The Human Dirofilariasis Research Institute

24/03/2026

Formication Vs Pharmacology

A History of Drug Research

Back in 1924 pharmacologists first started using nematodes for drug research, and it was found that nematodes share a surprising number of molecular pathways with mammalians, and by extension humans. Many drug interactions that effect these nematodes have similar effects on us humans, so one of the primary ways of testing that a drug is safe is to first try it on these little surrogates looking for toxicity. If it passes this stage then the drug under study may progress to later stages of testing with mammals and eventually human trials.

There are certain nematodes which infect humans, so it is of great concern that we study the differences in these molecular pathways, because otherwise we would not be able to treat people to be free of parasites.

There is one specific nematode that is at the heart of this discussion and its name is Dirofilaria. Humans do get Dirofilariasis, just like most mammals, but since there is no clinical test for this disease in humans it is almost never diagnosed and certainly never treated. The disease in general in the mammalian population is at epidemic proportions and the calculated exposure risk says that about 41.1 million Americans have already been exposed, which would be approximately 12% of the human population. Yet the symptoms of this disease have not even been described in the scientific literature. Animals can’t tell you what they feel, and nobody ever asks the humans. The symptoms of Human Dirofilariasis is called Formication. Other than these yet unrecognized symptoms, Dirofilariasis is a completely occult disease. You can have this disease and not even know it. No doctor can diagnose it and hence no treatment will ever be given to that patient even when they suspect something is wrong.

Pharmacology can actually give us some insight into this problem if we only take the time to study this situation more carefully. Things that affect us humans also affect these filariae, which is just another class of nematode. So if humans do get Dirofilariasis then where can we actually see these effects? Lots of places! You just need to understand the proper context in order to clearly see this relationship.

So, where do we see Formication?

Alcoholics: We see Formication when alcoholics are going under detox. If the human is miserable due to alcohol withdrawal, and nematodes are influenced by the same medications/drugs, then the filaria are also going through the same withdrawal symptoms. The filaria living in the vascular system just under the thin layer of skin and the filaria will be very irritable and will be moving around complaining in the only way they know how. The alcoholic will feel this movement and will complain about the sensation triggering the same neurons normally used for external skin tactile perception. For all the alcoholic can tell something is crawling on the skin, but it's really underneath the skin. Our brains are just wired to think this sensation is coming from the outside.

Stimulants: Drugs such as Amphetamines and Ritalin are well known for producing symptoms of Formication in some people. If the drug stimulates the human it is very likely to stimulate the filaria residing in that human. When the filaria starts frantically moving around inside the blood vessels that patient is going to take notice and complain to their physician.

Antipsychotic drugs: When a person complains about symptoms of Formication to their physician in the absence of being given a drug that causes it, the patient will often be referred to a psychiatrist for counseling and possible treatment. The psychologist will sometimes prescribe an antipsychotic drug which happens to help. Why does it help? Because the drug is also treating the filaria, which sedates them, and they stop moving around as much. The patient then reports that things have gotten better, when in fact the disease still exists and has not gone away. Nobody is cured of anything even if the patient now erroneously believes that their “psychotic behavior” is corrected. Both the patient and the filaria have been sedated.

Moxidectin: This one is different. This drug is a second-generation microcyclic lactone anthemic used to treat filarial diseases. It utilizes Glutamate-gated chloride channels (GluCls) that do not even exist in humans. It also binds to GABA-gated chloride channels that do exist, but this channel has minimal involvement in humans. Therefore, Moxidectin does not have the same effects on humans as it does on filaria. This is a differential test. In particular Moxidectin will bind to the filaria nerve and muscle cell receptors causing rapid, flaccid paralysis which prevents them from moving and feeding properly. It creates a hyperpolarization which inhibits neurotransmission leading to this nematode paralysis, but it does not do the same in humans. What this means is when a person has a filarial disease such as Dirofilariasis the parasites will become much less active and this will lead to a reduction in the symptoms of Formication. Medical studies on animals show that if Moxidectin is administered for a full 18 months the filaria will eventually die with near 100% efficacy. But since no person ever gets diagnosed without there even being an approved clinical test, nobody is ever given Moxidectin, to reduce the suffering of Formication, or to kill the disease outright.

Summary

So this pattern of cause and effect emerges, where Dirofilaria will react to specific drugs in known ways very similar to what that a human would, yet nobody ever questions any association between Dirofilaria and Formication. Nobody even studies Human Occult Dirofilariasis simply because they quite blindly think that nobody is ever affected by it. Yet hundreds of people report symptoms of Formication every year and many people commit su***de because of Formication like symptoms. A clear association. There are no statistics, because there was never an actual disease diagnosis beforehand. They don’t seem to even track the reason why somebody committed su***de. But having something physically crawling through the veins under your skin, quite literally, can drive a person mad. If the patient didn’t start with a psychosis our medial institutions almost assure that outcome. This is where the doctors no longer seem to listen, or care, and just chalk it up to a mental disorder rather than investigating for any underlying physical cause. This disease is enough to drive a person to self-medicate or even commit su***de, just anything to make it stop. If nobody else seems to care, these people are not going to just sit there and do nothing. The question is what will they do? What would you do?

The scientific community needs to seriously think about what they are doing to these people just by virtue of ignoring the situation. Doctors are ignoring their patients. The scientists' refusal to see the forest for the trees has a very real effect on these patients, and it's not a good one. Please have respect for your patients and explore all the possibilities rather than just throwing up your hands and calling it a psychosis. These people deserve better than that. They deserve hope.

10/06/2023

Proof that Dirofilariasis in Humans Has Never Been Studied

The pathology of Dirofilariasis in humans has never even been studied. Because there is no test for the disease it is impossible to know who has this disease so it is impossible to gather patients together to create a proper cohort study of the disease. In fact, nowhere is it even identified that an Occult Infection is the default state of this disease in humans. With such a fundamental omission it should be completely obvious that this disease has never been studied properly.

The only detectable manifestation of this disease that can possibly occur prior to a successful occult form of this disease is the cutaneous skin nodule. All other instances of this disease become a part of the occult infection first before traveling to any other areas of the body where they might at some point become visible to a doctor. If its not at the original site of infection then it is part of a successful occult infection.

But can we actually prove there has been no proper study?

Yes! A simple search on Google Scholar with the right search terms will return zero results thus demonstrating that there is a complete lack of any clinical research other than a few token case studies which look only at manifestations of the disease which are visible to a doctor. These cases are a statistically an insignificant minority of the total number of infections.

To verify this is in fact the case, go to Google Scholar ( https://lnkd.in/ghANZbj ) and do a few quick searches found below.

Enter each set of the following search terms:
“Dirofilaria” “Human” “long term study”
“Dirofilaria” “Human” “cohort”
“Dirofilaria” “Human” “occult” “Study”

Do enter the quotes in the above queries. Each query above will return all the exact matches before any partial matches are returned. After each search result is returned quickly scan down those results for any record on that first page that contains every single search term you provided. Starting from the top of the returned results, count them. It’s zero. The very first record will be off-topic and without having all three search terms in that journal paper. Feel free to try other search terms as the last parameter just to prove that the search engine is actually working correctly.

So, there are no experts on the topic of Human Dirofilariasis Pathology. Anyone that even claims to understand this disease in humans is simply not telling the truth, because the default pathology in humans has never been studied. Until there is a clinical test developed for occult infections in humans we will never be able to study this disease properly. There can be no diagnosis, no statistics, and thus no money that is needed to develop a proper clinical research study for this disease. Until that time it is impossible to declare that this disease is not a problem simply due to lack of evidence. If you never even look for evidence you will clearly never find it. Come volunteer to help us set the record straight. Nobody should be forced to live with such a horrible disease.

http://HDRI.org

10/10/2022

Dirofilariasis in Humans - The Problem

Dirofilariasis (Heartworm) in humans is a silent disease. There is no test for the disease in humans and no accepted cure. The only known 100% cure are Arsenic compounds that are is so toxic that it will never be licensed to be administered in Humans, thus any doctor stands to risk to loose their license to practice medicine if they even attempted to “cure” someone of this disease. Considering that there is currently no way for the doctors to even know for sure if the patient actually has the disease. Currently the only way to know is the patients own self reported sensations and possibly many seemingly unrelated immunological problems that can result from this chronic disease.

The best non-Arsenic based drug, diethylcarbamazine (DEC), is only 40% effective, and is toxic enough to have been pulled from the US market via FDA licensing due to acute toxicity. This drug in not even available to your doctor in the US so there is no viable treatment. Sorry, if you live in the US you may have better luck traveling to a third world country for treatment.

When the patient even consults their doctor they will only get the cold shoulder in response, or worse, be blamed for fabricating their own disease. The patient will of course still be suffering 24x7x365 from a disease that never stops. Nothing that the the person can buy over the counter will have any effect on the disease, the doctors won’t help, and the only way out is “the final option”. This can absolutely not be allowed to be the only way out from this disease. There are things that could be done now but nobody is stepping up to the plate to make this happen.

Why? Because there is no test, nobody ever gets correctly diagnosed with this disease. Because there are no diagnosis ever made there can be no statistics collected and therefor there is no government money is allocated for the required research on this disease in humans. There has never been a long term study of Dirofilariasis in humans. None. There is however a non-profit 501(c)(3) The Human Dirofilariasis Research Institute (HDRI.org) who wants to change this. Now, not later. It needs to be now.

If you know of someone who has the following self reported symptoms please to have them contact The Human Dirofilariasis Research Institute for an interview. The only way this disease will ever be given the proper priority in funding that it deserves is if the people who have this disease take the initiative to stand up and be counted.

Direct self reported symptoms:
• Sensations of something moving/vibrating under the skin where blood vessels are close to the surface.
• Sensations of biting/stinging when nothing is there.
• Sensations somewhat like a cobweb being stretched across the face as the filaria moves underneath across the face.

Possible indirect symptoms:
• Immunological disorders (e.g. Low CD8, Low IgG3, High Nk cell count)
• Vascular systemic pain or swelling
• Food Intolerance leading to cramps and diarrhea
• Loss of sleep or tenancy to become a night owl
• General irritability, antisocial, and distrustful of doctors
• Chronic fatigue
• Many more…

We need your help. This is a grass roots effort to begin the research that has never been done and never will be done unless someone like us stands up for those unfortunate enough to acquire this disease. This is a forever disease. Nobody should be forced to suffer like this. Its inhumane to ignore this disease just because you can not tell who has the disease.

https://HDRI.org

We desperately need volunteers, donors, and scientists to collaborate with. Skills, or no skills, and we can find a path forward together.

Dirofilariasis is a long ignored disease indigenous to most areas of the United States. When a person has this disease there are no obvious signs that are visible to the physician and there is no approved serological tests for the disease. A physician essentially has no tools to help them diagnose i...

22/04/2022

While researching the symptoms of Occult Human Dirofilariasis this last week I happened upon a journal article about Irritable Bowl Syndrome (IBS). What was so interesting about this article to me is it was a study about IBS but associated with another disease Gulf War Syndrome (GWS). I was not familiar with this specific disease so I thought I would do a little side investigation to see what I could learn about GWS. As I read through this list of symptoms it suddenly struck me that almost the entire list of symptoms was identical to Occult Human Dirofilariasis.

Knowing that my own disease of interest completely escapes any possible medical diagnosis I decided it would be a worthy effort to dig just a little deeper into this a a possible answer to GWS. It turns out that not only is Dirofilariasis endemic in the Gulf area but they also have numerous species of arthropod vectors that can carry this disease and thereby transmit it disease to our troops that were in that area. All the pieces necessary for a mass infection of an invisible disease is actually there. How can I possibly ignore this?

The question then is can this really be one in the same disease? The only way to tell is to start by talking to the Veterans affected by the disease and see how much they can say about their own medical issues that might further elucidate this possibility. I am therefor putting out a call for any GWS Veterans who would not mind having a 1-on-1 confidential conversation to see just how closely these two invisible diseases match. I'm currently suspecting its the exact same disease, and I owe these veterans a debt of gratitude for their service. Lets see if we can find the answer together.

So to follow up on this idea I'm looking for about 10 Veterans to tell me what I need to know about their disease, from their own perspective. There are facts that will not be put in these medical journals, so I have many questions. I hope for them I may have some answers as well.

https://hdri.org/contact

04/06/2021

Q: What is Dirofilaria and why should I care?
A: Occult Dirofilaria is a long ignored disease in humans.

If your pet had this same disease you would call it Heartworm. In humans it is far more insidious in that there is no test for the disease and therefore nobody ever gets diagnosed properly or treated. Since nobody is diagnosed, no statistics are ever collected. Without statistics there is no money made available for research, and therefore there is no money to develop a test for the disease, and likewise no cure. Its an endless cycle.

Dirofilaria is carried by the bite of an infected insect. You have the exact same probability of being bitten by that infected insect as your dog does. The difference is that your dog can be tested, treated, and cured of the disease, but you as a human will not be. Quite sadly, your own dog therefor gets better healthcare than you do.

Dirofilariasis in humans is a chronic, incurable, and accumulative disease. Once you are infected by even a single parasite it then gains control your immune system and the next set of parasites coming from an infected insect are simply given a free ride. The disease only gets worse as time goes on, and you will never be diagnosed or treated for the disease. Your doctor has no tools at their disposal and can not say definitively that you do or do not have the disease, and most often the only person who can even tell is the person with the disease, many years later as their health deteriorates slowly with all kinds of strange pathology with no clues pointing directly to the underlying disease.

Think of it this way, what doctor in their right mind would prescribe a toxic medication containing Arsenic to a patient who he can not even be certain if they have a disease? The second best medication is only 40% effective and that drug has been pulled from the US market. There are no good options for you.

So how do we break the endless cycle and find a cure for this disease? This is where the Human Dirofilariasis Research Institute (https://HDRI.org) comes in. We are a 501(c)(3) Nonprofit attempting to kick start the necessary research and patient advocacy needed to raise the awareness of this sadly forgotten disease. If nobody else is going to do this, somebody needs to do it.

We have lots of ideas for possible research projects and we are looking for collaboration with other scientists to see what can be done to give these people some hope for the future. If you know somebody who might have this disease we would like to speak with them and see if we can not somehow give them a voice. We can not offer a personal diagnosis but we can help them get closer to that goal.

If you have an interest in parasitology or what HDRI is doing then there are many ways you can help. Volunteers, Science/Medical Collaborators, and potential donors: Please do come and ask questions. We are here to help our community in any way we can.

By CheckThere are many ways you can help us give new hope to the chronically ill sufferers of Occult Dirofilariasis. The most direct and cost-effective means would be to write…