Posted 10/2/2020 2:36 PM (GMT 0)
Well those of you that read my post will probably gather I lean more towards the evidence-based approach when it comes to Lyme so I don’t spend much time with YouTube etc unless looking for a specific film or such like.
However recently I have been getting some odd skin symptoms, small pustules and granules in my skin, changes in texture and anomalies in my hair which I have written about here in other posts.
I suspect it is early stage or mild Morgellons like symptoms. What a whole new wonderful level of weird that is….
Anyway, if you thought chronic Lyme was a poorly understood and contentious issue - Morgellons is on a altogether new level.
So to try to get a rounded picture of what the state of play with it is from more than just the conventional medicine perspective ( as this sector is firmly in the.. “ its simply delusions of parasitosis” camp).
I thought I would do a search on YouTube and see what came up.
Predictably, there was a raft of really disturbing images and deeply traumatized people with some radically wild theories about what was happening to them. it was clear to me that many of these people are unwell both physically and mentally, which I guess is in part why it's so easy for mainstream medicine to classify it as a psychiatric condition.
I watched a number of them with growing unease, sadness, wonder, and of course revulsion.
A few of the trailers for SKIN DEEP and other balanced type reviews of the evidence and patient experience are worth a watch - but then I landed on something that caught my interest and I thought was worth a mention.
Again, I am not a big fan of the medium but this was a down to earth guy of modest means and education who was cataloging his journey with the disease and his attempts to treat it himself, after getting the usual short shrift from his doctor.
Basically, this guy in Oklahoma got sick in the early 2000’s and stuff started growing out of lesions in his skin ( if you watch a few of the videos it will likely leave you in no doubt whatsoever that he did indeed have abnormal fibers growing out of sores in his skin - in fact even some large tangled bird nest things )
Now – I am certainly not encouraging anyone to do the kind of DIY “procedures” he engaged in or even think he necessarily had it all right about what was going on in his body. For example, he is clearly not aware at that time that Morgellons has now been linked to Lyme/Borrelia and they are likely involved in the causative mechanism. But bear with me….
He tried lots of things but nothing really worked and he became severely ill, bedridden etc. at some point he decided that this disease was in fact a systemic fungal infection. He concluded that it was very likely something called Sporotrichosis and this is where it got interesting.
He found some old medical texts saying that the standard treatment for this was to take Potassium Iodide orally in high doses – which he proceeded to do.
He took something in the region of a gram or two of potassium iodide a day for around 6 months ( this is actually less than was used for Sporotrichosis and other conditions going back 100years or more) at which point all of his lesions were healed or healing ( these were very deep wounds) .
Not only that but he came over as a completely different person, with humor, astute reflections on his experiences, and a general love of life. He set about doing physical work to rebuild himself and continued his video dairy with updates and was still well 3 years later.
I should say that it looks like he later started a small mail-order company to supply potassium iodide and instructions to others in the Morgellons community - but for me, that did not detract from his authenticity.
So – what I found interesting is that although this guy thought he had a fungal infection, we now know he almost certainly had / has Lyme disease and that this was the likely cause of his Morgellons.
And that treating it with high doses of potassium iodide appeared to cure him - and others he worked with.
So, while many of us look towards modern medicine for a potential cure with new or more exotic drugs – this story seems to indicate that some of the older drugs could well be just as useful if not more so ….
There are parallels with some of Horowitz’s treatments where he is going back to see what was being used for TB 50 years ago and finding things like Dapsone to be useful in lyme.
Interestingly potassium iodide has been used for a whole range of diseases in the past
Including
- massive doses for malaria ( could it therefore be useful in babesia…? )
- Becets disease ( Horovitz writes about this in his last book and thinks it was associated with Bartonella )
- Fungal infections ( mold ? candida?)
- And a whole list of inflammatory and skin disorders
- Radiation sickness etc
So there is a fair body of evidence on its relative safety
Its also naturally occurring so our bodies are likely to have ways of detoxifying and excreting it
And it's pretty easy to source - compared to some of the more exotic candidates on the Lyme self-treatment list ….
I am not sure if I am ready to try it myself and I have/had Hashimotos and it seems to be contraindicated to some degree with that - but thought it would make an interesting discussion here.