| Chuck, I don't know the name of the test my doctor's lab used. One of the young Army mycoplasma patients treated by my doctor (when he was a younger doctor) was terminal; the only treatment then was replacement of the entire blood of the individual by massive transfusion. This particular Army fellow was a member of a religious sect which opposed transfusion, and he refused the treatment --- and died. This had made such an impression on my doctor that, when he formed his own clinic with two other doctors many years later, they insisted that in their clinic the contract lab (put in by a large company which furnishes that lab service for doctors) include a mycoplasma test. So he was the only person and that was the only lab I could find that could actually administer such a test. I took the test (it's done by taking a blood sample, and then they use a spectroscope or something to identify the specific type antibodies present etc., thus identifying the particular mycoplasma --- there are hundreds of types of the critters). Knowing my background (loss of endurance mysteriously in Canada in 1968, and lasting for 33 years) he then knew what I had and diagnosed it as chronic mycoplasma infection. There is also some kind of DNA test for mycoplasma infection, but I could not find where to have such a test. Vague mention of "overseas labs" to send a properly prepared sample to was found, but that was all. Such tests were apparently used, however, in at least one series of studies on Gulf War Veterans with Gulf War Syndrome. A substantial fraction of the Gulf War Syndrome is apparently due to mycoplasma infection. Also, verbally I was told that a high percentage of persons diagnosed with "chronic fatigue syndrome" do have mycoplasma infection. I found a site on the web, for a Dr. Scott, who had quite a bit of information on this and had been very active in pursuing the cause of Gulf War Disease. That was the best I found, but have lost the web site (a Google search should easily find it again). I have talked on the phone to several suffering Gulf veterans and a couple of chronic fatigue cases, and recommended they find a lab to administer the mycoplasma test. At least one of them came here and had my doctor's lab do the test --- and bingo! Diagnosis confirmed. The antibiotic I'm taking is Azithromycin, and Doxycycline is also one that is recommended. I also have to take Atenolol for the runaway heart fibrillation that otherwise accompanies chronic mycoplasma infection once it has gone dormant (as in my case) for 20 or 30 years and then has resurged. The arthritis I developed along the way is also one of the symptomatic developments of such mycoplasma infection as well. My suggestion is that you do a good Google search on the web and stay with it, till you find Dr. Scott and several other persons active and knowledgeable in this area. Most of the doctors otherwise have no knowledge of the BW modification involvement in mycoplasma infection. The fact about the biowar testing was smoked out in some Senate hearings, and I think that Dr. Scott may have even testified in some of those. The Veteran's Administration appears to be fairly useless; they will send you lots of papers to fill out. On the phone, they admitted that at least one fellow knew what mycoplasia was, but would not admit to having a clinic that administered a mycoplasia test. I got onto the fact that I had mycoplasma, in a strange way. After the heart attack, still suffering from hypoxia and facing things such as potential strokes, etc., I was treated by the heart clinic. I still had no idea at all of what had hit me in 1968 in Canada, where my life was saved only by Herculean measures after three hospitalizations. The French doctors at Quebec had found that this "mysterious, unknown disease" for which no cause could be found, and which one in 300 of their abdominal patients had, was 100% lethal if no treatment was given. However, if they opened the chest and abdomen, and moved all the organs around for at least two hours or so, so that oxygen could get to everything, then half the patients so treated would survive, while half would still die. I know now that the oxygenation kills all the surface mycoplasma, leaving only those already buried up in the cells such as the red corpuscles. In the red cells, they feed off the hemoglobin liquid, hardening the hemoglobin and reducing its ability to take on oxygen by more than 50%. In other words, they severely reduce the functioning of your aerobic system. In the "open cavities oxygenation case", if one is lucky enough of the mycoplasma are killed that only a few already buried up inside cells remain. In that case, the buried mycoplasma lie dormant in the red cells for 20 or 30 years (in my case, 33), very slowly diffusing throughout the body into other cells, and then resurge one day suddenly, inducing heart attack, hypoxia, runaway heart fibrillation, strokes, etc. I was lucky enough to survive the resurgence also! Anyway, an old "spooky buddy" who checks on me about once a year called toward the end of the year, and upon discovering my situation, immediately informed me about the "biological warfare program that never existed" with respect to modifying mycoplasma. He urged me to check it out on the web, and also to go find a place and get the test. So that's how I found out what the devil I had. And he was absolutely "right on". That's how I wound up knowing what my ailment was, when the Heart Center doctors did not. And why I so adamantly sought out a test to confirm it or refute it. The standard heart clinic treatment is, in my opinion, also almost guaranteed to kill you, if you have the mycoplasma infection, because they will not prescribe oxygen to get you out of the hypoxia (unless you have clogging of the arteries, etc., which I do not have). They have to prescribe the medication for the fibrillation, otherwise it is life threatening within 48 hours and will kill you most certainly (strokes, brain damage, human vegetable, or death; none of them good choices!). The problem is that the Atenolol (mildest of several such fibrillation control medications, which I call "heart clampers") reduces the heart pumping magnitude as well as controlling the fibrillations. This "heart clamping" further reduces the blood flow volume pumped, which further reduces the oxygen you get, which puts you right back into the tough hypoxia again. So without the oxygen for occasional use as needed to stay up out of the depths of the hypoxia, either the fibrillation gets you into sufficient hypoxia to generate the strokes and heart attacks to kill you, or the medication does. My response was to fight the system. Medicare would not pay for my oxygen (the tests "show" I've got the right amount of blood flow, right number of red cells, no clogging of the arteries, etc. so except for the fibrillation the bureaucrats say "you're not sick!" Anyway, I pay for the oxygen and my doctor was willing to write the prescription. He just could not get medicare to pay for it. Which is okay by me. One of these days I'll visit my Senator and Congressman, and explain that many of the Gulf veterans with mycoplasia are potentially being killed by conventional heart treatment procedures, and by medicare and the medical community not including mycoplasia as one of the real causes of severe heart and hypoxia difficulties and not recognizing the need for remedial portable oxygen in addition to the usual treatment, even if the patient has no clogging of the arteries etc. The procedures that the doctors should use for long loss of endurance heart patients is to test for chronic mycoplasma infection, and if found and confirmed, to prescribe remedial oxygen as well as the continuous antibiotics and the heart fibrillation control medication. That's about all I can tell you. I'm on the antibiotic for at least a year, and possibly longer. The only time the mycoplasma entities are vulnerable is when a red cell wears out and dies and is replaced. The critter comes out of the dying cell to re-infect the replacement cell as a new host, so the antibiotics --- if constantly in your bloodstream --- will kill it then while it is exposed. Otherwise, the antibiotic cannot reach it or affect it. Apparently little else can either. In short, I've had the infection so long that everything --- red cells, brain cells, you name it -- is apparently involved. We either get it cured this way, with this lengthy treatment, or it's probably terminal (diagnosis of death will be stroke, brain damage, heart attack, etc. which will legitimately have happened. Nothing about mycoplasia will even be listed or addressed). I do have good hopes and chance for a remission and even a high degree of cure. So that's the story, and I share it with others who may be inadvertently facing the same thing. My strong advice, if these symptoms are familiar, is to discuss it with your trusted family doctor, and find out where you can take a mycoplasma test. Then get one. Then do whatever you have to do to also get the adjunctive oxygen treatment with your doctor's prescription, even if you have to pay for the oxygen yourself. Very best wishes, Tom Bearden
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