Senator Frank R. Lautenberg Speaks on Chemicals

Friends, friends:

As far as news goes, this statement is HUGE!

Please, everyone, read this CNN link before it disappears:

Senator Frank R. Lautenberg writes (special to CNN): "Are toxic chemicals putting your family at risk?"

Cheers!

~ Carolyn

Tired of Feeling "Stuffed"

Hello, friends,

Except for light cream in my coffee, I've been going without cow's milk and cow's-milk products for several days now.  About 14 years ago, I had gone without cow's milk for a year or so -- and, except for the ever-lingering chemical sensitivity, I felt reborn.

I am taking that lesson to heart and going without cow's milk once again.  Already, my energy level has increased, my body feels lighter, my step is quicker, and I'm able to assume a more normal physical workload.  At the same time, there is that dragging feeling in the center of me, that "not quite full" feeling, that "something is missing" sensation -- plus many headaches, but, on the whole, milder headaches than usual.  (Except for today -- a whopper is coming and I'm intending to head that off with ibuprofen.  We have to do what we have to do.)  I remember that empty, "headachey" feeling, as well, from 14 years ago.  I think it took somewhere from two weeks to one month to adjust to this.  It's a good adjustment for me to make, because it brings me back to the metabolism of childhood when I was always a skinny little thing who did not like to feel "stuffed."  The inflammatory and nerve-congesting effects of cow's milk, I've noticed, blunt that necessary recognition of satiety, for me.  

So what happens, in lieu of that "empty" feeling, is a need for honest, better metabolized protein to fill in the gap. I've been cooking lots of beef (no, not the best kind -- funds are low) and lots of eggs.  There are little cans of sardines to help with lunch, and tuna at intervals (I know, I know, the mercury . . .).

Not perfection -- but definitely improvement.  My clothes are feeling looser.

The bottom line is this:  The less unused fat on me there is, the less space there will be for my body to store toxins in the flesh.  In place of cow's milk, I'm using coconut milk in my (gluten-free) cereal.  In place of ice cream, I'm buying sorbet.  For yogurt and cheese, I rely on goat-milk products.  The fatty-acid chains in goat's milk are more efficiently and more quickly metabolized than the fatty-acid chains in cow's milk.

Moreover, the homogenization of cow's milk has the effect of breaking up a key molecule (the name escapes me), rendering it indigestible by many.  This ends up pockmarking the gut with holes ("leaky gut"), just as the gluten molecule's toxic fraction frequently ends up pockmarking the gut.  The gut then becomes inflamed (a potentially dangerous thing, e.g., cancer), digestion is impaired globally, essential nutrients are lost, and the whole person suffers.

Here's hoping that the goat milk will prove tolerable, in the long run, and that I can keep going at this!  If you have any personal stories about cow's milk and/or goat's milk and their potential interactivity with the aftereffects of toxic injury, please feel free to share them.

Cheers!

  

~ Carolyn

A Difficult Topic

Sunshine to you on this glorious day!

A very difficult topic:  I'm writing today on behalf of those whose hearts, minds, and bodies were insulted by physical and/or psychological trauma prior to falling prey to toxic injury.

This is a difficult topic, firstly, because it is both highly sensitive and highly personal -- not easily discussed in any venue.  Secondly, it is a difficult topic because the thought process of unaffected onlookers can quickly veer in the direction of:  "So perhaps your toxic injury is all in your head, after all."

For a person who has been both traumatized and toxically injured, this judgment would be a devastating and unjust ramification.

Trauma, it is now known, can disrupt and alter neurological pathways in the brain.  The body under physical and/or psychological siege must contend with skyrocketing "fight-or-flight" adrenalin surges; subsequent hormonal interference and/or frank hormonal imbalance; resultant metabolic and circulatory changes due to the impact of severe stress on cortisol levels; sleep disruption or sleep deprivation; and the crushing weight of overwhelming emotional pain through it all.

If non-traumatized widowers in bereavement can succumb to heart attack and early death, just imagine how vulnerable can be the bodies of those already ravaged by physical and/or emotional pain inflicted by others or by catastrophic events.

Add a few pervasive chemicals to the mix, and such already-afflicted physical systems can, in effect, "tip right over."  With all systems overloaded to begin with, toxins can then become just "one too many" insults. 

And if that weren't enough, yet more aversive ingredients are added when others rush to judgment about such suffering and add "insults to injury."

For those of you have have, in fact, suffered debilitating emotional pain and trauma, please know that my heart goes out to you.

With this brief commentary, I've only just begun to dip my little toe in the water of a very complex topic.  I've caught wind of cognitive treatments for toxic injury which, it is claimed, have successfully enabled some toxically injured people to retrain the part (or parts) of the brain which are thought to be operative in neurologically sensitized reactions to chemicals.  As I understand it, this type of treatment specifically rejects the philosophy that toxic injury/chemical sensitivity is "all in the head."  The brain "retraining," therefore, does not imply that the cause of chemical sensitivity is embedded in psychological factors -- but merely that this physical malady lodged its effects in the neurologically reactive part of the brain.

Moreover, there are surely many toxically injured people who were never previously traumatized -- so that this suspected effect of the chemical reactivity lodging in the brain would hold true for both traumatized and non-traumatized sufferers.  May we respectfully acknowledge that trauma of any sort can render the body vulnerable to subsequent injury; and may we recognize that, once toxic injury actually does occur, it is firmly rooted in the body.

The true implication of such reports is that, if we (the toxically injured with or without previous trauma) can manage to access that physically sensitive part of the brain through the circuit of our own thought processes, we may have more power than we think to assist our bodies in at least some degree of healing.

While I'm always especially careful to reserve judgment about the emotional and spiritual safety of cognitive treatment endeavors with which I'm personally unfamiliar, I do grant myself the freedom to research them liberally and, in the meantime, to hope.

I hope I've spread a little sunshine to you today.

Cheers!

~ Carolyn

Blooming Where I'm Planted

Good day, friends,

Somewhere in this chaos, there is order.

Having waited a week to be able to see a doctor for a specific medical concern, I awoke today with a pounding migraine and could not attend the appointment.  Because the headache continued to pulse hard beneath the ibuprofen I'd taken, I decided this would be a very bad day to place myself in a mainstream medical office filled with staff and patient fragrances, synthetic laundry scents, carpets, liberally sprayed disinfectants, other applied cleaning solutions, and possibly air fresheners -- unless I wanted to bring on back-to-back migraine syndromes, or, in layman's terms, a "double whammy."  Many things are now on hold until this wild, sickening pounding and rapid heart rate calm down.  This could be hours -- or days. 

Under such nonnegotiable circumstances, I choose to believe that I simply was not meant to be examined at that particular doctor's office -- at least for today.

Yesterday's outstanding chemical exposure (which brought on today's migraine) was, once again, extremely strong synthetic laundry fragrances on people's clothes and possibly from household dryer vents.  So today's reactive distress is a full-scale systemic event, with the central nervous system in an uproar, vision shaky, etc.

How ironic it is that exactly a year ago I wrote my blog post entitled, Getting Sick at the Doctor's" (link).  The very same reason I thought it wise to skip my doctor's appointment today!

For those of you who are new to the subject of toxic injury and its recurring symptoms, let me clarify here that reactivity to chemicals can be immediate or delayed.  When delayed, my own most common window of consistent patterning of symptoms is one to two days following the chemical exposure(s).  These chemicals needn't be radical things such as pesticides but can be "everyday" toxins found in many common household, office, and personal products -- products generally thought to be innocuous but which happen to contain nerve toxins ("neurotoxins"); eye, skin, and/or mucous membrane irritants; and carcinogens, et al. in their fragrances and accompanying chemical ingredients.

As I stated above, somewhere in this chaos, there is order.  My task is to find it -- or to make it.  I'm choosing to do both.  I can easily accept that, perhaps for other reasons completely unknown to me, it would have been a bad day for me to travel to the medical doctor.  Beyond that, I'm choosing to accept that perhaps I'm just another small voice needed to help warn others about the increasingly high potential for toxic injury posed by many commonly used cleaning, fragrance, and "pest-control" products.  Perhaps, by browsing through my posts, those who are new to this topic can get a "feel" for how toxic injury behaves once it has occurred.  If I can convey at least that much, that will have been something.

Cheers!

~ Carolyn

May: Multiple Chemical Sensitivities Month

May greetings to you -- it's Multiple Chemical Sensitivities Month!

How does it feel to be the messenger of an undesirable message?

Terrible.

It's like being patted on the back as an esteemed member of whatever "group" one yearns to belong to, and then being shunned with the unspoken message, "But we didn't know you were like that."

Yes, we humans have trials -- but we do not become our trials!  We are still human beings with hopes and dreams just like the rest of our fellow humans.  Our humanity, however scarred, still operates the same way.

If you are new to the issue of toxic injury/multiple chemical sensitivity, please read through the following brief overview and MCS story written by leading chemical sensitivity and disability advocate, Ann McCampbell, M.D., Environmental Health and Chemical Sensitivity Consultant:

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (by Ann McCampbell, M.D.)

"My MCS Story" by Ann McCampbell, M.D.

I so much relate to several aspects of this story, especially the "once having been completely well" part!  (Thank you, Dr. McCampbell.)

And please, if you can, pass on this excellent overview and personal MCS story to others.  Thank you!

Cheers!

~ Carolyn

The Sweetest Flame

Hello, Friends,

I'm happy to report that I stumbled upon a measure of relief!  

Finding myself in the presence of someone whose clothing and hair had absorbed chemical scents along the way, I began to feel the usual facial inflammation, headache, and systemic "jitters."  At some point in our conversation, we turned to the topic of beeswax candles.  We discussed how they ionized the air and purified it as a thunderstorm does.  Finally, it occurred to us to burn them!

I ran to fetch my trusty supply (I will now always keep extras on hand) and plunked down two beeswax candles under our very noses.  We lit them and continued talking.

Within about a half-hour, we both noticed a difference.  The candles had imparted a physically calming and very pleasing sensation mentally.  It was as though a healing hand had been placed on my central nervous system, slowing down the pace of things and soothing the physically raw nerves.  My mind glowed with the delicious scent of warm honey emitted from the candles.  My friend, too, felt the systemically calming influence of the beeswax.  The tranquil, pure flame, as always, was a visually heartwarming and room-altering experience.

All afternoon, I expected to have to take another ibuprofen as I generally do after this particular chemical exposure.  This morning, it occurred to me that I never took that tablet.  I didn't have to!  The headache had evaporated.

The implications of this small but significant measure of relief may be more vast than I can realize at present.  I will begin burning beeswax candles more regularly in my home.  I'm wondering if this will have a therapeutic effect on my overall reactivity to chemicals.  Since the triggering chemicals seem to enter my brain through my nose, perhaps the ionizing elements of the burning beeswax, entering through the same pathway, will have some chance to transform -- or at least diffuse -- the chemically sensitized facial and head nerves.

I'll let you know!  Cheers!

~ Carolyn