have not changed. Positive infection identification markers that were removed from the western blot test, such as OspA protein, haven’t been readmitted to diagnostic testing. 

Researchers diligently worked to create a serological description for Lyme during the vaccine trials. However, the complexity of Lyme may have been too much to take on, leaving patients high and dry. 

We’re left to wonder if the loss of profit potential in curing Lyme disease may play a role in the lack of continued vaccine research, diagnostic testing, and treatment options. 

Thankfully, attitudes are changing primarily due to productions like The Quiet Epidemic hitting the mainstream media. Documentaries such as this trigger conversations about patient suffering, industry conflicts of interest, and the need for continued research. 

As Lyme disease becomes more mainstream, we want to bring more attention to Morgellons disease, an illness triggered by Borrelia burgdorferi, the same spirochete behind Lyme. Our research, unlike profit-driven research from pharmaceutical companies, is driven by an intense desire to help people with Morgellons, and by extension Lyme disease.

Every dollar counts. Can you please donate as little as $50 today to help us fund the pure research necessary to better understand these insidious diseases and work toward a cure?

$
Select Payment Method
Personal Info

Credit Card Info
This is a secure SSL encrypted payment.

Donation Total: $50.00

https://thecehf.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/giorgio-trovato-WyxqQpyFNk8-unsplash-scaled.jpg 2560 1707 Mark Wilcox /wp-content/uploads/2020/09/CEHFLogo.png Mark Wilcox2023-07-10 15:56:582024-02-08 11:45:03The Lyme Controversy

Morgellons and Brain Fog

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. 

 

$
Select Payment Method
Personal Info

Credit Card Info
This is a secure SSL encrypted payment.

Donation Total: $50.00

https://thecehf.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/pexels-david-garrison-2128817-scaled.jpg 1709 2560 Mark Wilcox /wp-content/uploads/2020/09/CEHFLogo.png Mark Wilcox2023-03-18 22:10:112025-03-27 16:48:16Morgellons and Brain Fog

Why Does Morgellons Disease Make Me 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.

 

$
Select Payment Method
Personal Info

Credit Card Info
This is a secure SSL encrypted payment.

Donation Total: $50.00

https://thecehf.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/pexels-andrea-piacquadio-3768582-scaled.jpg 1707 2560 Mark Wilcox /wp-content/uploads/2020/09/CEHFLogo.png Mark Wilcox2023-01-02 20:20:122023-03-17 12:13:24Why Does Morgellons Disease Make Me So Tired?

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.

$
Select Payment Method
Personal Info

Credit Card Info
This is a secure SSL encrypted payment.

Donation Total: $50.00

https://thecehf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/pexels-towfiqu-barbhuiya-11809348-scaled.jpg 1708 2560 Mark Wilcox /wp-content/uploads/2020/09/CEHFLogo.png Mark Wilcox2022-12-08 21:58:292023-02-20 12:01:30Understanding Morgellons Arthritis

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. 

$
Select Payment Method
Personal Info

Credit Card Info
This is a secure SSL encrypted payment.

Donation Total: $50.00

https://thecehf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/alexandr-podvalny-tE7_jvK-_YU-unsplash-scaled-e1667450074482.jpg 1939 1568 Mark Wilcox /wp-content/uploads/2020/09/CEHFLogo.png Mark Wilcox2022-11-02 22:35:042023-02-20 13:05:57Finding A Doctor Can Be A Challenge For Morgellons Patients

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. 

 

$
Select Payment Method
Personal Info

Credit Card Info
This is a secure SSL encrypted payment.

Donation Total: $50.00

 

 

https://thecehf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ixodes-ricinus-g43aaf2c0f_1920.jpg 1280 1920 Mark Wilcox /wp-content/uploads/2020/09/CEHFLogo.png Mark Wilcox2022-10-01 12:03:372022-10-01 12:04:58Understanding the Connection Between Morgellons and Lyme

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. 

Donate today

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. 

https://thecehf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/pexels-karolina-grabowska-4386464-scaled.jpg 2560 1707 Mark Wilcox /wp-content/uploads/2020/09/CEHFLogo.png Mark Wilcox2022-09-01 20:51:142022-09-01 20:51:47Clinical Diagnosis of Morgellons Disease

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. 

[DONATE NOW]

https://thecehf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/background-gddd10c187_1920.jpg 1280 1920 Mark Wilcox /wp-content/uploads/2020/09/CEHFLogo.png Mark Wilcox2022-08-01 15:23:562022-08-01 15:23:56What are Morgellons Fibers?

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.

 

[DONATE NOW]

https://thecehf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/pexels-victoria-art-7916844-scaled-e1656696865348.jpg 1702 1132 Mark Wilcox /wp-content/uploads/2020/09/CEHFLogo.png Mark Wilcox2022-07-01 11:33:252022-07-01 11:34:40What Causes Morgellons Disease: Understanding Borrelia Spirochetes
Page 1 of 212

LATEST RESEARCH

See the latest peer reviewed research publications >

CEHF on Blog-Talk Radio

The 6th Annual Medical-Scientific Conference on Morgellons

LISTEN NOW >

CEHMDF Refutes the CDC Report on Morgellons Disease

Featuring Presentations by:Peter Mayne and Randy Wymore

LEARN MORE >

Morgellons Study Cited by Faculty of 1000

Study of Emerging Skin Disease Among Top 2% Published

READ MORE >

The Charles E. Holman Foundation

PO Box 1109
Lone Star, TX
75668

events@thecehf.org

Neither the Charles E. Holman Foundation nor the individuals associated with it make any warranties or guarantees about any medical advice or treatment suggestions posted on this web site. This includes no guarantees about treatment effectiveness, long term or short term outcome, safety, or potential side effects. The choice to use any treatments posted on the web site is strictly left to the individual. The CEHF officially recommends you consult with your health care professional before using any medication or treatment, as only you and your medical care provider know your own unique and individual medical issues. While all treatment suggestions posted are reviewed by licensed medical personnel associated with the CEHF, the decision by an individual to use the information posted in their own treatment does not constitute the establishment of a doctor-patient relationship nor a contractual or professional arrangement of any sort.

© Copyright – Charles E. Holman Foundation

  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • What is Morgellons
  • Events
  • Contact Us
  • Donate

Scroll to top

We use cookies to enhance your browsing experience and analyze our traffic. By clicking "Accept All", you consent to our use of cookies.

Accept AllReject AllLearn More

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Google Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.

If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Other cookies

The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Accept settingsHide notification only