I was so scared I couldn't be scared. Ghastly scared. I was 35, entering a renowned New York City hospital to have a biopsy. I didn't belong there. (Who does?) I remember white and gray halls. Then, the quiet, ultra-civilized office where nobody cried and nobody winced, where the magazines were all ultra-New York-chic and what did I care about this because I didn't want to die. Period.
The office meant death to me. The hospital meant death to me. The biopsy meant death to me. Death all around me.
I'd had operations before, several times, since childhood. But this . . . this was to find out if I was going to get a death sentence. There are some people who are not afraid of death. I'm not one of them.
And, even more to the point, I want to live. I wanted to live that day, too. And I did live. I lived through the biopsy. I lived after the biopsy. But I was one scared human. Not shaking scared where your teeth chatter and you can feel fear pulsing through every cell. No, this was a deadened kind of fear, an emotional ossification. A pure, infused dread of everything strictly clinical and ultra-medical. Everything.
Now it was time to do anything to prevent myself from ever entering such a hospital again. I went to the best alternative practitioner I could find. I followed his suggestions to the letter. He was good; his suggestions were right. This doctor was, and is, gold.
Came the day, the year, when I could no longer afford to pay the fees. My appointments slacked off. Health troubles arose. So many, one on top of the other, that I couldn't find it in me to be medically scared anymore. I was medically tired. I was chemically wiped out. Weary beyond description.
Food and supplement regimens: My mental capacity for following them steadily declined. There was life to be lived. My life had been spared a medical death sentence -- now it was time to use the life that was given anew to me each day. But, being so tired, I found that strict and excessive health regimens interfered with thoughts, feelings, other people. I lost track of all my regimens, could barely recall my previous list-following behavior, couldn't bear lists anymore, couldn't even make them. I tried making a few, to recapture the old days. I kept losing the lists. Then I lost track of all my symptoms. There were just so many -- which one mattered most? How to unravel such a tangled thread? Where would one begin?
Well, I'm sitting here beside my 10+ bottles of supplements and facing the same question I face every single day: How am I going to DO this?
How do I formulate a system of taking these supplements regularly, so that I can tell myself, "I've honestly tried building up my levels of this and that and now let's see the results"? Do I even believe in supplements anymore? Is it useless to seek nutrients apart from the foods in which they naturally occur?
It's all beyond me -- but, again, I want to live. So, just in case I really need these supplements, I open up the capsules (can't swallow pills well) and pour as many as will fit into a jar of baby food. It's a repulsive mixture, but things could be worse. Each time I take a capsule from a bottle, I move the bottle to a new place on top of the computer hard drive, or on top of the table beside it. In this way, the bottles move from table to computer and back again . . . but at least I don't repeat a dose I shouldn't repeat. One doesn't want to overdo the liquid kelp iodine. I've heard one can get quite itchy from a large dose.
So, this is my "list." I'm supposed to take more calcium and magnesium but most days, lately, I haven't had the stomach for it, with the baby food jar and all. So I'm not at my optimum levels. Of any nutrient.
Then, there are the chemicals to avoid which I've nearly given up avoiding -- which is why I'm having trouble writing about them. Of course, I haven't bought mainstream chemical cleaners, laundry products, air fresheners, scented candles, or anything directly harmful. It's just that I'm not thinking about these things when I interact with the outside world. I'm often inhaling deep gulps of someone's seriously strong laundry fragrances on his or her clothes. I no longer automatically move away. Sometimes I get a migraine. And many times, I don't. I'd like to think I'm "better." But other health things are seriously out of whack and I'm not understanding why -- if I'm so much "better." My diet isn't bad. It limits itself to reasonable foods, such as tuna (yes, some mercury and whatever else, but the fish part is good), salads, potatoes, beans and onions and olive oil, gluten-free protein bars, peanut butter and rice cakes, some fruit, some eggs, a bit of meat now and then, rice cereal, water, and coffee. Has the chemical sensitivity assumed a new form? Am I now approaching some real systemic disaster, such as kidney overload and/or failure?
From what I've read, there can be masking and metamorphosis of chemical sensitivity reactions. I'm honestly at a place where I'm completely baffled, having serious trouble swallowing not only pills, but food, and I'm wondering how things are really going for me. My brain is completely overloaded with chemical sensitivity information and I'm loathe to go through life mentally ticking off capsules and avoid lists in my mind while I'm trying to pay attention to other people.
Regimens can help preserve a life, and yet there is always a price of priorities clashing with priorities.
I have to say that I've arrived at a mental place where I believe that sometimes -- or even often -- I'm not going to feel well because I didn't avoid this or that perfectly, didn't eat this or that food enough, didn't take sufficient amounts of this or that supplement --
And this, for me, is life. I can do what I can to fend off systemic destruction, but I can't do it all. I can't even do a good portion of it. I can do a little bit. My health is going to be slipping and sliding. And I'd rather not spend the rest of my life focusing on that. I'd rather just "manage it" as it comes. I can manage it smoothly and deftly on one day -- but on another day I might just have to tell everyone I need to stop everything and take a nap. It's not neat and tidy. It's not predictable. It totally violates my sense of order and makes wreckage out of my expectations of myself.
But there it is.
Perhaps my "slot" in this vast "field" of MCS is this: I can't change the world, as I'd hoped. I can't even set forth a reasonable recipe for avoiding this or that, or offer a reliable regimen for supplements.
But what I can do is write about the "human experience" of MCS and its tangential issues. I can keep others company in their trials and tribulations. I can tell you how things really pan out, in my own experience -- and not simply how I wish they would be.
That, friends, is my "slot." It's a much tinier one than I'd aspired to when I began this blog.
However small a contribution it may be to the bettering of the human condition, I'd like to share it with you.
~ Carolyn
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
The Difference
"I would like to write, next time, about the difference I found, in 2007, between American cigarettes and French/European cigarettes." (Closing words of my post: "Becoming Aware" - January 29, 2013)
I'd been careful to explain, earlier in that post, "Becoming Aware," that "I was young; I didn't smoke" -- speaking of my life up to that point (late teens/early 20s). I then went on to speak of my next ten years, during which I repeatedly became very sick from exposure to cigarette smoke. I believed it went without saying that no one who was that sickened by other people's smoke would ever want to smoke. In my mind, this was just a "given." That "given" stretched to include my next decade, as well.
However, looking at my closing sentence of that post, last night, it suddenly dawned on me that, without further qualification as to what I meant, it could have sounded as though I'd taken up smoking in France.
Nothing could be further from the truth. But I had an exceptionally pleasant surprise there.
It was an initially discouraging story with a very good ending. We'd tried to rent a house in France which we were told contained no scented items -- a very difficult thing to ascertain over the phone. Upon arriving at the given address, we found the house filled with scented candles. Every room had a scent to it. There was a brand-name aerosol deodorizer in the laundry room. Layers and layers of scent were built into the inside of that house. There was also plush carpeting -- this was not looking good. I went outside and just waited to be driven away from there.
We ending up driving almost all night searching for a suitable hotel. Finally, we came upon the only likely candidate. There was one drawback, however: It was a hotel which contained both smoking and non-smoking rooms. The dining and social areas were partially smoked in; the hallways carried the odor of smoke.
We were told, however, that the room we were to occupy had always been smoke-free. Still, this whole arrangement was scary to me. I hadn't been in a smoked-in residence or restaurant in years. We kept a window open, always, during our stay there. Every time I left the room, I sped through the hallway holding my breath. If the dining area smelled of active smoke at various times, I stopped eating, left the table, and went outside. The usual routines for an MCS person.
On the streets of Paris, I encountered one whiff of smoke on top of another. It was an almost constant stream of smoke -- even elderly ladies smoked. Everybody smoked.
You put all that together and --
I didn't get a single migraine for the whole time I was there. The only migraine I had was on the first day, after having been on a plane whose engine had poured jet-fuel fumes into our back-end seats for two hours on the runway -- and which also had a sound-buffer malfunction so that the engine noise became intolerable. That was an understandable migraine.
I expected to get more migraines, with my being in a smokers' hotel and being surrounded by smokers everywhere on the city streets. But "more migraines" never came.
Although I'd inhaled more than my usual share of cigarette emissions outdoors and cigarette odors indoors, something was profoundly different.
I had no cataclysmic neurological storm of head and face pain, no blurry/shaky vision, no balance difficulties or sensations of trembling. All that I experienced, in reaction to all of those cigarettes and cigarette odors, was a stuffed nose. It didn't affect my nervous system at all.
I tentatively concluded that the French cigarettes must have had significantly less harmful additives than our American cigarettes. I never really looked up the topic, however, until last night. Having glanced through a few items on the issue, I think I'm correct in my conclusion.
And, to recap -- I've never smoked a cigarette in my life. The thought of a cloud of smoke hitting my lungs in a big "puff" has always been frightening to me. I've always expected not to be able to breathe, and to be terrified. Then, once the smoke went in, I'd want to get it out -- not just the exhaled part, but all of it . . . every single fragment of particulate. But you can't scrub a lung.
Cheers and good air to you --
~ Daisies
I'd been careful to explain, earlier in that post, "Becoming Aware," that "I was young; I didn't smoke" -- speaking of my life up to that point (late teens/early 20s). I then went on to speak of my next ten years, during which I repeatedly became very sick from exposure to cigarette smoke. I believed it went without saying that no one who was that sickened by other people's smoke would ever want to smoke. In my mind, this was just a "given." That "given" stretched to include my next decade, as well.
However, looking at my closing sentence of that post, last night, it suddenly dawned on me that, without further qualification as to what I meant, it could have sounded as though I'd taken up smoking in France.
Nothing could be further from the truth. But I had an exceptionally pleasant surprise there.
It was an initially discouraging story with a very good ending. We'd tried to rent a house in France which we were told contained no scented items -- a very difficult thing to ascertain over the phone. Upon arriving at the given address, we found the house filled with scented candles. Every room had a scent to it. There was a brand-name aerosol deodorizer in the laundry room. Layers and layers of scent were built into the inside of that house. There was also plush carpeting -- this was not looking good. I went outside and just waited to be driven away from there.
We ending up driving almost all night searching for a suitable hotel. Finally, we came upon the only likely candidate. There was one drawback, however: It was a hotel which contained both smoking and non-smoking rooms. The dining and social areas were partially smoked in; the hallways carried the odor of smoke.
We were told, however, that the room we were to occupy had always been smoke-free. Still, this whole arrangement was scary to me. I hadn't been in a smoked-in residence or restaurant in years. We kept a window open, always, during our stay there. Every time I left the room, I sped through the hallway holding my breath. If the dining area smelled of active smoke at various times, I stopped eating, left the table, and went outside. The usual routines for an MCS person.
On the streets of Paris, I encountered one whiff of smoke on top of another. It was an almost constant stream of smoke -- even elderly ladies smoked. Everybody smoked.
You put all that together and --
I didn't get a single migraine for the whole time I was there. The only migraine I had was on the first day, after having been on a plane whose engine had poured jet-fuel fumes into our back-end seats for two hours on the runway -- and which also had a sound-buffer malfunction so that the engine noise became intolerable. That was an understandable migraine.
I expected to get more migraines, with my being in a smokers' hotel and being surrounded by smokers everywhere on the city streets. But "more migraines" never came.
Although I'd inhaled more than my usual share of cigarette emissions outdoors and cigarette odors indoors, something was profoundly different.
I had no cataclysmic neurological storm of head and face pain, no blurry/shaky vision, no balance difficulties or sensations of trembling. All that I experienced, in reaction to all of those cigarettes and cigarette odors, was a stuffed nose. It didn't affect my nervous system at all.
I tentatively concluded that the French cigarettes must have had significantly less harmful additives than our American cigarettes. I never really looked up the topic, however, until last night. Having glanced through a few items on the issue, I think I'm correct in my conclusion.
And, to recap -- I've never smoked a cigarette in my life. The thought of a cloud of smoke hitting my lungs in a big "puff" has always been frightening to me. I've always expected not to be able to breathe, and to be terrified. Then, once the smoke went in, I'd want to get it out -- not just the exhaled part, but all of it . . . every single fragment of particulate. But you can't scrub a lung.
Cheers and good air to you --
~ Daisies
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
In the Course of Life
Hello, Friends,
I'm going to address a subject head-on which, for me up until now, has been a mere tangent -- something I simply don't think about as I live my life. Due to a perceived need to address it in writing, however, I've recently attempted to do this in various ways elsewhere, but I want this post to be much more to the point.
For many years now, I've lived my life as a person with an accidental big belly. What do I mean by "an accidental big belly"? I refer to my large, pregnancy-related abdominal hernia (re: my first child), which was repaired loosely as opposed to tightly, specifically so that I'd be able to have more children afterwards. After experiencing an early miscarriage a few years later, I was then privileged to carry my next child to term; and the large hernia was no hazard, no impediment. I just had to wear some support. Big deal. That was nothing.
The whole thing is nothing to me, because along with it came the gift of my children. I write this post not because I care to write about my hernia, but because I've sensed the concern of others regarding my physical condition, perhaps having seen it in YouTube videos and thinking it to have been an actual pregnancy.
The hernia occurred somewhere between late pregnancy, labor, and/or the C-section delivery of my first child. The muscles overlaying the hernia, which is softball-sized in the middle of my belly, are widely separated and, technically speaking, in need of surgical repair. But that repair was deliberately held off to accommodate the childbearing years. If the muscles had been repaired as tightly as they would need to be, they would also have had to be shortened. This means that they could have ripped apart in a pregnancy; or they could have remained tight and prevented the womb from expanding, thereby endangering the baby.
Add to that the perils of anesthesia, the length of the repair surgery, and the fright of, "What will this look like after they repair it?" One never knows. I could easily see myself wishing I had my own stretched-out muscles back following some kind of surgical disaster. While I can muster up trust in the event of an absolutely necessary and inescapable surgery, I cannot do the same for a merely cosmetic surgery. If ever the repair became medically necessary, that would be a different scenario and I would have to face it. But it isn't that way now.
So I'm the lady with the big belly. When I gain weight, the "pregnancy" shape of my figure looks even "further along" -- perhaps even "overdue." I had terrible inflammation this past winter and spring, between thyroid trouble and then Lyme disease in the spring/summer. In addition, the inactivity of feeling sick contributed, at the same time, to weight gain. So I was huge. I was startled to see myself in photos, in videos.
So, fairly recently, it came to my realization that there are those who have seen me in video clips and become concerned, realizing that I looked very pregnant in the winter but apparently have had no new baby.
There was no new baby because there was never any baby at all. Whatever the YouTube videos have of me in them, none of them had a pregnant me in them. What I was seen to be "carrying," in the exact shape of a pregnancy, was the bulk of my internal organs sliding forward. There is no flattening them. The damage is too great to contain behind any kind of support garment. Support garments hurt and feel really weird on top of organs falling forward, all out of place. It's unbearable.
Furthermore, I had once visited (out of curiousity as to how things stood for me) a top-notch surgeon who looked at the shape of the hernia, which falls forward even up high near my ribs (which has perplexed me for years -- I don't know how to reconcile the fact of organs "falling" upward or straight ahead, but no medical person has ever answered this for me). The surgeon murmured, trailing off, "I don't think I could even repair this . . . " He looked both mystified and troubled.
It was one of those hopeless-sounding encounters that I had to put in the back of my mind immediately, in order to maintain my equilibrium. This was an office that I just wanted to leave. Quickly. (If ever I were able/willing to get these muscles repaired, I'd obviously have to seek out a different surgeon!)
So not only is it physically impossible for me to flatten this belly with any support device, myself -- but even a respected surgeon felt it was beyond his capability to do so with plastic surgery.
While the degree of protrusion of my hernia can recede with weight loss and treatment of underlying inflammation (this is the goal at present; some progress has been made), the essentially "pregnant" shape, however, will not change without successful surgery on the muscles.
How does does this topic intersect with this blog? Very simply -- if I'd been having pregnancies and pregnancy losses throughout the time period of this blog, that would have given all of my physically descriptive posts a decidedly different background twist. Frankly, it would have then been irresponsible of me not to mention a pregnancy, a pregnancy loss, or, as some people have been concerned about the possibility of, an abortion -- which I flat-out do not believe in and would never, ever seek for myself.
I am happy to report that none of the above has been the case.
Therefore, if you glimpse anyone in a YouTube video with a reasonably normal-looking belly, you can be absolutely sure it isn't me.
It has been very important to me to get this message across.* Thank you for reading this.
Cheers!
*Note added August 16, 2015:
The "anti-" labels below represent my own long-standing positions on each issue following the hyphens. ~ Carolyn
I'm going to address a subject head-on which, for me up until now, has been a mere tangent -- something I simply don't think about as I live my life. Due to a perceived need to address it in writing, however, I've recently attempted to do this in various ways elsewhere, but I want this post to be much more to the point.
For many years now, I've lived my life as a person with an accidental big belly. What do I mean by "an accidental big belly"? I refer to my large, pregnancy-related abdominal hernia (re: my first child), which was repaired loosely as opposed to tightly, specifically so that I'd be able to have more children afterwards. After experiencing an early miscarriage a few years later, I was then privileged to carry my next child to term; and the large hernia was no hazard, no impediment. I just had to wear some support. Big deal. That was nothing.
The whole thing is nothing to me, because along with it came the gift of my children. I write this post not because I care to write about my hernia, but because I've sensed the concern of others regarding my physical condition, perhaps having seen it in YouTube videos and thinking it to have been an actual pregnancy.
The hernia occurred somewhere between late pregnancy, labor, and/or the C-section delivery of my first child. The muscles overlaying the hernia, which is softball-sized in the middle of my belly, are widely separated and, technically speaking, in need of surgical repair. But that repair was deliberately held off to accommodate the childbearing years. If the muscles had been repaired as tightly as they would need to be, they would also have had to be shortened. This means that they could have ripped apart in a pregnancy; or they could have remained tight and prevented the womb from expanding, thereby endangering the baby.
Add to that the perils of anesthesia, the length of the repair surgery, and the fright of, "What will this look like after they repair it?" One never knows. I could easily see myself wishing I had my own stretched-out muscles back following some kind of surgical disaster. While I can muster up trust in the event of an absolutely necessary and inescapable surgery, I cannot do the same for a merely cosmetic surgery. If ever the repair became medically necessary, that would be a different scenario and I would have to face it. But it isn't that way now.
So I'm the lady with the big belly. When I gain weight, the "pregnancy" shape of my figure looks even "further along" -- perhaps even "overdue." I had terrible inflammation this past winter and spring, between thyroid trouble and then Lyme disease in the spring/summer. In addition, the inactivity of feeling sick contributed, at the same time, to weight gain. So I was huge. I was startled to see myself in photos, in videos.
So, fairly recently, it came to my realization that there are those who have seen me in video clips and become concerned, realizing that I looked very pregnant in the winter but apparently have had no new baby.
There was no new baby because there was never any baby at all. Whatever the YouTube videos have of me in them, none of them had a pregnant me in them. What I was seen to be "carrying," in the exact shape of a pregnancy, was the bulk of my internal organs sliding forward. There is no flattening them. The damage is too great to contain behind any kind of support garment. Support garments hurt and feel really weird on top of organs falling forward, all out of place. It's unbearable.
Furthermore, I had once visited (out of curiousity as to how things stood for me) a top-notch surgeon who looked at the shape of the hernia, which falls forward even up high near my ribs (which has perplexed me for years -- I don't know how to reconcile the fact of organs "falling" upward or straight ahead, but no medical person has ever answered this for me). The surgeon murmured, trailing off, "I don't think I could even repair this . . . " He looked both mystified and troubled.
It was one of those hopeless-sounding encounters that I had to put in the back of my mind immediately, in order to maintain my equilibrium. This was an office that I just wanted to leave. Quickly. (If ever I were able/willing to get these muscles repaired, I'd obviously have to seek out a different surgeon!)
So not only is it physically impossible for me to flatten this belly with any support device, myself -- but even a respected surgeon felt it was beyond his capability to do so with plastic surgery.
While the degree of protrusion of my hernia can recede with weight loss and treatment of underlying inflammation (this is the goal at present; some progress has been made), the essentially "pregnant" shape, however, will not change without successful surgery on the muscles.
How does does this topic intersect with this blog? Very simply -- if I'd been having pregnancies and pregnancy losses throughout the time period of this blog, that would have given all of my physically descriptive posts a decidedly different background twist. Frankly, it would have then been irresponsible of me not to mention a pregnancy, a pregnancy loss, or, as some people have been concerned about the possibility of, an abortion -- which I flat-out do not believe in and would never, ever seek for myself.
I am happy to report that none of the above has been the case.
Therefore, if you glimpse anyone in a YouTube video with a reasonably normal-looking belly, you can be absolutely sure it isn't me.
It has been very important to me to get this message across.* Thank you for reading this.
Cheers!
~ Daisies [old pen name for myself, Carolyn]
*Note added August 16, 2015:
The "anti-" labels below represent my own long-standing positions on each issue following the hyphens. ~ Carolyn
Monday, September 23, 2013
A Different Kind of Migraine
Hello, Friends,
I've just returned from an extremely uplifting trip, in theme, purpose, and goals (of beauty) achieved . . . This joyful outcome shall forever stand on its own, bright and shining no matter what.
In the background, however, completely unrelated to the beautiful performances we were able to see, were noxious chemicals in use -- as they are in many public places -- in the hotel.* This indoor contradiction to artistic beauty (which had been performed outdoors in the presence of peaceful nature) turned out to be a jarring one.
I was increasingly breathless and weakened when traversing the hotel stairs, which were heavily scented with a carpet cleaner or air deodorizer. I avoided the elevator because it was frequented by smokers; and a chemically sensitive person does well not to risk spending extra minutes in a small, closed space with proximate irritants of cigarette odors and synthetic scents. The air in the hotel room was clingy. I felt strange and increasingly bad in a way I could not define.
I found out on the way home, experiencing what I can only call a slow, prolonged seizure of the abdominal organs. This has happened to me before, following chemical exposures. Arrested by sickening, thick, intense pains that bored into me from the back and the front, in different places at the same time, I couldn't rest my back against the seat of the car because it hurt so badly in the soft-tissue area of the kidneys. I could barely inhale because something was gripping tight and painful in the area of the liver, on the right, and in the upper digestive tract on the left. So for about six hours straight, I held myself at left-angle, then right-angle, away from the seat back, frozen in position waiting for the pain to abate, which it did not do until about eight hours had passed. The pain slowly, slowly moved lower and lower, easing in the kidneys as I was finally able to drink some sips of water. But the pain on the right side stayed longer, gnawing into me. Now the active ache has stopped in the liver area, but that place feels like a raw wound.
I've had this happen about 10 times since around 2005. It's always a long bout and just immobilizing. I would have to call it a "migraine of the internal organs." It's severe, comparable to a gallstone attack. Having had the privilege of experiencing two gallstone attacks (one was confirmed with ultrasound -- the next one I simply survived), I can tell the difference. The "migraine of the internal organs" is more "spread out," more pervasive; and the boring pain hits in places removed from the gallbladder's reverberating "range," or periphery.
The tender and deep kidney pain -- both sides -- has always been a curious effect of this peculiar form of migraine. It always feels as though the kidneys had been directly impacted by something caustic and were crying out for help.
I interpret the whole syndrome as the body being completely filled up with toxins and everything suddenly being frozen in place -- "seized up," if you will. Recovery begins with coaxing fluids into the body (one feels as though one will be sick and, under the strain, tends to forget whatever remedies one had), and it's a slow process.
I would like to reiterate that, although tissue inflammation and congestion certainly can and do result from one's experiences of chemical sensitivity, the "source pathway" of reactivity to chemicals is markedly different from a strictly immunological model (as with food/plant allergens). Yes, inflammation results from chemical sensitivity (often tingling and/or feeling like a "burn," as well) -- and this can sometimes be seen, or even measured. But the full pathway of a chemical toxin into the nerves and tissues is a neurologically intricate event which is mediated -- to the best of my knowledge -- through the brain and, as suggested elsewhere (and through my own experiences of reactivity to chemicals), also involving the eyes; and new means of measurement must be developed to track all of this in a commonly available way.
As a matter of great interest to me -- and perhaps to others -- I've just today come across a website which mentions the use of a retinal/ocular test to help measure the ins and outs of chemicals from the body. This is the kind of test I'm speaking of when I say that new methods of tracking must be developed. It's called the Functional Acuity Contrast Test. The existence of such a test is an uplifting thought.:
The Functional Acuity Contrast Test (healingpartnership.com)
Wishing you clean, clear air -- Happy Autumn!
Cheers!
~ Daisies
*An American hotel in Richmond, Virginia.
I've just returned from an extremely uplifting trip, in theme, purpose, and goals (of beauty) achieved . . . This joyful outcome shall forever stand on its own, bright and shining no matter what.
In the background, however, completely unrelated to the beautiful performances we were able to see, were noxious chemicals in use -- as they are in many public places -- in the hotel.* This indoor contradiction to artistic beauty (which had been performed outdoors in the presence of peaceful nature) turned out to be a jarring one.
I was increasingly breathless and weakened when traversing the hotel stairs, which were heavily scented with a carpet cleaner or air deodorizer. I avoided the elevator because it was frequented by smokers; and a chemically sensitive person does well not to risk spending extra minutes in a small, closed space with proximate irritants of cigarette odors and synthetic scents. The air in the hotel room was clingy. I felt strange and increasingly bad in a way I could not define.
I found out on the way home, experiencing what I can only call a slow, prolonged seizure of the abdominal organs. This has happened to me before, following chemical exposures. Arrested by sickening, thick, intense pains that bored into me from the back and the front, in different places at the same time, I couldn't rest my back against the seat of the car because it hurt so badly in the soft-tissue area of the kidneys. I could barely inhale because something was gripping tight and painful in the area of the liver, on the right, and in the upper digestive tract on the left. So for about six hours straight, I held myself at left-angle, then right-angle, away from the seat back, frozen in position waiting for the pain to abate, which it did not do until about eight hours had passed. The pain slowly, slowly moved lower and lower, easing in the kidneys as I was finally able to drink some sips of water. But the pain on the right side stayed longer, gnawing into me. Now the active ache has stopped in the liver area, but that place feels like a raw wound.
I've had this happen about 10 times since around 2005. It's always a long bout and just immobilizing. I would have to call it a "migraine of the internal organs." It's severe, comparable to a gallstone attack. Having had the privilege of experiencing two gallstone attacks (one was confirmed with ultrasound -- the next one I simply survived), I can tell the difference. The "migraine of the internal organs" is more "spread out," more pervasive; and the boring pain hits in places removed from the gallbladder's reverberating "range," or periphery.
The tender and deep kidney pain -- both sides -- has always been a curious effect of this peculiar form of migraine. It always feels as though the kidneys had been directly impacted by something caustic and were crying out for help.
I interpret the whole syndrome as the body being completely filled up with toxins and everything suddenly being frozen in place -- "seized up," if you will. Recovery begins with coaxing fluids into the body (one feels as though one will be sick and, under the strain, tends to forget whatever remedies one had), and it's a slow process.
I would like to reiterate that, although tissue inflammation and congestion certainly can and do result from one's experiences of chemical sensitivity, the "source pathway" of reactivity to chemicals is markedly different from a strictly immunological model (as with food/plant allergens). Yes, inflammation results from chemical sensitivity (often tingling and/or feeling like a "burn," as well) -- and this can sometimes be seen, or even measured. But the full pathway of a chemical toxin into the nerves and tissues is a neurologically intricate event which is mediated -- to the best of my knowledge -- through the brain and, as suggested elsewhere (and through my own experiences of reactivity to chemicals), also involving the eyes; and new means of measurement must be developed to track all of this in a commonly available way.
As a matter of great interest to me -- and perhaps to others -- I've just today come across a website which mentions the use of a retinal/ocular test to help measure the ins and outs of chemicals from the body. This is the kind of test I'm speaking of when I say that new methods of tracking must be developed. It's called the Functional Acuity Contrast Test. The existence of such a test is an uplifting thought.:
The Functional Acuity Contrast Test (healingpartnership.com)
Wishing you clean, clear air -- Happy Autumn!
Cheers!
~ Daisies
*An American hotel in Richmond, Virginia.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
"How It Works"
Hello, Friends,
A very tough challenge in conversing about Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) lies in identifying and dispelling hidden layers of confusion about "how MCS works."
The consequences of hidden confusion in a conversation range from "minor" to "vast."
For instance, even amongst those who are extremely accepting and amenable to making environmental alterations for their chemically sensitive friends, there can be great gaps of crucial knowledge still waiting to be filled in.
When these gaps are finally "filled in" with the necessary information, this is a good thing, indeed -- but also, then, what have we lost in terms of time? What if a particular piece of delayed knowledge had been critical to a friend's physical well-being -- perhaps the very answer to a health puzzle needing desperately to be solved? Time lost, in such a case, is a very unfortunate thing.
Here, for example, is one potential layer of confusion:
"You can do a standard medical test for chemical sensitivities, just as you can do a standard medical allergy test for an allergy." This errant assumption on the part of one's listener can go undetected for an extraordinarily long time. You can converse with people for years about your own chemical sensitivity before they begin to realize that no one ever came along with a battery of tests to diagnose you -- and that no one is likely to come along with a battery of tests with which to alert and diagnose them . . . if they needed it.
This means that another person, theoretically, can conclude, "Well, I'm not 'like you' with chemicals. My doctor would have brought that to my attention. Surely it would have come up somehow."
Not usually the case. An acquaintance of mine was recently very surprised to learn from me that, no, she couldn't just go "get tested" for a reactivity to this or that chemical.
Well, then again, you can . . . if you've got the time and the money to go to Harvard for a few brain scans or time-patterned EKGs. But, otherwise, you can't -- in any commonly available way -- trace a chemical's course through the nervous system. Not yet, anyway. The environmental scientists, doctors, and researchers are working on it . . .
MCS doesn't operate as pure histamine reactions do. Instead, it runs more of a neurological route. They're working on constructing diagnostic tests to measure this type of a reaction, as opposed to the usual "IgE" measurements and such.
This means that figuring out patterns of reactions to various chemical products is all going to depend upon the tracking efforts of the affected individual. And, no, most mainstream MDs won't be backing up MCS sufferers with confirmation of their MCS. Increasingly, however, doctors are beginning to "take one's word for it." This kindness doesn't remove the chemicals from their offices, but it's a goodwill beginning.
Then, there are a million possible layers of confusion underlying the global topic of stress: Is stress alone causing one's bouts of physical distress, or could a regular chemical exposure possibly be the immediate root cause? Furthermore, are the repeat bouts of the physical distress, one bout on top of another, causing major systemic stress and diminishing one's otherwise robust coping skills -- thereby adding stress to stress?
I remember vividly the month I tried to be extra healthy and eat lots of apples. I was in "rest mode" after systemic exhaustion and overwork -- and this was the time for me to feel better and get strong. Every single day, I ate two or three red apples and got a ferocious migraine. Even without stress, I was becoming disabled by migraines. I seriously wondered how much a body could take. I was in a chemical-free environment -- why were things spiralling out of control?
Every day, I would get to that hideous "peak" of the migraine where one turns weak and green and the blood pressure feels like it's suddenly plummeting to the floor -- and then I would vomit. It was a terrifying moment, every time. My nervous system was going into veritable cataclysms which felt as though they could turn into full-blown seizures, or cause me to pass out. Something bad.
Lo and behold, I came across some literature that described the various strengths of pesticides used on various "conventional" produce. The apples were among those items getting the worst of it.
I switched to "organic apples only." The bout of daily migraines stopped. I ran into the same thing with raw, unpeeled peppers -- heavily sprayed.
And so I learned.
When I'd suspected cigarette smoke as my first antagonist, years earlier, I forced myself to sit in a restaurant about 10 feet away from a small group of men who were smoking. I could feel the effects immediately but sat there for the duration. By the time I was a passenger for the ride home, I was trapped in that cataclysm of pain all over again. The migraine was fierce and getting worse by the minute. I had my answer. Let the doubters doubt: I wouldn't be putting myself through that again.
So, I can be talking with people about reactions to chemicals, and they've already assumed they needn't consider this possibility for themselves. Of course, not everyone will turn up with patterns of reactions to this or that chemical! But it's a very sad thing to fail to ask the question, to fail to look thoroughly for potential, distinct patterns of reactivity, and to rest content with vague, imprecise, and/or random reasons for the repeat bouts of the physical distress they've been experiencing.
This reluctance to consider sensitivity to chemicals can lie in another source of confusion: Incomplete knowledge of the pervasiveness of the chemicals, their potential effects on the body, and the many places in which one can be exposed to them.
Let's say, for example, that you work in a factory. Perhaps you're not immediately reacting to the production of a given metal in that factory, but it's possible that you could be reacting to a cleaner used throughout the building, or in the restrooms.
Another layer of confusion could be lurking within this assumption: "I've never reacted to 'x' before, so I'm not reacting to it now." But sensitization often happens gradually. There can come a time when you begin to react to something that never bothered you before.
As a little girl and as a teenager, I'd go to hair salons -- sometimes for hours at a time -- with my mother. I'd wait for her to get her hair done -- and sometimes I'd get mine done. People "did this" in those days. What did we know? The hair stylists also smoked on the premises . . . Talk about a chemical cocktail. During one of my last times in a hair salon, I got a permanent (it turned out so badly I wore a cap for months that year). I'm talking major chemicals here. Me. The up-and-coming chemically sensitive one. I didn't get any headaches back then from visiting hair salons. Nothing happened. But within a year following that permanent, cigarette smoke began to become a problem.
Now, granted, my chemical sensitivity is improving -- but if I were to sit in a hair salon for that length of time today (or any length of time at all), I might end up in an ambulance. Sensitization takes time, but when it happens, it really happens.
In conclusion, whenever I'm speaking to someone about chemical sensitivity, I've learned now that I'd best check for hidden premises, and hidden assumptions about sensitization to chemicals, on the part of the other person. If I don't mentally check for these, our conversation could be very polite and thoughtful but invisibly sidetracked by layers of confusion underneath -- two different paradigms of understanding in unrecognized conflict.
Writing this piece has been a challenge, especially since I'm still recovering from a migraine which occurred yesterday. I'm quite "foggy." I hope this post makes enough sense for a few points to be gleaned.
Cheers!
~ Daisies
A very tough challenge in conversing about Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) lies in identifying and dispelling hidden layers of confusion about "how MCS works."
The consequences of hidden confusion in a conversation range from "minor" to "vast."
For instance, even amongst those who are extremely accepting and amenable to making environmental alterations for their chemically sensitive friends, there can be great gaps of crucial knowledge still waiting to be filled in.
When these gaps are finally "filled in" with the necessary information, this is a good thing, indeed -- but also, then, what have we lost in terms of time? What if a particular piece of delayed knowledge had been critical to a friend's physical well-being -- perhaps the very answer to a health puzzle needing desperately to be solved? Time lost, in such a case, is a very unfortunate thing.
Here, for example, is one potential layer of confusion:
"You can do a standard medical test for chemical sensitivities, just as you can do a standard medical allergy test for an allergy." This errant assumption on the part of one's listener can go undetected for an extraordinarily long time. You can converse with people for years about your own chemical sensitivity before they begin to realize that no one ever came along with a battery of tests to diagnose you -- and that no one is likely to come along with a battery of tests with which to alert and diagnose them . . . if they needed it.
This means that another person, theoretically, can conclude, "Well, I'm not 'like you' with chemicals. My doctor would have brought that to my attention. Surely it would have come up somehow."
Not usually the case. An acquaintance of mine was recently very surprised to learn from me that, no, she couldn't just go "get tested" for a reactivity to this or that chemical.
Well, then again, you can . . . if you've got the time and the money to go to Harvard for a few brain scans or time-patterned EKGs. But, otherwise, you can't -- in any commonly available way -- trace a chemical's course through the nervous system. Not yet, anyway. The environmental scientists, doctors, and researchers are working on it . . .
MCS doesn't operate as pure histamine reactions do. Instead, it runs more of a neurological route. They're working on constructing diagnostic tests to measure this type of a reaction, as opposed to the usual "IgE" measurements and such.
This means that figuring out patterns of reactions to various chemical products is all going to depend upon the tracking efforts of the affected individual. And, no, most mainstream MDs won't be backing up MCS sufferers with confirmation of their MCS. Increasingly, however, doctors are beginning to "take one's word for it." This kindness doesn't remove the chemicals from their offices, but it's a goodwill beginning.
Then, there are a million possible layers of confusion underlying the global topic of stress: Is stress alone causing one's bouts of physical distress, or could a regular chemical exposure possibly be the immediate root cause? Furthermore, are the repeat bouts of the physical distress, one bout on top of another, causing major systemic stress and diminishing one's otherwise robust coping skills -- thereby adding stress to stress?
I remember vividly the month I tried to be extra healthy and eat lots of apples. I was in "rest mode" after systemic exhaustion and overwork -- and this was the time for me to feel better and get strong. Every single day, I ate two or three red apples and got a ferocious migraine. Even without stress, I was becoming disabled by migraines. I seriously wondered how much a body could take. I was in a chemical-free environment -- why were things spiralling out of control?
Every day, I would get to that hideous "peak" of the migraine where one turns weak and green and the blood pressure feels like it's suddenly plummeting to the floor -- and then I would vomit. It was a terrifying moment, every time. My nervous system was going into veritable cataclysms which felt as though they could turn into full-blown seizures, or cause me to pass out. Something bad.
Lo and behold, I came across some literature that described the various strengths of pesticides used on various "conventional" produce. The apples were among those items getting the worst of it.
I switched to "organic apples only." The bout of daily migraines stopped. I ran into the same thing with raw, unpeeled peppers -- heavily sprayed.
And so I learned.
When I'd suspected cigarette smoke as my first antagonist, years earlier, I forced myself to sit in a restaurant about 10 feet away from a small group of men who were smoking. I could feel the effects immediately but sat there for the duration. By the time I was a passenger for the ride home, I was trapped in that cataclysm of pain all over again. The migraine was fierce and getting worse by the minute. I had my answer. Let the doubters doubt: I wouldn't be putting myself through that again.
So, I can be talking with people about reactions to chemicals, and they've already assumed they needn't consider this possibility for themselves. Of course, not everyone will turn up with patterns of reactions to this or that chemical! But it's a very sad thing to fail to ask the question, to fail to look thoroughly for potential, distinct patterns of reactivity, and to rest content with vague, imprecise, and/or random reasons for the repeat bouts of the physical distress they've been experiencing.
This reluctance to consider sensitivity to chemicals can lie in another source of confusion: Incomplete knowledge of the pervasiveness of the chemicals, their potential effects on the body, and the many places in which one can be exposed to them.
Let's say, for example, that you work in a factory. Perhaps you're not immediately reacting to the production of a given metal in that factory, but it's possible that you could be reacting to a cleaner used throughout the building, or in the restrooms.
Another layer of confusion could be lurking within this assumption: "I've never reacted to 'x' before, so I'm not reacting to it now." But sensitization often happens gradually. There can come a time when you begin to react to something that never bothered you before.
As a little girl and as a teenager, I'd go to hair salons -- sometimes for hours at a time -- with my mother. I'd wait for her to get her hair done -- and sometimes I'd get mine done. People "did this" in those days. What did we know? The hair stylists also smoked on the premises . . . Talk about a chemical cocktail. During one of my last times in a hair salon, I got a permanent (it turned out so badly I wore a cap for months that year). I'm talking major chemicals here. Me. The up-and-coming chemically sensitive one. I didn't get any headaches back then from visiting hair salons. Nothing happened. But within a year following that permanent, cigarette smoke began to become a problem.
Now, granted, my chemical sensitivity is improving -- but if I were to sit in a hair salon for that length of time today (or any length of time at all), I might end up in an ambulance. Sensitization takes time, but when it happens, it really happens.
In conclusion, whenever I'm speaking to someone about chemical sensitivity, I've learned now that I'd best check for hidden premises, and hidden assumptions about sensitization to chemicals, on the part of the other person. If I don't mentally check for these, our conversation could be very polite and thoughtful but invisibly sidetracked by layers of confusion underneath -- two different paradigms of understanding in unrecognized conflict.
Writing this piece has been a challenge, especially since I'm still recovering from a migraine which occurred yesterday. I'm quite "foggy." I hope this post makes enough sense for a few points to be gleaned.
Cheers!
~ Daisies
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Good News
Hello, Friends,
Having received several herbal treatments for Lyme disease and a tick-borne co-infection, I'm much more alert and mobile than I was a month or two ago. Just today, I took a long walk which felt "normal" to me again. Although there are still rings of fluid around both ankles (yes, they look very strange), the fluid is slowly lessening. There has been much improvement. Friends -- and my herbal practitioner -- who saw me with my feet puffed up like pillows have noted the considerable improvements. I'm very, very grateful for this real chance to get well without antibiotics.
But that is not all.
Aside from a chlorine exposure (breathing it in the air) which left my outer upper leg numb for a brief time (until I got away from the chlorine, at which point the nerves almost immediately began to return to life), I have not had to take a single ibuprofen, even after multiple chemical exposures which normally would have laid me low for hours or days: multiple heavy fragrances on Sunday; chlorine and much cigarette smoke on Monday; between 10 and 20 minutes in a scented-product-using home on Tuesday; between 10 and 15 minutes in another home of liberal, multiple usage of scented candles on Thursday (many scented candles visible and detectable by scent, but not burning at the time) . . . plus sun glare and stress -- and, still, no migraine syndrome.
Even if I were to get a migraine tomorrow, this degree of improvement would still be off the charts, in my view.
I discussed this stunning development with my herbal practitioner tonight. He confirmed that this tremendous lessening of the chemical sensitivity is a natural result of the herbal treatment, because with it he'd gotten rid of every infection he'd detected in me. Now, he's helping me battle the residual fluid/inflammation in my legs/ankles.
I do feel quite well "inside" my body. This is just so phenomenal to me.
However, never would I therefore begin to "take up" the old chemical products I've long forsaken. Nor would I remain in a room in which a scented candle is burning, or in a house in which a load of laundry is being done with scented products. I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if I still developed horrendous migraines from these things later. But the degree of improvement I've already enjoyed -- this is something I could only have dreamed of in prior years.
It's really something. So I've experienced now, firsthand, that when the body is loaded down with infections and their accompanying inflammation, the body's ability to detoxify is brought almost to a standstill. When the infections are cleared out, or even minimized, the chemical sensitivity can improve.
It makes sense to me.
Also, I must note, again, that this improvement in the chemical sensitivity began, to a lesser but still noticeable degree, when I began taking a liquid kelp (potassium iodide) supplement to boost the functioning of the thyroid. Let me also mention, here, something I neglected to mention earlier: Along with the liquid kelp must come a selenium supplement, which I've also been taking. The selenium enables the liquid kelp to be activated in the body.
In summary: The thyroid was checked out and assisted; then, infections (Lyme and at least one co-infection) were discovered and treated with various herbal mixtures. And the chemical sensitivity lessened.
I report this in the hopes that, somewhere along the way, my own story will help someone else look into his or her own symptomatology and latch onto effective treatments.
Cheers!
~ Daisies
Having received several herbal treatments for Lyme disease and a tick-borne co-infection, I'm much more alert and mobile than I was a month or two ago. Just today, I took a long walk which felt "normal" to me again. Although there are still rings of fluid around both ankles (yes, they look very strange), the fluid is slowly lessening. There has been much improvement. Friends -- and my herbal practitioner -- who saw me with my feet puffed up like pillows have noted the considerable improvements. I'm very, very grateful for this real chance to get well without antibiotics.
But that is not all.
Aside from a chlorine exposure (breathing it in the air) which left my outer upper leg numb for a brief time (until I got away from the chlorine, at which point the nerves almost immediately began to return to life), I have not had to take a single ibuprofen, even after multiple chemical exposures which normally would have laid me low for hours or days: multiple heavy fragrances on Sunday; chlorine and much cigarette smoke on Monday; between 10 and 20 minutes in a scented-product-using home on Tuesday; between 10 and 15 minutes in another home of liberal, multiple usage of scented candles on Thursday (many scented candles visible and detectable by scent, but not burning at the time) . . . plus sun glare and stress -- and, still, no migraine syndrome.
Even if I were to get a migraine tomorrow, this degree of improvement would still be off the charts, in my view.
I discussed this stunning development with my herbal practitioner tonight. He confirmed that this tremendous lessening of the chemical sensitivity is a natural result of the herbal treatment, because with it he'd gotten rid of every infection he'd detected in me. Now, he's helping me battle the residual fluid/inflammation in my legs/ankles.
I do feel quite well "inside" my body. This is just so phenomenal to me.
However, never would I therefore begin to "take up" the old chemical products I've long forsaken. Nor would I remain in a room in which a scented candle is burning, or in a house in which a load of laundry is being done with scented products. I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if I still developed horrendous migraines from these things later. But the degree of improvement I've already enjoyed -- this is something I could only have dreamed of in prior years.
It's really something. So I've experienced now, firsthand, that when the body is loaded down with infections and their accompanying inflammation, the body's ability to detoxify is brought almost to a standstill. When the infections are cleared out, or even minimized, the chemical sensitivity can improve.
It makes sense to me.
Also, I must note, again, that this improvement in the chemical sensitivity began, to a lesser but still noticeable degree, when I began taking a liquid kelp (potassium iodide) supplement to boost the functioning of the thyroid. Let me also mention, here, something I neglected to mention earlier: Along with the liquid kelp must come a selenium supplement, which I've also been taking. The selenium enables the liquid kelp to be activated in the body.
In summary: The thyroid was checked out and assisted; then, infections (Lyme and at least one co-infection) were discovered and treated with various herbal mixtures. And the chemical sensitivity lessened.
I report this in the hopes that, somewhere along the way, my own story will help someone else look into his or her own symptomatology and latch onto effective treatments.
Cheers!
~ Daisies
Friday, August 16, 2013
Scented "Organic": It Speaks for Itself
Hello, Friends,
The word "organic" is going to have to embrace some additional factors, such as how the organic product is handled -- by fragranced or unfragranced persons? Transported/stored in a scented or unscented environment?
Although the answers are obvious, the regulations don't evidence knowledge of these factors. If it's grown properly, then we needn't worry about scent -- and its embedded toxins -- at all?
I made a special trip to the supermarket yesterday to buy organic apples.
Organic apples that, as it turns out, smell of the detergent aisle -- or of an air freshener -- and taste like soap.
The scent is just so fake, so canned . . . so patently un-apple. This is not the "live" smell of a fresh apple having fallen from the tree. I rinsed it in apple cider vinegar and it's just not getting any better. The apple scent has been suppressed, or driven out. It's as if somebody actually sprayed it.
And they call this "organic."
I'm done with this apple.
Off to another supermarket -- hoping for better. Sooner or later I'll chance upon something "organic" whose essential nature has survived.
Cheers -- not for the scented "organic" products we waste our money on -- but for a beautiful day, anyway!
~ Daisies
The word "organic" is going to have to embrace some additional factors, such as how the organic product is handled -- by fragranced or unfragranced persons? Transported/stored in a scented or unscented environment?
Although the answers are obvious, the regulations don't evidence knowledge of these factors. If it's grown properly, then we needn't worry about scent -- and its embedded toxins -- at all?
I made a special trip to the supermarket yesterday to buy organic apples.
Organic apples that, as it turns out, smell of the detergent aisle -- or of an air freshener -- and taste like soap.
The scent is just so fake, so canned . . . so patently un-apple. This is not the "live" smell of a fresh apple having fallen from the tree. I rinsed it in apple cider vinegar and it's just not getting any better. The apple scent has been suppressed, or driven out. It's as if somebody actually sprayed it.
And they call this "organic."
I'm done with this apple.
Off to another supermarket -- hoping for better. Sooner or later I'll chance upon something "organic" whose essential nature has survived.
Cheers -- not for the scented "organic" products we waste our money on -- but for a beautiful day, anyway!
~ Daisies
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
In the Millions: Wasted Litres, Wasted Euros
Hello, Friends,
Let's say a man owns a one-story house.
The basement has flooded several times since he's moved in, the base of the house is rotting and moldy around the periphery, and the foundation is beginning to crumble.
But this man wants his house to be able to hold more people, and to look good. If he builds an addition -- a second story -- to his house, this will rapidly spruce up the appearance. And he'll get a couple of years of really good use of that second floor.
In the meantime, the basement will continue to flood in heavy rains, the rot and mold will continue to creep around -- and up -- the periphery, and the foundation will crumble at an accelerated rate beneath the added weight of the second floor.
But the owner will be able to rent out the top floor, obtain some much-needed funds, and the tenants up above won't be any the wiser as to the full spectrum of disintegration underway on the lower level.
Granted, the man might take his quick cash and bolt within a year or two, before the house really begins to fall apart.
But let's say he couldn't "bolt." Let's say circumstance kept him rooted in place, and he had to endure the resultant disintegration of his own abode.
He would then begin to wish that he'd spent his money much more wisely -- on repairs to the foundation and the rotting periphery. The second floor will avail him nothing -- indeed, it could even become a financial liability -- if the foundation is unsustainable and mold overruns the house.
Furthermore, if any of the man's tenants had become ill from the presence of the mold in the house, he'd really be in trouble.
I compare this ruinous and dysfunctional "house-expansion" scenario to the potentially ruinous and dysfunctional "water-expansion" scenario which could be engendered by large-scale water abstraction from Ireland's River Shannon.
Dublin City, whose own water-supply system already has leaks up to 30%, would not be fixing these leaks before stretching a new pipeline into the Shannon. This means that the Dublin water loss would continue during the new venture, but now also wasting water from the Shannon.
This is not a money-saving plan, to say the least. If water is not conserved, then money, in the long run, will prove to have been poorly spent and the value of the venture will decrease exponentially, both in cash and in physical results.
Dublin will get water quickly from the River Shannon, and the Shannon's ecological base will have been irrevocably disturbed. Her waters will become more and more depleted, not only due to "people usage" but now also due to wastage in a city system that no one could be bothered to fix.
In this way, the losses will multiply. If algae blooms exert undue influence due to decreased water levels in the Shannon, people nearby could develop cancer.
At this point, I wish to insert a thought-provoking summation of the risks of large-scale water abstraction from the River Shannon, contrasted with the various means of water conservation which could alternatively supply Dublin City with additional water. This summation was written in 2012 by Gerry Siney of the River Shannon Protection Alliance:
by Gerry Siney
May Mr. Siney's words be given widespread and careful consideration.
Thank you, friends, for giving your attention to the plight of the River Shannon.
Wishing you health --
Cheers!
~ Daisies [Carolyn]
Let's say a man owns a one-story house.
The basement has flooded several times since he's moved in, the base of the house is rotting and moldy around the periphery, and the foundation is beginning to crumble.
But this man wants his house to be able to hold more people, and to look good. If he builds an addition -- a second story -- to his house, this will rapidly spruce up the appearance. And he'll get a couple of years of really good use of that second floor.
In the meantime, the basement will continue to flood in heavy rains, the rot and mold will continue to creep around -- and up -- the periphery, and the foundation will crumble at an accelerated rate beneath the added weight of the second floor.
But the owner will be able to rent out the top floor, obtain some much-needed funds, and the tenants up above won't be any the wiser as to the full spectrum of disintegration underway on the lower level.
Granted, the man might take his quick cash and bolt within a year or two, before the house really begins to fall apart.
But let's say he couldn't "bolt." Let's say circumstance kept him rooted in place, and he had to endure the resultant disintegration of his own abode.
He would then begin to wish that he'd spent his money much more wisely -- on repairs to the foundation and the rotting periphery. The second floor will avail him nothing -- indeed, it could even become a financial liability -- if the foundation is unsustainable and mold overruns the house.
Furthermore, if any of the man's tenants had become ill from the presence of the mold in the house, he'd really be in trouble.
I compare this ruinous and dysfunctional "house-expansion" scenario to the potentially ruinous and dysfunctional "water-expansion" scenario which could be engendered by large-scale water abstraction from Ireland's River Shannon.
Dublin City, whose own water-supply system already has leaks up to 30%, would not be fixing these leaks before stretching a new pipeline into the Shannon. This means that the Dublin water loss would continue during the new venture, but now also wasting water from the Shannon.
This is not a money-saving plan, to say the least. If water is not conserved, then money, in the long run, will prove to have been poorly spent and the value of the venture will decrease exponentially, both in cash and in physical results.
Dublin will get water quickly from the River Shannon, and the Shannon's ecological base will have been irrevocably disturbed. Her waters will become more and more depleted, not only due to "people usage" but now also due to wastage in a city system that no one could be bothered to fix.
In this way, the losses will multiply. If algae blooms exert undue influence due to decreased water levels in the Shannon, people nearby could develop cancer.
At this point, I wish to insert a thought-provoking summation of the risks of large-scale water abstraction from the River Shannon, contrasted with the various means of water conservation which could alternatively supply Dublin City with additional water. This summation was written in 2012 by Gerry Siney of the River Shannon Protection Alliance:
WASTE NOT, WANT NOT:
Should Dublin City Council be allowed to plunder the River Shannon?
by Gerry Siney
Dublin City
Council (DCC) in anticipation of growing
water requirements of the greater Dublin area (GDA) are proposing to
source its future supply from the river Shannon for piping to Dublin for
domestic, commercial, and industrial consumption. The River Shannon Protection Alliance (RSPA) www.shannonprotectionalliance.ie with branches in Athlone, Tipperary (Dromineer), and Limerick is the
lead organisation opposing this needless and high risk scheme.
The DCC
plan proposes to abstract water at a rate of upwards of 500 million litres of
water per day (MLD). This of course is but the thin edge of the wedge, and the
realist will be in no doubt that this level of extraction will increase
exponentially year on year. It will be a
case of bit more next year and the year after, and the year after that again.
In the words of environmental scientist, Jack O’Sullivan, “International
experience shows that large-scale abstraction from river systems worldwide has
generally been followed by ecologically and socially destructive and
irreversible consequences.”
The current
rate of leakage of the Dublin supply system is 30%, which means of course that
fully one-third of Shannon water would be wasted, and there is no real program
in place to fix these leaks. We are told that there is no money available, but
oddly they are able to find half a billion Euros to construct a pipeline. Even
if the proposal were to gain approval, they are content to waste some 160
million litres of supply and consumer side water per day. The plan proposes at
some undefined date in the future to reduce leakage to 20%, hence the 160 MLD
leakage in perpetuity, yet a reduction to 15% would yield savings in excess of
100 MLD. Some cities in Europe
have leakage down to 5% and 6%, and cities in Japan have achieved a rate of 3%.
If these proposals are allowed to proceed, yes DCC
will be able to continue to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) for Dublin, and continue its runaway
expansion of satellite towns and commuter belts. The RSPA does not wish to
place limits on the promotion of the capital’s legitimate interests, however
under Shannon abstraction proposals the regions will pay a high and
unsustainable cost economically and socially, and the Shannon and its tributaries
will suffer ecologically and environmentally.
Economically,
the regions along the length of the river, from the Shannon Pot to the Shannon
Estuary (18 local authorities), and indeed the hinterland communities, depend
on a healthy water course for their very livelihoods and standard of living.
Historically, people and organisations have invested time, effort and financial
resources developing tourism, hospitality facilities, shipping, social, recreational, and educational enterprises, and any significant drop in the
levels and flow of the river could put these businesses and industries at risk
of non-viability. No one has a right to
take this away from those who worked hard to put it in place, merely at the
stroke of a pen.
The
ecosystem of the Shannon is fragile one, supporting countless aquatic and non-aquatic forms of life, and
contains a significant number of vulnerable and important Natural Heritage
Areas (NHAs), Special Areas of Conservation (SACs), and Special Protection Areas (SPAs) for wildlife, and
these designated areas and their unique flora and fauna would be at risk from
excessive abstraction of water. These considerations have been given scant
regard in DCC’s proposal.
The Greater
Dublin Area (GDA) is not at risk of running short of water. There is no
shortage now, and there needn’t be in the future. There is on the other hand a
problem of profligate wastage, lack of conservation and demand reduction
measures, and a lack of emphasis on recycling and use of grey water usage measures.
These alone would be enough to result in an immediate savings in excess of
100-150 MLD on a permanent basis. If a new source of supply were really needed,
DCC should go back to the drawing board and re-examine (properly this time) the
very ample availability of untapped water which exists closer to home.
Potentially large groundwater resources in Counties Fingal, Meath and Kildare
are estimated to sustainably yield over 100 MLD of high quality water.
Desalination (on Dublin’s doorstep) should also be re-visited. New technology
e.g. Reverse Osmosis is making this process more and more economically
affordable.
A
combination of these practical options if seriously implemented would provide
the GDA with a surplus of water for many years to come. Placing pipes into the
Shannon is the soft option for the
DCC; which would allow it to pump and leak and waste away in a continuance of grossly
out-of-date water use practices. DCC’s proposal in its current form represents Victorian Era Technology for a 21st Century Problem.
**********************************************
May Mr. Siney's words be given widespread and careful consideration.
Thank you, friends, for giving your attention to the plight of the River Shannon.
Wishing you health --
Cheers!
~ Daisies [Carolyn]
Monday, August 5, 2013
Intersecting Circles
Hello, Friends,
In reflecting upon the sensory issues prevalent in MCS -- most notably, in my own experience, the amplification of both scent and sound -- I see many intersecting neurological elements in my mind's eye, elements common also, for instance, to sensory hyperacuity in autism and to the flashback experiences of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
I try to formulate interconnecting sentences about all of this. These neurological elements seem to be orbiting each other, going around in circles -- and somewhere in there, it appears to me, are interrelationships.
Chemical exposures, it is now beginning to be believed in mainstream science, can help cause autism:
"New Study: Autism Linked to Environment" - by Marla Cone, Scientific American Magazine (2009)
Then, autistic persons often have an extremely amplified sense of hearing and/or smell, in addition to other sensory amplifications. The flashback experiences of PTSD, moreover, can have sensory elements in common with the "sensory overload" state of "meltdown" in autism.
Furthermore, PTSD, some research now postulates, can neurologically predispose persons to chemical sensitization. Chemicals, themselves, of course bring on chemical sensitization and potentially assist in the development of autism. Are autistic people, then, also chemically sensitive?
Circles upon circles, meshing at certain points:
"Common etiology of posttraumatic stress disorder, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and multiple chemical sensitivity via elevated nitric oxide/peroxynitrite" (Abstract: Pall, ML - 2001, NCBI Resources)
What pathway can one person forge through all of this?
My pathway, I believe, is to note the existence of these neurological "intersections" between the various neurologically affected conditions, and to pose further questions. This I can do through my writing here, directly, and through links I provide on the sidebar and in the tabs. The "limbic sensitization" hypothesis (see labeled tab, above) can then be more widely appreciated in light of all the neurologically intersecting conditions I've touched upon. At the same time, I will continue to disseminate information about the reality of chemical sensitization and its resultant effects.
The cosmos of neurobiological interconnectivity between the various conditions mentioned (and others) is a vast one. I find it useful to remind myself of this vastness, keeping in mind that no one disorder is really an island unto itself, but is continually shaped and fed by incoming stimuli from many different directions . . . chemicals, of course, being one very pervasive source of such stimuli.
A factor which modern medicine cannot afford to ignore.
May minds remain open, always, to the potential for new and enlightening information.
Cheers!
~ Daisies
In reflecting upon the sensory issues prevalent in MCS -- most notably, in my own experience, the amplification of both scent and sound -- I see many intersecting neurological elements in my mind's eye, elements common also, for instance, to sensory hyperacuity in autism and to the flashback experiences of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
I try to formulate interconnecting sentences about all of this. These neurological elements seem to be orbiting each other, going around in circles -- and somewhere in there, it appears to me, are interrelationships.
Chemical exposures, it is now beginning to be believed in mainstream science, can help cause autism:
"New Study: Autism Linked to Environment" - by Marla Cone, Scientific American Magazine (2009)
Then, autistic persons often have an extremely amplified sense of hearing and/or smell, in addition to other sensory amplifications. The flashback experiences of PTSD, moreover, can have sensory elements in common with the "sensory overload" state of "meltdown" in autism.
Furthermore, PTSD, some research now postulates, can neurologically predispose persons to chemical sensitization. Chemicals, themselves, of course bring on chemical sensitization and potentially assist in the development of autism. Are autistic people, then, also chemically sensitive?
Circles upon circles, meshing at certain points:
"Common etiology of posttraumatic stress disorder, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and multiple chemical sensitivity via elevated nitric oxide/peroxynitrite" (Abstract: Pall, ML - 2001, NCBI Resources)
What pathway can one person forge through all of this?
My pathway, I believe, is to note the existence of these neurological "intersections" between the various neurologically affected conditions, and to pose further questions. This I can do through my writing here, directly, and through links I provide on the sidebar and in the tabs. The "limbic sensitization" hypothesis (see labeled tab, above) can then be more widely appreciated in light of all the neurologically intersecting conditions I've touched upon. At the same time, I will continue to disseminate information about the reality of chemical sensitization and its resultant effects.
The cosmos of neurobiological interconnectivity between the various conditions mentioned (and others) is a vast one. I find it useful to remind myself of this vastness, keeping in mind that no one disorder is really an island unto itself, but is continually shaped and fed by incoming stimuli from many different directions . . . chemicals, of course, being one very pervasive source of such stimuli.
A factor which modern medicine cannot afford to ignore.
May minds remain open, always, to the potential for new and enlightening information.
Cheers!
~ Daisies
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Following the Hope
Hello, Friends,
While announcing a new direction that I hope to take with this blog, I also think it's important for me to mention that I'm presently battling Lyme disease. This will help explain, in advance, any delays in my ability to post. Moreover, Lyme disease can be an important factor in the subject of MCS.
Although there is pain right now, I believe I'm at a very good place in my treatment and I have real hope that things will soon be better. My particular version of Lyme settled in my lower limbs, mostly my foot bones and soft tissues. I've had bilateral calf, ankle, and foot swelling which has resembled that of kidney failure; but just today, my doubts as to the source of the swelling finally vanished. As the swelling slowly recedes, I can now feel what is beneath it: bone pain like that of many bruises in the big and little foot bones, soft-tissue pain -- all localized inflammation, which also imparts a continual burning sensation as the siege against the Lyme continues.
Having been in a bewildered, exhausted fog the past month of treatment, really stunned at how Lyme manifests itself and just hoping to get through it, I'm now feeling more real pain but I'm also more alert. That's a very long sentence but I've also got hives right now so I'm just trying to make my way through this.
The hives, the pain, anything weird -- I'm told it's all to be expected, so I'm OK with it. Guess I had the Lyme for a while before I knew I had it . . . so these posts have been slowed down, also, for a while. I had even shut down this blog for several weeks, being sick and generally all out of sorts. Now, I must effectively begin again. I can't promise anything regarding increased frequency of writing, but I can surely try to post more often.
Through all of this, there's been a chorus echoing through my head: "MCS and Lyme! Lyme and MCS! Connect the dots! Connect the dots!"
I do not doubt that there are many dots in this equation to be connected. From firsthand experience alone, I can simply state: Each thing makes the other worse. And when Lyme symptoms and MCS symptoms occur simultaneously, it's nothing to joke about. In that event, there's just more of everything: more overall toxicity, more swelling, heightened neurological symptoms and increased hormonal shifts, adrenal depletion, slower detoxing, more delayed or completely prevented immune response . . . just a mess. It's impossible for me to tease apart all the details. I just know they're all "in the mix."
Lyme disease, alone, can do crazy things neurologically. It can amplify the senses. So can Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). So can sensitization to chemicals. So can a fever/virus/infection. So can certain pharmaceutical drugs (which are synthetic and contain chemicals). So can food allergies.
Previously, I've usually been able to discern, in my own experience, what part of my (triggered) neurological distress was a chemical reaction (due to its characteristic pattern and reliability of response) and what part was due to other factors. At present, however, the Lyme disease is a very big thing on my platter and I'm still getting acquainted with it -- although I also seemed to have had an active case of it 25 years ago which was never addressed. From what I can tell, I've had very few chemical reactions lately. Of course, I've barely been going anywhere due to the Lyme. But the few times I've gone out, things haven't been really all that bad. That's good news.
From here on in, I'm focusing on a new angle: the concept of neuroplasticity as it relates to MCS. This simply means the ability of the brain to change and adapt to new conditions -- both environmental and psychological. Sometimes the brain changes for the worse. But, sometimes, it also changes for the better.
Please see the new pieces featured on my sidebar and the new tab up top entitled, "'Limbic Sensitization' Hypothesis."
I hope to focus on the Limbic Sensitization hypothesis within the next few posts. My intent is to combine this hypothesis with the concept of neuroplasticity and see where it leads. I'm not making any conclusions in advance -- that would be impossible. I am, however, intending to "explore" each concept as fully as this brain is able to. This is my way of "following the hope" wherever it leads me.
When in doubt, I always "follow the hope."
Cheers!
~ Daisies
While announcing a new direction that I hope to take with this blog, I also think it's important for me to mention that I'm presently battling Lyme disease. This will help explain, in advance, any delays in my ability to post. Moreover, Lyme disease can be an important factor in the subject of MCS.
Although there is pain right now, I believe I'm at a very good place in my treatment and I have real hope that things will soon be better. My particular version of Lyme settled in my lower limbs, mostly my foot bones and soft tissues. I've had bilateral calf, ankle, and foot swelling which has resembled that of kidney failure; but just today, my doubts as to the source of the swelling finally vanished. As the swelling slowly recedes, I can now feel what is beneath it: bone pain like that of many bruises in the big and little foot bones, soft-tissue pain -- all localized inflammation, which also imparts a continual burning sensation as the siege against the Lyme continues.
Having been in a bewildered, exhausted fog the past month of treatment, really stunned at how Lyme manifests itself and just hoping to get through it, I'm now feeling more real pain but I'm also more alert. That's a very long sentence but I've also got hives right now so I'm just trying to make my way through this.
The hives, the pain, anything weird -- I'm told it's all to be expected, so I'm OK with it. Guess I had the Lyme for a while before I knew I had it . . . so these posts have been slowed down, also, for a while. I had even shut down this blog for several weeks, being sick and generally all out of sorts. Now, I must effectively begin again. I can't promise anything regarding increased frequency of writing, but I can surely try to post more often.
Through all of this, there's been a chorus echoing through my head: "MCS and Lyme! Lyme and MCS! Connect the dots! Connect the dots!"
I do not doubt that there are many dots in this equation to be connected. From firsthand experience alone, I can simply state: Each thing makes the other worse. And when Lyme symptoms and MCS symptoms occur simultaneously, it's nothing to joke about. In that event, there's just more of everything: more overall toxicity, more swelling, heightened neurological symptoms and increased hormonal shifts, adrenal depletion, slower detoxing, more delayed or completely prevented immune response . . . just a mess. It's impossible for me to tease apart all the details. I just know they're all "in the mix."
Lyme disease, alone, can do crazy things neurologically. It can amplify the senses. So can Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). So can sensitization to chemicals. So can a fever/virus/infection. So can certain pharmaceutical drugs (which are synthetic and contain chemicals). So can food allergies.
Previously, I've usually been able to discern, in my own experience, what part of my (triggered) neurological distress was a chemical reaction (due to its characteristic pattern and reliability of response) and what part was due to other factors. At present, however, the Lyme disease is a very big thing on my platter and I'm still getting acquainted with it -- although I also seemed to have had an active case of it 25 years ago which was never addressed. From what I can tell, I've had very few chemical reactions lately. Of course, I've barely been going anywhere due to the Lyme. But the few times I've gone out, things haven't been really all that bad. That's good news.
From here on in, I'm focusing on a new angle: the concept of neuroplasticity as it relates to MCS. This simply means the ability of the brain to change and adapt to new conditions -- both environmental and psychological. Sometimes the brain changes for the worse. But, sometimes, it also changes for the better.
Please see the new pieces featured on my sidebar and the new tab up top entitled, "'Limbic Sensitization' Hypothesis."
I hope to focus on the Limbic Sensitization hypothesis within the next few posts. My intent is to combine this hypothesis with the concept of neuroplasticity and see where it leads. I'm not making any conclusions in advance -- that would be impossible. I am, however, intending to "explore" each concept as fully as this brain is able to. This is my way of "following the hope" wherever it leads me.
When in doubt, I always "follow the hope."
Cheers!
~ Daisies
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
"Mystery Wheat"
Hello, Friends,
Following is a link to a CNN news video on genetically modified wheat found, mysteriously, in a farmer's field in Oregon. The wheat was genetically modified by Monsanto corporation to resist the company's own herbicide, Roundup.
"Mystery Wheat Strikes Fear in Farmers" (June 17, 2013 - CNN)
Herbicide-treated and genetically modified seed . . .
A seedbed of inflammatory and neurological nightmares for many.
Chemical treatments and harmful alterations of foods increase both chemical sensitivity and systemic illness. Here's hoping that this news link will spur on awareness of our need to protect our food supply, and to be extra-careful of what we ingest.
To your health --
Cheers!
~ Daisies
Following is a link to a CNN news video on genetically modified wheat found, mysteriously, in a farmer's field in Oregon. The wheat was genetically modified by Monsanto corporation to resist the company's own herbicide, Roundup.
"Mystery Wheat Strikes Fear in Farmers" (June 17, 2013 - CNN)
Herbicide-treated and genetically modified seed . . .
A seedbed of inflammatory and neurological nightmares for many.
Chemical treatments and harmful alterations of foods increase both chemical sensitivity and systemic illness. Here's hoping that this news link will spur on awareness of our need to protect our food supply, and to be extra-careful of what we ingest.
To your health --
Cheers!
~ Daisies
Monday, May 13, 2013
Murmuration (!) on Lough Derg (on Ireland's River Shannon)
Hello, Friends,
What's a "murmuration"? If you don't know, don't feel bad. I didn't know, either! But now that I've seen one, I won't be forgetting it!
A "murmuration" is a flocking of starlings. But don't let me ruin the surprise for you: Just watch this spectacular footage, below, filmed on Lough Derg,* a lake of the River Shannon:
What's a "murmuration"? If you don't know, don't feel bad. I didn't know, either! But now that I've seen one, I won't be forgetting it!
A "murmuration" is a flocking of starlings. But don't let me ruin the surprise for you: Just watch this spectacular footage, below, filmed on Lough Derg,* a lake of the River Shannon:
As they swooped and dipped and merged, the intersecting shapes of the starling formations, themselves, sometimes looked like the wing-spreading figures of large birds!
This is all part of the natural wonder of Ireland's River Shannon and her lakes, endangered national treasure and environmental mainstay of much of the country's wildlife, human life, cultural heritage, and economic livelihood.
Of particular interest to chemically sensitive individuals is the fact that Ireland led the world with its nationwide ban (2004) on smoking in workplaces and, as early as 1988, had already outlawed smoking in many public places.
What you've beheld in this video, above, is part and parcel of what Ireland's Shannon Protection Alliance is trying desperately to save from Dublin's potentially tragic interference. Please see the links on the upper sidebar (top right) to help promote this environmentally worthy cause of saving the River Shannon.
I hope you've enjoyed the video!
Thank you for watching, and . . .
Cheers!
~ Daisies [Carolyn]
*FOOTNOTE August, 2014: This video was brought to my attention by Mr. Gerry Siney. Many thanks for the inspiration! ~ Carolyn ["Daisies," above]
Of particular interest to chemically sensitive individuals is the fact that Ireland led the world with its nationwide ban (2004) on smoking in workplaces and, as early as 1988, had already outlawed smoking in many public places.
What you've beheld in this video, above, is part and parcel of what Ireland's Shannon Protection Alliance is trying desperately to save from Dublin's potentially tragic interference. Please see the links on the upper sidebar (top right) to help promote this environmentally worthy cause of saving the River Shannon.
I hope you've enjoyed the video!
Thank you for watching, and . . .
Cheers!
~ Daisies [Carolyn]
*FOOTNOTE August, 2014: This video was brought to my attention by Mr. Gerry Siney. Many thanks for the inspiration! ~ Carolyn ["Daisies," above]
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
The Amazing Olive Leaf Extract
Hello, Friends,
During my walk outside this afternoon, I had an inspiration to publish the extensive health benefits of olive leaf extract. I, myself, cannot list all of them, so I located a PDF file from the May 2001 Townsend Letter (which can be enlarged for better viewing) -- which does a splendid job of describing them:
Olive Leaf Extract as a Main Therapy in the Antimicrobial Supermarket - by Morton Walker, DPM
I can report this much from my own experience:
I am no longer a good candidate for antibiotic therapy. I tend to get frightening amounts of arrhythmias when I take antibiotics. Even a dentist had to tell me to discontinue the antibiotic after he'd pulled a tooth. I followed up with other nutritional supplements at that time to keep infection at bay.
In recent years, however, I've been relying on the antibiotic-like properties of olive leaf extract when in perilous dental situations. It's been amazing. When there's been swelling due to an infection in the root, I've taken down the inflammation and held the infection at bay -- and prevented any resurgence of infection after the root canals. Thanks to olive leaf extract, I've escaped the dentist-prescribed antibiotics before and after dental surgery numerous times now; and my healing has always been good. I gave a supply of olive leaf extract capsules to a friend who had the beginnings of a dental abscess, and the capsules took the inflammation right down. She didn't need the remainder of the capsules and offered them back to me. I told her to keep them for another emergency!
Following is yet another dose of well-documented research on the extensive benefits of olive leaf extract:
The Amazing Olive Leaf - by Jeffrey Dach, MD
And yet another, complete with a noteworthy list of sources on page 2:
Olive Leaf Extract (Discovery Health) - by the editors of PureHealth, MD*
My own personal choice of olive leaf extract is as follows:
Seagate 450 mg Caps
I've taken between one and six capsules per day, when needed. I've known others to take many more per day, up to 16 or 18 capsules per day for their Lyme disease. [Please see medical note at bottom of blog. Thank you.]
Perhaps olive leaf extract can become an effective part of your own health arsenal, as well.
Wishing you wellness --
Cheers!
~ Daisies
*NOTE of July 3, 2015: The PureHealth, MD link seems to have disappeared. In its place, I offer this link: "Olive leaf extract" - by Dr. Ronald Hoffman (drhoffman.com) ~ Carolyn ["Daisies," above]
During my walk outside this afternoon, I had an inspiration to publish the extensive health benefits of olive leaf extract. I, myself, cannot list all of them, so I located a PDF file from the May 2001 Townsend Letter (which can be enlarged for better viewing) -- which does a splendid job of describing them:
Olive Leaf Extract as a Main Therapy in the Antimicrobial Supermarket - by Morton Walker, DPM
I can report this much from my own experience:
I am no longer a good candidate for antibiotic therapy. I tend to get frightening amounts of arrhythmias when I take antibiotics. Even a dentist had to tell me to discontinue the antibiotic after he'd pulled a tooth. I followed up with other nutritional supplements at that time to keep infection at bay.
In recent years, however, I've been relying on the antibiotic-like properties of olive leaf extract when in perilous dental situations. It's been amazing. When there's been swelling due to an infection in the root, I've taken down the inflammation and held the infection at bay -- and prevented any resurgence of infection after the root canals. Thanks to olive leaf extract, I've escaped the dentist-prescribed antibiotics before and after dental surgery numerous times now; and my healing has always been good. I gave a supply of olive leaf extract capsules to a friend who had the beginnings of a dental abscess, and the capsules took the inflammation right down. She didn't need the remainder of the capsules and offered them back to me. I told her to keep them for another emergency!
Following is yet another dose of well-documented research on the extensive benefits of olive leaf extract:
The Amazing Olive Leaf - by Jeffrey Dach, MD
And yet another, complete with a noteworthy list of sources on page 2:
Olive Leaf Extract (Discovery Health) - by the editors of PureHealth, MD*
My own personal choice of olive leaf extract is as follows:
Seagate 450 mg Caps
I've taken between one and six capsules per day, when needed. I've known others to take many more per day, up to 16 or 18 capsules per day for their Lyme disease. [Please see medical note at bottom of blog. Thank you.]
Perhaps olive leaf extract can become an effective part of your own health arsenal, as well.
Wishing you wellness --
Cheers!
~ Daisies
*NOTE of July 3, 2015: The PureHealth, MD link seems to have disappeared. In its place, I offer this link: "Olive leaf extract" - by Dr. Ronald Hoffman (drhoffman.com) ~ Carolyn ["Daisies," above]
Friday, May 3, 2013
Smiling Faces
Hello, Friends,
I thought I'd feature this special video on behalf of homeless people. The activity in this video takes place in California, through the organization called Children Helping Poor and Homeless People (CHPHP).
Depending upon the degree of their ability to travel and withstand certain environmental conditions, some chemically sensitive homeless people in California may be able to access this assistance (see video), and some may not be able to.
Either way, the video is filled with such good feeling, such positive energy and real concern, I'm very happy to share it with you here. May it add brightness to your day.
Cheers!
~ Daisies
I thought I'd feature this special video on behalf of homeless people. The activity in this video takes place in California, through the organization called Children Helping Poor and Homeless People (CHPHP).
Depending upon the degree of their ability to travel and withstand certain environmental conditions, some chemically sensitive homeless people in California may be able to access this assistance (see video), and some may not be able to.
Either way, the video is filled with such good feeling, such positive energy and real concern, I'm very happy to share it with you here. May it add brightness to your day.
Cheers!
~ Daisies
Friday, April 19, 2013
A Toxin Is a Toxin
Hello, Friends,
For a long time now, I've had a deep concern for those whose immune systems are compromised -- whether or not they are also chemically sensitive. I dedicate the following thoughts to them.
If one were to take a chemically sensitive person's anecdotal reports in good faith, one would quickly realize that the chemically sensitive person has, in effect, "done the work for you." What work? The work of sorting out and identifying which types of chemical antagonists can spiral the body into further and unnecessarily hastened destruction.
Those whose immune systems are already compromised need, in reality, to be just as careful as the chemically sensitive to avoid exposure to chemical toxins whenever possible. If the chemical exposures of an immune-compromised person cannot be completely eliminated, the maxim would be, "Every little bit of avoidance helps." Just as "Every extra chemical exposure can worsen things." It may not worsen things to an immediately noticeable extent; but under the surface, the body knows that a toxin is a toxin, and it reacts accordingly.
We chemically sensitive individuals know, vividly and viscerally, how these chemical antagonists operate. Their "ways and means" have been demonstrated upon our bodies again and again. Everything that a non-chemically sensitive, immune-compromised person cannot feel happening to his body from chemical exposures, we can feel for him.
Furthermore, certain drug and chemical treatments can actually bring the body closer to a chemically sensitive state. Of course, it is completely understood that this may be either medically unavoidable or water already "under the bridge." But since this possibility for chemical sensitization, or increased physical vulnerability, is the inevitable risk of any treatment which includes the heavy use of antibiotics, antivirals, chemotherapy, or painkillers, it becomes all the more important for the treated person to try and minimize unnecessary chemical exposures.
The very last thing I mean to do here is lecture a person who is already exhausted. So, please, take what you like and leave the rest, as they say.
What I do mean to do, however, is offer the heartfelt support of the chemically sensitive community to those who may suffer differently from us, yet who also desperately need the knowledge we happen to have accumulated.
As the saying goes: What's ours is yours. :)
Cheers!
~ Daisies
For a long time now, I've had a deep concern for those whose immune systems are compromised -- whether or not they are also chemically sensitive. I dedicate the following thoughts to them.
If one were to take a chemically sensitive person's anecdotal reports in good faith, one would quickly realize that the chemically sensitive person has, in effect, "done the work for you." What work? The work of sorting out and identifying which types of chemical antagonists can spiral the body into further and unnecessarily hastened destruction.
Those whose immune systems are already compromised need, in reality, to be just as careful as the chemically sensitive to avoid exposure to chemical toxins whenever possible. If the chemical exposures of an immune-compromised person cannot be completely eliminated, the maxim would be, "Every little bit of avoidance helps." Just as "Every extra chemical exposure can worsen things." It may not worsen things to an immediately noticeable extent; but under the surface, the body knows that a toxin is a toxin, and it reacts accordingly.
We chemically sensitive individuals know, vividly and viscerally, how these chemical antagonists operate. Their "ways and means" have been demonstrated upon our bodies again and again. Everything that a non-chemically sensitive, immune-compromised person cannot feel happening to his body from chemical exposures, we can feel for him.
Furthermore, certain drug and chemical treatments can actually bring the body closer to a chemically sensitive state. Of course, it is completely understood that this may be either medically unavoidable or water already "under the bridge." But since this possibility for chemical sensitization, or increased physical vulnerability, is the inevitable risk of any treatment which includes the heavy use of antibiotics, antivirals, chemotherapy, or painkillers, it becomes all the more important for the treated person to try and minimize unnecessary chemical exposures.
The very last thing I mean to do here is lecture a person who is already exhausted. So, please, take what you like and leave the rest, as they say.
What I do mean to do, however, is offer the heartfelt support of the chemically sensitive community to those who may suffer differently from us, yet who also desperately need the knowledge we happen to have accumulated.
As the saying goes: What's ours is yours. :)
Cheers!
~ Daisies
Sunday, March 10, 2013
"Daisies" - Part III
Hello, friends,
Had a little piece of my chemical-exposure history returned to me today. Someone happened to mention that a building in which I'd worked for two years had previously been a hair and nail salon just before our company leased office space there. I then recalled that I once knew this and then forgot it. The information wasn't even in my mind when I set up this blog! Unfortunately, the heating ducts leading into that office space hadn't been cleaned before our company arrived there. Upon discovery of much debris in the ducts, a heroic cleaning effort was made, not by the building's owner, but by the company for which I worked. Even then, it was inevitable that there was still considerable debris remaining in the ducts; therefore, neither the irritating substances -- nor the chemical residues they left behind -- were completely eliminated. No one even thought about addressing chemical residues back then.
What I can't forget is working many 12-hour days in that building, my eyes burning and burning; getting one migraine headache on top of another; drinking three large Dunkin' Donuts coffees a day to cope with the pain and inflammation; and a co-worker's smoking in the building. By that point, I had fully established that cigarette smoke gave me migraines. In those days, however, smoking indoors was still permitted, so I eventually had to ask the co-worker if she would please smoke outside.
So, after becoming fully sensitized to cigarette smoke, I actually worked long hours for two years in a very "sick" building where various forms of dusty debris and hair-and-nail-salon chemical residues were emanating from a forced-air heating system. How about that?
There's more of an "excuse" for my chemically sensitive condition than even I thought . . .
It all fits together.
Cheers!
~ Daisies
Revised for clarity on 7/17/14.
Had a little piece of my chemical-exposure history returned to me today. Someone happened to mention that a building in which I'd worked for two years had previously been a hair and nail salon just before our company leased office space there. I then recalled that I once knew this and then forgot it. The information wasn't even in my mind when I set up this blog! Unfortunately, the heating ducts leading into that office space hadn't been cleaned before our company arrived there. Upon discovery of much debris in the ducts, a heroic cleaning effort was made, not by the building's owner, but by the company for which I worked. Even then, it was inevitable that there was still considerable debris remaining in the ducts; therefore, neither the irritating substances -- nor the chemical residues they left behind -- were completely eliminated. No one even thought about addressing chemical residues back then.
What I can't forget is working many 12-hour days in that building, my eyes burning and burning; getting one migraine headache on top of another; drinking three large Dunkin' Donuts coffees a day to cope with the pain and inflammation; and a co-worker's smoking in the building. By that point, I had fully established that cigarette smoke gave me migraines. In those days, however, smoking indoors was still permitted, so I eventually had to ask the co-worker if she would please smoke outside.
So, after becoming fully sensitized to cigarette smoke, I actually worked long hours for two years in a very "sick" building where various forms of dusty debris and hair-and-nail-salon chemical residues were emanating from a forced-air heating system. How about that?
There's more of an "excuse" for my chemically sensitive condition than even I thought . . .
It all fits together.
Cheers!
~ Daisies
Revised for clarity on 7/17/14.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Becoming Aware - Cigarettes
My first clue that something was wrong revolved around cigarettes. For my out-of-country readers, I'm speaking here of American cigarettes.
For about seven years, I'd been socializing daily with chain smokers, sometimes with one chain smoker at a time, but even more often with groups, large and small, of chain smokers. If we went to diners for refreshments together, I always ended up in the smoking section with them. If I went to their homes, they smoked there, as well, indoors and outdoors.
I held my own but got frequent bouts of bronchitis and sore throats. These didn't faze me. I thought it was normal to get sick with that frequency, and in that way.
I had noticed, however, a few years before this, that if I sat in the cocktail section of a restaurant before dinner, by the bar where the most smoking took place (in those days), my eyebrows would get stiff and it became hard to move my eyes. I didn't connect this occurrence to the word "inflammation" or to anything medical whatsoever. I just wondered why my eyes would "get stuck" at such an inconvenient time. I'd get all dressed up to go out, I'd arrive at a restaurant all smiling and happy, and my eyes would start to feel like cement. Then my face would get stiff and it was physically hard to smile. I thought it was a psychological thing. A strange psychological thing. I mean, how many people go to a psychoanalyst and say, "Hi. I'm here because my eyes get stuck every time I socialize in the cocktail section of a restaurant"?
So this kind of thing had already been happening routinely, but what did I know or care about cigarette smoke? I was young; I didn't smoke. How could I be hurt by this?
By the end of seven years spent near chain smokers, however, something happened to me one night while I was in the smoking section of a diner. I got a horrible, horrible headache, so bad that I asked someone to take me to the hospital. Up until then, my early 20s, I was a person who never got headaches.
When we arrived at the emergency section of the hospital, the attending doctor seemed vague and baffled, and he offered me a strong painkilling drug. I didn't take the drug. I slumped outside and promptly threw up in the parking lot. Surprise -- there was the cure. That represented the end phase of the migraine.
I had to depart from every friend and acquaintance I knew, at that point, because they all smoked. This was a social death. I didn't know anybody else at that point, and it was getting nearly impossible to go out to restaurants or clubs or anything. Finally, it was completely impossible. This was before the anti-smoking laws took effect.
From there the chemical sensitivity mushroomed. I was to get migraines from cigarette smoke and scented candles and an increasing amount of never-before-thought-of chemical scents. I would get the migraines and throw up routinely for the next 10 years. Then, at the 10-year point, the migraines took a new turn and the vomiting phase was eliminated. This was a relief. But the migraines still kept coming in reaction to more and more chemicals.
I would like to write, next time, about the difference I found, in 2007, between American cigarettes and French/European cigarettes.
For now . . .
Cheers!
~ Daisies [Carolyn]
For about seven years, I'd been socializing daily with chain smokers, sometimes with one chain smoker at a time, but even more often with groups, large and small, of chain smokers. If we went to diners for refreshments together, I always ended up in the smoking section with them. If I went to their homes, they smoked there, as well, indoors and outdoors.
I held my own but got frequent bouts of bronchitis and sore throats. These didn't faze me. I thought it was normal to get sick with that frequency, and in that way.
I had noticed, however, a few years before this, that if I sat in the cocktail section of a restaurant before dinner, by the bar where the most smoking took place (in those days), my eyebrows would get stiff and it became hard to move my eyes. I didn't connect this occurrence to the word "inflammation" or to anything medical whatsoever. I just wondered why my eyes would "get stuck" at such an inconvenient time. I'd get all dressed up to go out, I'd arrive at a restaurant all smiling and happy, and my eyes would start to feel like cement. Then my face would get stiff and it was physically hard to smile. I thought it was a psychological thing. A strange psychological thing. I mean, how many people go to a psychoanalyst and say, "Hi. I'm here because my eyes get stuck every time I socialize in the cocktail section of a restaurant"?
So this kind of thing had already been happening routinely, but what did I know or care about cigarette smoke? I was young; I didn't smoke. How could I be hurt by this?
By the end of seven years spent near chain smokers, however, something happened to me one night while I was in the smoking section of a diner. I got a horrible, horrible headache, so bad that I asked someone to take me to the hospital. Up until then, my early 20s, I was a person who never got headaches.
When we arrived at the emergency section of the hospital, the attending doctor seemed vague and baffled, and he offered me a strong painkilling drug. I didn't take the drug. I slumped outside and promptly threw up in the parking lot. Surprise -- there was the cure. That represented the end phase of the migraine.
I had to depart from every friend and acquaintance I knew, at that point, because they all smoked. This was a social death. I didn't know anybody else at that point, and it was getting nearly impossible to go out to restaurants or clubs or anything. Finally, it was completely impossible. This was before the anti-smoking laws took effect.
From there the chemical sensitivity mushroomed. I was to get migraines from cigarette smoke and scented candles and an increasing amount of never-before-thought-of chemical scents. I would get the migraines and throw up routinely for the next 10 years. Then, at the 10-year point, the migraines took a new turn and the vomiting phase was eliminated. This was a relief. But the migraines still kept coming in reaction to more and more chemicals.
I would like to write, next time, about the difference I found, in 2007, between American cigarettes and French/European cigarettes.
For now . . .
Cheers!
~ Daisies [Carolyn]
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Straining Toward the Sun
Greetings, Friends!
Sometimes the most positive, affirming thing one can do for a beleaguered population is to reach down deeply and acknowledge that core of very human pain.
In solidarity with all of you chemically sensitive people who have ever felt the scourge of other people's incredulity, I've decided to share a poem of mine which expresses the torment of feeling disbelieved.
Sometimes the most positive, affirming thing one can do for a beleaguered population is to reach down deeply and acknowledge that core of very human pain.
In solidarity with all of you chemically sensitive people who have ever felt the scourge of other people's incredulity, I've decided to share a poem of mine which expresses the torment of feeling disbelieved.
DISBELIEF
To feel disbelieved
To feel disbelieved
cuts the words off at their roots --
thin, fragile branches
straining toward the sun,
only to be snapped off
by the wind . . .
phrases, perhaps raw with newness,
shocked by their own sound,
thrust into the tension and tumult
of audition
when there is
no show.
Cheers!
~ Daisies
In memory of those toxically injured persons who have already succumbed to despair, and in the fervent hope of preventing more such deaths due to misunderstanding, abandonment, and hopelessness, I kindly refer you back to my earlier post, "A Time to Weep" (March 28, 2012).
Compassionate and respectful acknowledgment of this grim reality, now, by those of us who are still able to smile, can help prevent future tragedy.
Compassionate and respectful acknowledgment of this grim reality, now, by those of us who are still able to smile, can help prevent future tragedy.
All the best to you in the new year --
Cheers!
~ Daisies