Morgellons disease? Itchy skin illness all in the mind, study says

Morgellons has no physical basis, researchers say

/ istockphoto

(CBS) It's all in their minds.

That's what doctors are saying about people with Morgellons disease, who claim to be infested with mysterious parasites that trigger itching, rashes, and creepy-crawly sensations in the skin.

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic studied 108 patients who believed their inflamed, itchy skin was the result of a bug infestation. But biopsies and skin tests uncovered no physical cause of the unpleasant symptoms.

The study was published in the May 16 issue of Archives of Dermatology.

One thing the doctors and patients both agree on - the disease is incredibly frustrating.

"Patients often complain that the physician isn't examining their skin closely enough to see the infesting organisms," study author Dr. Mark Davis, professor of dermatology at the Mayo Clinic, told Reuters . "This study indicates that even when skin biopsies are obtained, and specimens of the organisms brought by the patients are carefully examined, there is no objective evidence of skin infestation."

But even after being told there aren't any bugs, Morgellons patients often refuse to go along - and that threatens to drive some dermatologists nuts.

"People with delusions of parasitosis are a great challenge to us," Dr. Bruce Strober, assistant professor of dermatology at New York University Langone Medical Center, told WebMD. "It's clearly a psychiatric disorder."

If Morgellons patients won't listen to reason, what can be done? Psychiatric medication and counseling are probably in order, said Strober. "Unfortunately, these patients are rarely amenable to those aproaches," he said.

The Mayo Clinic has more on Morgellons disease.

[wewedemonart]

My brother lives in LA, (Orange county) He was attacked by a staph infection in the spinal column of his neck 1 month ago. He didn't know there was anything wrong with him until he was paralyzed from the neck down. It's thought a weakened immune system allows the staph to attack thus as most of us are exposed to it at some point.

When I asked him what he thought caused it he told me this "crazy" story about these fibers and/or tiny bug like creatures he could see and then they'd disappear and reappear. Yeah it sounded crazy but my brother is not crazy... he described how the dark "fibers" were all over him and everything in his apt, under his fingernails, in the food and eating it, clothes, furnishings. He did EVERYTHING to fumigate his apt, from washing everything with bleach to spraying bug sprays, washing things in very very hot water then drying on highest heat. He thought it was a mold or fungus... and he developed these awful sores and this killer staph infection. My brother is not nor has he ever been crazy, delusional or paranoid. He thought the things he was seeing were crazy too. His girlfriend, who also lived there, saw and suffered from them as well.

I didn't know what to think and neither did he, it sounded really weird but I believed him. He was paralyzed 1 month ago now and has been bombarded with antibiotics to kill the the staph so I hope it killed those things too. He seems to not be suffering from them since his treatment. I assume he was sterilized before his spinal surgery and having been hospitalized since, has not back to the apt. Two days ago he was moved from the hospital in Anaheim to a National Rehabilitation Center in Downey where he described what had happened to him to a doctor. The doctor said it sounded like he had this Morgellons disease.

This was first time my brother had ever even HEARD of it... so how in the hell did he dream up and experience these stranger than fiction symptoms of a disease he'd never even heard of before? How can you psychosomatically create symptoms or creatures (or whatever the heck it is!) when you've never even HEARD of it before, but meanwhile thousands of other people also have experienced it? WHY are the CDC, MAYO Clinic, and other health professionals and organizations not acknowledging that this is a real condition, parasite, disease or WHATEVER! when so many otherwise perfectly sane people are also experiencing and suffering from it? Are THEY crazy?? This IS insanity but it's not his.

He's leaving LA for Denver in 2 weeks, he's recovering miraculously from the paralysis (thankfully he suffered an incomplete SCI) and he will walk again and live a normal life again. When he said he wanted to try to get his clothes and belongings from the apt they'd lived in I said no. Don't. Leave the clothes. Leave it ALL. We will get you new clothes. He agreed. He thought that was a good idea also.

[despairity]

This confirms again why the Mayo Clinic is worthless. I don't understand what all the hype is on them. If this is a psychotic problem, why is it recognized by the CDC? This is a real problem that has caused many people to die, lose their life or take their life! Why? All from idiots like these docs that aren't educated enough to "RESEARCH"! Sad!!!

[JENNYKSCHUSTER]

My grandmother was flown to MN Mayo Clinic when I was very young. She was told by them that her pains and all of her "physical suffering" were caused by herself and that she was a nervous worrier who wanted to be sick or have something wrong with her. They said something was but it was psychological not physical and that it was in her mind that actually caused her to feel the pain she was in. She died a very long and very painful death. By the time a REAL doctor caught her Colon Cancer, it was too late. My mother (her daughter) was told the same thing by those same QUACK doctors when she flew out there. She had a condition which was very difficult to spot and very rare and it was pure luck and miracle it was noticed by a REAL doctor- not one at Mayo Clinic who said she was crazy-- and she had to have a little over 5 feet of her intestines cut out in order for her not to suffer like she did. She's fine now. At the time she was going through this, I was in High School and pretty intrigued by the Psychology class I was taking and for a second (even witnessing my mom's pain for myself) thought they could have had it right and I look back now and feel so ashamed. These "doctors" should, but they feel no shame at all which just floors me. I suffered from Morgellons and it was the longest few years of my life that was taken from me. I didn't even feel human anymore and what every sufferer out there needs to know is that in order to keep any kind of real sanity (because this disease WILL start to make you crazy- you weren't crazy and that's what made this disease happen to you).. Don't keep thinking with every new doctor that this one is going to be different and save you. Don't pay any attention to them because until someone specifically edentifies for certain the properties that give this a classification and a name that signifies acceptance of its existence... it will become a toss up before no time which is worse and which makes you crazier and causes such misery--- the disease itself or the doctors we were always supposed to trust and count on with our entire bodies and lives who betray that trust with complete disdain, lack of professionalism and who are just plain lazy or flat-out stupid. Those 3 years are like a nightmare or bad dream when I think back and today I want so much to keep my distance from remembering the nightmare I lived every second of every minute of every hour of every day, every single month year after year after year. But it's never gone from my memory and every so often, I check out just how far things have come with this thing. There sure are a lot of "desusional" people all over the world with the same symptoms and the same "nothings" ailing them, aren't there? These creepy doctors are the ones suffering from delusions of false grandeur that they are "qualified health care professionals." At least it's very recognized as far as there are so many now in communication and support of one another. I didn't have that when I was sick with this. The morgellons site was still in its beginnings and I was just too scared, shocked and horrified to sign up on it or anything. But just reading it got to be too much and I decided I may not even literally have the time left to live to be spending it reading what others are experiencing. It took 3 moves and getting rid of everything I owned, a lot of medication (that was or wasn't prescribed to me--not phych meds) and even with that.. it would be literally years before I could actually say it was gone. This is after the 3 yrs I was deathly sick with it. It's so degrading in and of itself without the help of these idiots people call doctors.

[Derma-Rollers-123]

I had never even heard of Morgellons until reading this article. Oh it sounds just miserable and I feel so badly for anyone suffering with it. Doctors certainly don't know everything. Look at these photos of this disease and tell me how on earth any doctor anywhere could say that these poor people are making this up!
<a href="http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1TSND_en&gcx=c&q=morgellons&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1066&bih=555">Morgellons Images</a>

[unaspenser]

So, a lot of patients are reporting an experience of sensation in their skin. Dermatologists can't see an agent which would cause this sensation. Um, perhaps it's a neurological issue and not a a dermatological issue? Why the assumption that the patients must have a psychological disorder? Perhaps they have a small fiber nerve malfunction.

[ubiquitousness]

That's what they said about fibromyalgia, MS, and CFIDS! We now know those are real illnesses eventhough the cause is not known. I say listen to the patients, especially since entire family's get it. ALWAYS REMEBER: WHAT THEY DON"T KNOW IS MORE THAN WHAT THEY KNOW! Pray for an answer to come from God!

[badinfectedreporting]

Glad to see some people are aware of what is happening...can't even validate such nonsense reporting and findings, since I have witnessed this horrible disease firsthand and the devastating effects it has on one's health and life in general.

I would advise people to continue to keep an open mind, and if you want to question anything, I would question why they are releasing a report with old information. Anyone who has this disease knows that there are other scientists who have been researching this 2007 and have come out with findings that are alarming and very bizarre....and quite real.

Knowing information which is often not privy to the public, I have to assume this Mayo study was either falsified, [if in fact done at all] and released solely to discredit this disease and the people who are suffering so from it. Actually I have been following this for a while and was never aware that a Mayo study was ever even done from 2001-2007. Why wasn't this study made known to the public at the time it was supposedly taking place?

IMHO, THIS is what we should be asking: not IF this disease is real, but WHY are they trying to hide the truth from the public??? Hmm...that's just as disturbing as the disease itself.

[michaelkofrpca]

Regarding rf35's comment, the fact that human beings can mentally create physical symptoms is a point well-taken. It is well-established that the mind can cause the body to effect dramatic physical changes. However, as far as I know the human body in its natural state does not have the ability to manifest fibrous material, strongly suggesting another cause.

[michaelkofrpca]

Given the substantial testimony and physical evidence supporting the existence of Moregellans, its difficult to accept that all such cases are the result of delusional parisitosis. I'm not one to accept conspiracy theories easily, but in this instance, it seems unlikely that the Mayo Clinic is being entirely sincere. In the above article, it appears that they've disregarded the unusual fibrous growths entirely. And what was the point of allowing patients to bring in their own samples rather than collecting samples directly? The bottom line is that too many people are suffering with negative symptoms of Moregellasn to be so easily dismissed. CBS owes it to themselves and to their readers to follow up with a serious investigative piece on Morgellans.

[jag55]

I have fibromyalgia. I've had it for nearly 30 years. I was very healthy until I had a C-section at the age of 26. Within 6 months I was having the terrible pain, fog and all the lovely sh*t that goes with the malady. I was told I had postpartum depression and/or any number of mental disorders. I must have seen 3 dozen drs before one said, "Oh, I think I know what this is." Well, maybe. Some rheumatolgists had finally adopted the disease and declared it was real, even though all of the "studies" had shown no physical reasons for the problem. In other words, all of one's tests would be normal.

As the years have gone by new science has developed new tests that show truly that those who have fibro do have anomalies, some at the metabolic level, the nerves that send pain messages do not work correctly, and we have a number of either depleted or an over-abundance of some pretty important enzimes.

Some Drs still do not believe in the validity of our problem but more are coming around everyday. It doesn't help us much as there is no real treatment for the syndrome. Medicine simiply throws a lot of drugs at it to treat it symtomatically. But, its a start.

My point is that until science catches up with a disease the drs should just keep thier mouths shut and treat those who come to them in pain and need. Hopefully, soon, someone will figure out the Morgellans puzzle and those who suffer will find acceptance and relief instead of derision and hurtful labeling.

[BertsGel]

By the time a person suffering from Morgellons finds my Gel, they have already tried a myriad of remedies and spend a lot of money.
Then they try my gel, and it helps! It helps a lot!
Why?
Any placebo effect would have run its course when they tried the other products. Maybe my gel helps because it disrupts whatever is causing the symptoms.
Doesn't the fact that people using my Gel get better prove that Morgellons is a real pathogen?
My Gel would be ineffective if it was merely DOP.