Morgellons Disease
 

I have never seen anyone in person with this condition....I have never talked with anyone that believes they have this condition. Joni Mitchell is in the hospital now and one of her illnesses is Morgellons Disease, which she has had for many, many years.

There have been many studies on this condition and the bottom line seems to be it is a psychosomatic issue. I personally can not understand how a person can have "strings" or "fibers" coming out of their skin, and this can be considered psychosomatic???? If they were imagining the strings were there, OK....but when the fibers are actually visable to the naked eye, by anyone looking at them, how is this psychosomatic?

We have an enormous number of people reading this forum, and I would LOVE to hear if anyone of our readers have this condition, or if they know first hand of anyone that has the condition. This is soooooo interesting to me, and I would really like to hear what others think about this syndrome.....especially if YOU have the disease and actually have these fibers/strings coming from your skin.....can you pull them out? Does it hurt when you pull on them? Do you have any other symptoms? I think this is sooo interesting......I cant possibly be the only one that finds this confusing and mysterious....???

I never did hear what was wrong with Joni Mitchell but did hear she's been ill for years with whatever her ailment is. Sounds hellish, doesn't it? Never heard of Morgellon's before but I have seen something on the internet about people with fibers coming out of their own skin and at that time didn't look into it. I'm interested to find out how patients can produce actual fibers out of their skin from a psychosomatic condition! I didn't even know any actual disease process could make fibers come out of skin, let alone fibers from no actual disease process! Hope someone can tell us more about it.

Wow, what an utter nightmare this disease must be, my God. I think nightmare is correct, Jeanie! I can't even wrap my mind around it. It must feel like you're being invaded by some foreign body or something, and that just totally creeps me OUT, like worms or something inside my body. Poor Joni Mitchell.

I had wondered what ailed Joni Mitchell and this is strange to say the least. I couldn't imagine feeling creepy crawlies under my skin much less the fibers coming out of it. I will also keep an eye on this thread as it is so intriguing. I hope Joni M. will be better...grew up with her music playing on my AM only car radio!

Morgellons disease
 

First I DO NOT HAVE THIS!!!!
But I had a neighbor who said she had it. She told us of fibers that came out of her skin etc and other symptoms, but we were never able to actually see this happening! As we lived next door, we asked if she could drop by to show us the fibers exiting her skin….but we never were called! We had many discussions re this but could never get any sense out of our talks with her. We thought that it was psychosomatic as she seemed to go on vacations etc and never get 'sick' then, only at home. She used to go to holistic medics for treatment of her medicals issues and was always taking herbals rather than conventional meds.
She more recently said it was Lyme disease that cause the M, and took long courses of antibiotics and anti-fungals for that. I really didn't know what to think as she seemed to have so many different symptoms and was always in search of new docs and meds. She has moved away now, but am sure she is still afflicted by and being treated for her symptoms. I will never know???
Even if it is psychosomatic, it was real to her and gave her a lot of misery. I don't think she ever had any psych drugs for this 'disease'. It is a weird syndrome and she used to go to online chat rooms to discuss their common issues.

Whatever you do, don't Google Image Morgellons disease fibers.

Too late...did it yesterday. Freaked me right out!

Morgellons
 

There is an interesting article on WebMD that puts this disease into perspective. Said to occur mainly in middle aged women in Ca, Tx, and FLA???
CDC examined the fibers and found them to be similar to textile fibers commonly used. Other sites show that parasites and fungi could produce some of the observed symptoms. Delusional parasitosis was another name used for this syndrome!
A complex disease with many associated symptoms.

Does the body produce these textile-like fibers and then expel them like a piece of glass or grow them like hair? Wonder if the fibers growing or being under the skin are what makes for the awful feelings the patients have?

I don't really know as there is so much info on this on the web. Sometimes in the delusional nature of things, the creepy crawly feeling is imagined. Sometimes there is a real parasite or fungus that can grow in the skin or emerge from a lesion in the skin. The CDC effectively said the fibers they were able to examine were just on the skin from environmental fabrics. There are other symptoms that are more systemic and have been said to be from Lyme disease, but I believe that connexion has not been proven, from the WebMD site. My neighbor certainly thought it was Lyme and was treated for it, but never cured.
Having been closely involved with the neighbor who had this and with her did a lot of research on her behalf, I was totally baffled by the whole thing and never saw any fibers that she could demonstrate her claims!
It is interesting that the fibers often are on the face, and my neighbor was always poking her face with tweezers but I never saw the fibers she said were there. I sound a a cynic I know, but only as I could not verify her claims.
It could be a mixture of real and imaginary symptoms, and that makes it all so much harder to figure out.
Sorry that I do not have references and quotations but there is so much stuff out there with differing conclusions that I could not do that.