Question: Hi. I am a 30 yr old female and I have a 10 month old daughter. I have had a dull achy lower back for about 10 yrs but nothing too serious. About 6 months ago i had a sudden onset of severe lower back pain that radiated into my sides and abdomen, and also into my legs. I also started having severe pain and swelling in all of my joints, especially my knees, ankles, and wrists. I had an MRI done and was diagnosed with severe degenerative disc disease/ bulging discs with ruptured tissue/sciatica and told that I probably had rheumatoid arthritis, although no testing was done for that. Shortly after that sudden onset, my daughter and I both started experiencing the following... Her stool is normal except it is filled with lots of tiny hairs/fibers (she is on formula only due food allergies), and also a few black specks resembling pepper. There are also some of these same hairs/fibers all over her skin/inside of clothing, which causes her to constantly itch and scratch at herself. She also has a terrible diaper rash that is raw/weepy/bloody that has been treated several times by several drs, not to mention the hundreds of dollars i have spent on store bought diaper rash remedies, none of which have cleared up the rash. Most of them actually made it worse. The only thing that seems to help just a tiny bit is regular old neosporin, but it only helps the bloody spots, not the rash itself. She also is still not crawling, and seems to have a problem with her legs/knees/muscles, which her drs are currently looking into. My stools are almost black in color, come out as individual pieces like rocks, are very hard/dry, covered in mucus (some of which is bloody), have hairs/fibers/white globs that resemble steak fat/thin pieces that resemble the skin of a piece of corn/bean. I have a very poor appetite (I barely eat every other day, usually a bowl of cereal or a fast food burger), but I am addicted to chocolate milk and drink about a gallon of it every 2 days. I am on buprenorphine for the lower back pain/sciatica, which has always caused constipation but not the other abnormalities in my stool. I have the same hairs/fibers that appear all over my body (skin) out of nowhere, even freshly showered without even touching a towel. I have started getting lesions on my arms (especially hands), legs, chest, breasts, and stomach. I am also extremely, extremely fatigued and feel like I have been particularly clumsy and foggy brained lately. I went to 2 different drs. The first time I was treated for pinworms, the second time for scabies. Neither dr performed any tests, only heard my symptoms and looked at my skin. They both seemed like they thought I was on drugs and just diagnosed as they did to get me out of there. I do not currently use drugs, I have in the past (i used to be bad off, i did anything and everything, intraveinously) but its been 6 years since ive used. Whenever my daughter or I have a spot that itches, after we scratch there is what seems to be like glitter, along with the fibers that ive mentioned. I have examined these fibers under a 40x magnifier. They are always either black or clear almost plastic looking, and the clear ones are iridescent. Googling our symptoms leads me to Morgellans disease, but most of the articles are controversial, some saying its neurological/psychological, and the others saying its an actual disease where your body produces/excretes these fibers, although there still is no cause nor cure. I am certain that in our case, it is not neurological, as my family and friends all see the same symptoms that I do. So my question is, first, what is your opinion... Is there some other logical explanation for our symptoms? Second, if Morgellans is "real", are all of our symptoms, including our stools, my back/joint/leg pain, and most importantly her rash, caused by the disease? Will any dr recognize Morgellans as a real disease and treat us accordingly? Is there anything you can recommend to help alleviate some of our symptoms in the mean time?