Disseminated Histoplasmosis -- An Airborne Infectious Disease You Must Know About!

by Susan
(Dallas, Fort Worth )

Hello, I’d like to share information I learned during my workplace’s outbreak of a serious airborne infectious disease that can cause malignancies, precancerous conditions, rheumatological diseases, connective tissue diseases, heart disease, autoimmune symptoms, inflammation in organs/tissues, seizures, migraines, mood swings, hallucinations, and more - and is often undiagnosed/misdiagnosed in people who are considered immunocompetent.

80-90+% of people in some areas have been infected with this disease, and it can lay dormant for up to 40 years in the lungs and/or adrenals. My coworkers and I - all immunocompetent - got Disseminated Histoplasmosis in Dallas-Fort Worth from roosting bats, the most abundant non-human mammal in the U.S. Bats shed this disease/fungus in their feces. The doctors said we couldn’t possibly have it since we all had intact and normal functioning immune systems.

They were wrong!

Healthy people can get this disease too, with widely varying symptoms. And none of us developed immunity to it over time either. We'd get better and then progressively worse, relapsing periodically and concurrently every year.

More than 100 outbreaks of this disease have occurred in the U.S. since 1938. And those are just the ones that were figured out, since people all go to different doctors. One outbreak infected over 100,000 victims in Indianapolis. It’s known to cause hematological malignancies and some doctors even claim their leukemia patients go into remission when given simple antifungal treatments. My friend in another state who died from lupus lived across the street from a bat colony. An acquaintance with alopecia, and whose mother had a degenerative brain disorder, has bat houses on her property. In my view, there's too much smoke for there not to be at least a little fire.

Researchers claim this sub acute type of fungus is more common than first believed. It’s known to at least “mimic” autoimmune diseases and cancer and is known to give false-positives in PET scans. But no one diagnosed with an autoimmune disease or cancer is ever 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 patients never are. Other doctors are claiming sarcoidosis IS disseminated histoplasmosis. So what if this infection that made me and my coworkers so ill, isn't actually that rare in immunocompetent people? What if it's just the diagnosis that's rare, since most doctors apparently ignore it?

This harmful pathogen parasitizes the reticuloendothelial system and invades macrophages. It can infect and affect the lymphatic system and all tissues/organs, along with causing inflammation, granulomas, and idiopathic (unknown cause) diseases and conditions - some of which include hematological malignancies, autoimmune symptoms, myelitis, myositis, vasculitis, panniculitis, dysplasia and hyperplasia. It also causes hypervascularization, calcifications, sclerosis, fibrosis, necrosis, eosinophilia, leukopenia, anemia, neutrophilia, pancytopenia, thrombocytopenia, hypoglycemia, cysts, abscesses, polyps, stenosis, perforations, GI problems, hepatitis and focal neurologic deficits. In addition to these, Disseminated Histoplasmosis may cause comorbid, with other diseases such as depression/anxiety/MS linked to this fungal infection.

The fungus that causes Disseminated Histoplasmosis 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. This results in RNA/DNA damage, particularly to the brain, and in turn produces delusions, wild mood swings (pseudobulbar affect), and hallucinations. This fungus is most potent in female lactating bats, because the fungus likes sugar (lactose) and nitrogen (amino acids, protein, neurotransmitters). So what about female lactating humans who suffer from postpartum psychosis? Could there be a connection to them in regards to this fungal infection?

Bats give birth late in spring/summer, and I've noticed that suicide rates also spike in late spring/early summer. This fungus is also known to cause retinal detachment, and retinal detachments are known to peak around June-July in hot weather. A map of mental distress and the development of certain diseases appear to almost perfectly overlay a map of Histoplasmosis. 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. Bats eat moths, which are attracted to blue and white city lights (that simulate the moon). The moths use this light to navigate. Interestingly, 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 56° F.

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. And what about the unknown cause and reason why beta receptor blockers produce tardive dyskinesia? Then you have tinnitus, photophobia and psychosis “caused” by Cipro? Hypersexuality and leukemia “caused” by Abilify? Humira linked to lymphoma, leukemia and melanoma in children? All possible connections to this fungus perhaps?

Disseminated Histoplasmosis is known to cause enteropathy, so could some people thought to have nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug enteropathy have this fungus and be taking NSAIDs for the pain/inflammation it causes - and the NSAIDs aren’t the actual culprit? From my experience, I've learned that NO doctor, at least in Dallas Fort Worth, will suspect subacute and/or progressive disseminated histoplasmosis in immunocompetent people.

Disseminated Histoplasmosis -- An Airborne Infectious Disease You Must Know About Continued...

Some doctors, at least the ones I went to, will actually REFUSE to test for it, even when told someone (and all 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 having hypochondriasis (being a hypochondriac). In fact, the first doctor to diagnose me was a pulmonologist, and the only reason he examined me was to try and prove that I didn’t have the disease! No doctor I went to even realized that bats carry the fungus. And NO doctor I went to in Dallas Fort Worth, even infectious disease “experts,” understand the DISSEMINATED form, only the pulmonary form. And the only test that will be done by most doctors before they diagnose people as NOT having Disseminated Histoplasmosis is an X-ray, even though at least 40-70% of victims will have no sign of it on a lung X-ray. Disseminated Histoplasmosis often gives false-negatives in lab tests (some people are correctly diagnosed only during an autopsy after obtaining negative test results) and cultures may not show growth until after 12 weeks of incubation (some labs do report results after only 2 weeks).

One disease of unknown cause that could be the result of Disseminated Histoplasmosis, I suspect, based on myself and my coworker’s symptoms (during our “rare” infectious disease outbreak) and my own research, is interstitial cystitis and its comorbid conditions. This disease causes inflammation throughout the body and produces “autoimmune” symptoms. And it's not as rare as you think it is. 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 actually produce 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 pose that the conditions may share the same etiology and pathology.

Actually sounds like Disseminated Histoplasmosis to me?

My coworkers and I were always most ill around April/May/June, presumably since the Mexican Free-tail bats give birth in Texas during May, and fall We had GI problems, liver problems, weird rashes (erythema nodosum, erythema multiforme, erythema annulare, etc.) and plantar fasciitis. I had swollen lymph nodes, hives, lesions, abdominal aura, and started getting migraines and plantar fasciitis while working in the building, yet I haven’t had any of them since I left. It gave me temporary fecal incontinence, seizures, dark blood from my intestines, tinnitus, nystagmus, benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, 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, temporary blindness, and chronic spontaneous “orgasms”/convulsions.

Suddenly I was also allergic to pears (latex fruit allergy). I had insomnia (presumably from the fungus acidifying the blood, releasing adrenaline) and parasomnias. I suddenly had symptoms of several inflammatory/autoimmune diseases, including Fibromyalgia, Sarcoidosis, ALS, MS and Sjogren’s syndrome that have all disappeared since I left the area and started taking Itraconazole antifungal. No one, including doctors (we all went to different doctors) could figure out what was wrong with us. I was actually being killed by my doctor, who refused to believe I had it and gave me progressively higher and higher doses of Prednisone (at least 2 years after I already had Disseminated Histoplasmosis).

There’s a lot more. I wrote a book about my experience with Disseminated Histoplasmosis called “Batsh#t Crazy”, because bats shed the fungus in their feces. (You can view the book here)

Hope you find this interesting and at least look into this disease further.

Thank you for your time,
Susan McIntyre.