Anatomy Shared Article Research

This blog exists for the Anatomy students at Tree of Life Christian School. We will be reading various scientific articles, summarizing our research, and then commenting on others' summaries. We hope to broaden our view of the current research surrounding the human body, and to help others see how truly amazing the design of the human body is.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Bugs Are Crawling In My Skin!!

Summary: Dr. Claire Panosian Dunavan, a tropical medicine specialist, dealt with a puzzling medical condition called Morgellons disease. This disease consists of the victim adamantly believing that they are infested with parasites that they feel crawling under their skin, but the truth of the disease is that there are no parasites involved, just a horrible skin infection. Dr. Dunavan met with a woman named Margo Riley, who had spent many months volunteering in Mexican orphanages. After her most recent trip she had begun to develop oozing pustules and sores that left her skin blotched and damaged. She defiantly stated to Dunavan that she was sure she had Morgellons, but Dunavan was not going to diagnose her without investigating. Riley told Dunavan that on her last trip to the Yucatan Peninsula everyone with her got bug bites, but her own bites spread rather than healed. She had been put on an antibiotic but to no avail. When Dunavan examined her skin she found that some of the large sores looked as though they had been picked at and de-scabbed repeatedly during healing. Dunavan confronted Riley about the picked-at sores and Riley responded by saying that she picked at herself because there were moving things beneath her skin. She even showed Dunavan pictures in a futile attempt to prove her point. Dunavan, being a doctor looking in at the situation as opposed to a desperate patient, realized that what Riley believed to be parasites were not parasites at all, just Morgellons disease. When her nose was swabbed and tested, Dunavan diagnosed her and was overjoyed to find an antibiotic to suit her needs. When Dunavan called Riley’s referring doctor, however, the doctor said that Riley had left and was trying to find an expert who would invest more time in her case because she was so convinced that she had a new species of parasite. She had let her assumptions drive her away from help for her condition.

Reaction: It’s so interesting that Morgellons disease has both physical and psychological effects. Victims of this disease have a horrible skin condition as well as an adamant belief that they have bugs in their skin. It is also quite interesting that Margo Riley came into the clinic believing she had Morgellons disease but at the same time believing that she had bugs beneath her skin. In other words, she believed she had a disorder that made her falsely believe she was infested with parasites but then also continued to believe that she had parasites beneath her skin despite the fact that she knew her condition had that psychological effect. Also, it is a very sad situation when your psychological disorder leads you away from adequate help for your condition.

http://discovermagazine.com/2006/dec/vital-signs-sore-mystery

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"In other words, she believed she had a "disorder" that made her "falsely believe" she was "infested with parasites" but then also "continued to believe that she had parasites beneath her skin" despite the fact that she knew "her condition" had that psychological effect."

Are you sure that she knew that "her" condition had that psychological effect, or that some other phsciatric illnesses such as DOP, had that kind of phschological effect?

Are you sure that the doctor involved here did not diagnose her with Delusional Parasitosis, instead of Morgellons. There is no such definition of Morgellons, quite the contrary.

There have been thousands of patients misdiagnosed with DOP, that have something, be it Morgellons, or one of literally thousands of parasitical, fungal, bacterial, or a combination of some or all of these pathogens, diseases.

The reason that these people cannot "deal" with their diagnosis' are varied, but the main one being that close to 100% of the people that are in the Morgellons family were diagnosed without so much as a skin scraping, much less more reliable tests. FYO.

If I were a dermatologist, I would start making sure that I performed all tests necessary to exclude any other possibilities, based on the fact that Delusional Parasitosis, or DOP, is by definition, a diagnosis of EXCLUSION!

There will be many lawsuits coming in the near future. Even if it is decided that some of these people are indeed delusional, it still won't stop these doctors from being found guilty of malpractice. The simple fact is, these diagnosis' have been made WITHOUT excluding any other possibilities. This is leaving many dermatologist', however unknowingly, wide open for lawsuits, that they will be on the losing end of.

Monday, March 10, 2008 1:39:00 PM  
Blogger Meredith said...

So if the cause is bacterial, in her case a drug-resistant strain, what does the bacteria attack? It is possible, as there is little know about Morgellsons, that nerves are affected in a way that creates the strange sensations.
But if the sensation is purely mental, what triggers it? Because the skin symptoms of the condition are so obvious, the sensations probably aren't a subconcious cry for sympathy -- but what are they then?
This disease is extremely intriguing, and I hope more research is being done. I also wish that the article included a follow-up: did the strogner anti-biotics work?

Monday, March 10, 2008 2:32:00 PM  
Blogger Beverly Barnes Drottar,MD said...

I am a physician who also HAS Morgellons Syndrome. How can anyone say that it is simply "a skin condition caused by an infection" when we do not actually know for sure the identity of the factors which CAUSE Morgellons, or what sort of classification they might be?? Infection with WHAT? Bacteria, Virus, protozoa, insect, hematode, nematode, bryazoid, fungus, algae, lichen? Which of those do NOT qualify as parasites?

What if I told you that there has been tenative research findings (which there HAS!) that show typical Morgellons morphological particles in healthy asymptomatic human subjects? Does that make these Factors benign cohabitants of ours now, or dormant time bombs??

Dr. William T. Harvey, Chairperson of the Morgellons Research Foundation, has suggested that many, or most, of these individuals have an atypical strongyloides specie infestation as well as chronic chlamydia pneumonia/bronchitus. The strongyloides is a nematoid that has a terrible persistance of eggs and cysts in the surrounding household environment--therefore causing repeated infestation despite treatment, due to re-contamination. Adults are also notoriously hard to kill and eliminate from the body.

Don't judge other's insanity until you have lived a few years with their illness. :-)

Portland, Oregon

Monday, March 10, 2008 9:42:00 PM  
Blogger mello said...

Just from reading the article I find this intresting. But what causes Morgellons disease? I know it's a skin disease but what causes the psychological effects? Is there ary treatment that is being tested for Morgellons? I find it facinating that a skin disease can cause mental problems. But maybe this skin disease affects the nerves and causes damage to them causing a mental problem.
I hope eo find more information about this disease.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008 5:04:00 PM  
Blogger mello said...

Just from reading the article I find this intresting. But what causes Morgellons disease? I know it's a skin disease but what causes the psychological effects? Is there ary treatment that is being tested for Morgellons? I find it facinating that a skin disease can cause mental problems. But maybe this skin disease affects the nerves and causes damage to them causing a mental problem. It's wierd to think that a "bug" can be in you when it really is just all made up in your mind.
I hope to find more information about this disease.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008 5:06:00 PM  
Blogger Beverly Barnes Drottar,MD said...

There is MUCH speculation about the cause of Morgellons Disease--At present it is so new we are NOT certain what causes it, or even if it is TRULY only ONE illness! So the final answers are still out there, which is why there is SO much controversy about this illness, and so much confusion.

The skin manifestations are definitely only the tip of the iceberg--like the the sore or black mole of spreading skin cancer, this illness is system-wide, not just skin-deep. It probably starts on the skin or in the gut, but rapidly spreads to the entire nervous and lymphatic systems, including the brain. Although people with Morgellons do not hallucinate, lose touch with reality, or have significant psychoses, they frequently develop chronic mood disorders over time like bipolar depressions, or affective mood disorder, and have some obsessive/compulsive tendencies or anxiety reactions. They also have episodes of foggy mentation, visual field blurring, lethargy, impaired cognition, loss of short-term memory, poor word recall, hot flashes, chills, and nausea and other signs of intermittent (and sometimes chronic) encephalitis.
Or as I often say, "We've got Bugs in Our Brains!"

Tuesday, March 11, 2008 5:51:00 PM  
Blogger Kaylee said...

This is mind-boggling! I had heard something about a spider bite that affected the infected people's minds. They would think that the pain and the bite were really much worse than it was. The bite would start out small, but because the people kept messing with it because they thought it was so bad, it would get worse. That's kinda related to this article where the people think that bugs are under their skin - it's all in their minds.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 8:57:00 AM  

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