why-microscopy

I have been into Microscopy since 2011. I find it very interesting and very useful to me. I bought my first microscope because I wanted to discover what was wrong with my lungs. I had been suffering lung problems for nine months, during those 9 months, I had pneumonia and bronchitis a couple of times. Two CT scans (9 months apart) found that there was some damage to the lungs. However, 3 doctors and 1 pulmonary specialist (from the VA health care system), could not find the cause. At the beginning of the problems, I had suggested a sputum culture to help us find the cause. But the first doctor (member of the VA healthcare system, who had studied medicine in India) said: "We treat the symptoms, we don't look for the cause of the symptoms". And I replied to her: "But if we find the cause, and eliminated the cause, the symptoms will disappear". Then I realized that, may be, a semester of logic is probably only an elective in the Indian medical curriculum, although she had done some residency in the Cleveland Clinic (in Florida).

So I bought a microscope and some agar petri dishes, and did my own blood analysis and sputum cultures. And I discovered, and proved empirically, that I had two types of fungi (mold) growing in my lungs and one type of bacteria that feeds on mold. I then took photos of the cultured mold and micrographs (digital images from the microscope) to a friendly cooperative intelligent doctor, who trusted my data and saw no need to have a (probably incompetent or corrupt) commercial lab, verify my findings. He then gave me the proper prescription, and I avoided going into sepsis and dying.

Also, on a different year, when a local lab failed to find any intestinal parasites. I did my own microscopic analysis, of my feces and a culture of my feces, and found some hook worm eggs in the feces, and in the culture found eggs, and a hook worm that had hatched after 3 days in the culture jar. Some Mebendazole (Vermox) eliminated the intestinal parasites.