(I am not a doctor.)
I don't know much about Morgellon's, but I know enough to know it's not well understood and controversial and has fallen under the purview of both psychiatry and dermatology.
Morgellons disease (MD) is a skin condition characterized by the presence of multicolored filaments that lie under, are embedded in, or project from skin. Although the condition may have a longer history, disease matching the above description was first ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
And if they don't show up for their psychiatry appointment, I'd imagine they are getting a very different second opinion from someone like the lead author of the quoted Morgellon's Disease article,
Rapheal Stricker MD, who is a "past President of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) and a current board member of LymeDisease.org. He is also a member of the California State Lyme Disease Advisory Committee, and he has testified at Lyme disease hearings before the California State Senate and the United States Congress." He was also educated and trained at Columbia and "did subspecialty training in Hematology/Oncology at the University of California San Francisco fellowship" before being
terminated for cause (conveniently withheld).
Furthermore he has some very serious allegations of scientific fraud against him including
falsification of data leading to
retraction of scientific work. The further down the rabbit hole I went the more questionable material I found. In his
patient intake packet, he charges $850 for a one hour intake appointment (or $700 for his personally trained NP) paid upfront, no insurance of course. For 30 minute follow-up ("in office or by phone") its $500. It also includes this lovely line "If you find that you need to talk at length, we urge you to seek support from a therapist."
Instead of using FDA approved testing, "Unfortunately, the sensitivity and specificity of many FDA approved tests are too low to be reliant. As such, most are referred to as “coin-toss” testing." he relies on instead a Bay Area based
IGeneX "due to its high sensitivity and specificity." Apparently "IGeneX is not required to be FDA approved. IGeneX provides services on clinical samples. We do not sell test kits." The company, like Rapheal Stricker, has a
colorful past and is unlikely to be reimbursed by insurance.
Here is a nice summary, although somewhat biased, of unorthodox testing for Lyme Disease. Both of them,
Stricker and
IGeneX, appear to be moving beyond the regulatory domain of the FDA and US insurance agencies by expanding into Mexico. You may also find it interesting IGeneX has also been conducting COVID-19 testing.
The chronic Lyme/Morgellon's movement has several parallels to Andrew Wakefield and the anti-vaccination movement. The scope of some of these movements is staggering with political backing, medical degrees from prestigious institutions, pseudoscience published in journals (Stricker has over 35 scientific articles on pubmed, including this
one advocating for treating COVID-19 with antibiotics), professional appearing websites, and who knows how much money is involved. We are discussing treating individual cases of misdiagnosed patients with underlying delusional disorder/ somatic symptom disorder but its seems to be more of a societal/population level issue. All of this is not to say that the mainstream medical body is infallible or that we're right and the "others" are therefore always wrong, especially when it comes to illnesses of the mind which deal with uncertainty and epistemology. I'm reminded of the story of undercovering the H. pylori linked etiology of peptic ulcers versus "stress." The medical field changed course and even awarded Marshall and Warren the Nobel Prize. I just don't see Stricker being put up for a Nobel anytime soon.
TLDR; I fell into a rabbit hole. Article referenced is by a discredited physician with ties to the chronic Lyme community. The scope of the delusional disorder prevalence is likely larger than we understand and being perpetuated by seedy characters/organizations with ulterior motives.
