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[laurajit]

I've had something wrong with me for around 5 years.  I started getting skin lesions around 3-4 years ago; it's hard to recall exactly when it started.  I kept telling people there was something in the lesions that was coming out and it was black.  Most medical people thought I was nuts even though I am a medical person, a RN.  An infectious diseases doctor suspected it several months ago but my cultures kept coming back negative till now.  I also had a negative biopsy.  Right now I have a culture that is positive for a fungus but the exact fungus hasn't been determined yet--I will have final results the first week of February sometime.  I started taking anti-fungal medicine a few days ago and it's already starting to look a little better.  I have a huge lesion on my abdomen, a small one just below my belly button, and I did have a big one on my chin.  I had surgery to remove the one on my chin--following the surgery most of the black fungal stuff came out and it healed.  This has been an ordeal.  I am relieved beyond words that it seems it's finally going to get better.  Two of them also became infected with MRSA.  I was so ill at one point that I could only stay out of bed for around an hour at a time then I had to go take a nap.  Somehow I've managed to keep my job (I work at a desk job--a regular hospital nurse's job would have been impossible for me).

[Sue]

wow! What an ordeal you have been going through!  And you are a RN!  Let us know what the lab results are in February.  What is MRSA?  I'm so glad you are doing better, finally.  I can't imagine FIVE years of not knowing what you had!  What is the name of the anti-fungal medicine that you are taking?  Well, good luck, it looks like you are on the road to recovery, finally.
Sue
Northwest Illinois

[laurajit]

MRSA is methicillin resistant staph.  It's a bacterial infection that's resitant to most medications.  I must admit picking at the lesion on my abdomen because I thought it had something in it, like a splinter or something, and I got it infected.  Black things (apparently the fungus) kept coming out of it.  I think several of the doctors I saw thought I was nuts (there's something called Munchauesn's Syndrome where people induce thier own illnesses in various ways just to get attention).  Only one of them came right out and said he thought it was all in my head and I was FURIOUS.  I am on ketoconazole right now (prescribed by my family doctor) and the lesions are getting much better.  I am going to see an infectious diseases specialist in the morning at the University of KY to see if she thinks that's the best medicine, etc.  The lab results still aren't back.  I just know for sure that it's a fungal infection. 

[Connie]

I had blasotmycosis about 8 years ago. The hospital in my area could not find anything from my biopsy or other testing. I was sent to Toronto Ontario ( I am Canadian). The biopsy taken showed something else at first then 2 days after said I had blastomycosis. After being returned home to the hospital in my home city, biopsies and testing were done and they still could not tell I had the blastomycosis even though they knew what I had. All my testing had to be sent somewhere else and when I came out of the hospital I had to go back to Toronto for further biopsies and testing till it was all gone. Perhaps the hospital there hasn't got the equipment sophisticated enough to pick up blastomycosis.
Connie