Is Morgellons 'Crawling Skin' Disease Purely Psychological?
SodaHead News
2012/01/26 21:26:26
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Morgellons disease is supposedly a skin condition characterized by a "crawling" sensation in the skin, and though it is not a real diagnosis it's often used to describe any number of related symptoms that can't be explained. However, after analysis of skin and blood samples from more than 100 patients, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control is ruling the condition out as a psychological phenomenon.
Spokesman Daniel Rutz explained, "We saw a growing number of people complaining about these unusual symptoms, and as a public health agency we felt the need to see what was going on. It was important to rule out an infectious cause because a lot of people were concerned about transmission ... These sores appear often to be the result of people picking at themselves, as they would if they had a chronic irritation that couldn't be resolved any other way."
According to ABC News, the CDC also found that they detected drug use in about half of the patients and "a neuropsychiatric condition." This has lead scientists to look at other possibilities. One neurologist, Dr. Anne Louise Oaklander of Massachusetts General Hospital, suggests the irritation might be the result of nerve damage that "causes them to fire without appropriate cause."
Spokesman Daniel Rutz explained, "We saw a growing number of people complaining about these unusual symptoms, and as a public health agency we felt the need to see what was going on. It was important to rule out an infectious cause because a lot of people were concerned about transmission ... These sores appear often to be the result of people picking at themselves, as they would if they had a chronic irritation that couldn't be resolved any other way."
According to ABC News, the CDC also found that they detected drug use in about half of the patients and "a neuropsychiatric condition." This has lead scientists to look at other possibilities. One neurologist, Dr. Anne Louise Oaklander of Massachusetts General Hospital, suggests the irritation might be the result of nerve damage that "causes them to fire without appropriate cause."
Top Opinion
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H H 2012/01/26 21:45:50Undecided
+14I'm not sure about Morgellons, but I would not be influenced by anything the CDC said. The CDC maintained a position for years that chronic fatigue syndrome was not a real physical illness but a psychological problem. Saying the patient must be crazy for something that is not yet understood by doctors is not good science or good medicine. The CDC lost all credibility with me when they did that.
I have a cousin and a good friend that have CFS and both of them do as much as I do, I can tell by their faces when they don't feel good and/or in pain. They never complain when they aren't doing well, if you don't know them well, then you generally have no idea when they are feeling bad and/or hurting.
remember depression goes along with it and is even made worse when people are so physically tired and then being more depressed makes them more physically tired...it's like a circle. some of them just having no motivation at all could very well be depression and depression will also make physical symptoms worse.
what about the stress in the lives of the people you know? also, it might not seem like a lot, but if they don't know how to manage stress in a healthy manner, every day kind of stress and just a little not so normal stress; then it can affect them in a much more pronounced way than you or me.
You don't see little crystals on your back like a crystal meth user does.
I've never experienced it, but the symptoms sound pretty horrifying. I don't *ever* want to find out what it's like.
Whether it is or not, the real question is "Why?"
Now, they very well may say it is abuse of a prescription drug or use of an illicit drug in the study, but we can't assume what they did not say.
I have just finished searching the study at the CDC and this is what I have found about the drugs.
"At least one drug was detected in hair samples of 20/40 (50%) case-patients; these included amphetamines (3), barbiturates (1), benzodiazepines (8), cannabinoids (7), cocaine (2), opiates (8), and propoxyphene (1). All chest radiographs were interpreted as normal."
Actually all those drugs listed above can show up in a drug test and the medication is taken for medical use and not abused. Cocaine is still used in many sinus surgeries and sinus treatments, but it is not used often. Cannabinoids can show up because there are pills that are prescription, that contain THC that are given for many cancer treatments. Certain cannabinoids have anticancer properties where they stop some cancer cells from growing and actually kill some types of cancer cells and don't hurt the non-cancer cells. The rest of the drugs listed are all very, very common drugs...
Now, they very well may say it is abuse of a prescription drug or use of an illicit drug in the study, but we can't assume what they did not say.
I have just finished searching the study at the CDC and this is what I have found about the drugs.
"At least one drug was detected in hair samples of 20/40 (50%) case-patients; these included amphetamines (3), barbiturates (1), benzodiazepines (8), cannabinoids (7), cocaine (2), opiates (8), and propoxyphene (1). All chest radiographs were interpreted as normal."
Actually all those drugs listed above can show up in a drug test and the medication is taken for medical use and not abused. Cocaine is still used in many sinus surgeries and sinus treatments, but it is not used often. Cannabinoids can show up because there are pills that are prescription, that contain THC that are given for many cancer treatments. Certain cannabinoids have anticancer properties where they stop some cancer cells from growing and actually kill some types of cancer cells and don't hurt the non-cancer cells. The rest of the drugs listed are all very, very common drugs, given for numerous very common conditions. They could have been given for legit medical purposes and taken in the proper manner or they could have been abused, the study still does not address that factor.
It goes on further in the study to say:
"We found evidence of drug use in 50% of participants. Formication can be a side affect drug use (prescription and illicit) and drug withdrawal, but the extent to which case-patients' drug use contributed to, or was being used as a treatment for, the condition was not determined. The high prevalence of drug use also may represent some case-patients' attempts to alleviate frustration or symptoms associated with the illness."
Here they make it clear that they didn't even determine if the drugs were abused or normal use.
So we can not assume that 50% of them are having side effects of drug abuse, the study is crystal clear about that.
OCD is pretty much all in the head. But that doesn't make it any less real. I made the mistake of shacking up with a girl a while back who suffered from it. We couldn't have possibly been worse for each other.
I'm all about laid-back, relaxed, be mellow, take life as it comes. I'm a slob. She was all about middle of the night panic attacks, waking up in the middle of the night to empty out the cabinets and scrub them down with bleach.
She's a wonderful person, but we were toxic together. Live and learn.