Doctors Make Progress With Mysterious Disease(Morgellons)

by **Et in Arcadia ego** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 2:03 pm

<a href="http://www.ktvu.com/news/9264350/detail.html">www.ktvu.com/news/9264350/detail.html</a> OAKLAND -- A horrifying and fascinating disease is affecting thousands of people in the Bay Area, along the Gulf Coast and in Florida. Though some doctors have claimed the malady is psychosomatic, other scientists are making headway unraveling the mystery of Morgellons Disease. Former Oakland A's pitcher Billy Koch has it. And so do his wife and their three children. And though they can afford top medical care, doctors have no answers. It started in Oakland four years ago. Koch saved 44 games and was the top reliever in the major leagues. His fastball wowed crowds. And then the strangeness began. "He freaked out. He wanted to ignore it … I wanted to too. But when it comes to your kids, you gotta stop ignoring it," said Koch's wife Brandi. She describes their symptoms: "It was the scariest thing I had ever realized in my entire life. There was matter and black specks coming out and off of my skin." Within two years -- at age 29 -- Billy Koch was out of baseball, partly because of the uncontrollable muscle twitching that went on for months at a time and often kept up him up all night. The disease is characterized by slow healing skin lesions that often extrude small, dark filaments, especially after bathing. "That's when it would really just ooze -- literally ooze out of my skin," explained Brandi Koch. The couple was at wit's end after numerous doctors not only provided little in the way of relief, but actually were skeptical about their health problems: "There's no reasonable explanation for it. I'm not seeing things. l'm watching it happen. We're pretty sane people…" lamented Billy. Infectious disease specialist Dr. Neelam Uppal sympathized with the Kochs' plight: "They've seen several doctors, [and] everybody's told them they're crazy. It's in their head. They're delusional." Dr. Uppal gave the Kochs and fifteen other patients a powerful anti-parasite medicine and antibiotics that helped temporarily. But the filaments come back. Testing of the filaments brought no results, according to Dr. Uppal: "I've seen [it]; sent it to the lab. They can't identify it. They'll say 'They're nothing.'" The reaction of medical professionals has made a difficult situation even harder for Brandi Koch: "It's not enough that you're suffering and hurting. It's 'You're an idiot!' and 'You're crazy!' on top of it. I'm really hurt and sad and scared." ______________________________________ I'm still at a complete loss to comprehend this shit. I vocalized I didn't believe it was associated with 'chemtrails', but I have no proof of that. For all I know, maybe it's some form of random evolution, or a begining phase of a biological warfare campaign from extraterrestrials, but the longer the illness stays prevalent without an answer, the more nervous I become about it.. When someone who makes more money than all of us put together gets the brick wall treatment, there's a serious problem.

by **Et in Arcadia ego** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 2:07 pm

Considering the extensive neurological damage, maybe it's some freaky form of prion, especially when you have this to consider: "Wymore says his tests rule out not only textile fibers, but also worms, insects, animal material and even human skin and hair. He says the filaments are not an external contamination. Instead, they are a substance that materializes somehow inside the body, apparent artifacts of something infectious. More results are expected soon. And Wymore says skin problems are not the worst symptoms." Rogue protien?

by **Gouda** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 5:25 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Rogue protien?<hr></blockquote> That's poetically terrifying.

by **Iroquois** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 8:36 pm

I posted this originally in Jeff's RI blog on Morgellons: <a href="http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2006/05/manifestations_13.html">Rigorous Intuition: Manifestations</a> I'll repost it here because, frankly, I'm still curious about the guy and wonder if anyone more familiar with Morgellons has a clue about his motives. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>One interesting character I came across while looking in to Morgellons is this one: Dr. W. John Martin. He proposes the existence of something he calls "stealth viruses", and links at least some of the symptoms of Morgellons Disease to this phenomenon. The following excerpt is from a paper he authored titled "Alternative cellular energy pigments mistaken for parasitic skin infestations" which can be downloaded at http://www.sciencedirect.com  A series of studies have been performed on pigmented materials collected from both dried perspiration and skin lesions of patients shown by cultures to be infected with stealth-adapted viruses. These studies have confirmed the overall similarities of these particles with those obtained from long-term cultures of stealth-adapted viruses. Specifically, the patient-derived particles are auto-fluorescent, electrostatic, occasionally magnetic, and have electron donating and electron accepting capacities. Readily visible particles are conglomerates of microscopic elements, yielding a very fine speckled pattern on fluorescent microscopy. The ferromagnetism of some of the particles can be easily demonstrated by their rotation in a liquid medium using a hand-held magnet (Fig. 1). Gas bubble formation has also been observed even in distilled water with patient's skin-derived particles (Fig. 2). Even more striking has been the formation of needle shaped structures similar to those seen in long-term cultures of stealth-adapted viruses (Fig. 3). Colorful auto-fluorescent fibers and thread-like structures can commonly be seen emerging from the more solid particles. Fibers and threads embedded in skin flakes from several patients can be viewed on internet at www.morgellons.org and related patients' directed sites. He has some pretty impressive creds: Dr. Martin received his medical training in Australia and was the chief of the Immunology/Molecular Pathology Unit at the LAC/USC (University of California) Medical Center as well as a professor of pathology at the USC School of Medicine. He was the former director of the Viral Oncology Branch of the FDA's (Federal Drug Administration) Bureau of Biologics which is the principal agency in charge of testing human vaccines. Before that, he worked at the National Cancer Institute. But, he was stripped of his California state clinical laboratory license following a complaint filed by a patient. More details of this can be found from the source of the above paragraph on his credentials here: http://www.ncf-net.org/forum/Johnmartin.html So, is he just a quack? Though, it seems he must at least have had his stuff together once upon a time. Did he get too close to figuring something out? Or, is his work part of a compaign to waylay sufferers with false information or perhaps even to discourage more sincere research into certain diseases? <hr></blockquote> Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=iroquois@rigorousintuition>Iroquois</A> at: 6/26/06 7:02 pm

by **slimmouse** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 8:51 pm

I remember once seeing some kind of Sci fi horror trilogy, ( Stephen king I believe ) about a guy who took some new kind of miracle treatment for hair restoral. Anyone here remember that ? Anyone who did draw any parallels to this disease ?

by **HMKGrey** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 9:38 pm

Okay, so this is going to get a bit weird before I'm done but I may as well spill the beans and see where it leads. Please excuse me for plotting it out as follows but I don't know any other way of expressing this: I live in the northern Bay Area. I have been experiencing strange muscle 'twitches' for the last year or so. They happen all the time. Little moments where I twitch as though in a spasm but I've always felt that it was also somehow 'mental'. I also have mental 'twitches'. This is how I'd describe these occasional [not quite daily] moments where my mind seems to 'jump' as though resetting itself. It feels very similar to the muscular twitch. It's not painful, nor really uncomfortable in any way. I just experience a mild but very definite 'jump' or 'twitch'. About a year ago, I noticed a strange, sharp protrusion on the side of my penis. ... I asked my wife to look at it and she was completely puzzled by it. It looked like something 'breaking through' the skin. It wasn't a blister or a wart, just a hard little black tip of something. We used one of the kids' magnifying glasses [I know that this sounds ridiculous] to look at it further and what was really curious was that it appeared to have 'stitched' the skin.In other words it was coming out of one place but had somehow apparently 'grown' through a fold of skin beside this place; thus it looked liek a stitch. My wife suggested I go to the doctor with it. We have a very helpful and warm family GP who we know well. I agreed but never went. The thing stayed there for the next 6-8 months. I would see and feel it in the shower and occasionally look at it in bright light. It was always tiny - maybe a few mm in length but hard and black and never changed in size or formation. I recalled that I'd had a similar experience as a kid. I can't place an age on it precisely but I do remember that I had a very similar thing happen when I was in my early teens. Boys of this age tend to be fascinated with their own genitals and so I was very aware that some thing was 'poking out' of the side of my penis. [I think this experience contributed to my apparent relaxed take on this recent event] This is the weird bit. I remember vividly that I eventually worked the thing out of myself when I was a kid and what came out was basically a seed. Yes, a tiny (apple pip sized) seed. Flat, brownish, two halves... exactly what a seed would look like. Back then I just figured that it was a seed that I'd swallowed or somehow imbibed unconventionally and it had thus gone on it's own journey of expulsion via unconventional means. I really didn't fret about it. It was completely innocuous. I think I flicked it across the room and forgot about it. The more recent object disappeared a few months ago. I assume it worked itself out. I never worked it myself as it seemed to be somewhat 'dug in' by virtue of its 'stitching'. As further background to this I should relate that I take a number of medications for bipolar disorder. It's possible that they could account for the twitching but obviously, I would doubt very much, the recurrence of the strange object. I was taking no medications when it happened to me twenty-five years ago. I know this all sounds ridiculous and I don't blame anyone for being skeptical or thinking I'm making it up. But I'm not. I'd be really interested to know if anyone else has had a similar experience, heard of a similar experience, if this is generally true of Morgellans or if anyone has any thoughts about it whatsoever. One thing that does occur to me is that if an 'intelligent force' [of any kind] wanted to do something which involved men but would, at the same time, be an experience they would be reluctant to talk about... then my experience probably fits the bill. Aside from my wife, you are the only peopel who know this.

by **Et in Arcadia ego** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 11:41 pm

Did I just hear a pin drop in this thread? [j/k, HMK] Seriously, I can't personally relate to that at all, and my general understanding of Morgellons is that it affects multiple areas of the body and doesn't limit itself to one specific area. It also has multiple protrusions in each affected region, so it doesn't sound like Morgellons to me, but of course, I'm not qualified to say that with any authority. Apparently no one is, since the disease 'doesn't exist'..

by **HMKGrey** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 12:27 am

Arcadia: Thanks for bridging the silence there! Much appreciated. I know that my story is bizarre and Lord knows I've gone over and over the thought of ever mentioning it here... but in the end I just thought: Well, if I can't mention it here... Until I wrote about it earlier it just felt like a couple of little incongruities but now I feel like the door bell's about to go and there will be guys in white coats outside! Ho hum. In case anyone is wondering, my real name is Peter and I'm 6'4" with dark hair. <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/happy.gif ALT=":D">

by **streeb** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 12:32 am

HMK - I took Paxil for a while a few years ago. The side effects were crazy, one of them being an insatiable thirst for alcohol. Of course, I'd drink maybe three pints of beer and throw up. Ridiculous. I didn't wean myself from it, as recommended. That was another side effect; overwhelming cockiness. I decided I should just dump the fucker against the advice of doctors, who I decided I couldn't trust when three of them independently described Paxil using the same unusual language (which made me think they were regurgitating prepared material). So I just stopped taking it, and experienced something that sounds a little like your "twitching". In my case, it felt like a gathering cloud of electrical interference in my brain, which would then erupt through my whole body. It felt like I was being electrocuted. Auditory hallucinations, too - they'd wake me up in the middle of the night. It sounded like something screaming gibberish into my ear, and I took to sleeping with the lights on. Not much help, I know, but I wonder if the "twitching" is related to the medication. I realize we're talking about very different medications however. As for the penis - wow. I heard the pins dropping, too, so I piped up. I'm sitting in my office after 12 hours and I'm going nuts.

by **Mentalgongfu** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 12:50 am

Wish I could help you with your peter, Peter, but I can't. Perhaps there is a medical-type forum which might find someone with a similar experience. If it happens again, and if you trust your doctor, I would definitely pay a visit and get the occurence documented. The closest I come to such an experience is,when I was a kid, I had a couple warts grow on my hand. I used to pick at them all the time. One day I picked at them and dug down to a black little root-looking thing and eventually picked it out with a tweezers. The warts went away.

by **streeb** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 12:58 am

Ahh... Verucas and the exquisite pain of adolsecent elective self-surgery. I remember it well... A deep splinter has its charms, too.

by **HMKGrey** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 1:47 am

Streeb: I'm with you on Paxil. Evil stuff. My main recollection of that was that my arms 'tingled' as I came off it. Mind you, that's a walk in the park compared to some of the shit I've endured. As for other comments: Yep, I should have gone to the doctor - but I ask all you guys: would you? "Hi Doc. Fine thanks. Except for this thing trying to grow out of my pecker. Yeah. Just the once before. Yeah. Well, it turned out to be a seed." It's not a fun thought. And I've been sweating all evening since writing it on here. But it was what it was. No use saying it wasn't. That's what happened.

by **Gouda** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 6:10 am

There seems to be an electromagnetic/cellular connection here. Mental/muscular twitches, spasms, electrical interference, magnetic properties and this from Iroquois' post: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Specifically, the patient-derived particles are auto-fluorescent, electrostatic, occasionally magnetic, and have electron donating and electron accepting capacities. Readily visible particles are conglomerates of microscopic elements, yielding a very fine speckled pattern on fluorescent microscopy. The ferromagnetism of some of the particles can be easily demonstrated by their rotation in a liquid medium using a hand-held magnet (Fig. 1). <hr></blockquote> Many of us, depending on where we live, are bathing in an electromagnetic soup of wifi, radio, microwaves, elf, (not to mention nuclear) etc. radiation - so I have to wonder about the effects of the interaction between the increasing prevalence of: a) EM/ELF fields, and b) psychotropic drugs in our modern lives. Tangentially apropos, saw this before reading this thread - confirms what we suspect about cell phone signals, but adds a motor aspect (muscular twitching) to the mix: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Study: Cell phone signals excite brain WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Cell phone emissions excite the part of the brain cortex nearest to the phone, but it is not clear if these effects are harmful, Italian researchers reported on Monday. ... Of these, more than 500 million use a type that emits electromagnetic fields known as Global System for Mobile communications or GSM radio phones. Their possible effects on the brain are controversial and not well understood. ... They had 15 young male volunteers use a GSM 900 cell phone for 45 minutes. In 12 of the 15, the cells in the motor cortex adjacent to the cell phone showed excitability during phone use but returned to normal within an hour. The cortex is the outside layer of the brain and the motor cortex is known as the "excitable area" because magnetic stimulation has been shown to cause a muscle twitch.<hr></blockquote> <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/06/26/cellphones.brain.reut/index.html">edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH...index.html</a> Um, but I've no clue about those rogue johnson seeds.

by **4911** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 1:03 pm

Hm, sounds strange - but our bodies are strange as well - could it be you drink alot of coffee? I used to drink about 2 liters a day and was also one twitching mug. I quit the coffee for a while and it went away, as I was more relaxed. Id have facial twitches, mental twitches you name it, sometimes I was worried that if i moved my head too quick id snap my own neck. On the penile front: could it be a follical (misspelled i know)? As in a hair that grew back in on itself? I stepped on a sewing needle when I was like 9 years old. And I kid you not, the damn thing was in my foot for years. I hardly noticed it. Once when I was like 15 i was absentmindedly picking at that part of my heel one night when it suddenly just glided back out. It had some black stuff on it, like encrusted onto the metal. Freaky. It was in there for at least 5 years man. Hardly felt it though. Im not saying you have something freaky in your dick, Im suggesting maybe get it checked before it gets bad. And I sure hope your wife was cool enough to refrain from any stupid-ass comments whilst studying your dick with a magnifying glass. <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)">

by **HMKGrey** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 1:53 pm

4911: LOL. Thanks. No I don't think it was a hair follicle Had that on my arm. This was very different. Also, don't think my weener is hairy! <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/happy.gif ALT=":D"> Also, I don't drink caffeine of any kind due to a long standing allergy to the stuff. (BTW, I recommend abstinence from this shit to everyone. You sleep better, your skin improves, your mood gets more even, you feel more in control... it's a huge win.) I've wondered along the lines of your needle theory before but - being brutally honest - I just don't ever do anything that dangerous or risky with that part of my body. It's not like I swim in rivers or surf or take leaks in rain forests or do anything where conceivably something could get dragged in there... and for it to happen twice is freaky. I also wondered about left over stitches/matter from circumcision, but 35 years later? I know that medicine used to be a lot cruder than it is now but even so. And yes, sadly, the wife had a field day with the gags while using the kids' magnifying glass. She actually rolled up her sleeves and said: "Now then, let's see if we can find this little fella that I've heard so much about." To be fair though, her tone did change once she saw the protrusion. I think she was a bit frightened by it. I mean, it looked like I'd done something to myself and was now covering it up with a fantastical story. I think she probably had a fleeting moment of "Hang on a second..." but then thought better of it. Let's face it, it's a bizarre thing to happen, it's a bizarre thing to talk about even with one's wife, even anonymously on a well tested message board. Meanwhile, I do appreciate you guys engaging with me on this.

Doctors Make Progress With Mysterious Disease(Morgellons)

Doctors Make Progress With Mysterious Disease(Morgellons)

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