Mysterious Skin Disease Causes Itching, Loose Fibers

July 28, 2006 — -- Imagine your skin burning and itching, and feeling like bugs are crawling under or on top of it.

Imagine having open sores on your face and body. Then imagine having stringlike fibers literally coming out of your skin.

That's exactly what patients with a mysterious illness called Morgellons disease say happens to them.

Anne Dill is just one of thousands of patients across the country who suffer from these strange symptoms.

Sometimes it feels as if there's something moving under her scalp, she said, and fibers come out of her skin.

"There's this fibrous material," Dill said. "It's in layers. It's -- I feel like it isolates itself. I think there's pockets of it."

Dill said she was reluctant to talk about the illness because she knew that some people would think she was crazy.

"Oh, I know, because right away that's what I know that they're gonna say. 'Uh, there's no such thing,'" Dill said.

That's exactly what most doctors do say: As far as they know, Morgellons is not a recognized disease, at this point, at least.

"I've seen colors of some of these fibers. Some of them are bright blue," said Dr. Vincent De Leo, program director of the dermatology department at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York.