Wearing Wet Socks?

If you read my book, "How to Get Your Life Back from Morgellons, Chronic Lyme, and Other Skin Parasites," and been following the updates published in our blog, you'll see that Collembola, spring tails, typically infest your feet, ankle area, and lower legs. It often feels like something is jumping on your lower legs and ankle area but, unlike fleas, you can't see anything. They itch relentlessly and feel like they are biting - sometimes it feels like the bite is to your bone. A few hours after being infested with them it can feel like your lower legs, ankles, and feet are hamburger meat being eaten away at.

They end up infesting your shoes, socks, and bedding. In fact, anyplace within 8 or so inches of where your lower legs are - floors, cars, office space, furniture, toilet area, counters you stand in front of, and so on. All of this can happen within 24 hours or less. And, if you don't know how to curtail them, they move up your body. They seem to love the back of your scalp, your back around the shoulder blades and eye-lashes where you end up with a crusty feeling. Again, if you don't know how to curtail them, lesions appear and it seems that they become systemic and without the diet, no matter what you throw at them matters. They just get worse and worse.

Besides the King Diet™ it's important to clean them out of your skin. Bathing up to three times a day with Nature's Gift Debriding Soap (NG) plus foot baths, and in some cases, finger baths, with NG and a disinfectant for hours at a time. But, when you go to bed or go to work, within hours you may be dismayed as you begin feeling activity. This is where you apply one of the NG creams, or diluted body wipe for some relief. But, sometimes it's just not enough.

Because they are difficult to get out of your socks that can be a cause for reinfection, about a year ago I suggested going sockless until you had your life back. Seems that may have not been the best advise. In fact it's probably much better to continue wearing socks - but not dry socks. Remember, the idea is to keep the affected skin submerged in NG as long as possible? So, turn your socks inside out and squirt the NG Mouth Wash/Body Wipe on both sides of the socks to make them fairly wet - but not drenched. Then put them on right side out. So, effectively, you'll be waking in a foot bath of sorts as it may take a couple hours for them to to dry.

This might also be an alternative to wearing riding boots outside where ever you might become infested. Remember riding boots are about 14" high - too high for Collembola to jump.

Now, the next subject:

Sleeping With Socks On

Among the great rivalries of all time: Coke versus Pepsi, McDonalds versus Burger King, Red Sox versus Yankees … and sock-sleepers versus barefoot-sleepers.   Turns out, sleeping with your socks on is a net positive for overall quality of sleep and aids in falling asleep faster.  Socks help your feet warm up quicker, which in turn dilates the blood vessels in your feet, which in many studies correlates to a signal being to sent to your brain that it’s time to switch off, and doze off to sleep.

A couple recent sleep studies have shown sock-sleepers to fall asleep up to 40% faster then barefoot-sleepers.  Now, if only Burger King could make fries that taste as good as McDonalds.

Here again, bedding can be a source of reinfection. Say, you just took a foot bath and go to bed. Around 3 am you awaken and feel some activity around your ankles or lower legs. You get up and take an hour long foot bath, but now your bedding has been contaminated and you don't want to awaken your spouse to spray ammonia on the sheets. At this point some use garbage bags. Yes, that's right garbage bags. They put their feet inside and pull up the garbage bag as far as they can - about two feet - draw the string and sleep with the garbage bag around their feet. Don't laugh! It works as they don't get reinfected from the sheets. But let's put the two ideas above together. After your foot bath of an hour or so, invert a pair of socks, wet with Mouth Wash/Body Wipe and put them on your feet. Again, it's like continuing the foot bath for another couple hours as they dry and hopefully you'll get the benefits of sleeping with your socks on as explained in the previous paragraph. Certainly should be better than a garbage bag around your legs. Can you imagine waking up and forgetting the garbage bag is around your feet? Danger for certain.

And the final benefit, wearing and sleeping with your socks slightly soaked in NG will most likely keep them from getting infested creating another night mare. And, it will also help keep the insides of your shoes from getting contaminated.