- Imagine being so sick you're unable to
work, but can't find a doctor who will help you.
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- Mainstream medical professionals don't
believe Morgellons is real.
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- KHOU discovered that is exactly what
is happening to a growing number of people in Texas, Florida and California.
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- Morgellons disease is an illness first
documented more than 300 years ago, yet it is still considered a mystery.
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- Cheryall Spiller moves slower than she
once did around her Rosharon farm. The 59-year-old suffers from what she
believes is a mystery disease.
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- "Small white worms that come out
of my ears, you can feel them itching in there. You can get a Q-tip and
dig them out," she explained.
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- Spiller is not alone.
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- "The sores come up and these fuzzy
things come out," said Stephanie Bailey, Austin resident. "It's
almost like spores or something like that."
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- Lesions and scars cover Stephanie Bailey's
arms and legs.
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- Travis Wilson is a victim too.
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- "Feeling like bugs are crawling
all over you. You can't sleep. It's freaky. So he'd go days without
sleep," said Lisa Wilson, patient's mother.
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- According to nurse practitioner Ginger
Savely, all three may have an emerging sickness called Morgellons disease.
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- "it just looks you know like somebody
picked at something and it got a little infected," Savely said.
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- When magnified 60 times the sores take
on a different look.
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- "So you focus a little more you
can see the black fibers the white fibers," Savely said.
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- Savely admitted the idea of creatures
living inside our bodies seems more like science fiction than science.
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- "I don't think a person can believe
it until they see it with their own eyes," she said. "The problem
is people aren't looking hard enough, most practitioners are not looking
because they are not taking them seriously."
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- Mainstream medical professionals don't
believe Morgellons is real.
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- "I think if we look at what is truly
evidence-based medicine, what has been proven based on scientific fact
we know we don't have a means to substantiate her observations," said
Dr. Adelaide Hebert, U.T. Health Science Center Houston.
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- Dr. Adelaide Hebert said Morgellons exists
only in the patient's mind.
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- "Many of these patients do have
delusion of parasitosis," Dr. Hebert said. "It is actually not
uncommon to have patients come in and describe the sensation that something
is crawling on their skin."
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- 11 News could not locate any Houston
doctor who believes in or treats Morgellons. At Oklahoma State University
research is underway on a volunteer basis.
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- Ginger Savely has documented 100 cases
and treats her patients with oral and topical antibiotics.
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- "They can't get anybody to help
them in the medical profession. It's just a nightmare, a living nightmare.
I can't imagine any worse disease," she said.
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- Lisa Wilson's son became so distraught
about his condition he took his own life two weeks ago.
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- "He would tell me he'd rather have
cancer because then he'd know what he was up against," Lisa Wilson
said.
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- "They're worried about the bird
flu coming, you've got something here right now that's spreadable and it's
being hush-hushed," Spiller said.
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- "They told me I was doing it to
myself and that I was nuts," Bailey explained. "I stopped going
to doctors because I was afraid they were going to lock me up."
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- The scars are more than skin deep.
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