More and More

After beginning the day very energetically, I underwent a global slowdown when I clonked my head hard on a tile wall this afternoon while cleaning.  But I'm going to work my way through this post to capture some more cogent thoughts I'd had earlier today.

I spent my morning in a department store.  When chemical sensitivity mushroomed in my life, this kind of thing became a once-a-year event, if at all.  It was hot and dry inside, for sure, but there was a profound difference in my reactivity to scents and to the natural gas heating.  Even if a migraine were, in fact, going to happen later this day or two days from now (this is now impossible to discern, given that I clunked my head and a headache would be a natural thing), I can still report here that, thus far, my reactivity to synthetic scents has already been profoundly different this day from what it would have been, under similar conditions, in previous years.

And now I'm going to walk into some comparatively uncharted territory in reflections on chemical sensitivity  . . .

I'd like to talk about memory.  While many scents still remain immediately aversive to me and I instinctively pull away from them, they're not "getting in," systemically speaking, as they had been accustomed to doing.  Those few seconds or minutes of my unwanted exposure to them have not been doing the neurological and inflammatory damage to me that they used to do.  I'm not getting that unmistakable neurological buzz and pulsing around my forehead, nose, and eye sockets.  I'm not getting that systemically sickened, "sideways" feeling.  I'm walking through these scents, sniffing them, and often coming away "okay."

And, sometimes -- this is the thing that I wondered if I'd ever be able to say again -- I'm enjoying them.  Now that (pause of speechlessness) - that is something.

Can you believe this?

I do, because I'm living it.  It's incredible.  There's an amazing amount of "normal" coming back to me.  And with it comes . . .

"Snow flurries" of memory.  Those tiny little pieces of moments, days, seasons, and years that make up a lifetime.  Little "snowflakes" of this or that day, or a familiar kind of day, or "a day just like today," or a "season that felt so much like this" converge upon me as I drive along on various errands -- and I'm amazed at how very much memory can just shower a multiplicity of feelings and impressions upon you all at once.

Makes a person want to cry, partially with joy, partially with a bittersweet sadness -- because there's just so much there.  I have to believe that these cascades of memory are enabled by my increasing ability to tolerate, specifically, chemical fragrances.  Many of which were once a part of my daily life. 

When you're chemically sensitive, huge pieces of that "scent aspect" of life get tossed aside by medical necessity.  I'm now realizing how very much this deprivation of familiar old types of scents can impede the normal flow of memory and paralyze one's sense of continuity.  You realize what you've missed, and just how much you've missed it, often only when it returns.  [If that "often only" didn't make perfect sense, please excuse it because I can't, at the moment with my thick-feeling skull, come up with an alternate word combination.]

I personally think that this return of "familiar memory" in so many infinitesimal bits and pieces, this progressive filling in of the empty places of one's own spirit, must also have a strengthening effect upon the neurology of the brain itself.  This, in turn, would further assist the brain to return to a more normal "baseline" of reactivity to chemicals.  Basically, the more you recover, the more you recover.

If that makes sense.    :)     
 

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.

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