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5.14.06

Morgellon's Disease: Mysterious Ecto-Parasites

A mysterious skin disease is currently spreading across America, and doctors are searching for answers on how to stop the epidemic.

The disease, called Morgellons Disease, is a parasite-like infection that literally makes the infected person's skin crawl. The disease has already been found in thousands of patients in Florida , Texas and California.

“I would lay in the bed and it felt like an army of ants just crawling over the bed, all over my body,” says one Morgellons Disease sufferer.

“It never goes away,” says another. “It doesn't die, it doesn't leave.”

What sounds like a science fiction movie is actually real life for the unlucky people who have contracted the disease which leaves painful sores all over the body. The sores ooze blue fibers, white threads and little black specks of sand-like material. The worst part, patients say, is the creepy and constant sensation of bugs crawling under their skin.

Also discouraging, is the patient's treatment by doctors, who have little knowledge about the disease, and in specific cases have lacked compassion for the sufferers. “I was so humiliated from the three doctors that I went to, that I just refused to go back,” said on patient.

Becky Bailey moved out of her Austin, Texas home and into a trailer hoping to escape the bugs that torment her.

"We ripped out our carpet and burned our carpet and furniture and move out into our R-V and they were still one me."

Without medical help, suffering families researched their symptoms on their own by way of the internet. Finally, they were able to put a name to their pain – Morgellons.

The sickly skin disease has actually been around for centuries. In 1935, an English physician wrote a paper about Morgellons including excerpts from medical journals from the 1600's, describing the disease.

Unfortunately, not much was known then about Morgellons -- and not much has been learned in the more than 400 years since.

What is known, is that many of people who may have it, suffer from these symptoms: constant itching/crawling sensation, chronic fatigue, brain fog or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, depression, joint swelling or hair loss What you should do if you have these symptoms, is as puzzling as the disease itself. One woman in Pittsburgh, PA made it her mission to find out what causes and what will cure this bizarre disease.

Mary Leitao is a biologist and the creator the Morgellons Research Foundation in Pittsburgh.

Her goal is to get State Health Agencies and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to study this disease.

“It's inhumane that these people have been allowed to go home and have been forced to research this day in and day out for years on their own,” says Leitao.

Leitao's motivations come from her 6 year old boy Drew. Four years ago, he began to feel the itch.

"He started describing bugs. He said, mommy, bugs, and he would scratch." Then came the sores that shed the fibers. Mary took drew to the doctor and the doctor said it was nothing to worry about.

"I was going to find an answer, or I was going to have to take my life, that's all there was too it."

Doctors don't know what causes the disease, who is at risk and exactly how many people may be suffering. The Morgellon Foundation says they have about 12 hundred people registered on their site. Those are only people who have a computer and happened to find them online.

In Jacksonville , more than a dozen cases have been found.