#valley fever

[rhealenigma]

Before I can focus on studying, I feel I have to make a post about Valley Fever. I'm not going to go deep into my personal life because it's too fresh and painful but I feel information needs to be shared. There's no answer yet as to what caused my cousin's sudden seizure and subsequent brain death. But the people in my family and my friends who I've spoken to about it, all have no idea what I'm talking about when I say I think it was long term Valley Fever (and secondary meningitis), and that really concerns me.

I looked it up last night when I got the news, mainly to dissuade myself that this could've been the cause. I've been looking a lot at the Mayo Clinic's information. This whole time I thought Valley Fever was caused by pollution, lack of wind, and heat that's present in the Phoenix Valley, and other desert valleys. Alas. Valley Fever is the colloquial term for a fungal infection called coccidioidomycosis (kok-sid-e-oi-doh-my-KOH-sis). For a lot of people this fungal infection will resolve on its own, usually just by leaving the area. Its notable symptoms are similar to the flu: fever, cough, tiredness, night sweats, headache, joint pain. There are antifungal treatments and it can take awhile to fully recover if symptoms are experienced, but you can get better.

Chronic Valley Fever can also result in long term pneumonia, coughing up blood tinged mucus, chest pain, low grade fevers, and scarring in the lungs. This usually becomes chronic in people with weakened immune systems.

The most uncommon thing that it can do, which is what I believe happened with my cousin as she'd been suffering for over ten years from an "unknown" illness, is disseminate. This is the most serious thing that can happen if you have Valley Fever and do not treat it. The fungus can spread to the skin, bones, liver, heart, and, most notably, the fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord. This last will cause meningitis, which can be fatal.

Valley Fever most commonly infects those older than 60, those with weakened immune systems, those who are pregnant, those who have diabetes, and those of Filipino or African descent. If you live in or even visit a desert valley in the American Southwest, develop these symptoms, and they do not go away on their own, please please please seek medical care. Please suggest the coccidioides fungus/Valley Fever as a potential cause, and make sure they rule it out. It lives in the dirt there and is airborne. It is not contagious. It is tested for by blood test, chest imaging, and/or biopsy.

You can help prevent infection by wearing a mask outdoors, avoiding going outdoors during dust storms, avoid construction areas, wetting the ground before digging, and using HEPA air purifiers in your home or wherever you're staying if there temporarily.

This post is intended as informational, not to fear monger. This illness is treatable. I am constantly surprised at how few people are aware of Valley Fever. I don't want what happened to my cousin to happen to anyone else.

Again, most of this information is pulled from the Mayo Clinic site. (link is to the webpage on coccidioidomycosis). I am not a doctor and thus cannot legally give health advice, so please do not consider this as such.

[rjzimmerman]

In Arizona, a fight against a deadly fungus is under threat from Trump’s health policies

What one Arizona doctor’s quest to stop valley fever says about America’s preparedness for climate-driven disease.

Interesting article telling us about the clinical research about valley fever and the science-based discoveries to combat the disease once someone has incurred it and the development of a vaccine to prevent it. But like all things in this trump administration that are science-based or public health oriented, including in particular the development of vaccines, progress is being stalled or halted.

This article in Grist is not hiding behind a paywall, so you can access it. Here's an excerpt:

John Galgiani has been waiting for this call.

The 79-year-old physician is sitting on a chair in a side office at a health clinic in Phoenix, Arizona, long legs crammed under the table in front of him, hands folded at his stomach, when his cell phone rings. “There’s my guy,” he says.

The man on the other end, a physician who works in Tucson, is a touch less relaxed. One of his patients has been in and out of the hospital with a respiratory infection so severe that at one point she coughed up blood. Her skin is flaking, she’s losing her hair, and now the ventricles in her heart are taking too long to refill with blood between beats. The physician suspects some of these symptoms are being caused not by her underlying condition, but by the medication he has her on. The problem is, her insurance is refusing to cover a more expensive alternative. 

Galgiani, the country’s leading expert on the disease they’re talking about, quickly cuts him off. Take the patient off the medication, he says, and see how she does. If she improves, show the insurance company proof and force its hand. “That’s actually a good idea,” the doctor replies. 

The conversation is so routine, its conclusion — a change of medication — so anodyne, it’s easy to forget that the patient they’re talking about is battling a deadly and incurable fungus. 

Doctors have been searching for a cure for coccidioidomycosis, the disease afflicting the patient, since the 1890s, when an Argentine soldier was hospitalized with skin lesions that returned with a zombie-like vengeance after being scrubbed or cut off. Not long after, an immigrant farmworker landed in a San Francisco hospital with the same mutilating disease. Both patients eventually died.

It would be decades before medical researchers and public health officials connected the dots between those cases and reports of a mysterious disease referred to simply as “desert rheumatism” by the waves of settlers, immigrants, and farmworkers that rippled through the West on the heels of the Gold Rush, the completion of the transcontinental railroad, and the Dust Bowl. In California’s San Joaquin Valley, the disease was known as “San Joaquin Valley Fever,” and “valley fever” became the colloquial name of the infection Galgiani later dedicated his life to studying.  

By the 1930s, scientists understood that valley fever and the disease that killed the two immigrant farmworkers were different stages of one illness caused by the same fungal pathogen. They had also begun to grasp the basics of transmission. The fungus that causes the disease, called coccidioides or cocci (pronounced “cox-ee”) for short, grows in the top few inches of undisturbed earth throughout the Western U.S. and flourishes during cool, rainy periods. Then, in the summertime heat of the desert, its delicate fungal threads desiccate. Once they’re dry, any disturbance of the topsoil — a foot kicking up earth, a bulldozer digging a foundation, an earthquake shaking loose clouds of dust — sends infinitesimal spores swirling into the air, where they can be sucked through the nasal passages and into the lungs of passing humans or animals. 

Most people who breathe in cocci spores — about 6 in 10 — won’t develop symptoms. But the 40 percent of exposed people whose immune systems can’t or won’t fight off the fungus develop symptoms such as fatigue, muscle aches, coughing, and rash that can last weeks or months. In the 5 to 10 percent of symptomatic cases where the fungus invades the vital organs, the death rate is as high as 25 percent. The pathogen is so powerful the U.S. army weighed whether to develop it into a bioterrorism weapon in the 1960s.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Valley fever cases are on the rise across California. Who is most at risk? - Published Aug 16, 2025

Valley fever cases are on the rise across California. Who is most at risk? - Published Aug 16, 2025

To minimize exposure to Valley fever, follow these tips from the CDC: Avoid dusty areas, such as construction or excavation sites. Wear a well-fitted N95 mask. Stay indoors and keep windows closed. Limit activities that include soil, such as gardening. Use air filters indoors to reduce dust exposure. Clean cuts or skin injuries thoroughly with soap and water.

Not only is masking intersectional, it's becoming more and more necessary as our planet heats up.

[gwydionmisha]

An invisible killer

I've been keeping an eye on Valley Fever for a while because it's spread is really alarming.

[beardedmrbean]

[endcant]

i talk abt how much i love the valley bc i grew up there but also i love it because of the fucking psychological horror behind the concept of valley fever. its not exclusive to the valley but like. still

since i moved east, do you know how long its taken me to get used to the concept that i dont have to worry about inhaling spores whenever i am planting anything or disturbing the soil for any reason?

if you guessed “he’s still not used to it” then DING DING DING you are correct

[happytripawd]

Got Luka's valley fever titer results, he's still <1:2 so still in remission! It's been almost a year since he went into remission so this is great news!!! No relapse!!!!

[camelsandfriends]

where is chomby? she hasnt been in any of your videos in a long while :(

Her illness has progressed dramatically in the past few months. :( I never thought about it, but the reason she’s rarely in any videos anymore (other than the fact I’ve been only putting 1-2 up a month for awhile) is because I put up an enclosure for her with heat lamps, hay, etc. to keep her stationary and rested.Even though she is almost completely off her leg– she will not stop her job of protecting the sheep. Sometimes I am not sure what is worse: To let her go free more often– hurting herself– but feeling fulfilled in doing her job. Or confining her the way I do for periods and allowing her to rest.She looks terrible. She’s lost so much weight. Anatolian and Kangal are desert breeds and very big. On big dogs you don’t want a lot of weight on them and it’s hot here and hot in the desert, so you want to see full ribs– near to a greyhound even. But Chomby is loss muscle mass and is beyond even ‘fit underweight’.The Valley Fever has spread into her lungs and I am afraid that the vet was correct when he told me two years ago that she wouldn’t live very much longer. Though… he gave her a few months and it’s been far past that.It’s awful and makes me very upset. She was born with it and I just don’t think that’s fair. Chomby though… doesn’t seem to mind. She just wants to guard her flock and would probably carry on with no legs at all.She’s on a pretty high dose of an opiate right now and it’s nice to see her ‘blissed out’ since I started giving it to her. But it is damaging to the liver and I put it off as long as I could.If anyone would like to send Chomby a gift: http://amzn.com/w/14RKCEYEMWH1ZSeveral people have emailed about sending her treats or supplements. I’m going to put more of a list together, but the link is right here (and has not been updated in forever- life for me has been non-stop hectic and quite awful to be honest).But we’re going to get this through this and maybe Chomby will have another few years left. Valley Fever is an awful illness. I am being tested for it myself soon. I suspect I have it as well.