Iconic singer Joni Mitchell was diagnosed with Morgellons. ... she's awake and in good spirts

[mike_c]

104. have you ever worked with Morgellon's suffers?

I have. I'm an entomologist at a cal state university so I've been consulted by patients and by their doctors, including dermatologists. I have examined many zip-lock bags of colored fibers from clothing-- dryer lint, in essence-- and that other favorite of delusional parasitosis sufferers, pieces of scotch tape folded around supposed "examples" of the "bugs" infesting them, which ALWAYS turn out to be more dryer lint, completely inanimate objects like sand grains, or scabs-- lots and lots of scabs and other dried body fluids-- from persistent self injury.

Frankly, many of those patients expressed exactly the sort of "medical establishment conspiracy to silence them" that you allude to. None of them ever ever ever had anything really infesting them. Several have told me fantastic tales about invisible creatures inhabiting their work places or homes, in addition to their delusion infestations. Like the report that Sid cites, many have also expressed an a priori belief that their overall health is poor, even when there was no real evidence of that that I was aware of-- they simply seem predisposed to look for health problems. I'm in northern California, so there is a good possibility that some of the patients in the study Sid cites were among the ones I've consulted with, since they tend to doctor shop for a sympathetic ear.

Yes, they do indeed have a real condition. It's a mental disorder, a persistent delusion. They do not have the condition that they believe they have. Their delusion is so persistent that I can show them scabs under a microscope, show them that they're just irregular lumps of dried body fluid, and they'll point to random bumps or dips and insist that they're legs or mouth parts or evidence of segmentation. "See? That's it's head, that bit right there! See it? Don't you see it?"