The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced today that it is launching a study to learn about an unexplained condition that causes people to feel as if they have foreign substances growing from their bodies.
People with the condition, referred to as Morgellons disease, say they have fibers and other inorganic material growing out of their skin.
“We earnestly want to learn more about this unexplained illness, which affects the lives of those who suffer from it,” said Dr. Michele Pearson, principal investigator leading the study for the CDC, in a press release. “Those who suffer have questions, and we want to help them.”
“We have a team of epidemiologists, laboratorians and pathologists to carry out the study,” Pearson said.
The study will be conducted in conjunction with Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California Division of Research. For more information, CLICK HERE to visit the CDC’s Unexplained Dermopathy Web site.
In 2006, a number of Morgellons sufferers told ABC News in interviews that when they consulted doctors, they received diagnoses they called wrong or dismissive. Brandi Koch, the wife of former Major League Baseball player Billy Koch, said that she felt as if she were living in a horror movie, claiming she had colored fibers coming out of her skin.
Koch, of Clearwater Beach, Fla., said that her life was good until one day in the shower when she noticed something strange — tiny fibers running through her skin.
“The fibers look like hair, and they’re different colors,” Koch said.
Koch said she knows that what she experienced “sounds crazy,” but it’s true. “If I had a family member call me up and say, ‘I have this stuff,’ I’d say, ‘I’m sending a straitjacket over. You need some help,'” she said.
Anne Dill described a similar condition. Looking at Dill’s life in Florida, she seemed to be living the American dream — her three daughters excelled in sports and were straight-A students.
But life in the Dill household was far from idyllic. Anne’s 40-year-old husband, Tom, died in January 2006, and she believes his death was due to a contagious illness that has infected her entire family.
Dill described her family’s skin: “There’s this fibrous material. It’s in layers.” Dill said the skin on their hands was particularly bad, very swollen and itchy, and said it felt as if bugs were crawling underneath the skin.
Consulting Doctors
Dr. Greg Smith of Gainesville, Ga., has been a pediatrician for the past 30 years. He claimed that a fiber was coming out of his big toe, and he had video footage to prove it.
“It felt like somebody stuck a pin in my toe and wiggled it, and it just continued to hurt,” Smith told ABC News in 2006.
He said he never thought he had bugs. “I’ve certainly had those crawling sensations, and the fibers which come out of the skin are really bizarre, and really odd.”
Smith was handed over to a hospital psychiatrist when he went to the emergency room complaining of a fiber in his eye. He admits that he, too, would be skeptical if a patient came to him with the same story.
“I would wonder if they’d taken their medicine that day. It makes no sense. It’s totally bizarre. It’s something that — just telling the story is so outlandish on the face of it — that no one would believe it,” Smith said. Dill’s doctor told her to stop scratching, even though many of her sores were in places she could not reach.
Koch went to the Mayo Clinic, where doctors didn’t believe that the fibers she’d brought them had grown from her body.
“I saw the infectious disease doctor, and I showed him some samples that I had and he snickered,” she said. “I can’t go through another doctor blowing me off or looking at me like I’m crazy. I know I’m not.”
Dr. Vincent DeLeo, chief of dermatology at New York’s St. Lukes-Roosevelt Medical Center, weighed in on what he’d say to someone who came to him with this condition. “I don’t think this is any different than many patients I’ve seen who have excoriations and believe that there is something in their skin causing this,” he told ABC News in 2006.
DeLeo said the open lesions were most likely a result of scratching the skin.
Relying on Your Own Research
But biologist Mary Leitao refused to accept the medical skepticism surrounding Morgellons.
Leitao’s son, Drew, was just 2 years old when Leitao noticed an odd sore on his lip that would not heal.
“He very simply said ‘bugs,’ and he pointed to his lips,” said Leitao.
Leitao never expected to find herself at the center of a medical storm. But when her son complained about the strange sore, the biologist, who once ran the electron microscope at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, did what any scientist would do. She took a closer look.
“What I saw were bundles of fibers, *** of fibers,” Leitao says. “There was red and blue.” Even stranger, they glowed under ultraviolet light.
Armed with research, Leitao took her son to a doctor at one of the country’s leading hospitals. He dismissed her tale of fibers and wrote to her pediatrician, saying that her son needed Vaseline for his lips and that his mother needed a thorough psychiatric evaluation.
Undaunted, Leitao began poring through medical literature looking for clues. What she discovered was a 17th-century reference to a strange disease with “harsh hairs” called “Morgellons.”
She named the strange fibers Morgellons disease and put the information on a Web site, Morgellons.org. At the time of her interview in 2006, more than 4,500 people had contacted Leitao, claiming they had Morgellons-type symptoms. The name stuck, and the disease was featured on the television show “ER.”
But do these fibers grow from inside the body, as Morgellons patients believe, or do they come from the external environment — a kind of lint — as the medical skeptics say?
Searching for an Answer
Forensic scientist Ron Pogue at the Tulsa Police Crime Lab in Oklahoma checked a Morgellons sample against known fibers in the FBI’s national database. “No, no match at all. So this is some strange stuff,” Pogue said in 2006. He thought the skeptics were wrong. “This isn’t lint. This is not a commercial fiber. It’s not.”
The lab’s director, Mark Boese, said the fibers are “consistent with something that the body may be producing.” He added that, “These fibers cannot be manmade and do not come from a plant. This could be a byproduct of a biological organism.”
Dill said she looks at pictures of her family and finds them unrecognizable. “My kids have to see not only their dad but their mom disintegrating, and that’s gotta be really scary.”
While they wait for evidence that they hope will convince the medical community to take them seriously, some Morgellon’s sufferers wear pink bracelets that say, simply, “Fortitude.”
Pictures of Morgellons Disea
Pictures can be viewed at the following location: Morgellon’s Disease Pictures
Hope you enjoyed the story and pictures of Morgellons Disease
Hello Everybody! I too suffer from this Horrendous illness. But
not even CLOSE to what I was suffering in the beginning year now!
I first contracted Morgellons while doing gardening in May, 2003.
Many doctors later, and NO help from them, I decided to HELP MYSELF.
I got a microscope. I studied. I looked and looked. Yes, it is like
being in a TV series called “Twilight Zone”. I was desperate for
relief, so I got daring when I saw these “fibers” moving!!! I
thought they are SOME type of parasite, if not a type of WORM or
nematode possibly. So I thought “What could be on the market now that
would kill worms?” In a store I found a product called SAFEGUARD. It
has FENBENDAZOLE drug in it; it’s used to de-worm DOGS; and it’s also on line as a de-wormer for HORSES!
After taking it with applesauce or pudding or oatmeal, I am now
after 6 years, about 98% LESION & ITCH FREE!!! And…I do NOT sell
this product nor have ANY interest in the profits of this product.
I still take it about every 2 weeks. No side effects whatsoever.
Researched it on line; it is very safe.
Enough said.
Michelle from Delaware County, Pa.
so new to computers but AMorgellans sores horriblby visible on my face since ’05 diadnosed finally in 07/09 —-nightmare of misdiagnosed years —– can’t look deeper into this at this finding it’s my husband b-day and he doesn’t want to watch me stuck pouring over this new thing called internet – I’ll be back but already feel a little lees lonley in this battle
A
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There is no time to discuss wether this is real or not . We who have it know . I have been through ALL of what everyone has experienced with the Dr’s , Not believing , etc . . . Lets get to what works . I had some good relief with BORAX baths for external ( Skin Lessions ) & when having the creepy crawlys . This kills them on contact , then u can get some sleep . I have also used MESO-Silver , which seemed to help . Also MESO-Copper . I also used the ” Zapper” which I would strap to my leg and leave on ALL day for a month straight . I believe this helped aswell . . . But the best results came from using MMS . It took a while but it stoped all symtoms after about a month . I am still taking MMS as it has been 6 months now . I am taking 25 drops a day , and this has kept this disease at bay . It sucks , having to drink it every day , those who use it know all too well ( The taste ) but it WORK’s . . . Learn how to mix it correctly . I hope this info helps someone out there . . . If u have any questions u can email me at ( [email protected] )
I had Morgellons in 95 I believe. Although I was not actually diagnosed with it.I was diagnosed with ultreneria which is a fruit and vegetable rot. This I believe now was a secondary condition. For several months I secretly itched and scratched and picked.Then heard about other people whom I contacted. We all had almost exact stories . We did not hang out or even associate up to that point. I felt as though I was invaded by something as did they. When I would soak in the tub it became a fiber bath. My family and some of my friends disassociated themselves from me. When certain people were around that also had these symptoms it was like it stirred whatever it was up. I found fibers in and around my lesions and so did they and when we were in the same room there were multiple fibers all over. We would pull them and compare. It only added to the fear. I really felt messed up and lost. One day I scratched my arm and it ripped open. It did not bleed but kinda sealed right up and overnight it was like a 3″ in diameter piece of pink rubber on my arm. I went to the ER and demanded It be cultured. Yes they thought I was crazy. A few days later it came back as an ultrneria. The DR.told me to use selson blue on it and I did. It healed in a few days. I had about a year’s total of the symptoms of Morgellons. I changed my environment and ignored it. Although I have scares as a reminder.I chalked it up to insanity like they all said until one day I happened across an article and it seemed unreal. I wonder if it ever really goes away. It still scares me. I never want to go through that again. I believe in this disease.It is real and I think that it scares even the medical community. Hang in there if you have it. It does go into remission. Get healthy and stay strong.
I suspect that some of us are more suceptible to morgellons than others and some of us have a natural immunity. The reason I say this is because I’ve been infected a couple of times with the horrible burning, skin-crawling, hideous itch, etc. that are frequently described in these posts. It feels a great deal like something is crawling under my skin leaving a trail of burning napalm. The torment is beyond horrible. Showering, bathing with hot water, etc. makes it much worse, but each day the symptoms subside until I’m back to normal.
I’ve done a lot of living and traveling in 3rd world countries and these are my treatments for itches, infestations and infections. One or all of them have worked for me every time. You want something with fumes that penetrate. I suggest camphor oil – but in Camphofenique – not sure of the correct spelling but you buy it in any drug store or pharmacy. I’ve also tried that medicated rub that’s menthol based – Vick’s vaporub or the equivalent. Something soothing for bad itches is to find some coal tar shampoo – don’t bother with the deodorized – use the real deal. They’re all strong smelling, but the relief is worth any stink.
I realize how blessed I am – I seem to have an immunity of sorts. Mine only lasts a few days, others in here have been suffering for years. My heart and prayers go out to you all.
Dear Danser,
My dear mother had the same experience. She was purged with medication though which is not good because due to my sisters research the morgellons (or nano911) could come back with a vengence. She also had cream colored worms coming out of her pores all over her body, her nose, ears and eyes. Her feces had hundreds of them. She has the the fuzz balls, the X-mas sparkles, the silicon chips imbedded in her face, nano crystals, bugs in gel like substances. A week after her major purge she is still sane but her systems are returning. She must BOIL her clothing as the bugs hid in the lining. She combs threw her hair with a flea comb 4-5 times a day. She decided to keep one of her fuzz balls for her derm that she will be seeing this Friday. When examing with her magnifying glass she observed a small body, two eyes and my sister observed the fibers as legs!
My mother is a breast cancer survivor. Morgellons causes a variety of diseases-cancer, rhuematoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatique and chronh disease to name a few.
We three moved here to Florida eight years ago. All three of us have gotten ill. Me with RA,Fibro, brainfog, migraines,depression. My sister with chronh’s disease and some sort of neurological disorder where her body jerks out of control. My mother developed cancer and chronic fatique.
My sister has the short black fibers, a thousand came out of her face, and gel like bumps with parasitic materials. She is itching like crazy.
I am freaking out. I feel fibers crawling around my nose, my lungs are heavy, I feel crawling sensations. This is all real people. All of us on here know that! Please research into CHEMTRAILS, NANO911, nanomachines. There is so much information out there for us. This is a manmade nano disease that is effecting us. It is just not in FL, California and Tex. It is in every country in the world except Iceland.
Do YOUR RESEARCH.
It’s true, I have just learned to co-exist, I don’t worry about it and it tends not to invade my space, I used to think I just had big pores and fibers would get under my skin, I’m not so sure that is not still what is going on , but has anyone asked God for help ? God can work miracles, bring relief and help you focus on what is important and it’s not what’s going on under your skin, does God want me to believe in this….probably not… but God does want me to ask for help…my life is good…and when I find myself looking for cures that are only imaginable to humans…I focus on God who cures the soul from the inside out…not the outside in as most of us try to do….turn to the Lord have faith..stronger are you from the inside than that which is outside of you…God Bless…and bless yourself as well.
Morgellons Sufferer Tells Her Story of Triumph
Hi! My name is Connie and I’m a victim, I believe, of a disease presently known as Morgellons. I have traced my symptoms back to as far as 10 years ago, based on the information I’ve receive from other people that have this infection. I am a 54 year old female. I was born and raised in Nevada. I live, presently live, in Reno. And I have all my family here, I’m divorced and I have one adult daughter. And just to begin my explanation of my experience, I’ll tell you that there’s no one in my network at this point in time that shown these symptoms visually or otherwise. About a year ago, at this time… it was in January, I noticed some little green fibers that were starting to show up on my hands and arms. And I attributed it to disassembling an artificial Christmas tree that I had. I thought maybe it was the remnants or remains of particles from the manufacturing of the tree. Well the symptoms didn’t go away, and they actually got worse. I started noticing that I was more depressed. I have had a problem with what is known as “brain fogging” for many years, but it seemed to escalate at that point of my life. I was having a lot of joint pain… wondering if… why am I having arthritic pain in summer months. I was suffering confusion, frustration… I was tired all the time. I slept a great deal. I napped when I could. I just seemed like I couldn’t get enough rest. About four months passed, maybe five and in May I was talking with a friend and I showed him my arms and said “Look at this!”
In that four month period these lesions had began to surface where the fibers where… where, this fibrous material. Now granted, I could see these with the naked eye. I did not need a microscope. Some of them were curly. Some of them where short. Some of them were a little bit long, less than a quarter of an inch, but they were all green and they were all real. I, at that point collected some samples of them. Put them in a plastic vile. I took them to a dermatologist and she absolutely refused to acknowledge that my little “so to speak”, “matchbox sample” was real. What she told me when she saw these lesions, and at that point they were very bad and I had it up and down the tops of my arms, and I had them at the back of my hands… she keep kind of nagging me and saying “Don’t pick at yourself anymore. Don’t pick at your, your hands”. Well I walked away angry from that particular encounter. A few months later while I was still fighting with this lesions, I went an saw an “Ear, Nose and Throat” doctor, because I was having a tremendous sinus problem where I was blowing a lot of blood and strange mucus out of my nasal area. And interestingly during the… after the x-rays, on the a pre-op visit, he looked at me and he said we’re gonna get in there and fix this deviated septum. And he said were gonna look at this other tissue in there or this other matter. Well this other matter, I’m firmly convinced was Morgellons, and it was, you know, the disease building itself in areas in my body where it could breath and grow which were my sinuses, my throat. I had chronic sore throats. And then a friend of mine… well, this friend showed me… Introduced me to NutraSilver… and at that point I was desperate. I had no other way to turn. I had been to dentists. I had dentists look at my teeth and tell me there was something not right. I’ve had this derma… two dermatologists… I had gone to a dermatologist ten years ago, and I was treated with massive doses of antihistamines. Three different kinds… because I had this severe itching. When we discover when these symptoms probably began, at the onset I had these terrible attacks of itching on my arms and couldn’t wear any heavy clothing. I couldn’t wear any animal knits. Nothing… I mean I was miserable! I went to my family doctor and we thought maybe I was going through the “change of life”, which I wasn’t. They did a test for that. My blood pressure was checked and it was determined that I had a high blood pressure. I’m self diagnosed. There’s no doctor in this area that I can find that is willing to acknowledge that I have this disease. So I… this is all my diagnosis… my opinion. It’s my body, I know what’s going on with it. But anyway up until that point these symptoms just keep building and persisting. What brought them to the surfaced where the lesions were visual, I believe was stress.
I was going through a very depressing, debilitating, personal part of my life. Last, a year ago this last May. And it was then that the lesions started to form, and they were coming out. They were started on the lower part of my arms… and they were slowly gravitating up in my arms. I had them on my hands. I was starting to see a little bit of tunneling, but not much.
And I went to visit a friend one day, and he looked at my arms he says “Wow! I have something I think you need to try.” he says, “Just take this and rub it on your arms.” and so we did… or actually it was, at that point it was just on my hands. And so I rubbed it on my hands, and “My god“… I could not believe it! I had skin and these little fibery things just coming out of my hands.
Out of my palm… the back of my hands. We were both amazed! We were just sat there and watched this for about an hour and we couldn’t believe it. And so we thought well, let’s try this. Let’s try putting it, you know everywhere that I have an open lesion or an area that looks likes its you know it’s been exacerbated by this affliction. So I did, and after several months of using this, and journaling about it and photographing it, I realized that the lesions that I was putting the NutraSilver on… That’s the name of the product that we’re talking about, were healing and I was actually having… I don’t know… matter coming out. I don’t know what you wanna call it. Maybe under a microscope… you might see a parasite or two. I don’t know. Some of it looked like it was moving and live, and I was having many more fibers. I started getting red. I started getting blue. I started getting uh… I mean these things glowed… under a camera eye. Well what we realize is that the lesions I was putting the NutraSilver on were healing, but I was getting new breakouts, new sores in other areas around that. So we realized, or I realized that it was spreading. It wasn’t getting better, it was getting worse! And so we stopped the NutraSilver. I went to a deep depression and thought you know, this was, “Now what am I gonna do?” and…
Then I said to my friend… my colleague… I said “You know? Something strikes me here if the NutraSilver has the effect of spreading or moving this parasite or whatever it is under the skin, what would happen if we tried it internally? Took it orally? If it moves on the skin, maybe it would move through the blood streams and the body and push it out?” And so that was our next motivation was to try that, and in a few words it worked! It was the most phenomenal difference for me in my whole well-being and visual observation of what is going on. We started me with ten drops twice a day… excuse me… three times a day, in water and I tried to you know make sure that I took it at the same time each day, morning noon and night. Within the first 24 hours I noticed a tremendous change in how I felt psychologically. My mind was clearing up. My vision was… I didn’t realize before but it, this was affecting my vision. I was having a lot of blurred vision which I thought was just me because I am severely nearsighted. I started eating better. The lesions began to heal, slowly but they begin heal.
The chronic fatigue disappeared within a week. It was like my whole new part of my life had erupted, and I still need a lot of rest because the symptoms of this disease actually keep me awake at night. There were times when my feet would tingle or I’d get these, uh you know there’s a syndrome out now that they talk about where your legs do funny things and the muscles twitch. Well my feet did that a lot… and my hands as well.
That stopped with the use of the NutraSilver internally.
The depression lifted. It didn’t completely go away because my depression is hereditary. I have since started taking 40mg a day of Prozac and I doing really well with that, but initially I think the NutraSilver did have an effect of my depression. The brain fogging… gone! It was essentially gone. My memory was good. My short term memory was good. You know I was even starting to recall how this disease have progressed over the years when I started learning about how and what other people had. The healing was amazing, and again, I still, it took… the lesions healed quicker with the use of the NutraSilver…
and it took a while because I had quite a few on my arms and I started having them show up on my legs and that started happening when I was using it topically and that’s really when we got scared and realized that you know we better not do this topically anymore because whatever this thing is, its in my body and what the NutraSilver was doing topically was just moving it… and my thought was well if its moves by use of it topically… “What would happen if I took it internally and got it in my blood stream?”. Again we saw amazing results!
The other thing I noticed right away too was my joint pain. I would get up in the morning and I had very little back pain, and now I have none. Oh lets see…in October, September-October of last year.
We decided to do a purge. We came up with the formula with the NutraSilver and decided that, you know, my symptoms not quite all gone away and we wanted to try to possibly see how far we could push this whole thing since what I was doing was working very well on that regular basis. So we upped the dosage and began what I call the “three day purge”, and at that point I started taking 7ml (approximately 150 drops), which is one small little container of the NutraSilver diluted in a glass of water. Very little water, 2 to 4 ounces actually, because we wanted it to get it into my blood stream quickly and absorb quickly. So I started doing that three times a day. On the first day I took my first dosage at about 11:30 in the morning, and twelve hours later… that night… about eleven o’clock… the purge began and it was horrific! It was absolutely horrific! I wanted somebody to be there, and then I didn’t want somebody to be there, because I didn’t want anybody to see me. But I had… I’m gonna call them parasite, because I believe that’s what they were.
They were small. They looked like worms. Very small. Kind of beige-y color. Very wormy looking. They were soggy. I had, initially I had them coming out everywhere they could. Wherever my body had an orifice… my eyes… my mouth… my nose…
and they seemed to be predominant in my nasal, my sinus area. And I realized that they were gonna push out through my skin wherever they wanted to. That they may go to areas of my body where, that had not been exposed to the parasite yet. So I… after the first… What do I want to call it? Not phase? But after the first episode. I waited to see how long it would take this cycle to begin again, and I continue to take the NutraSilver in the 7ml amount, in 2-4 ounces of water, for three days straight. And what occurred is a cycle. These critters have a cycle to them. They’re just like any other parasite.
I would get about a 45 minute break in between, and then they would flair up again and start coming out of my skin… my finger nails… my toe nails. They were coming out of my feet.
So I decided I wanted push them out one or two areas only, and “vector” them as the scientist would say. Push them in a certain direction. So I used a combination of Vaseline and NutraSilver, and began to coat the parts of my body that I wanted to push, to keep the parasite or… creature from coming out of, and it worked! What I did was I pushed them out through my finger tips, my toes, the bottoms and the heels of my feet. My biggest concern was my face, because I could see them tunneling up my eyes. I could see them in the corner of my eyes. You know I was even able to pick them out of my eyes in some point. I could feel them in my ears, and that was another area. And that was a tough one because you can only get Vaseline in there so far. I had to keep my scalp extremely moist because they wanted to come out through my scalp and my… Of course, these little guys like the hair follicles and that’s what they thrive on. For months I had these little curly hairs on my legs, caused by the parasite living off by the follicle. I’m sure. Feeding off of it . But this purge was… It was incredible! I did get some video on it. It would have to be cleaned up in the laboratory to see, but I had them coming out my lips and in corners of my mouth… Flowing. They were spilling out during purge. My feces was loaded. I mean for three days after they purge I was, I could see them in the toilet bowls and I know that its not a very pleasant thing but you need to understand that the NutraSilver forced this thing out of my body and I tried to, I really did try to journal it but it was very difficult. It was very ugly. It was very depressing. It was very hard for me. Doing this video is difficult because I know there’re going to be a lot of people… Maybe even scientist? Maybe even doctors? That will review this video and they’ll laugh at me and think I’m nuts. Well you guys are the ones that are nuts because I’ve been there, I know what this thing did to me, and I know how much it affected my life and changed my life. It completely altered my life to the point that I considered suicide. I didn’t want to have go on living that way. Afraid of going in public that I would break out or that one would come crawling out of my eyes. The fibers were the most phenomenal thing in this purged.
I have the photographs to proved it; balls of fiber with a little body of some kind, a little round jelly like body in them. Almost that had a little eye on it, that almost looked like a camera. Ok? I mean it look like an eyeball with hair on it. And I had those poring out of my scalp. I was finding them on my carpet after the purge. But I did come up with a, you know a crude way of controlling their exit. I wish now I would have collected some sample, but I was in so much pain even as medicated as I was… and I was alone. It was difficult enough having to transform myself from this hideous monster… into the person I am right now. A I have… the before and after photographs… prove my story. This is a real. This disease is real.
The symptoms are real. The NutraSilver, I feel, it gave me back my life! It gave me back my livelihood. It gave me back something that I thought I had lost! Either the disease was gonna kill me or I was gonna kill my self.
I’d like to make a closing comment. I have no need to sit down and make up a story like this. It’s not a make up story. This is a reality. NutraSilver saved my life. It gave me back everything I ever wanted. I’m not making any money by making this video. I’ve asked for the copyright to it, only because I wanted to control where it goes and who it goes to. But I want the world to know what NutraSilver did for me, and “come hell or high water” so to speak, I want everyone out there that suffers from this disease to know that you have my support, you have my love and I will do everything I can to bring you my story, my experience and encourage you to try this product. At least buy one sample of it and try it because it saved my life. I wouldn’t care, you know, how much it cost me or what. Like I said I’m not getting paid to do this. I’ve not been coerced by anyone, I’ve not been asked or given any favors. I just want the world to know that I know there a lot of sufferers of Morgellons out there that have no hope, and hopefully this video will give you that hope.
I have had a lot of improvement lately taking MMS and also from Dead Sea Bath Salts and Spraying the skin with very salty water. I got really ill in the year 2000. Fibers and skin changes about 4/5 years ago.