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