MORGELLONS DISEASE: THE BASICS
April 06, 2018

Morgellons Disease
Morgellons
Morgellons disease (MD) is skin and scalp condition that is becoming better and better recognized. However, its cause and classification still remains open to debate. It's important for hair specialists to recognize this condition and to understand options for patients. Patients with Morgellons disease frequently lack insight, and are reluctant to be referred to psychiatrists regardless of the underlying psychopathology present. It's important for dermatologists and hair specialists to understand the options for managing Morgellon's disease.

What are the features of Morgellons Disease?
The key features of MD is the presence of skin lesions with filaments that lie under, are embedded in, or project from skin. These filaments can be many colors including white, black, or brightly coloured. The typical patient with MD has concerns that fibers of glass/other material are coming out of the skin. They may resemble cotton. Many patients (up to 25 %) self-diagnose themselves through reading on the internet. A vast majority of patients believe there are specific precipitating factors that explain the fibers. Patients may have burning, itching, stinging of the skin and sensations of something crawling. They may have fatigue, difficulty concentrating and difficulties with sleep.

How common is Morgellons Disease?
It's not clear how common the condition really is. Pearson and colleagues suggested rates as high as 3-4 people out of every 100,000 population.

What is the cause of MD?

The exact cause of MD remains a mystery. Some sources, continue to describe this as a purely psychiatric disease having overlap with Delusions of Parasitosis.

Recent research has suggested that MD patients display a variety of clinical manifestations that closely resemble symptoms of Lyme disease (LD). These symptoms include joint pain, nerve damage and fatigue. In one study, 98% of patients with MD subjects had positive Lyme disease serology and/or a diagnosis of tick borne disease. IN comparison, only 6% of LD patients in an Australian study were found to have MD.

The spirochetes identified as Borrelia spp. are thought to be alive and viable in tissue from patients from Morgellon's Disease. These spirochetes are difficulty to culture in a laboratory so PCR amplification is often used to identify Borrelia.

The exact relationship between Lyme disease and Morgellon's Disease is still open to debate. Not all experts agree with the link. A much quoted CDC study by Pearson and colleagues. did not find an infectious cause or any good proof of an environmental link in a study of 115 patients

Psychiatric Disease in Patients with MD
The central debate in the Morgellons literature is whether MD is a psychiatric disease or a infectious disease (perhaps due to Borellia) with psychiatric manifestations. It's clear from 100s and 100s of studies that mental illness can develop in patients affected by tick-borne disease. These include depression, mania, delusions, bipolar disorder, paranoia, schizophrenia, sensory hallucinations, major depression, and mania. Infection by spirochetes can affect how neutrons function.

The vast majority of patients with Morgellons disease have psychiatric disease as well. In one study by Harvey and colleagues, 23 of 25 Morgellons patients had psychiatric diagnoses including attention deficit, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and schizophrenia. The fact that MD patients may show neuropsychiatric symptoms is what makes this field so challenging. It makes the diagnosis challenging. It also makes it difficult to distinguish from a delusional disorder.

Animal Models of MD
Animal models of MD have arisen which provide some understanding of how human MD may come about. There is similarity between MD and an animal disease known as bovine digital dermatitis (BDD). Similar to MD, this particular animal disease is associated with ulcerative lesions exhibiting keratin projections and is an acknowledged spirochetal infection (just like human Lyme disease. In this animal model, it was confirmed that there is a bona fide causal relationship between spirochetal infection and filament formation infection with pure cultured tremens lead to the clinical disease.

- See more at: https://donovanmedical.com/hair-blog/morgellons-disease#sthash.0lBRNuEZ.z2hZU5oP.dpuf

Discovered at: https://m.facebook.com/CharlesEHolmanFoundation/?_ft_=top_level_post_id.1267210699975332%3Atl_objid.1267210699975332%3Athid.490092481020495%3A306061129499414%3A3%3A0%3A1459493999%3A2083408959230860676&__tn__=C

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Many Blessings,
CrystalRiver