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Q. About Bartonella Scratches

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Posted 2/5/2023 4:45 PM (GMT 0)
I have had the gamut of skin manifestations consistent with bartonella since childhood. The most common one I get is the row of short scratches near my shoulder blades that scab and bleed. I have them right now. I am not experiencing a flare of any other symptoms that I can obviously tell. Just the scabby scratches.

Here’s my question:
Does anyone know exactly HOW bartonella makes the scratch marks? Why do some scab and bleed while others don’t?
Posted 2/5/2023 5:47 PM (GMT 0)
Hey WalkingbyFaith,

There's this protein called VEGF that the body makes. This protein's function is to stimulates new blood vessels. This is usually a good thing.

However, Bartonella stimulates this protein in excess, so it happens too fast and too much.

So when blood vessels are created at this fast rate the capillaries "burst" or "open up" which causes the marks on the skin. So that's essentially what you're looking at with Bartonella marks.

This can manifest in several ways: the typical bart scratch marks, nodules, acne, lumps etc.

Bartonella grows very fast in VEGF (If I recall correctly at a rate of 70 times faster), so that's why it keeps stimulating it, as it's Bart's favorite environment.

Why some bleed and scab might be related to the thickness and resilience of the skin, although I'm not sure about that one.
Posted 2/5/2023 5:58 PM (GMT 0)
only limited research on the topic that i know of WBF.

i have seen papers cataloguing the skin manifestations of bartonella - mainly the striae

but what you are describing is something a little different - one of the many other forms

i have seen examples of exactly the manifestation that you mention on the breaking down bartonella FB group photos

some look exactly like a cat scratch - i mean it looks like a light linear scratch mark with is just deep enough to break the skin and draw a few dots of blood here and there along its length - which is kinda funny - given that bart is often called "cat scratch disease" - but these seem to be spontaneous - forming on their own

the most in depth discussion and research on bart and the skin i have come across is that done by Dr Marna Ericson ( lady who runs the technical side of T-Labs - and specialist in confocal laser microscopy - which can image tissues in 3D )
but it is also focussed on the streaks / striae

from memory -
-bart is found throughout the skin of infected patients - not only in the striae/streaks
-distortion of collagen bundles ( structural tissues inside skin cells )
-distortion of micro blood vessels / capillaries by bart
-distortion of lymph vessels in skim layers also
-no-one knows why the streaks are linear
-general weakening of collagen structures theorised to be involved
-some overlap with actual stretch marks - so people with bart may also be prone to stretchmarks - as well as - but separate to bart striae

interview here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxvwf47cglk

paper here
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32884796/
Posted 2/6/2023 11:48 AM (GMT 0)
only partially related - but i did a search on stretch marks - the official medical terminology for which is
"Striae distensae"

what i found to be interesting is what comes up in the google image search for "Striae distensae"

in that 90% of those images look exactly like bartonella to me - with bright red or purple zigzagging lines in all the places that we associate with bartonella - often fading to white / pale scar tissue - on
-flanks,
-shoulder / armpit
-lower frontal belly area
-upper thighs
-lower back

https://tinyurl.com/2ckqqorf

the text for the articles often refers to excessive weight gain or stretching from pregnancy, weight gain or body building as the causative factor - but there are plenty of pictures of armpits / shoulder streaks that do not seem to have anything to do with body building or weight gain

is this just evidence of how prevalent bartonella is....
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