The Madness to My Method (Part II of today)

Good day!  In this case, "better" day!

As last night's migraine headache winds down this morning, I'm smiling to myself.  Aside from the inevitable dose (or two or three) of ibuprofen, my method of treating my migraines is not completely ordinary.  In fact, it might be classified, "highly unusual."

Whereas many people take to their beds, close the curtains, and dim the lights during such a brain siege, I sit upright at my computer with the lights on and type my heart out.  It's ridiculous for me to lie down.  (And if I'm not lying down, what am I going to do in the dark?)  When I lie down, the pain sloshes around to whatever side of my head touches the pillow, proceeds to throb so that I cannot forget about it for a minute, then concentrates in a sinister way so that I become temporarily numb to it.  When I get up again, vaguely hoping I'm "cured," the migraine sloshes awake with a vengeance, rolls around to another portion of my head, and pounds away.

Not liking to be fooled in this manner, I keep vigil with the monstrous thing.  Instead of trying to tame the beast, I soothe the emotions, instead.  The beast can't reach me there.  And sometimes I truly succeed in finding "shelter" in bursts of consoling inner relief.

Enter . . . music.

Even loud and celebratory music works -- not "rap" or hard "rock" but a good, healthy pulse that you can dig into at the roots.  This engages me in the depths and allows me to pull something robust out from that deeper reservoir where physical pain cannot reach.  In this way, I distract and baffle the migraine, cruising above it on intoxicating sound waves.  The pain persists; but, no longer engulfed by it, I "tolerate" it.  There's a difference . . . . . 

Or, perhaps, in another song, it's not the "pulse" of the music that grips me but the sheer emotional power of the singer; for example, Andrea Bocelli.  So I said to Andrea this morning ("talking" in my head to the YouTube clip), "Go ahead -- BLAST this pain away!" 

I thoroughly enjoyed his Tuscany performance of "Con Te Partiro" at a volume louder than moderate.

I highly recommend this accompanying method of pain amelioration.  The migraine has now vacated and one eye is tearing profusely in relief (reliable sign of "The End"), washing away the vestiges of battle. 

More music, please.  :)

The Higher Things

Hello, Friends,

I write today under duress of an imposing migraine following heavy synthetic-scent exposures, leaving me in earnest search of the mystical element behind this experience.  Well, there was a funeral.  Thursday.  It is, then, perhaps fitting that I experience "'a little' death" following humanity's loss of yet one more treasured person.  I was also given to understand that this person embraced his suffering and death with a smile, heroically.  I am a fool if I don't take that to heart. 

After sufficient torment, this migraine will pass.  And all will be well again.  I should be grateful that my brain has survived so many arterial assaults.  

Yes, I am grateful.  

Never in my childhood did I imagine being repeatedly laid low in adulthood by such innocuous-seeming elements as perfume.  Never, ever, ever.  I wouldn't have believed it was possible.  

But now I know that anything is possible, and things can always get so much worse.  I do myself the greatest favor when I keep my chin up and "hold on tight" right where I am.

So, ironically, I'm writing to explain to you that I am not able to write any more on this particular very early morning.  But I want to.  And I would if I could.   

The important thing is, I'm making contact.  Whoever you are, whenever you alight upon this blog, please take the utmost advantage of the information contained in the various tabs above.  It is hard-won information, indeed, born of the suffering of many, many people who have been pushed out to the margins of society by the ravages of respiratory irritants, nerve toxins, and carcinogens present in many commonly used products.

Please don't let their suffering be in vain.  Please hear the message proclaimed loudly between every line of research and anecdotal information:  Humanity is swimming in excesses of chemicals that can harm many more of us in lasting ways.    

Thank you for stopping by, and please do come back.

Cheers!

~ Carolyn

Has Anyone Asked the Fish?

Hello, Friends,

I'm sorry for the long delay in posting!  I've been giving myself a crash course in aquatic ecosystems.  The matter of the endangered River Shannon in Ireland (see sidebar for further information) came to my attention, and I felt moved to join my voice with those who seek to protect it.  

Why?  Because toxic injury has given me an extra sensitivity toward the undervalued assets of nature and toward the endangerment of both human health and nature.  Time and again, I've witnessed how very much better things are for my own health when nature is assisted as opposed to invaded.  Having been forced to give up my arsenal of chemical "protection" years ago, I've developed a keen appreciation of nature just as she is, for she must now assist me in all the ways I'd dismissed her before.  Why would I have needed nature's help, before, when I could always whip out my handy chemical "purifiers," antibiotics, and whatnot?

And, yes -- my water was "pure," too.  Nicely chlorinated -- as were all the pools I enjoyed for at least four hours a day, every possible clear day, in the summers.  Everything was chemically clean, clean, clean beyond inspection.

Until "clean" began to burn.  It began to cook my eyes, my face, my nose, my central nervous system, my skin, my insides.  Subjected to a heavily chlorinated water supply, I developed recurring kidney irritation.  Back to the doctor and back to the doctor I went -- until I got wise.  I began to brew dandelion tea and corn-silk tea all day and drank it up.  I bought bottled water -- to drink and to cook with -- and took the most perfunctory of showers.  The kidney trouble cleared up like magic.

  

Chemical water disinfection, therefore, had made me sick.  My personal ecosystem had been both disturbed and damaged.  Some effects were temporary; some accumulated and became permanent.

Apply this perspective, now, to any miscellaneous river whose water is to be diverted, in large portion, to a man-made reservoir for "treatment."  This is where the handy disinfectants come in:  algaecides, chlorine . . . . .  Whenever a toxic algal bloom erupts in the water, they can just hammer it with more algaecides -- and they might have to do that many, many times.  Then, there is the matter of which particular algaecides will be used.  Some, apparently, are even worse than others and distinctly ominous for human health.  

At the other end of this "treatment" are people who will drink that water, cook with it, clean with it, launder with it, shower with it, and bathe in it.

When water is diverted from a river in gigantic amounts, the harmonious flow of the river is disturbed, the level of the water can go down, and the temperature of the water can rise.  These factors can increase the likelihood and extent of toxic algal bloom, which would then necessitate an increase in the chemical "treatment" of said water.  This, in turn, would subject the human recipients of that water to any unforeseen byproducts of the chemical arsenal employed to provide them with "safe" water -- not to mention any lingering toxic algal blooms formed in resistance to the "treatment."  If, for recreational purposes, people are using a reservoir which is subject to frequent harmful algal blooms, their health can be endangered by the blooms.

Of course, everything is to be monitored and controlled.  That's what they always say.  Why, then, are people increasingly becoming sick, as I did, from such things as chlorinated water?  The water systems are monitored and controlled.  These people should not be reacting to chlorine in their water.

But they are.

If there is one thing I've learned from having to manage the reverberating aftereffects of toxic injury, it's this:  Invasion of any natural system -- whether it be a person or a river -- should always be the tactic of last resort, decided upon only after all other organic, conservative measures have been exhausted.  Man can do as he wishes, but if he makes a mistake which irreparably damages nature, nature will simply continue on that damaged track -- at which point many of those people who could not be bothered to care, before, will begin to notice.  And nature will forge on, obediently following that damaged track. 

When nature is put on a new track, she simply follows it with all of her -- nature.    

Hence, the track must be both safe and sound.  In the case of a river, perhaps the fish are the best indicators of the river's well-being and stamina.  Fish are to the river, it seems, what we chemically sensitive "canaries" are to the "coal mine."

Wishing you safe and abundant water and respite from the chemicals in your midst --

Cheers!

~ Carolyn

REPRINT: Cardiac Arrhythmias in the MCS Picture (originally posted 5/19/11)

Hello, Friends,

This is a reprint of a piece I wrote in May, 2011.  I'm reprinting it today due to some blog feedback which indicates reader interest in the topic of PVC's (premature ventricular contractions):  

Happy Hazy, Sunny Day!

Well, I'm back in the saddle again after much more chemical reactivity than I'd bargained for.

The rain has ended and the sun is shining -- literally! 

Now, cardiac arrhythmias -- how do they fit into the picture of chemical reactivity?  I'm not sure precisely how, except to speculate that the neurotoxins in the aggravating chemicals might stimulate the nerves electrically, which would include the heart nerve.  I just know that, for me, they are now part of the MCS picture.

I had been diagnosed with benign arrhythmias as a child -- what they now call "supraventricular tachycardia" (SVT).  I was treated, at that time, with tiny doses of daily phenobarbital and digitalis.  After a few years, the arrhythmias went dormant.  For decades.  Until the MCS came into bloom.

Let it be stated firmly that I am not a medical professional and can proffer neither diagnoses nor the science behind the symptoms.  I leave that to more capable minds.  What I can provide here, however, is anecdotal background into which a better mind can one day "splice in" the exact reasons for these physical symptoms.

Sometimes right away during an exposure to aggravating chemicals, or sometimes a day or two later, I will experience a multitude of "premature ventricular contractions" (PVC's).  These feel like little drum rolls of the heart or, at other times, an abrupt and hard "thud" as though the heart "fell" downward, or jumped upward!  These "thuds" cause me to gasp involuntarily.  At their worst, the PVC's keep coming and turn into an extended bout of SVT.  This is a racing of the heart so fast and so hard that you can see the person's shirt bobbing up and down over the heart.  Mine has reached over 200 beats per minute for extended periods of time, as in three hours.  My chest and back, at these times, experience a sickening ache, and I feel lightheaded.  A person cannot go on like this indefinitely.  My last bout caused the need for a visit to the emergency room for 2 shots of adenosine, a heart-stopping drug which resets the rhythm.

At other times, the heart will just launch into radical, fast SVT within a split second, as though someone simply flipped a switch inside of me.  If I cannot cough hard enough or bear down effectively enough (two techniques for stopping an arrhythmia in its tracks), then "we're off to the races" and I'm in a bad place, praying for the heart to stop "galloping" on its own.     

The PVC's occur most, and a multiplicity of times for one or two days at a time, during or following such things as heavy scented-laundry exposure, visits to mainstream medical offices (dental offices being the worst for me), and typical office buildings.

Also worth mentioning here, for the sake of completeness and accuracy, is the tendency for gluten to do the same thing to my heart.  Because there is a known "toxic fraction" of the gluten molecule which acts as an inflammatory agent for those sensitive to gluten, the gluten molecule becomes, for me, one more "chemical agent" in the reactivity picture.  My first symptoms of gluten sensitivity were, in fact, neurological.  I'd get wobbly, somewhat dizzy, following the ingestion of wheat bread.  I'd eat the bread and then find myself leaning against the wall for balance.  There was the frightening day when I was eating wheat bread in the car, while driving.  The PVC's began, making me gasp every other second.  I also felt that dizzy, lightheaded sensation.  A person cannot drive this way.  I had to stop the car and sit, just hoping for it all to pass.  I wondered about the wheat bread.

I took a baseline blood test for gluten sensitivity, which showed, at that time, a "moderate" level of antibodies to gluten in my blood.  I was advised to stay away from gluten at that point, or at least to limit it as best I could.  (I do understand that known celiacs must stay away from every single molecule of gluten.  I understand, also, that I might actually be a full-blown celiac which might be more obvious at this point if I pursued further testing.  Then again, there may be some people who are neurologically sensitive to gluten without having celiac disease.  The neurological angle of gluten sensitivity is now beginning to be explored.)

So gluten, for some of us, can act as "one more chemical" -- an actual toxin -- precipitating our symptoms. 

Now back to neurotoxins, in general, as they often precede or coincide with my own PVC's:

My greatest concern, therefore, comes for those cardiac patients, elderly patients, and all neurologically compromised patients who most visit mainstream medical offices.  As I've noted in a previous post, mainstream offices and most public buildings contain innumerable neurotoxins in the form of chemical disinfectants, air-freshening products, the synthetic scents that exude from each person, plus upholstery and carpeting which absorb and "breathe back" all of the above . . . etc.

For me, it is highly likely that if I had to visit a cardiologist or any medical professional regularly, I would be living with nearly continual episodes of PVC's!

So what is the case, I wonder, for frail elderly patients whose hearts are worn down, to begin with . . . whose brains and nervous systems are more susceptible to damage by everything they eat and breathe?  Do many cardiac patients actually get worse upon more frequent visits to the cardiologists' offices?

It surely makes me wonder.

Stay as well as you can, and cheers!

~ Carolyn

Grass Cleaners and Deodorized Eggs

I began to wonder, the other night, if people are now cleaning their grass with lemon-scented ammonia. 

It was a clear, moonlit eve and my husband had just purchased a used lawnmower from a resident of an impeccably lovely home, lawn freshly tended.*  As my husband re-entered the car after loading the lawnmower in the back, I smelled a pungent chemical, lemony smell.  Preparing to stick my nose out the window for the entire ride home, I exclaimed to my husband, "You've got the smell of a cleaner all over you!"  To which he replied, "It's not me -- that smell was all over, outside.  It still is."

It was a difficult call.  My sense of smell, initially strong, was now somewhat masked by the chemical.  Perhaps the air outside really did sting of the strange scent.  For a few moments as we drove out of the neighborhood, the peculiar scent seemed to be "out there."  How very odd.

"Oh," I lamented, "where can I find air that smells of air?"

As we drove further, the chemical lemony smell seemed to emanate from the back of the car.  I thought about the grass-catcher on the mower, and my wheels started turning.  What, exactly, was on that mower?

Having been so long away from lawn treatments, I no longer know what the scent of one would be -- except for the most rudimentary fertilizers.  When we returned home, however, the hair of another family member [our little girl] who'd been sitting in the back passenger seat now smelled of the lemony chemical.

Then, yesterday, when I was preparing to make a three-egg omelet, I opened the plastic egg carton and was greeted by that synthetic "air-freshener" smell.  To my surprise, this time the chemical smell had nearly escaped the plastic carton.  It was actually on the eggs.  "Oh," I thought, "now they have 'deodorized eggs'?"  

For what it was worth, I rinsed the pretty brown "farm-fresh," "cage-free," "omega-3" eggs in cool tap water from our well.  I then rubbed them with paper towels (these, fortunately, were scent-free).  Some of the scent diminished.  We did eat them.  

But it all causes one to wonder.

While scrambling the perfumed eggs, I had tried to navigate my footwork with some grace and charm as a migraine headache came out of hiding.  The previous day, I'd walked my children into the children's section of a library.  I'd backed right out again.  An acerbic chemical scent was present in the air.  My nose turned red, and the redness began to spread to my chin and face.  Then came the hives on my arms -- the usual routine when there's an air freshener and/or strong cleaning products have been used in a room.

All of which left me feeling an externally invisible but internally experienced difficulty with balance and walking yesterday.  These types of recovery days involve a kind of "thinking about walking" on my part in order to make walking happen properly.  It all feels remarkably like when I was put on codeine after an operation to mask the pain:  a frankly drugged feeling in which all planned physical impulses feel like sludge and words almost slur. 

So, thinking hard about walking from the table to the stove and back again, I prepared our fragranced eggs. 

There's no use crying about it.  Sometimes, I'd just rather laugh.  There will be no perfection on this earth while I write this blog and advocate for air purification in every venue.  Of course I know this.  And I even accept it.  

There will be those days when I feel as though I'm walking on a rocking ship, when my brain pounds nearly out of my skull, when my face is outlined in choleric red and hives sprout in patches . . .

Until, that is, the law banishes synthetic air fresheners, synthetically scented paraffin candles, toxins in synthetic laundry and cleaning products, and lawn chemicals -- among a multitude of other things.

Just one more reminder from one more little voice on the planet. 

Aside from that, I wish you "Cheers!"

~ Carolyn

*[Note of 9/10/15:  This strange scent experience of our family of four took place in upper Northwest NJ, in Sussex County.]
  

Words of Gold

Hello, friends,

Recently I've been marveling, with tremendous gratitude, at the ability of certain medical professionals who do not have toxic injury to "get in the shoes of" those who do.  When these doctors explain toxic injury/MCS to people in recorded interviews, they succeed perfectly in capturing the nuances of that peculiar new sensitivity to chemical odors experienced by the toxically injured.  These doctors are careful to note, for the listening public, that this is not a mere matter of "disliking" or of "being bothered by" chemical odors.  They explain that it is rather a matter of our reacting "physically unpleasantly" and "becoming symptomatic."

To experience these quotes in the context in which they were made, please view the following video or read the accompany transcript (which seems to contain less text than quoted in the video):  "Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: A Short Introduction" (provided by The Chemical Sensitivity Foundation).

These words of concrete understanding, at the medical level, are gold to a person who's been toxically injured. 

It is precisely this type of "in your shoes" understanding that I hope to promote through this blog.  Only those who understand the true nature of this affliction will be in a position to warn the toxically injured to avoid, whenever possible, further exposures to "irritant chemicals" -- to avoid an escalation of symptoms, permanent physical damage, and the spreading of their chemical reactivity to other chemicals.

Here I need to return briefly to a very fine and critical point:  I mentioned, a few essays back ("A Difficult Topic"), the claims of some toxically injured people to have succeeded in desensitizing themselves to most significant chemical reactions by channeling new thought patterns through particular parts of their brains.  If a toxically injured person is truly healed through this type of treatment or by a thorough process of physical detoxification (as per the protocols at the William Rea center in Texas and other centers which implement detoxification), that is one thing.  For those who are not healed of their chemical sensitivity and are still symptomatic, avoidance of further exposures to irritant chemicals (to whatever extent possible) is crucial to avoid further systemic damage.  And even those who are healed of their chemical sensitivity would be advised to avoid exposing themselves to chemicals which could begin the process all over again.

I recently experienced, myself, another long-winded reaction to an unknown but very strong and pervasive outdoor chemical, compounded by other "ordinary" chemical cleaners and/or synthetically scented laundry products.  Last weekend, I found myself having to locate my car in a parking lot suddenly filled with a chemical in the air which had not been there at all when I arrived.  The next morning, I had an additional exposure to a chemical in an office which carried a chemical fragrance strong enough to permeate my clothes within an hour.   By Saturday afternoon, I was developing what I'd have to call "nerve rashes" at various points on my face -- red, raised spots, sharply demarcated by lines in places, almost like little triangles, accompanied by nerve tingling in those places as though I'd just had novocaine which was now wearing off.  The rashes and tingling recurred several times over this past week, decreasing in intensity and frequency as the week went on.

I could have easily attributed these reactions to several different food allergies.  However, when the chemical reaction had finally spent itself and I returned to each potentially allergenic food as usual, there were no symptoms whatsoever.  Imagine if I'd known nothing about toxic injury and had hauled myself off to an allergist this past week, with all of the typical, accompanying office chemicals!

This, in fact, is exactly the kind of thing I did 20-something years ago, resulting in innumerable doctor visits for innumerable symptoms and in repeated social accusations, as a result, that I was a malingerer or avoiding others (I was avoiding their fragrances) out of some inherent negativity in my heart.  The emotional toll this disbelief and misunderstanding took on me was severe.  Not to mention the fact that not a single one of those doctors was able to help me one bit.  And so I languished for periods of years in this ever-worsening cascade of symptoms.  I know, now, that I am far from alone in this experience.  I was not Internet-savvy in the 1990's, nor was I able to write, due to the state of continual devastation I was in.

Another key point I wish to mention is that, during this past week as I detoxified from whatever chemicals I'd been exposed to last weekend, the effect of the chemicals on my emotions was particularly strong.  By this sign, along with the "nerve rashes," I can now gauge, for myself, the severity of the chemical exposure.  Whatever this combination of chemicals was, it was very bad.  I'm now recalling, also, that beginning last Sunday was a two-day migraine which required many doses of ibuprofen just to get me through to Tuesday.  The migraine continued to pound beneath each ibuprofen I took.  Such "whopper" migraines are, of course, another red flag that certain chemicals have affected me more severely than "usual."

Emotions are not scientifically measurable, and there are things in everyone's life which can potentially cause them varying degrees of sorrow.  However, I have found that chemicals will take a fairly manageable sorrow or source of mental/emotional distress and intensify it internally.  When the chemicals wear off, I'm able to experience the sorrow or other distress in its "true size" and begin to move on.  This has occurred enough times over the years for me to discern the pattern.

All of this being the case, I wish to extend my written thanks to those medical professionals (some of whom I quoted loosely by memory, above), for all of their work toward understanding, speaking about, and seeking treatments for toxic injury:

William Meggs, M.D., Ph.D. - Brody School of Medicine, North Carolina

Claudia Miller, M.D. - University of Texas Health Sciences Center, San Antonio, Texas

Lt. Gen. Ronald R. Blank - former U.S. Army Surgeon General and former Commander, Walter Reed Medical Center

Christine Oliver, M.D. -  Assistant Clinical Professor, Harvard Medical School

Stephen Levine, M.D. - Director, Mount Sinai Occupational and Environmental Clinic

Cheers!

~ Carolyn