Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Cedars

My ex used to complain of this. He picked at his skin all the time, went to doctors, kept making me look at his 'spots' and I could never see anything. He couldnt believe I couldnt see the 'tiny hairs'. I thought he was nuts (so did the doctors). Maybe it was real.

I'm still undecided whether I should tell him there might be something to it (its cleared up now). Hes been being pretty nice the last few months. Something I will tuck away and torment him with if he misbehaves again.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced today that it is launching a study to learn about an unexplained condition that causes people to feel as if they have foreign substances growing from their bodies.

The new CDC/Kaiser study is not, I think, an indication that Morgellons as a non-psychiatric condition is being taken any more seriously. I suspect the study’s result will be increased evidence that it’s entirely psychiatric.

In short, you and your ex’s MDs were most likely right about him being nuts. If I were you, I’d not bring up the subject with him, if you can avoid it.

Your post was my introduction to this bizarre condition – I’d never heard of it before. Interestingly, on the CDC’s FAQ page about the new study, they mention contracting with Kaiser in part because

… Kaiser Permanente has electronic health records that will allow a systematic method of identifying persons who may have this condition.

The computer systems they’re talking about (or at least a good bit of its regionalized infrastructure) are my babies!

Originally Posted by Cedars

There were many similarities in fibers from all four individuals, both in size and color. … The fibers collected from these four individuals from different counties of the San Francisco Bay Area are so similar to each other that the causative agent may be epidemiologically the same.

According to several of the sites I browsed, another explanation is that they are similar because the causative agents are similar clothing or furniture – that is, that these fibers are not produced by the patients’ bodies, but imbedded in them. Many of the fringier Morgellons study and support groups appear reluctant to compare their fibers to samples from the patient’s environments – one of the reasons mainstream medical researchers consider them fringy.