The Giant's Shoulders

He found the sign, I found the agent.

A pathologist who understood the value of careful systematic observation, took the time to examine, post-mortem, every patient at his hospital whose cause of death was listed as Alzheimer's. That patient, thoughtful man is responsible for the foundation of this discovery. He found that these patients all had notable ridges in their fingernails. 

I found that my mite caused fingernail ridges, and went looking for what I assumed was an already known cause, and found his paper. (Can't find it at present. Will post when I do.) His observation led me to look for concurrences between my observations of infection with my mite and what we know about Alzheimer's, to see if the deduction that my mite caused Alzheimer's found support in them. I found that it did.

Alzheimer's and mite infection share elevated cytokines. My mite shrinks tissue it is living on. The brain shrinks in Alzheimer's. My mite has different iron metabolism, and appears dark with iron in death. In human tissue, my mite looks like a tiny shred of cellophane, or a flat, white spot of goo. Alzheimer's has plaques, the formation of which has never been explained. My mite fuses with and tangles the growth pattern of human tissue. 

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Comment: If the taxonomists do adopt a new name for these creatures, it should go to that guy. (If it was a woman, I will be grievously embarrassed.)

The Path Shortcut

My assertion is that these creatures are responsible for two big sources of human suffering: Alzheimer's and bed/pressure sores. Learning to see them is a substantial task. I'm extremely visual, and have that gift of being able to imagine three dimensional objects while rotating them in space, and it took me over a year to begin to feel confident that I could explain what I was getting in my digital microscope images. Using this blog to teach this a couple of images at a time is going to take a while. Too long.

For the good of all beings, then, here follows a brutally short version of my logic: These creatures are both common and unappreciated, and therefore infections with them get misidentified as other illnesses. In the mouth and external vaginal area they get misidentified as lichen planus and lichen sclerosus. My assertion on Alzheimer's is that the white patches in these diseases are patches of these mites, and that this infection can reach the brain via the eyes and sinuses.

Camouflaged as Goo

Mite on tip of toothpick MKB 2014

The washed and stained samples in previous posts are a little bit tough to appreciate as mites, but not terribly.  This is how they look fresh caught from mucus membranes, covered in their own and the host's secretions. This is why this thing evades appreciation so easily.

Why a blog?

I wanted very much to write a proper science paper on this discovery and made some beginning steps toward that. But I am disabled, with limited stamina. It became obvious to me that that goal was  beyond reach.

More than anything, the cost of suffering from this thing weighs on me. Each day it goes unappreciated is another day of unnecessary suffering from it. 

It may be a crude tool for communicating an important scientific idea, but it is one  I can use, on my phone, from my bed.

The Toe of the Learning Curve

The creatures in this image are easier to appreciate visually as mites than most in the images I have to share. These are prepared: stained dark and washed. To imagine them as they normally appear in wet tissue, imagine them transparent and colorless, about the size of a comma in 12 point type, or slightly larger, and coated with shiny secretions and perhaps leucocytes. They look like tiny shreds of cellophane. 

Treatments

Mites as a class are tough creatures, and mine are just so and more. They are sensitive to chitenases, plant phenols and salicylates. Externally, laurel sulfate detergent, especially combined with citrus oil (d-limonene)  is very helpful.  Much more work needs to be done to find the best curatives and preventatives for infection with these creatures.

Data for Cites

Data for cites: 

orcid.org/0000-0002-7596-40

Moderation

As time goes on, to the extent that my discovery is true or useful, people will show up with comments or questions in the comments here. I  may or may not choose to answer in the comments. More likely I will pen a new post. I will, however, rather ruthlessly moderate the comments. Particularly, ad hominems are verboten. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

The Edifice

Am I discouraged by the huge edifice of institutionalized Alzheimer's research in which I share no credentials or connections, which hasn't found what I have? 

I was. But as I went on, the logic of my discovery became more and more persuasive. Once it began to seem obvious to me, I saw the edifice of institutionalized Alzheimer's research differently. I saw its years of magnificently institutionalized but fruitless research as evidence of a categorical error. 

So, no, not any longer. 

Why no name for your creature?

The people who name these things can reasonably be expected to fight over the naming of it at least until the international authority on such matters issues a declaration, if not longer.

I believe that it is important for me to remain neutral on the matter. Earlier on in my process of discovery, when I assumed that I was looking for something already discovered, I jumped to premature conclusions on the taxonomic naming of this creature. It was a bad mistake. People would correctly refute the identification. This led them, then, to mistakenly believe that they had refuted the discovery, and left me absent another understanding soul.

Therefore, I have learned that it is important in respect of this discovery not to venture an identification. That is not the point. The maladies this thing causes, and the human suffering they cause, are the point. 

As to the identification of this beast, I don't have a dog in that fight. 

Why "a" vs "the" cause of Alzheimer's?

I describe my discovery as "a cause of Alzheimer's" rather than "the cause of Alzheimer's" not because I doubt that my discovery is the common cause of Alzheimer's, but because I am not in any position to rule out other causes. 

In such a case, to declare it a cause, rather than the clause, is simply to observe due argumentative caution. 

How Crazy Am I?

Doesn't matter.

To the extent that my discovery is true or useful, it will have explanatory power. To the extent that it has explanatory power, it should be used for the good of all beings.

Another washed and stained sample mite.

What's been eating me, a blog. WBEM

The purpose of this blog is to publish my discovery of a cause of Alzheimer's, an un- or under- appreciated parasitic mite which is exquisitely adapted to the human host, and hard to appreciate visually.