MCS -- What It's Like

A good Sunday morning to you!

For those of you who are just learning about chemical sensitivity, I'll share the experience with you "from the inside."  For those of you who know only too well the gist of what I'm about to share, I'll share it to affirm my kinship with you.  Not everyone's reactions will be identical, of course, but there is a certain "flavor" to the overall picture of MCS reactivity that will invariably be similar -- I would expect this similarity to occur most noticeably along the lines of "central nervous system" effects. In my own experience, these seem to predominate.

Sure does make you wonder about all of those neurological disorders that crop up as people "age."  Especially the wild-card ones such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS) that can devastate seemingly out of the blue.  I once read in some studies (I'll try to look these up again) that MS is made worse by exposure to natural gas appliances.

Sundays and holidays are particularly difficult days, from a synthetic-chemical point of view.  Churches are redolent with airborne, molecular bouquets of scented personal products, from hair gels to shampoo, aftershave to men's cologne, women's fragrances to scented lotions, body washes, laundry-scented clothing and the residue of mothball treatments and cigarette smoke -- you name it.  These details, which are small or barely noticeable to many other people, loom very large when you have a nose like a bloodhound.

Many churches, also, are both upholstered and carpeted, and the windows are not always designed to be opened.  In the winter, forced-air heating systems spread around the conglomeration of contaminants while drying out the mucous membranes.

On holidays, there are usually more people present in church than usual; and some of those people inevitably smoke cigarettes uncomfortably close to entrances and exits.  If the weather is warm and the doors and windows of church halls are left open, the smoke wafts in.

Then, moving on to "visiting."  Apartment complexes and close suburban neighborhoods exude synthetic laundry fragrance through the dryer vents, which often pours out into the streets and blankets entire blocks.

Inside homes there are air fresheners, synthetically scented paraffin candles, potpourri, scented soaps and lotions, chemical cleaners, carpets, carpet-shampoo treatments, items laundered with synthetically scented products, and upholstered furniture and curtains which have absorbed all of these scents combined.  Add to that the natural gas stoves and other natural-gas appliances present in many dwellings, and you have "chemical soup" permeating the air with neurotoxins (nerve toxins) galore.

For a day or two (sometimes three) after back-to-back, multiple exposures to these neurotoxic chemicals, my center of balance is off and I feel as though I'm walking on an undulating ship; my muscular movements require deliberation as opposed to effortless execution; and I feel as though I'm moving through quicksand from head to toe.  My thoughts are slowed, my mood becomes somber; thinking sequences through, step-by-step, becomes a huge labor; the glands around my throat swell, my sinuses swell, my chin gets red, my nose burns and turns red, and I get some hives along the jawline.  Two or three days later, this impending migraine -- truly a central nervous system event -- really heats up:  The pain begins to pulse noticeably through my head as the tissue and glands around it swell up, both tightening my jaw and making it difficult to swallow.  The migraine syndrome is now going full-force.  If I haven't taken ibuprofen yet, it's absolutely necessary now.

At the same time, I try to hurry along my recovery with dandelion root tea, green tea, rooibos tea, apple-cider vinegar, Buffered C Powder, magnesium malate -- and other foods and supplements that offer liver cleansing, digestive assistance (this deteriorates during chemical reactions/migraines, worsening the toxic load), antioxidant help, and calming of the nerves.

I've also made a mental note to try and "put off" addressing any potentially sensitive interactions with people until the mood-dampening effect of the chemical reaction passes.

Things look and feel so tremendously different once my body has reasonably (not perfectly, but reasonably) detoxed from a walloping chemical exposure!

This return feeling of well-being is what I wish for all of you, as often as possible -- and especially on weekends and holidays!

Please write in your own experiences and solutions you've come up with to cope with acute exposures to aggravating chemicals. I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

Cheers!

~ Carolyn