SPIRITUAL HEALING When there are no known medical solutions, dare to believe all things are possible for JESUS, the Great Physician

IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD

All hell broke lose in and around my body in February of 2011. I thought I had an infestation of ‘fleas’ in my new apartment.

I had purchased a used coat. The next day I noticed I had been bitten on my upper right shoulder and these bites were extremely itchy. I wasn’t certain this was the cause of the problem as I had also been gathering items in the basement to have an ongoing yard sale so I could bring in some extra income. People had brought in items that had been left outdoors, so there was also a possibility that this had contributed to the problem.

The bug bites on my shoulder went away, but about a week later I was at work, when it felt like someone had thrown a bucket of red ants on my back. Suddenly, there was movement everywhere on my back, but I could see nothing. I stopped in at the emergency department at the local hospital after work. The young doctor examined my back but could find no evidence of any outward cause for the feelings I was experiencing.

Another week went by, and the same thing happened again while I was interviewing a client by phone while sitting at my desk. It was hard to focus and complete the call. I went to the washroom and used my shirt to rub across my back and this gave a small amount of relief. I went to the emergency department after work a second time. This time I spoke with an older doctor who could tell that I am not a person prone to exaggeration or hysteria, so he really took the time to thoroughly examine my back, but the diagnosis was the same.

Regardless of what had caused the problem, I needed a solution. First thing I did was to empty the basement of any second-hand items. I had already thoroughly washed the coat. I had never seen fleas before. I tried all the suggestions on YouTube that might possibly kill them or bring them out of hiding so I could at least see them but was not successful.

I called an exterminator …

So, I arranged to have a pest control company come and treat my apartment for fleas. Although I had never seen them, this was the only thing I could think would be the cause of my problems. Someone suggested if I wore white socks fleas would gravitate to my socks. So, I wore clean white socks when I was getting ready for the technician to arrive. I moved all the furniture into the middle of the room and the only thing I noticed were some transparent tiny oval-shaped ‘things’ on the floor.

I spent the night at my friend’s house next door. I was quite tired, so I crawled into her spare bed wearing pyjamas and my white socks. After a time, it felt like my feet were crawling and squirming, so I took off the socks, washed my feet and left the socks in a pail of water in her bathtub overnight. In the morning I called my friend into the bathroom.

When I pulled the socks from the water, the bottom of each sock was covered with many razor-thin round black ‘things’ which were hanging from the socks by what appeared to be a miniscule round head. I am trying to think of how to describe how big these were – about half a millimetre in diameter I would say. My friend said these did not look like fleas. I left the socks in the tub and went to let the exterminator into my apartment. I spoke with him about what I had seen and went back to get the socks so I could show him in case he had seen this type of ‘thing’ before. Unfortunately, my friend had flushed them down the toilet to prevent these from spreading into her house. Naturally I was disappointed, but I could understand her concern. I would have done the same.

Something was very wrong …

The technician went ahead and sprayed for fleas, and I went to work. Later that evening I went to the house to clean up and put the furniture back in place. While in the house it felt like I was being ‘attacked’ on my lower legs. Because this was so painful, I put on a pair of tall rubber boots, and this seemed to help. I swept the floor and there were some black ‘bugs’ that looked like they could have been fleas, so I assumed that the treatment had been effective.

I spent the night at my neighbour’s home in hopes that after a period of time I could be in my apartment and not feel like something was attacking my legs. My lower legs were hurting so badly that I decided to soak in her bathtub. After scrubbing my lower legs with soap, I stepped out of the tub and immediately my legs hurt as bad or worse than before. I changed the water, soaked, then washed and tried again. Stepping out of the tub a second time brought immediate pain again. I repeated the process and this time, I stepped out of the tub and thankfully the pain was minimal, and my lower legs felt somewhat normal.

I explained what had happened to my friend and asked if it would be all right if I continued to wash my legs while we watched some TV. She agreed to this. I brought out a basin of clean water, a washcloth and a bar of soap. I placed a white towel on the floor under my feet, then I methodically wiped my lower legs in downward strokes. I noticed there were many black specks on the towel that to me looked like ‘black pepper’. I did this multiple times until there were no more black spots on the towel.

I then applied a medicated type of cream that farmers use on the udders of dairy cows, called ‘udder balm’, to my legs and felt that maybe this ordeal was finally over. I asked my friend if she would mind rubbing this udder balm on my back. When she had finished, I was shocked when my back exploded as it had at work with a feeling of bugs crawling all over my back. Common sense made me think this could be a reaction of something that was being deprived of oxygen and whatever it was had to get ‘air’. It was hard to make sense of all of this, so I just watched some TV. Eventually this feeling subsided and I went to bed.

I moved back into my apartment …

I felt relatively normal at work the next day and moved back into my apartment. I no longer felt that anything was attacking my legs, so I removed the rubber boots and life went back to normal for a few days. At work I noticed something peculiar. It felt as though bugs were crawling up and down my legs. I couldn’t see anything, but I felt secure that whatever it was stayed on me and was not contaminating my workplace environment. When I got home, I ran a tub of water and climbed in with my clothes on so as not to allow any ‘bugs’ to escape into the apartment. I took my clothes off and left them in the water, but I did not see anything unusual on my skin or in the water.

I called pest control and asked if they could come and fumigate my house again and told them of my symptoms. They said what I was describing was not at all the behaviour of fleas and since we didn’t know what it was it was pointless to spray again. This went on day after day and nothing I did was working to solve the problem. I continued to pray asking God for wisdom.

Something soldiers use …

I went to a hardware store and asked if there was any product that I could wash my clothes in that would kill bugs that might be in the clothing. They suggested I could soak my clothes in Permethrin, a very toxic chemical that did not hurt fabric. The clerk told me this is what soldiers use when they are deployed to areas outside of Canada. They soak their clothing to prevent being bitten by insects native to that area. It sounded logical to me, so I started soaking my clothing before I washed them.

The only physical evidence I could actually see were little black specks on my socks. I literally felt that something was biting my feet when these black specks were present. The sensation of bugs crawling up and down my legs continued despite all of my efforts, and this sensation spread to other parts of my body. I eventually gave up washing socks as these seemed to be always full of these little black specks, so I just threw them out and bought new ones.

I was relieved because for some reason these ‘things’ had not found their way into my bed so I could get some sleep. I kept doing research and it appeared that the closest thing to what I was seeing could be ‘bird mites.’ I asked the landlord if they would help me with the cost to have another exterminator come to the house to spray for bird mites. The neighbour said she had had bird mites and they had solved the problem by blocking the entrance to the attic. I was living in one of the units in the same triplex and we shared the same attic. It was a possibility worth considering. The landlord and the pest control agent conferred and felt that I had developed a condition where mentally I felt there was a problem when in fact there was no physical problem, so they would not help me.

It could be “all in my head’ …

Family members began to talk with me about Morgellons Disease – Webmd.com describes this condition as follows:

“Morgellons is a controversial and poorly understood condition in which unusual thread-like fibers appear under the skin. The patient may feel like something is crawling, biting or stinging all over. Some medical experts say Morgellons is a physical illness. Others suggest it is a type of psychosis called “delusional parasitosis”, in which a person things parasites have infected their skin. You doctor might call it an “unexplained dermopathy,” which means a skin condition that occurs without a known reason. Other medical professionals have dubbed the condition ‘fiber disease.’”

Believe me this was the hardest thing to endure, to be told that I needed to admit that none of this was real and that it was all ‘in my head’. I understood why they would feel this way, but I had no choice but to keep doing whatever possible to find a solution to my nightmare. About this time my daughter noticed a large scab, about half an inch or more in diameter in the middle of my back under my bra strap. Eventually, the scab fell off leaving a very unusual looking ‘mole’, so she suggested I see my doctor. I also had a lot of skin tags on my back, so I asked my doctor if she could burn these off, in case they were contributing to the feelings I was having. Had I not seen the black ‘things’ hanging from my socks, or the black specks that came out of my legs and were always present in my socks, I would have definitely considered that I might be mentally ill.

My doctor, bless her heart, also felt the mole was unusual so she sent a biopsy to see if it was cancerous and this came back normal. After the crusty scab had fallen off, the ‘mole’ looked like a person had taken a fine black marker and hit the tip of the marker on my skin multiple times in the one area. I asked my doctor if she thought it could be possible that a bug had laid eggs there. She did not think so. She removed the skin tags on my back and prescribed some medication that she thought might help. The following day, she called me at home and told me not to take the anti-psychotropic drug she had prescribed, as she knew me well and felt I was not behaving in a manner that would indicate mental illness. She offered to help in any way she could.

It was time to move …

At this point, the crawling sensation I was experiencing during the day on my legs, followed me into my bed and this was the last straw. The only solution I could think of was to move out of this apartment. I threw out my mattress and any furniture that was material in nature. Without sharing all of the reasons for the move with my new landlord, I relocated a few blocks away. I treated my office chair with Permethrin and my mother gave me her mattress and box spring because she had intended to buy a new one for herself anyway.

On moving day, I was sitting around the kitchen table with family members who had helped. I was sitting on my office chair, when suddenly I felt like something large in size was grabbing my buttocks. I immediately switched chairs with my son who said he felt nothing. Fortunately, this did not occur again while I was sitting on the wooden kitchen chair. When they left, I threw out that perfectly good office chair and sat on a kitchen chair when working on my computer.

But the nightmare continued …

Here are a few of the things I did …

… I found a powder that could kill bird mites and applied it all over the apartment while wearing a mask. I found a noticeable difference after doing this, but it was not over yet.

… I took samples to the Health Unit on several occasions, but they only identify parasites as something they can see which have legs.

… I bought a magnifier, and asked family members to examine these little black specks and we came up with nothing. Again, all this did was confirm to everyone that I may have lost my ‘mind’.

… I bathed in a full tub of water with a half a cup of vinegar every night before bed, then washed the plastic mattress cover with straight vinegar. I got tired of soaking and washing my bedding in Permethrin, so eventually I just slept on the plastic mattress cover itself. All of this provided temporary relief and I could get a few hours sleep at night.

… I washed walls and ceilings and floors as often as I could especially in my bedroom. Internet research showed the behaviour of bird mites. Apparently at night they could come down from the ceiling and walls to find a human host.

… I developed bronchial pneumonia and was unable to attend my son’s College graduation ceremony. This was a very sad day for me. It is my belief, although I have never discussed it with them, that my family may have thought this diagnosis was also just a figment of my imagination. However, an emergency doctor had examined me and prescribed antibiotics in the form of puffers. He suggested I follow up with my family doctor to find out the reason for this as he did not understand why I had developed this condition. My family doctor sent me for tests to be sure my lungs had healed, and the results indicated there was no known reason for this bronchial pneumonia.

… I refused to have anyone enter my home in case they developed a similar condition. Again, known to be a social person, this was difficult for everyone to understand and even harder for me to enforce.

… I continued to soak clothing in Permethrin, and I bought an air purifier to see if that would help. I eventually traded the mattress I had been given by my mother for another mattress because I felt it too had become infected.

… In the summer months, whenever I was driving my car and the air was blowing on my bare legs, it felt like my lower legs were on fire. I had my son drive my car and he did not feel this. But just in case, I paid to have my car detailed and thoroughly cleaned which cost a lot of money. Even this did not resolve the problem.

As a last resort I booked an appointment on August 2, 2013, with Dr. A.W. Martin, at the Martin Clinic and Nutrition Centre in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. He is certified by the Examining Board of Natural Medicine Practitioners - in other words is known as a Doctor of Natural Medicine. My family doctor had done every test she knew to do without any concrete results. The day before my appointment, I was in tears when I called my daughter because I felt that this would be a waste of time and money. I felt that I just had to admit that I must be ‘crazy’. She advised me to go anyway because maybe he would find something. He was a Christian doctor and so I went and put the results in God’s hands.

NOTE: The words highlighted in red are Canadian spellings and not genuine errors ...