Talk:Morgellons disease/Archive1

Someone
Someone who understands what's being said should clean up the last sentence. ThunderkatzHo! 21:10, 17 July 2007 (CDT)
 * This was really going to be my baby. It's classic woo.  The victims are delusional, and paraprofessionals steal their money from them. Ivermectin does not treat the disease.  The normally suspicious HG should be more suspicious.  I"m gonna be redoing this, sorry.--PalMD-Goatspeed! 22:54, 17 July 2007 (CDT)

T. Devil
Hey, I was just trying to bring balance. They are both disease without a known cause. There are other such diseases that are not considered disorders, right? They are the ones at the end of the decision trees doctors use...the ones that are left after all other causes are ruled out. Differential diagnosis, I believe it's called. Anyway, I know you think it is quackary, PalMD, but germ theory probably sounded crazy at one time too. So, to be objective, maybe you could work something in stating that it is *possible* that this is a disease and not a disorder 23:53, 17 July 2007 (CDT)
 * HG, you're slipping into invalid comparisons. There are many human diseases (disorder vs disease isn't an issue, i don't care which word you use) that have no known cause yet...but the disease is definable by the medical community, and research is possible.  With Morgellons, nothing you can say will ever convince someone they don't have it...it's a matter of faith.  If you can't see the fibers, you're just a denier. 162.82.215.199 14:24, 18 July 2007 (CDT)

skepticism
I am skeptical of the so-called disease. But I am also skeptical of the so-called disorder. No offense to PalMD, but in general, MDs think they are great. They think they are men of science. But, in the case of delusional parasitosis, wikipedia dismisses efforts of sufferers (of the disease or disorder) with:

sufferers commonly compulsively gather such "evidence" and then present it to medical professionals when seeking help.

Sure, if I were a doctor and had some meth head coming in with fibers he claimed to be pulling from his body, I would be skeptical. But I would not be so arrogent as to dismiss it. I would actually offer to take the time to have the fibers analyzed. (If they were synthetic, an analysis would show it). Just because a person is a meth head, possibly delusional, etc., doesn't give me a right to dismiss evidence.

Actually, mildly gross but true story that illustrates the point. When I was about 5 or 6, a friend had parasitic worms in his stool. He told his mother about it, and that it was itchy. She did not believe him. Next day he brings her to the bathroom, and points to the stool in the toilet, and shows her that the worms were active and visible, sticking out of the stool. She did not believe him because she did not see the worms, though they were visible to the boy. The next day, he brought some stool with little worms sticking out of it, on his finger, and indeed, there were little white worms, and she finally believed him, brought the boy to the doctor, who took a sample and prescribed some medicine. I don't recall what parasite existed. But describing the boy's efforts as "compulsively gathering such evidence" is unfair. I would do the same if my rectum itched, I noticed worms, and my mother did not believe me.

It is also arrogant for MDs who dismiss out of hand evidence brought in by some of their stranger patients, to to use the gathering and presentation of such evidence as "evidence of delusions". Such evidence should be examined each and every time by each and every doctor (assuming the patient is paying for the exam). 13:23, 18 July 2007 (CDT)
 * There's a bit of difference between on the one hand examining one's stool for worms a few times, and on the other creating an entire association to prove the existence of a disease for which no one else can find any evidence - wouldn't you say? -- AKjeldsen Godspeed! 13:30, 18 July 2007 (CDT)
 * It's kind of hard to find evidence if when presented it is dismissed and construed as evidence of compulsive behavior supporting a diagnosis of delussional.  Am I missing something?   13:43, 18 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Occam's razor? In any case, I note that the CDC is investigating the issue, so any discussion seems a bit pointless until that investigation comes up with an authoritative answer. -- AKjeldsen Godspeed! 14:16, 18 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I wouldn't say MDs dismiss the reports or their stranger patients...everyone is strange, actually. And it isn't my patients who bring me the worms that are the problem.  If you keep your eyes and mind open, you find pinworm infections, lice, scabies, etc.  With "Morgellons", no evidence of a disease has yet been found.  It may, but the evidence so far is absent.  Any contradictory evidence is dismissed by the "sufferers", who surely suffer from something, but it isn't clear what.  Im sure not all of them have delusional parasitosis, but some surely do.  Most  with parasites in this country are eventually diagnosed...there really aren't too many new ones.  We are aware of all the major forms of lifes...arthropods, other invertebrates like worms, bacteria, etc.  There are probably not any new weird life forms out there.  Of course, previously unseen worms etc can pop up...but where are these in these patients?  How come only a few doctors/scientists can "see" them?  There really aren't any diseases out there that behave this way. Once again, it's faith vs science.162.82.215.199 14:32, 18 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Well, maybe the wikipedia article needs to explain or remove the sensational quote regarding evidence collection as evidince of delusions.  23:49, 18 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Isn't that a WP issue? human be in 01:52, 19 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah, but WP has far more problems than CP. WP has a lot of very good articles, and enough bad ones to poison the whole project.  Even libs are dropping from WP.   00:04, 20 July 2007 (CDT)
 * So why do you keep adding links to WP articles? But the point I am making is, you said "maybe the wikipedia article needs to explain or remove......".  Why not go there and say that?  This is not WP, it's RW.  We don't edit WP here, any more than we do CP (what did CP have to do with this at all?) human be in 00:27, 20 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Given this is RW, and i'm still working on this thing, I can tell you from my analysis, that there is no "Morgellons disease" but many different patients with somewhat similar symptoms being lumped together. There is no good case definition, and only one or two scientists in the country who claim, with little evidence, to have found objective evidence of a physical disease.  It's fascinating though.  The definition of a delusion is "a fixed, false belief" meaning you can't easily change someone's mind about it despite being objectively wrong.  But it is important to realize that to the patient, it is real.--PalMD-Goatspeed! 07:50, 20 July 2007 (CDT)
 * There be 'organic causes' behind a proportion of cases - a very mild/almost symptomless dose of chickenpox leading to Postherpetic neuralgia, or something like ergotism (symptoms of which, according to Wikipedia, could include 'crawling sensations in the skin'), contact reaction to some chemicals etc. And - once something has been given a name it co-opts all sorts of other 'similar diseases.' 171.33.222.26 (talk) 15:34, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

title?
Shouldn't there be an apostrophe in the title? Is it supposed to be a possessive, or am I wrong? Do I just need to git larned on this? human be in 17:56, 9 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Ah, no, I see. Its a plural in origin, not a possessive. From WP: "that endemial distemper of children in Languedoc, called the morgellons, wherein they critically break out with harsh hairs on their backs." (1690).  So the "disease" name is the result of an illiterate usage by Ms. whatsername who invented.  Ah gots me some morgellons under mah skins!  human be in 18:07, 9 September 2007 (CDT)
 * It's a crazy made-up disease, and the lady who coined the term doesn't use the apostrophe, but sometimes it is used. --PalMD-Berate Me 08:43, 10 September 2007 (CDT)

Morgellons and conspiracy nonsense
Why is it that, when I goole this disease, every other webshite is some conspiracy nutters talking about how they know it's real because it is real because they know it's real? 03:34, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Grauniad Article
Is it worth mentioning - Morgellons: A hidden epidemic or mass hysteria? - The Guardian, 7 May 2011 212.85.6.26 (talk) 17:07, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Morgellons is a symptom of a Bartonella infection, it is curable. http://nbprotocol.proboards.com/thread/4/morgellons-disease
 * While the Bartonella infection might be legit (as it's documented as Cat Scratch disease), Morgellons disease is a condition caused by perception rather than an actual pathogen. To say another condition is Morgellons disease isn't advisable. 16:50, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Also, citing one's own blog that includes alt-med (such as rolfing) is not a convincing citation. Bongolian (talk) 18:47, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Fibers
Why is it that when I read "red blue and green" fibers, I think of residue of clothing they wear or the environment? Next time the doctor should tell them to wash their fucking wounds and put a clean dressing over it. 15:03, 17 June 2014 (UTC)