Morgellons: A medical mystery
| Updated: 2/27/2012 9:12 pm |
Published: 2/27/2012 9:09 pm
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On microscope slides in Dr. Randy Wymore’s Oklahoma State University-Tulsa lab, he investigates fibers that Morgellons’ patients said came out of their skin. Wymore has spent the last seven years trying to prove the naysayers who believe that Morgellons is a psychosomatic disease wrong, but his work recently got much harder with the release of controversial study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People who claim to suffer from Morgellons say it is unbearable. “You feel disgusting. You feel dirty,” Jimmy Roy, who believes he has Morgellons, told FOX23. The sister of someone with the symptoms says the illness is equally as unbearable on the family. “It's so crazy. It is crazy. It sounds crazy,” April, whose brother is thought to be a Morgellons patient, told FOX23. ”He called one day and said he thought he had bed bugs,” she said. It's an almost never ending battle. April’s brother reacted like many who have Morgellons. “He threw everything that he owned away, including my stuff that was at his house.” Within months, her brother was put in a psychiatric hospital. Tulsan Jimmy Roy knows that struggle. “It absolutely makes you want to isolate yourself, stay away from people. You don't shake hands, and you don't have a girlfriend. Morgellons patients complain about tiny fibers under their skin claiming it feels like they've rolled around in fiberglass. Dr. Wymore is trying to uncover the truth about Moregllons. “The fear of the unknown is terrible thing,” he told FOX23. The feds appear to be fine with keeping Morgellons in the gray area. A CDC study was inconclusive about whether the disease even exists. Others claim patients are implanting threads in their skin to get attention “It's the CDC, you trust the CDC,” April said. A shadow of doubt now covers many who claim to suffer from this medical mystery. “In the conclusion, they state that they were not able to conclude if this was a new disease or an existing pathology, such as a delusional disorder.” Dr. Wymore co-authored a paper questioning if the people the CDC used as subjects in their study even have Morgellons. “Not one patient in their study population, which they took through the whole process, had fibers emerging through intact skin,” he told FOX23. Federal acknowledgment or not, Dr. Wymore is sticking with this story. “There's no question that there's a real physiological event going on with Morgellons.” Dr. Wymore says he can envision pinpointing the cause of Morgellons in the next five years. “We are making progress,” he remarked. “I just would like this to be solved so they get some resolution and hopefully treatment.” That is something April and Jimmy have waited years to see. Due to the doubts cast about the existence of Morgellons, Dr. Wymore's lab in west Tulsa is funded almost entirely through private donations. For a link to the CDC study mentioned in this article, click here: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0029908
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