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.

Thinking in Pieces

Hello, Friends,

Over the past several days, I've been reduced to processing my written words in short bursts of thoughts -- what I call "thinking in pieces."  Synthesizing details in a global fashion has been a great challenge.  I've found myself typing and retyping the simplest things due to my inability to process more than one detail at a time. This difficulty has encompassed even nonverbal, visual details.

All of this is due to my having had a heavier variety of chemical exposures on Sunday than usual.  Today is the first day that some of the physical fog is lifting. Ironically, it's also the first day that the impending migraine is finally coming through.  It's been a three-day event instead of a two-day event, this time around. Now the body begins to fight.  Its reaction time was extra slow and dreary due to its having been literally deluged with airborne toxins.  The effects were so "heavy" that, first, all reactivity was frankly suppressed while my body endured a growing sensation of "stupor."  As my body "awoke" to its exposures, I felt progressively worse and more and more useless.

Laundry toxins figured first on the list, then cigarette smoke.  Creepy effects, this time, as though I'd received a novocaine shot at the dentist which was slowly wearing off in parts of my face.  This has improved, but it's not gone yet.  Such heavy nerve involvement.  I so much hate this.

The B and C vitamins have helped, plus magnesium (with some calcium).  The "creepy" physical reactivity gets a bit muted each time I take another dose.  With the magnesium, I opt for the higher ratio of something like 2:1 or 4:1 magnesium to calcium.  The only calcium I "take" is included in my formulation of Buffered C powder.  I don't want to calcify my soft tissues.  Already had that problem and that required a biopsy.  Don't want to go back there again.  My ratio of magnesium to calcium may look radical to some -- so be it.  I personally found the biopsy -- and the logic behind mainstream medicine's requesting future checks and biopsies -- to be quite radical.  Insane, even.  I'm convinced that I'm severely deficient in magnesium and maybe even have a bona fide magnesium-absorption problem. So I'll mention here what a friend kindly lent to me -- and now I've purchased my own:

Ancient Minerals Magnesium Oil (topical)

Perhaps unrelated but worth mentioning:  When my shoulder froze up with severe spasms of tendonitis and my arm was completely stuck, this oil began to free it up by degrees.  It begins to loosen up the joints almost right away.  Makes me feel better all-around, too.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have another post "on tap" which deals with a separate (and new) topic.  Please bear with me while I complete that one, and kindly accept this post as a sign that this blogger is "still present" with you!     

Cheers!

~ Carolyn

A Walking "Echo"

Greetings to you on this sultry (U.S.) Saturday morning!

You know, I've long been fascinated by the five senses.

I refer now and then to such things as having "a nose like a bloodhound," or a "bionic nose."  By this, I mean that a chemically sensitive person often develops an extremely heightened sense of smell.  Conversely, toxic injury can also cause the sense of smell to decrease.  In my own case, the sense of smell has increased exponentially.  I was not born this way.  The physical, sensory difference between "now" and "then" is staggering, approaching the mind-bending quality of science fiction.

Having loved perfumes/colognes as a child and young lady, I now smell more of the base chemicals and less of the fragrances.  Or, the base chemicals intertwine with the intended scent and cheapen it for me.  I perceive, or even remember precisely in some cases, exactly where the scent is "going" -- but for me, it no longer "gets there."

Finally, when I'm around some fragrances and most hair treatments (hair sprays/gels/dyes), I smell only the chemical base.  It's most peculiar to find myself at a gathering where another woman mentions, for instance, that she's wearing her "favorite fragrance"  -- and the fragrance happens to make me gasp with horror because, to me, it smells like ammonia or a pesticide.  In such cases, physical instinct (the way my face starts to feel instantly) screams at me to move far, far away.  But sometimes I can't get "far, far away."  This leaves me conversing and honing my acting abilities at the same time.

If only I could make a movie to convey the feelings of incredulousness and absurdity that come over me on such occasions!  To do this, I'd have to film an actress spraying disinfectant on her hair, dabbing on some wasp repellent for "fragrance," then going forth to greet her guests with a smile . . . . .  I kid you not.  Despite my knowledge that base chemicals, for me, can blot out the intended signature scent, I have still found myself puzzling, on more than one occasion, as to why this or that lovely lady would have chosen to wear a fragrance that smelled exactly like a tub-and-tile cleaner.

Moving on to synthetic laundry fragrances -- these are the most vitriolic to me.  I can tolerate many perfumes/colognes without excessive amounts of residual damage afterwards; but synthetic laundry fragrances just make my head spin.  They are incredibly powerful and far-reaching.  I catch them in the air even while driving in my car.  They can cover large expanses of road when emanating from dryer vents.  Some of them penetrate even the closed air vents of the car, in which case I try to inhale as few times as possible, hoping never to get stuck in such a place.  ("Such a place," mind you, being an ordinary neighborhood of homes with dryer vents.  The very simplicity and unavoidable frequency of such venues -- so innocuous in all other ways -- only increases the peril.)  Synthetic laundry scents have a caustic, burning, "peppery" quality.  I can describe them this way because along with the heightened sense of smell comes a sense of the "texture" of the molecules.  Many times I can taste the smell, as well.   

Removing myself from the polluted venue is the first step; however, there is yet another effect of an amplified sense of smell:  The chemical scent remains in the nose, at times, for hours or days after exposure.  

In short, the chemically sensitive person can become a walking "echo" of the synthetic scents to which he has recently been exposed.

To give yet another example of this physiological "echo," the neurotoxins (nerve toxins) in synthetic laundry fragrances, non-organic dry-cleaning solutions, and chlorine can have jarring reverberations on the central nervous system.  They can turn the usual operations of the nervous system "up" to a higher (and discomfiting) degree as though generating continual low-level seizures throughout the body.  I, myself, begin to experience a strong pulse over my nose and a vibration, or "buzzing," of this same pulse throughout my body -- as though someone had plugged me into an electrical socket.  I then feel physically shaky inside, with a bodily tremor not visible to others.  I, however, perceive a slight shaking of my hands when I go to grasp or arrange objects.  Playing the piano, setting the table, coordinating steps of activities either mentally or physically -- these things become neurologically and cognitively challenging.  My vision, also, begins to shake up and down rapidly, with some blurring; and my central nervous system feels "all revved up." 

It should frighten me, but it doesn't.  I'm too used to it.  At the same time, I begin to feel slightly "drunk" and sleepy (a heightened pulse beneath stupefying fatigue), so any thoughts of apprehension don't have the energy to persist, anyway.  

I appreciate, however, how such complications could worsen in the future.  As the "canary in the coal mine," I can report to you that the toxins in these products are severe, indeed -- and perhaps just as severe, later on, to those who cannot feel their "echo" as I do and who therefore immerse themselves in them as a way of life -- eventually developing cancer or Parkinson's or some other progressive, devastating disorder.  It is my firm belief that the role of pervasive common chemicals is not appreciated in the etiology of these life-threatening developments.

I've touched upon smell, sight, taste, and the "texture" of synthetic-scent molecules -- but what of the sense of hearing?  This, too, has become more acute for me in my toxically injured state.  Is this, then, also connected to the phenomenon of chemical sensitivity?  I honestly do not know.  I know only that I often have to cover at least one ear at social gatherings which include amplified music, if I get too close to the source of the sound.

If you look at all of this through a different lens, it begins to approach some of the heightened sensory experiences of the autistic person -- or, more scientifically stated, of what is presently called "autism" in many persons who happen also to experience such things (in addition to cognitive, speech, and other physiological differences).

I strongly suspect that there is much uncultivated ground between the topics of toxic injury and at least some of the physiological phenomena which occur under the umbrella of "autism" . . . with possibly some related causal factors behind each.

I've explained these peculiar sensory developments, above, in order to shorten the process of identification for those who might be becoming chemically sensitive.  So many aspects of functioning can be affected by chemical sensitivity; if you chase down each symptom, you still might not find any answer beyond the obvious categorizing of each symptom into a medically recognized disorder or two.  These medical disorders might, in fact, be real -- but are the triggers, or causes, of the disorders properly appreciated?  If they are not recognized and appreciated, then the understanding of the disorders is compromised:  Their occurrence and progression will appear to be more random than they really are.  If you never recognize that you're reacting to chemicals (in those cases when you actually are), then how can you defend your body against the effects of their repeated assaults?

If one's sense of smell is beginning to increase in the strange and noticeable ways described above, this could be a red flag alerting one to the possibility of chemical exposures as a cause.  Other things, of course, can contribute to an altered sense of smell.  The implications of such other causes can be serious.  Tracking one's own chemical exposures and (possible) follow-up symptoms, however, is a simple and completely cost-free way to begin digging for causes.  This "tool" is available to everyone immediately.  The window of heightened symptoms generally occurs, in my own case, anywhere between a few minutes to two days after exposure to a triggering chemical.

Tracking chemical exposures and symptoms is neither convenient nor fun.  Still, I would be remiss if I did not suggest it as a way to gain valuable -- and perhaps life-prolonging -- information.  The next step would be to educate oneself as thoroughly as possible on the potentially "triggering" chemicals present in many common products.  Please make liberal use of the information tabs, above.  I am always searching for new pieces of research and anecdotal reporting to add to these link lists.

In the meantime, cheers (!) and a comfortably cool weekend to you --

~ Carolyn 

Blooming Where I'm Planted

Good day, friends,

Somewhere in this chaos, there is order.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers!

~ Carolyn

The Sweetest Flame

Hello, Friends,

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'll let you know!  Cheers!

~ Carolyn

One of Many

Hello, friends!

As I do my daily research for this blog, I'm increasingly astounded by the vast amount of highly valuable and accurate information multiplying on the Internet about chemical toxins and MCS.  In this way, I'm now "meeting" more and more of my MCS-afflicted brothers and sisters.  Your beautifully designed websites and blogs should, indeed, be read by all.  Not to mention the video documentaries of caring, highly educated experts and laymen in the field of environmental medicine and science!  I'm deeply moved by the honesty, energy, and dedication already being put into the cause of boosting chemical-injury awareness.  I'm honored to be able to add my one small voice to all of yours. 

Consequently, I've been cramming as much useful information as I possibly can into my sidebar and tabs.  I'm now learning how to incorporate hyperlinks into text and how best to make and shape a blog from the strictly technical end.  I'm also wrestling, at present, with one or two gadget glitches awaiting remediation.  I have much to learn.

But thanks to all of you MCS writers, experts, scientists, and filmmakers, I find I'm cringing inside a little bit less these days as I approach others to describe what chemicals I know I must avoid.  I'm realizing that I'm most definitely not alone in my chemical sensitivity.  The similar patterns of my reactions to chemicals and those of other MCS sufferers are becoming clear, familiar, and predictable.  Furthermore, I'm realizing that many of us MCS writers are gravitating toward the same experts and the same scientists as we search for ways to communicate to others the dangers of many common chemicals.

The subject of pesticides is particularly horrifying to me, especially in regard to children.  For all I know, pesticides could be a huge part of my own chemical-sensitization history.  Lawns, parks -- who knows?  I couldn't possibly trace it now.  Dryer vent emissions and lawn treatments really send me for a whirl; and these two contaminants often become very difficult to separate, in causality, when I'm walking through a typical suburban or more rural neighborhood.  I do recall, however, that some form of weed-killer made me suddenly very dizzy as I walked alongside trick-or-treaters one Halloween night (a man had been applying it as I walked by -- that was an easy thing to see, for once).  It was difficult to continue walking and I had to stop shortly thereafter.  Dryer-vent emissions have repeatedly given me serious chest pain, the type of pain that also accompanies a severe bout of supraventricular tachycardia -- a deepening, sickening ache that fills the entire chest cavity and can filter into the back.  It increases in scope and pressure if one doesn't remove oneself from the location, making one expect a heart attack at any moment.  It's almost impossible to continue walking with such mounting pressure within.

The more I read and view on the subject of chemical injury, the more I realize that what I'm learning is just the tip of a massive iceberg.  

The chemical-injury stories and backup data are just pouring in from all directions.  The most responsible thing we can do with this information is to take it, read it, and learn from it.  Now.  

Cheers!

~ Carolyn  

Hello, Friends! An MCS poem for you:

           The Dinner Guest

She backed away, and backed away --

they thought she had so little to say.

Her swelling jaw froze into a smile,

face taut now, heating up all the while.

As thunder rose within her skull,
the lively host took her for dull --

unimaginative, slow on the draw

(her vision shaking, sinuses raw).

Electric pulse above her nose, 

throughout her body, head to toes,

left her shaky, feeling slurred

in motion, thought -- in every word. 

The floor swayed gently, like a ship

or a plane in a mildly turbulent dip.

All current was she, electrically charged

by unseen molecules redolent, at-large.

[P.S.  The "she" in the poem is me.   ~ Carolyn]     By Carolyn,  © 2012

Cardiac Arrhythmias in the MCS Picture

Happy Hazy, Sunny Day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It surely makes me wonder.

Stay as well as you can, and cheers!

~ Carolyn

MCS -- What It's Like

A good Sunday morning to you!

For those of you who are just learning about chemical sensitivity, I'll share the experience with you "from the inside."  For those of you who know only too well the gist of what I'm about to share, I'll share it to affirm my kinship with you.  Not everyone's reactions will be identical, of course, but there is a certain "flavor" to the overall picture of MCS reactivity that will invariably be similar -- I would expect this similarity to occur most noticeably along the lines of "central nervous system" effects. In my own experience, these seem to predominate.

Sure does make you wonder about all of those neurological disorders that crop up as people "age."  Especially the wild-card ones such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS) that can devastate seemingly out of the blue.  I once read in some studies (I'll try to look these up again) that MS is made worse by exposure to natural gas appliances.

Sundays and holidays are particularly difficult days, from a synthetic-chemical point of view.  Churches are redolent with airborne, molecular bouquets of scented personal products, from hair gels to shampoo, aftershave to men's cologne, women's fragrances to scented lotions, body washes, laundry-scented clothing and the residue of mothball treatments and cigarette smoke -- you name it.  These details, which are small or barely noticeable to many other people, loom very large when you have a nose like a bloodhound.

Many churches, also, are both upholstered and carpeted, and the windows are not always designed to be opened.  In the winter, forced-air heating systems spread around the conglomeration of contaminants while drying out the mucous membranes.

On holidays, there are usually more people present in church than usual; and some of those people inevitably smoke cigarettes uncomfortably close to entrances and exits.  If the weather is warm and the doors and windows of church halls are left open, the smoke wafts in.

Then, moving on to "visiting."  Apartment complexes and close suburban neighborhoods exude synthetic laundry fragrance through the dryer vents, which often pours out into the streets and blankets entire blocks.

Inside homes there are air fresheners, synthetically scented paraffin candles, potpourri, scented soaps and lotions, chemical cleaners, carpets, carpet-shampoo treatments, items laundered with synthetically scented products, and upholstered furniture and curtains which have absorbed all of these scents combined.  Add to that the natural gas stoves and other natural-gas appliances present in many dwellings, and you have "chemical soup" permeating the air with neurotoxins (nerve toxins) galore.

For a day or two (sometimes three) after back-to-back, multiple exposures to these neurotoxic chemicals, my center of balance is off and I feel as though I'm walking on an undulating ship; my muscular movements require deliberation as opposed to effortless execution; and I feel as though I'm moving through quicksand from head to toe.  My thoughts are slowed, my mood becomes somber; thinking sequences through, step-by-step, becomes a huge labor; the glands around my throat swell, my sinuses swell, my chin gets red, my nose burns and turns red, and I get some hives along the jawline.  Two or three days later, this impending migraine -- truly a central nervous system event -- really heats up:  The pain begins to pulse noticeably through my head as the tissue and glands around it swell up, both tightening my jaw and making it difficult to swallow.  The migraine syndrome is now going full-force.  If I haven't taken ibuprofen yet, it's absolutely necessary now.

At the same time, I try to hurry along my recovery with dandelion root tea, green tea, rooibos tea, apple-cider vinegar, Buffered C Powder, magnesium malate -- and other foods and supplements that offer liver cleansing, digestive assistance (this deteriorates during chemical reactions/migraines, worsening the toxic load), antioxidant help, and calming of the nerves.

I've also made a mental note to try and "put off" addressing any potentially sensitive interactions with people until the mood-dampening effect of the chemical reaction passes.

Things look and feel so tremendously different once my body has reasonably (not perfectly, but reasonably) detoxed from a walloping chemical exposure!

This return feeling of well-being is what I wish for all of you, as often as possible -- and especially on weekends and holidays!

Please write in your own experiences and solutions you've come up with to cope with acute exposures to aggravating chemicals. I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

Cheers!

~ Carolyn