The Ballad of Jose O'Flannigan

Until recently, I was afflicted by a fungus that was not ring worm. Beyond not being ring worm, this fungus was resistant to Lamisil. Also, it was named Jose O'Flannigan. I posted a picture of him above (yes, he's a sword and flag waving pirate fungus). We'd had an encounter last spring, but I was able to repel him with Lamisil. Then he came back this fall. My personal theory is that he hid in a sweater that didn't make it into the washer before I put it back in my closet. That was unfortunate. I let the fungus progress, because I thought I could beat it back with Lamisil again, and why would I go to the doctor unless I was really sick.

Fast forward to January. People at the climbing gym started noticing my fungus, and they started touching it. It was time to fix it. So I went to the student clinic with my fungus, where I was scraped and prodded, and given a vague "Well, that's not ringworm, go get this anti-fungal medicine" diagnosis. If I had gone in a few months ago, when I had health insurance, this wouldn't have been such a big deal. However, I am one of the uninsured masses, so I paid $53 for my generic Loprox cream and steroid. It would have been tragic if it hadn't worked. Here is the progression of my fungus over the past two weeks.

Day 1

By Day 5 if had progressed to this, much better.

And Two weeks later I have a fairly normal looking arm. (I was going to do a real progression analysis, but I lost my pictures) There's still some redness, but its smooth and un-itchy.

Now some fun facts about skin fungi from the National Institutes of Health:

• Fungi are primitive vegetables. (I find this a little suspect. Last time I took an evolutionary survey of plants, it seemed the relationship between plants and fungi was still unclear).
  • Fungi lack chlorophyll (thus the tenuous relationship), so they must absorb their nutrients through dead organic matter (go to the rain forest and see decomposer-fungi at work immediately!)
• Molds, yeasts and mushrooms are types of fungi. Mushrooms are a particularly delicious type of fungi. They can live in the air, soil, on plants and in water. THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!!!
• Fungi can be difficult to kill (I can verify this)
• There has been a significant increase in fungal infections in the last 30 years, due to both increased awareness and increased use of medications that suppress the immune system
• Fungi reproduce through spores (like aliens in some movies), which are tiny, and airborne.
• Skin fungi are usually of the Tinea genus, I have decided that's what I had. It can be contracted through skin to skin contact, contact with an infected animal or soil. It could have been an infected animal, as I did once work at a zoo.
• My dad and sister are allergic to the fungus that produces penicillin. It kind of sucks for them.

Now, go forth and disseminate the word about fungus!