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Hello,
I can't remember if I already contacted you but this common but overlooked airborne pathogen is known to cause rheumatological syndromes (during a large outbreak of over 100,000 victims in Indianapolis) and this type of microorganism has been suspected for decades to cause gout:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f1b7/6b287b9595328716016b6815473714e3e532.pdf
Some online documents state this cancer-causing, mental illness-inducing airborne pathogen that can cause so many idiopathic diseases/conditions/symptoms is not zoonotic. That's wrong! It's carried by bats and shed in their feces. The bats even evolved to deal with the photophobia and tinnitus the pathogen causes by hunting at night by echolocation.
My coworkers and I, all immunocompetent, got Disseminated Histoplasmosis from roosting bats, that shed the fungus in their feces. The doctors said we couldn't possibly have it, since we all had intact immune systems. The doctors were wrong.
This underdiagnosed airborne infectious disease mimics the flu and can cause hematological malignancies, precancerous conditions, rheumatological diseases, connective tissue diseases, heart disease, autoimmune symptoms, inflammation, adrenal insufficiency, seizures, migraines, hydrocephalus, hallucinations, etc., etc. etc. and is often undiagnosed/misdiagnosed in immunocompetent people.
More than 100 outbreaks have occurred in the U.S. since 1938, and those are just the ones that were figured out, since people go to different doctors. One outbreak was over 100,000 victims in Indianapolis. 80-90+% of people in some areas have been infected, and it can lay dormant for up to 40 years in the lungs and/or adrenals.
It's known to cause hematological malignancies, and some doctors claim their leukemia patients go into remission when given antifungal. My friend in another state who died from lupus lived across the street from a bat colony. An acquaintance with alopecia universalis and whose mother had degenerative brain disorder has bat houses on their property.
Researchers claim the subacute type is more common than believed and that many children in California have the subacute form. It's known to at least “mimic” autoimmune diseases and cancer and known to give false-positives in PET scans. But no one diagnosed with an autoimmune disease or cancer is screened for it. In fact, at least one NIH paper states explicitly that all patients diagnosed with sarcoidosis be tested for it, but most, if not all, are not. Other doctors are claiming sarcoidosis IS disseminated histoplasmosis.
What if this infection, that made us so ill, isn't rare in immunocompetent people? What if just the diagnosis is rare, since most doctors ignore it?
Older documents state people who spend a lot of time in a building with roosting bats and in caves are known to get Disseminated Histoplasmosis, but the info appears to have been lost, for the most part. And now bat conservationists encourage people to leave bats in buildings/homes. What a terrible mistake they've made.
This pathogen parasitizes the reticuloendothelial system/invades macrophages, can infect and affect the lymphatic system and all tissues/organs, causes inflammation, granulomas, and idiopathic (unknown cause) diseases and conditions, including hematological malignancies, autoimmune symptoms, myelitis, myositis, vasculitis, panniculitis, dysplasia, hyperplasia, etc. It causes hypervascularization, calcifications, sclerosis, fibrosis, necrosis, eosinophilia, leukopenia, anemia, neutrophilia, pancytopenia, thrombocytopenia, hypoglycemia, cysts, abscesses, polyps, stenosis, perforations, GI problems, hepatitis, focal neurologic deficits, etc.
Many diseases it might cause are comorbid with other diseases it might cause, for example depression/anxiety/MS linked to Crohn's. (It's known to “mimic” inflammatory bowel disease.)
The fungus is an Oxygenale and therefore consumes collagen. It's known to cause connective tissue diseases (Myxomatous degeneration?), rheumatological conditions, seizures, and mental illness. Fungal hyphae carry an electrical charge and align under a current. It causes RNA/DNA damage. It's known to cause delusions, wild mood swings (pseudobulbar affect?), and hallucinations. It's most potent in female lactating bats, because the fungus likes sugar (lactose) and nitrogen (amino acids, protein, neurotransmitters?), releasing lactase and proteinases to obtain them. What about female lactating humans…postpartum psychosis (and don't some of these poor women also have trouble swallowing)? The bats give birth late spring/summer, and I noticed suicide rates spike in late spring/early summer. It's known to cause retinal detachment, and retinal detachments are known to peak around June-July/in hot weather. A map of mental distress and some diseases appear to almost perfectly overlay a map of Histoplasmosis. Cancer is known to occur more often near rivers than in mountains or deserts, just like this infection. Johns Hopkins linked autism to an immune response in the womb. Alzheimer's was linked to hypoglycemia, which can be caused by chronic CNS histoplasmosis.
The bats eat moths, which are attracted to blue and white city lights that simulate the moon the moths use to navigate, so diseases in cities would be expected to increase. Bats feed up to 500 feet in the air and six miles away in any direction from their roost, but not when it's raining or when the temperature is less than approximately 56° F. The fungus can grow in bird feces, but birds don't carry it because their body temperature is too high, killing the fungus.
I believe the “side effects” of Haldol (leukopenia and MS symptoms) might not always be side effects but just more symptoms of Disseminated Histoplasmosis, since it causes leukopenia and MS symptoms. What about the unknown reason why beta receptor blockers cause tardive dyskinesia? The tinnitus, photophobia, psychosis “caused” by Cipro? Hypersexuality and leukemia “caused” by Abilify? Humira linked to lymphoma, leukemia and melanoma in children? Disseminated Histoplasmosis is known to cause enteropathy, so could some people thought to have nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug enteropathy have it and taking NSAIDs for the pain/inflammation it causes, and the NSAIDs aren't the actual culprit?
From my experience, I learned that NO doctor, at least in DFW, will suspect subacute and/or progressive disseminated histoplasmosis in immunocompetent people. Some doctors, at least the ones I went to, will actually REFUSE to test for it, even when told someone and their coworkers have all the symptoms and spend a lot of time in a building with bats in the ceiling. Victims will be accused of hypochondriasis. (My doctors told me only farmer's or AIDS patients get it, it's only in bird feces, and it always infects the lungs...wrong, wrong, and wrong!) In fact, the first doctor to diagnose me was a pulmonologist, and the only reason he examined me was to try to prove that I didn't have it, when I really did. No doctor I went to realized bats carry the fungus. And NO doctor I went to in DFW, even infectious disease “experts, ” understand the DISSEMINATED form, just the pulmonary form, and the only test that will be done by many doctors before they diagnose people as NOT having it is an X-ray, even though at least 40-70% of victims will have NO sign of it on a lung X-ray. It OFTEN gives false-negatives in lab tests (some people are correctly diagnosed only during an autopsy, if then, after obtaining negative test results) and cultures may not show growth until after 6-12 weeks of incubation (but some labs report results after 2 weeks).
One disease of unknown cause that could be caused by Disseminated Histoplasmosis: I suspect, based on my and my coworker's symptoms (during our “rare” infectious disease outbreak) and my research, that interstitial cystitis and its comorbid conditions can be caused by disseminated histoplasmosis, which causes inflammation throughout the body, causes “autoimmune” symptoms, and is not as rare as believed. I read that “interstitial cystitis (IC) is a chronic inflammatory condition of the submucosal and muscular layers of the bladder, and the cause is currently unknown. Some people with IC have been diagnosed with other conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, allergies, and Sjogren's syndrome, which raises the possibility that interstitial cystitis may be caused by mechanisms that cause these other conditions. In addition, men with IC are frequently diagnosed as having chronic nonbacterial prostatitis, and there is an extensive overlap of symptoms and treatment between the two conditions, leading researchers to posit that the conditions may share the same etiology and pathology.” Sounds like Disseminated Histoplasmosis, doesn't it?
My coworkers and I were always most ill around May, presumably since the Mexican Free-tail bats gave birth in Texas during May (and the fungus was most potent), and late fall/Thanksgiving to December, for some unknown reason (maybe migrating bats from the north?). We had GI problems, liver problems, weird rashes (erythema nodosum, erythema multiforme, erythema marginatum/annulare, etc.), plantar fasciitis, etc., and I had swollen lymph nodes, hives, lesions, abdominal aura, and started getting migraines and plantar fasciitis in the building, and I haven't had them since I left. It gave me temporary fecal incontinence, seizures, dark blood from my intestines, tinnitus, nystagmus, blurry vision/floaters/flashes of light, benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, isolated diastolic hypertension, what felt like burning skin, various aches and pains (some felt like pin pricks and pinches), tingling, tremors, "explosions" like fireworks in my head while sleeping, and temporary blindness. Suddenly I was allergic to Comice pears (latex fruit allergy or oral allergy syndrome?). I had insomnia (presumably from the fungus acidifying the blood, releasing adrenaline) and parasomnias. It felt like strong bursts of electrical shocks or steady electrical currents in my body, which now feel like low electrical currents at times, mostly at night. I was always worse at night (because bats are feeding? Or maybe because fungus follows a circadian rhythm?).
I suddenly had symptoms of several inflammatory/autoimmune diseases, including Fibromyalgia, Sarcoidosis, ALS, MS, Sjogren's syndrome, etc. that have disappeared since leaving the area and taking nothing but Itraconazole antifungal. No one, including doctors (we all went to different ones), could figure out what was wrong with us, and I was being killed by my doctor, who mistakenly refused to believe I had it and gave me progressively higher and higher doses of Prednisone (2 years after I already had Disseminated Histoplasmosis) after a positive ANA titer, until I miraculously remembered that a visiting man once told my elementary school class that bats CARRY histoplasmosis. There's a lot more. I wrote a book about my experience with Disseminated Histoplasmosis called “Batsh#t Crazy, ” (now you know where that term, “bats in the attic/belfry, ” and “going batty” came from) because bats shed the fungus in their feces and it causes delusions and hallucinations, I suspect by the sclerotia fungal mycelia can form emitting hallucinogens (like psilocybin and dimethyltryptamine) along with inflammation in the CNS. (Schizophrenics have 2X of a chemical associated with yeast, part of the fungal life cycle.)
Thank you for your time,
Susan McIntyre
P.S. Doesn't this infection share all the same symptoms with Gulf War Syndrome?
