Mystery illness causes terrible pain, lesions and crawling sensations

WXYZ - It's a mysterious illness. Striking thousands of women causing terrible pain, horrible skin lesions and crawling sensations all over the body.

For years doctors struggled to figure what really causes this bizarre condition. If it's even real or just in the victim's head.

Stacy Hillman says, "You know you have something, you can feel it."

Stacy Hillman's face looked like it was infested with large bumps and sores.

For her, it felt like there were microscopic bugs, parasites, living inside of her skin.
    
Hillman says, "To have thousands of those, hundreds of thousands of those crawling on your face. That's what it feels like."
 
That was 3-months ago.

Today, Hillman says, "Its hard to even think about doing laundry or going to the grocery store because you're consumed by this feeling on your face."

The crawling sensation was so intense, she wouldn't leave the house for 4 months.
    
Her husband, Jeff, watched as his wife slipped into a life of constant crying and constant pain.

Hillman says, "The thought of living my life the next month, week, two years, I couldn't do it."
    
Her husband says, "It was not fun."
  
She went to doctor after doctor. All told her the same thing.
    
Hillman says, "They all kept telling me there was nothing wrong, there was nothing they could do for me."
 
After months of tests and around $50,000 in medical expenses, Stacy reached her breaking point.

Her husband says, "There was a time she wanted to die. You know you fight to protect your wife, you'd fight, but I couldn't do anything."

Doctors call the syndrome Morgellons. The illness affects mainly women in their 50s. Just last month the CDC released a shocking study. Doctors can't figure out what's causing it. And so the report suggests that to some degree the patients are delusional.

Dr. Omar Amin says, "How can you look at someone's face, a beautiful person with unusual looking skin, and tell them they're delusional?"
    
Dr. Omar Amin has been studying Morgellon's for several years. He says, no, there aren't any bugs crawling on the skin, but there's no doubt it feels that way. He believes the patient's nerves are damaged, poisoned by a toxin, and the toxin is spreading.

Dr. Amin says, "It sounds like science fiction, but we have a 100% recovery rate."
 
Dr. Amin says Stacy is part of a small group of people who have a highly allergic reaction to certain chemicals. In this case, he says the poison that was attacking Stacy's body had actually been there for decades. Mercury was leaking out of a cracked filling in her tooth.

Hillman says, "There's something in common, there has to be, and I think the doctors found it."
     
Stacy replaced her fillings with a different substance and life is suddenly good again.
    
Her husband says, "It's been almost a year since she laughed and to know she's getting better. It's worth every penny."
    
The CDC says people should be cautious about getting treatment for something that's not medically proven and that people who claim they have the answer are going out on a limb.
    
But Dr. Amin says he knows the truth, "CDC has referred Morgellons patients to me, which to me only means one thing, They know we have the thing that works."