Re: morgellons website free information regarding causes and treatments
Thank-you. It's nice to be appreciated. :)
I have some bad news to report...although I'm in CA and we get winter a bit later than everyone else...so you all probably already discovered...winter is HELL for morgellons. After a brief rainstorm on christmas eve, I only realized how bad things could get today, as I saw 4 ....things could get really quite dangerous if morgies don't exercise caution. and I'm not kidding. Not only are WE gonna be miserable, we are hundreds of times more likely to be contagious in the rain.
WHY and HOW:
OK. First, you need to develop a concept of the morg. First they're all girls. Haha. Go figure. Anyway, they are small, and can look like pretty much anything or nothing. I am not playing around with you. They can easily look like a flower petal, a leaf, a small twig or a shred of goo on your shoe. They can also be transparent. The ones that live on you are of the latter variety unless you have flowers in your hair. (I had one that looked like a leaf fly out my nose last week, so anything is possible). But our girls are transparent, so imagine little pieces of cellophane tape, stuck all over your body. They usually don't cause a fuss unless you mess with them. For example, if you use baking soda or talcum powder after bathing, you will disable them temporarily, but they will revive when you sweat, or when they come into contact with moisture (rain) ...and when they rehydrate, you'll feel crawling and biting as they re-attach to resume feeding.
The girls are
parasites (although possibly not without their uses)...so they feed off of a layer of fluid, "lymph", that flows between our upper (mostly dead) layers of skin, the epidermis and the dermis. So yes, they really ARE invisible, and yes, you have them all over your body.(!!!) I know. Take ten minutes, have a shot of brandy and Get over it, there's no time to whine or panic. Just try not to think about it.
There are grumpy girls near your armpits, waist, neck, or hairline. Those areas are where sweat will rehydrate any girls who have stuck to your clothes from when you wore them previously, or before you showered, or they were picked up off the floor by a piece of clothing, etc. The girls in these areas are grumpy because they don't like being dehydrated and then rehydrated. Also, when they are rehydrated, they Must Bite to reattach in order to feed.
The girls on the face and hands are usually pretty patient because they don't get dried out very often. They just stay put so most of the time you don't even notice they're there...except for a noticing perhaps a certain loss of feeling in the area.
But during a rain storm, if your hair has a few dry rotifers, and it drips down your neck, you are basically washing the rotifers out of your hair, and onto your neck/coat Now, with movement, and taking off/putting on coat/sweater, you have likely managed to unseat a few of these girls, who might land on a chair, toilet seat or nearby person.
So rules regarding rain in general
In consideration of the immense infestation potential that rain brings with it, (because it rehydrates all of the rotifers on the ground, in the trees, etc.) be sure your housecleaning practices don't set you up for reinfestation:
DONT shake your throw rugs or dump your dust pan right out your back door or you'll have a herd of rotifers waiting to come in after the next rain.
DONT leave trash out in the rain. Place all potentially rotifer soiled items ziploc baggies all the time, so you stay in the habit, that way rotifers don't get to rehydrate til they get to the dump.
DONT leave substances uncovered. For example: make up, cleansers,food. Also, after dusting a room with DE, baking soda or whatever, be sure and vacuum up as much of the dust as possible.
DO get in the habit of taking shoes off when coming indoors. It's the easiest way to keep more rotifers from coming in.
DO
Wear socks indoors until you get into bed.
Clean house before rain starts.
Stay physically out of the rain. If you must go out, cover up completely.
Take off wet clothes and place in the drier immediately.
Never let laundry sit around....wet or dry, dirty or clean. Salt all the way up to your door...even in rain. Salt will keep the rotifers outside.
Get a dehumidifier / ionic air filter
Keep lots of clean bath towels, tissues and paper towels handy.
Try to dry out wet shoes as soon as possible. Don't use a lot of powders in shoes or you'll compound the problem later when your feet sweat.
Be aware of your increased virulence (contagiousness) in rain/humid weather, avoid close personal contact.
Remember infested pets are MISERABLE in the rain. A quick Epsom Salt bath seems to be all they need to feel better.