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[sbailey]

The Blastomycosis started back in 2003 for my mother. She first went to the doctor thinking she had a really bad cold due to her coughing. They took a chest x-ray at this time to see if there was any fuilds in her lungs. This showed a mass in her lung. They believed it to be cancer. While on the table they did an open lung biopsy, that reveiled that it was actually blastomycosis, so they didn't take the lung as planned. They treated her with antibiotics and after a about a year sent her on her way. In 2005 she started to get really bad headaches, they thought the cause of this was from her neck. She has had several neck surgeys, most years ago. After some searching they found a small mass in her ceriblum. The blastomycosis was back. They did brain surgey to remove it and again put her on antibiotics for another year and told her that she was in the clear. Now in 2008 about a month ago she had a sore on her left hand that she treated and went away. About a week ago 2 more showed up, one on each of her hands. They became very painful quickly, which led her to the ER 2 days ago. The doctor said its blastomycosis of the skin. Last night she ended up at the ER again due to the swelling on the one hand to the point that she can't use her fingers. They are keeping her overnight and  She has been started back on antibiotics as of yesterday.
 We live in Crystal Lake, IL. near a park where in 2003 they were doing constrution. That is where I believe she got it from. It's really sad on how many doctors don't know about blastomycosis, one tryed to tell her she had a form of herpes. I just found this website this evening while doing some research for my mother, so thank you all for sharing your stories. i know that when my mother gets home it will make her feel better that she is not alone, like everyone leads her to believe.

[sequinnw]

I am sorry to hear about your mom.  I am wondering why the doctors are not prescribing an antifungal to treat her infection?.  You can also find information, research, and testing information from MiraVista Labs: 
http://www.miravistalabs.com/

[evayola]

I am sorry to hear about your mom. What a tradegy that these doctors have put her through all this. Like the prior post asked, why antibiotics and not anitfungals? The only way to kill the blasto is with antifungals. Although it was my dog that went through blasto, I am still here for any support you many need. There is a great group of people on the animals side but I do know that we all read the human posts as well. Tell your mom to keep her head up.

Eva

[sbailey]

Thank you everyone. I should correct myself and let you know that all the times that I said antibiotics I really ment antifungal meds. Sorry it was really late. The problem I think is they always took her off of the medicine.

[Connie]

I am really sorry about your mother. It is really too bad they played around with her meds. I was off sick from work for 17 months in total. The docs had me twice on the IV treatment for 21 days .. most people i'm told get it for 10 days But I had it real bad. After that I was on the itraconasol for 16 months. Blastomycosis takes a long time to get rid of. I had biopsies every 2 months after 3 months of being in the hospital. Insist on the meds and insist on the biopsies. This is one illness you don't want to fool around with.  I'm going on 7 years blasto free. I am in Canada, Itraconasol was 1200.00 a month when I had blasto. Hopefully you have a good medical plan. My prayers go out to your mother and your family.

[luvmyjacks]

Thank you for sharing your Mom's story.  Because we have far fewer posts in the Human category we are in desperate need of detailed information.  Would you have time to add treatment times to this site?  It would be helpful to know how long your Mom was treated and which antifungal was used.  Whenever I log on I see how many people are looking at topics under the Human section so I suspect there are many, many people desperate for more information.   I'll bet there are a lot of people out there trying to figure out what it is they are suffering from.

[Jen]

So sorry to hear about your mom's trouble.
It's very sad that drs. don't even think about fungal infections in people or animals.
After a few years of heart, lung, and eye trouble, my mom has recently tested positive for Histoplasmosis. But only after WE insisted that the doctor test for it.
 Her doctor now says that all of her problems were probably a result of the fungal infection, but also says that it seems to be "in remission". What does that mean?! We're surrounded by idjits.
It is VERY frustrating.
Good luck to you and your mom-
jen

[Blasto_WI]

This is just crazy. 

A disease that comes out of the air.  That is relatively unknown, yet people die from this.  100's of people are effected by this and the only thing to do is to hope that by taking the meds (forever?) that it doesn't come back. 

In the mean time, you can't take any other medications that may work on the liver.  IE: Cholestrol medications.

I am sorry for you, your mother and your family.  I know my case took months to finally diagnose.  The only way it was diagnosed for sure, was after they had already taken out my upper right lobe (lung).

Prayers and good thoughts go with you.

Tracy

[Jeff]

I am sorry to hear about your mom's story.  What caught my eye about your post is that you live in Crystal Lake, IL.  So do I.  My father was feeling ill in March of this year (2008).  He is from Flanagan, IL.  He was misdiagnosed several times and the doctors in this area don't see blasto very much, if at all, and therefore do not think to test for it.  He was finally diagnosed after an open lung biopsy in early April 2008.  Due to the trauma of the biopsy he was placed on a ventilator.  We were told that this would be for "a day or two" until his lung healed from the biopsy.  Unfortunately the blasto was extremely severe and the damage to his lungs was to great to overcome.  My father passed away in August 2008 without ever getting off of life support.

Do not let the doctors push you off with dianosis of pneumonia, etc.  I found very quickly that you need to become as educated as possible on the subject, its symptoms, treatment, studies, and any experimental studies, and ask questions of all doctors and nurses constantly.  If you think that you are being a pest you are going in the right direction.

Best of luck.  If you would like to contact me let me know via a post on the site.

[Judy]

Jeff, what symptoms did your dad have in the beginning and later on before diagnosis?

[Jeff]

Judy,

He had several symptoms.  The most noticeable was a cough that was very frequent and was not productive.  He also had tightness/pain in his upper chest and accross the shoulders.  He had bypass surgery several years ago, so he thought the tightness could be heart related, so he went to the ER.  They did an EKG and told him that it wasn't his heart.  They suggested that maybe he pulled a muscle and told him to take tylenol.  He took it, but as the days went by they tylenol wasn't cutting it anymore.  He went to a pulmonologist several times with X-rays and took a stress test, but they couldn't figure it out until they scheduled the lung biopsy in April.  The last time I saw him prior to being in the hospital was on Easter which was March 22nd and he was coughing a little bit, but I just figured it was a slight cold.  He may have been experiencing other symptoms for a longer period of time, but he did not tell anyone.  Ultimately it was his cough that made my mom force his hand into going into the hospital.  He was 66 years old.

Who would have thought blastomycosis?  When the doctor said the word, nobody in our family had ever heard of it.  It blows my mind that he walked into the room for his biopsy and never got off of life support afterwards.  The blastomycosis caused a lung condition known as ARDS (Accute Respiratory Distress Syndrom).  That is a separate battle in and of itself.

I pray for anyone that has this fungus infection in any form.

[Judy]

I'm so sorry, Jeff - I think there should be more awareness that this is indeed found in people. The infectious disease MD that I know is well aware of it and very much in tune with Mira Vista, i went ahead and did the urine test just to make sure a cough I couldn't get rid of for three weeks wasn't it because of my dog having blasto - worth doing the test, and I'm fine... however, the fact that it doesn't get diagnosed easily when there is a  urine test is really poor.  Judy