Investigating Morgellons Syndrome
What Is The Truth of Morgellons?
Truth is an elusive concept. The ‘truth’ of Morgellons does not currently exist and possibly never will.
Does Morgellons exist? Yes, absolutely. Morgellons does exist; many people are reporting similar symptoms and so from that point of view Morgellons does exist, although it remains undefined exactly what is causing the symptoms. Is it an external physical, infectious, entity, or is it a psychological condition that is inside a person’s head?
Many thousands of people have reported symptoms, however recorded cases of epidemic hysterias have described many people suffering from the same psychosomatic symptoms in outbreaks which do not have a somatic basis.
Morgellons differs in a number of ways from traditional epidemic hysterias, but could Morgellons signal a new model of epidemic hysterias for the internet age? A folie a internaute?
The symptoms produce real physical lesions and sufferers have pulled fibres from their bodies, but delusional parasitosis has very similar symptoms, causes lesions and yet it is well-accepted fact DP patients are not infected with parasites, despite being convinced of this reality.
It has been noted that whilst descriptions of DP vary wildly between sufferers, Morgellons patients describe their symptoms in very similar ways. Whilst, further, the Mayo Clinic study found that DP is almost certainly overused as a diagnosis. The implication is not necessarily that there are unknown skin conditions that are mis-diagnosed as DP, more that some currently known, but rare, conditions are under-diagnosed.
The existence of Morgellons fibres has still not been satisfactorily confirmed. Some medical professionals, scientists and researchers are convinced of there existence. But Rafael Stricker, Randy Wyemore, Rhonda casey, Virginia Savely have yet to publish peer reviewed papers definitively proving the existence of the fibres. Similarly, tests on the fibres carried out by Randy Wymore, Ahmed Kilhani and Vitaly Citovsky have apparently yielded results, but again none have been published other than in the popular press.
The CDC is investigating, but the fact of the investigation is not supportive of Morgellons being a new or distinct disease, being described by the agency not as Morgellons but more conservatively as ‘unexplained dermatology’
Unless an infectious entity can be identified it is difficult to imagine Morgellons being classed as a distinct disease and it is likely to remain as a controversial ‘syndrome’ on the outskirts of conventional medicine, much like Gulf War Syndrome and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome.
For now the truth of Morgellons ultimately depends on the point of view of the observer. If you have a debilitating and incurable ‘derma-neurological’ condition then the truth of Morgellons is self-evident: it exists! However, on the other hand if you are fortunate enough to be healthy, you can afford a skeptical perspective, a luxury that is not available to all.