Thriving with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity

2012-01-24T00:24:00.000-08:00

If you are new to my Blog it reads like a story. I suggest starting with the oldest post and working your way back to this one. You can also click here for a convenient eBook version. Of course it can also be used as a reference if you so desire. Please feel free to use the Google bar on the right side if you are looking for a specific topic within these writings.

With the last several posts I have brought the story up to the present time. I have discussed a few specific topics and what to do about them, but in the end each of us must find a way to discover what will work for us and what won’t. We all have fear around Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) and we each must find a way to face this fear and move forward with our lives.

Just as I have always believed that there was a way for my life to get better, I have to believe that there is a way for your life to dramatically improve as well. I hope what I have written here has been helpful. Perhaps directly or least it has given you the inspiration that has assisted you in finding your own answers. If what is written here has helped then I am more than glad I have taken the time and effort to write it all down. For there would be little point in finding answers for myself alone if others did not also benefit.

Zen Master Sam

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P.S.
In the first half of these writings the time line of recovery is somewhat loose. This was partly to make the story flow a little better but mostly because I was remembering an extremely foggy period in my life; I had not yet pieced the entire story together at the beginning. This may come across as a timeline continuity issue between different parts of this blog. It is something I plan to eventually correct. Please be aware however that the actual details of recovery are accurate. The tools, events and discoveries; the items that truly matter, are solid.

A Few More Weeks Down the Road

2010-09-18T16:50:00.001-07:00

This post continues the story of recovery around my present Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) challenge. This story began in the post ‘A Prison Break in Progress”. By this time I was really hoping to deliver a lustrous report on how everything was going exceptionally well, and I was getting close to doing so. Several of the issues that I have talked about in past posts are going glowingly. Unfortunately others that for a short while got better have again gotten worse.

One item that has gotten almost completely better has been the motorcycle helmet. It got infected with metals when a friend of mine did some welding on my now ex-girlfriend’s motorcycle. I wiped down the outside extremely well but the inside still presented a problem. I tried something completely new on the inside of the helmet (I’ll give Amy credit for this idea). I thoroughly cleaned the brush attachment on the vacuum cleaner and then vacuumed out the inside of the helmet several times. This has almost completely removed the offending material. This has been a technique that was so easy and obvious that I am a little disappointed that I didn’t think of it years ago.*

The bedding also became infected with metals from the welding incident. The metals got into Amy’s hair and helmet. Each time she wore her helmet her hair became cross contaminated. Then those metals were transferred into the bedding. This caused me rather sever challenges each time I climbed into the bed. I have now washed the entire bedding twice. It got better both times and is now pretty good. It is not yet completely MCS trigger free. I will try washing it one more time next week (when I discuss washing the bedding I use the process described in the post ‘Clothing’). I hope this will make it completely ok but if not then it will be time to search for new sheets, blankets and comforters. A process I really hope to avoid at the moment.

The dental work that was done completely took care of one issue that was going on. I have not had any lingering issues with this.

About two months ago someone came by and did some modifications to my work space. These modifications released cheap metal into the environment. I had to work on this area multiple times. In the end it took four attempts over a six week period to get things back to mostly normal. The work environment was beginning to go rather well. Unfortunately two days after the first modifications were finally undone** a new set of modifications happened. This second round was considerably more extensive and has created challenges potentially worse than the first. This second round has had a couple of different aspects to it. Such as new electronic equipment, new sheet metal structure with an as of yet not fully cured powder coating on it, and a myriad of smaller plastic/cardboard parts added to my work space. The worst is again around metals being released into the area. I have not yet fully devised a plan of action to correct this second round of changes.

Since the majority of the challenges in this MCS setback have come in the form of being exposed to metals, I did a three week heavy metal cleanse. This seemed to be working extremely well. Each day I felt better. Not only did I follow the instructions on the box and take the pills as prescribed, the research I did on the subject led me to add the equivalent of two tablespoons of puréed fresh cilantro twice a day. This seemed to help.

A few days after the Heavy Metal Cleanse was over I started a digestive/liver cleanse program. I have had previous positive experience with the “365 Total Body Cleanse” purchased from my local Whole Foods. Not only do I get great results from this product but it also has the benefit of being the least expensive of the ‘whole body’ cleanse options on the shelf. I am consistently surprised at how well and quickly this seems to work each time I take it. I also chose to continue eating the fresh cilantro as a precaution. After a few days on the new cleanse I started to feel better than I had in months. I very much believed I was on the right path. I even started to feel one hundred percent for at least few hours each day. I was also starting to feel the urge to be social in a way I had almost forgotten.

To my dismay the changes in the worked environment seem to have put me more than a few steps back. The gains I made have been significantly eroded. Not only do I feel terrible during the hours I spend at work but I also feel pretty bad for a few hours afterward. A big chunk of my day has been given back over to fairly bad MCS symptoms.

Hopefully by the end of next week the work environment will ‘air out’ at least enough so that I can start finding out what portions of the modifications are causing the problems. I need to find out if there are items that can be sealed in or changed. I figure if worst comes to worst and in a month or so I can’t get things back to normal at work, it may just be time for a new job. This is an idea that I have been kicking around for some time now anyway.

I have been working a two pronged approach. One of cleaning the outside environment. And one of cleaning out the body. This plan seemed to be working until a few days ago when the outside drastically changed for the worse. I will continue to work toward cleaning the inside and outside environments. I will also start looking into how I can further strengthen my internal resistance to the inevitable buffeting that will take place as I move through the modern world.

I’ll let you know how this all goes in a week or so.

*As a precaution to remove any remaining residue I will take a shower when I am done with the motorcycle for the day.

**The process by which these modifications were ‘undone’ consisted of a few items. One was to take out the sheet metal screws that were put into the pot metal structure of the work space. After the screws were taken out I needed to seal in the exposed low quality metals. One of my favorite tools for accomplishing this is vinyl electrical tape. This tape comes in a range of colors, has some give to it compared to other tapes, can be easily cut into needed shapes and it quickly ‘out gasses’ and toxic aspects to that it may have when new. Yes it often gives me a small MCS reaction off the bat but that goes away quite quickly. I wiped everything down with a little rubbing alcohol on a paper towel then sealed in any exposed areas with the electrical tape. The good news is that what I did could not be seen unless specifically looked for. As an aside, there are often items that need ‘sealed in’ but electrical tape is not the best solution. In these cases I’ll use a little paint, then if possible I’ll seal in the paint with tape after it dries.

In Praise of Hand Washing and Showering

2010-09-11T20:41:00.000-07:00

Taking showers and washing our hands as a way of combating Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) is an idea that has been briefly touched upon in this blog, but I think is important enough to warrant a more in-depth examination here. Showering/hand washing are two of my favorite tools for lessoning and often completely stopping a MCS reaction in progress. If I am exposed to a MCS trigger and it gets inside of me I will experience a reaction. Remember that there is more than one way of getting MCS reaction causing chemicals into our bodies. We can breathe them in, we can eat or drink them and they can even be absorbed through our skin. Quickly removing these triggers can be extremely useful.

One thing that took me a long time to realize is that when a MCS trigger has gotten in me it has often gotten on me as well. If it has gotten on me I can carry the trigger on my cloths, on my skin and in my hair causing repeated re-exposure. On some occasions problem causing chemicals can even get from my cloths/skin/hair to other parts of my environment causing MCS triggers to infect furniture, other clothing and even bedding. How to combat this? As soon as my situation warrants I remove myself from the trigger, take a really good shower or wash my hands and, if it is called for, change out of the clothing I am presently wearing. This process has never failed to make me feel better. Admittedly it is not always a complete cure for the present MCS reaction but it invariably reduces the symptoms and lessens the possibility of continued exposure and cross contamination.

As is often the case for those of us with MCS taking a shower and washing our hands is not always as easy and straight forward as it may appear at first glance. Of course our biggest challenge is to find soaps, shampoos, etc… that do not cause MCS reactions all on their own. Assuming we have gotten over that hurdle; the next big question is what do we do when our chosen soap alone does not completely clean an offending substance off of our hands, hair and skin.

I cannot always be in command of everything around me. There will be times when I will come into direct contact with substances such as motor oil, wet paint, fragrances and residue from certain cleaning agents (these are only a few possibilities of materials that soap alone may does not completely remove from our bodies). This will happen eventually and is an unavoidable part of living in our modern world. When this does happen I want to stop being affected by any MCS triggers that I have come into contact with as soon as possible. I also want minimize the risk of this trigger getting into other parts of my environment. I will need to get the offending chemical off of me. This is when those of us with MCS need to make some often challenging decisions.

When I was a kid my father used to keep a can of white gas around the garage. The primary purpose of this was to fuel his camping stoves. His secondary purpose for the white gas was to clean his hands after he was done working on the car. This substance was noxious but extremely effective at stripping used oil and engine grease off his hands. Even as a kid when I followed my father’s example and used it to wash my hands I would feel bad for a few minutes but the white gas would evaporate extremely quickly and leave no residue or smell that I can remember. Of course I do not recommend that those of us with MCS do this activity. I have no doubt that white gas would cause most of us potentially severe problems, but it does illustrate the nature of a decision I need to make at times. Is the long term potential for MCS challenges larger for what has gotten on me or will the reactions caused by what I will use to clean myself be worse?

Every sink in my living space has a pump bottle of hand soap next to it. As mentioned, hand soap alone does not always get an offending chemical off my hands to a required degree. A solution that I have found, and by no means do I suggest that this is the correct solution for all of us, is to also keep some vodka or rubbing alcohol* near the sinks as well. Alcohol in conjunction with soap will clean just about anything off of my hands. Does the alcohol cause me problems? When I first discovered this solution to my hand washing dilemma it did, as my health has improved it does not seem so bad anymore. When I first started using it to clean MCS triggers off my skin I had to weigh the potential benefit and the potential harm. Although the alcohol would cause a reaction that would at times last hours, I often felt that keeping my environment clean was worth the short term set back. Being spacey for a few hours was worth the eventual pay off of not cross-contaminating my apartment.

One of the great tricks I have found to living with MCS has been removing often harsh triggers from my body before they can cross contaminate other parts of my world. There are many items that can assist in creating this deeper cleaning. Discovering what you find tolerable will be a matter of intuition and experimentation. What may be tolerable to you may not be tolerable to me and vice-versa**. The products I use have at times caused MCS reactions all on their own, but the short term sacrifice has almost always been worth the long term gain of keeping my environment clean. Don’t hesitate to face making these sometimes difficult choices when they arise.

*Not all rubbing alcohol is the same. One great trick for living with MCS is to ‘Always Read the Label’. There are two main formulations of 70% Isopropyl Rubbing Alcohol on the market. One is just alcohol and water the other has several other ingredients that are supposed to make it better for the skin. I have found that those other ingredients almost always create a MCS reaction. I get the one with water as the only ‘inactive ingredient’. Even that being said I have still found variation between different brands, ‘Premier’ brand is my favorite, the generic Kroger brand is also good, but Safeway’s generic brand is terrible even though they all list the same ingredients. High proof vodka is something I have great results with. As with every definite suggestion I mention there will most likely be some personal experimentation required.

**From my experience there is an often large degree of variation between those of us with MCS. It is this variation that makes creating a definitive list of MCS safe products an extreme challenge. What is tolerated by one of us is not often tolerated by all of us. I also find that making a definitive list of triggers that will create MCS reactions in us almost as difficult for the same reason.

This dissimilarity in triggers and our reactions to these triggers is one of the challenges to MCS being fully accepted by the main stream medical establishment. Science and medicine love direct answers and well defined parameters. Unfortunately MCS, at this time, offers little in the way of well defined, measurable, repeatable and statistically significant data.

Of course all of this variation makes living with MCS an art form that we get to constantly create in our lives and not so much a scientifically based program we can just plug into.

Desire to Thrive

2010-09-01T20:45:00.000-07:00

This has not been my only Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) bump in the road. About six months ago I had a bad one. It took over a month to clean up the mess and recover. This current challenge is in many ways just something else that needs to be cleaned up and set right. This MCS trial is just matter of cleaning up both my internal and external environments*. Despite all the challenges I still have a place to live, a vehicle to drive, food in the fridge and friends who want to spend time with me. Even at work where some of the worst MCS triggers have presented themselves, I have still been able to do my job to a needed degree. The ability to function in my life to a needed minimum standard has in no way been compromised. But functioning at a required minimum is not thriving.

Every two to four years since I have started my healing journey I have encountered subjects that have absolutely fascinated me. Each time I find such a subject I will often spend years devouring all the material I can find on the topic. Out of all of the questions I have looked into the big three have been: ‘Buddhism’, ‘Physics as related to consciousness’, and finally ‘Evolutionary psychology and social dynamics as it relates to human interaction and attraction’.

The first subject was spiritual philosophy with a focus on Zen Buddhism. I read about twenty books on the subject, listened to several audio programs, and even watched a few videos. In the end everything I encountered on the topic said the same thing. Go perform your chosen spiritual practice. Getting information means nothing after a certain point, I had to go out and do it. After a few months of resistance I found a Buddhist church, sat Zen meditation with the group three to four times each week and eventually went on weekend long retreats. This study completely changed how I viewed the world. I could no longer see people, places, events or even myself as static items. Everything became much more fluid, only a moment in a continuum of change. Just about everything I saw as capitol ‘T’ Truth was now, in many ways, only a story that people, including myself, had placed upon their surroundings. Of course I didn’t live in the immediacy of this amazing state all the time but the fact that I could often call it up when needed was an astonishing gift.

Studying Zen had prepared me for the next topic; asking the question, ‘Does consciousness relate, and if so how, to a modern upstanding of physics’? The homeopath that I have mentioned before in this blog suggested I see the movie “What the Bleep Do We Know”. The film posited that our consciousness, more to the point our desires and expectations that show up in our consciousness, can directly affect the material world around us. This had been a topic that was briefly touched upon in my readings around the subject of spirituality. I was excited, could this be real, could our expectations actually change the so called material world? I realized that I didn’t really know that much about physics so I read many books directly on the subject of our modern understanding of the mechanics of the material world.

I read about how relativity works, about how quantum mechanics works and how both relate to our middle world described by Newton. I read about how Einstein’s relativity and quantum mechanics didn’t mesh with each other and how string theory may solve this. I picked up books about both western and eastern understandings and speculations on the nature of consciousness. Could we actually say why we are Awake? Could we actually say that the act of observing the universe would change the world in a desired, non-random way? In the end I have to say the best possible answer to this question is a good solid, ‘Perhaps’. Even if my central questions could not be fully answered, devouring the stacks of material I had acquired on this subject had changed my view of the world once more. Where Buddhism made things much more fluid, physics had made things a lot more dynamic. The universe was not really put together in the ways I had always believed it was. Existence is a lot more mysterious and a lot less absolute then than I had previously imagined.

The third subject, ‘evolutionary psychology and social dynamics as it relates to human interaction and attraction’ came to me in the form of ‘The Pick-Up Artist’ and relates directly to a topic I have mentioned repeatedly in this blog, social skills. A large portion of my time on this planet has been marked by a desire to greatly improve this area of my life. As talked about before it was my love affair with the great social elixir, alcohol that brought about MCS for me in the first place. Over the years I have hit on an occasional book or program in this area. Although these few items may have pointed me in the desired direction none of them really gave me the skill set I wanted. That is until a couple of years ago when I sat down to lunch with a female friend of mine.

I talked with her about how I was entering a career in sales. She told me that she had seen a reality TV show about a group of guys with absolutely no ability with women who were being taught by a Pick-Up Artist (PUA) named Mystery. Mystery set out to teach these men how to interact with the opposite sex. She told me that if I was interested in sales then this was the best display of teaching raw sales ability I would ever see. I went home that night and watched the show. What I saw blew my mind. I saw men with considerably less social game then I possessed who were learning things and getting results I never thought possible. I was enthralled. I watched more. By sunrise the next morning I had watched the entire season. My mind had been opened to a possibility that I never knew existed. Toward the end of the show those men that remained were doing things that I had only previously seen the ‘naturals’ do. I knew that what I had always wanted to know was indeed learnable. I could have the social interactions that others seamed to live naturally.

I dove into this learning with fervor. I read Mystery’s book. I scoured the internet for any other information I could find. I discovered that there was an entire underground network of people know as the ‘seduction community’ who had devoted years to unraveling the technology of teaching men how to interact not only with women but all people. I found the works of David DeAngelo, the works of Neil Strauss, the works of Ross Jefferies and much, much more. I read every book I could get my hands on, I watched every video I found and I listened to every audio file I could scrounge. I spent the better part of the next two years taking in every scrap of knowledge I came across. It helped my sales career tremendously. It changed the way I interacted with both women and men. It gave me a perspective I had never before known and it dissipated the belief that other people simply had some social prowess that I could not posses. I knew for the first time in my life that the social success I had always wanted was the result of learning an acquirable skill set and not some accident of fate that had passed me by.

If Buddhism and Physics had made things fluid and dynamic then these social leanings made the world navigable. Just as a surfer could learn to find the way in an ocean wave, I could learn to find the way in the ebb and flow of human interaction. My lifelong goal of feeling one with the social world around me could be gained.

The understandings I gained by studying this material healed something profound inside of me. Within my life there had been a deep ache, a wound that would simply not heal. In fact this pain had been there so consistently that I didn’t even consciously realize it existed until I was twenty. Over the summer that year I took a seminar series called ‘Context’. Context was a series of classes and retreats designed around: personal growth, self discovery, and building success oriented life skills. I learned things about myself and other people that amazed me. The deep sense of unworthiness or ‘I Suck’ that had been there my entire life was momentarily gone. I felt a sense of internal ease that I had never known before. I experienced that sense of euphoria one feels when a physical pain suddenly disappears. But a few months of learning could not undo a life time of emotional habit. The deep ache came back in a relatively short time. The only difference was that having the ache gone for a time made me acutely aware of its moment to moment existence when it returned.

I have talked in previous posts about where this pain came from (early childhood issues around my relationship with my parents and their complete lack of social teachings). During the years of recovery I have done several things that have lessened this pain but it never fully disappeared. It would often manifest itself as memories of every social failure I have ever known. A painful replay of each perceived awkwardness. But after studying the ‘seduction community’ material something changed. Suddenly I saw that my past perceived failures were not caused by some inherent flaw in my being but rather a flaw in my social knowledge. No longer did I see my past as ME being rejected but simply a rejection of my social skill set at the time. What had been rejected is what I knew and not who I was. In fact I could on a daily basis take what I had learned and create a new social experience for myself. Each day I could prove to my inner beliefs that the creation of positive interactions with all sorts of people could be made. I had for the first time in my life the experience of not only the pain going away but also the certainty that I possessed the skills to make sure it never came back. For the last two years I have been free in a way I have not previously known.

Just as the material I read when studying Buddhism all said that the real learning comes from practice, the material I have studied around social interaction has said the same thing. Getting knowledge is an important part of the process but the real learning happens ‘in-field’ actually talking with the people I desire to interact with. Since Amy has gone off to collage I am now free to practice my new found social knowledge in a way I have not yet allowed myself. I can go out, talk to all sorts of people and have the freedom to see where these interactions may take me.

So what the heck does all of this have to do with my present MCS bump in the road? I have the knowledge to go out and practice being social in a way I have only previously dreamed of, but… I don’t want to right now. I have spent most of my time since Amy has left not feeling well from an MSC point of view. I have all too often been spacey, tired, and decidedly not charming. My ability and desire to live this new experience of social interaction has been temporally put on hold. I am finding this increasingly frustrating. Although I am grateful for the day to day recovery from this temporary setback, this has kept me from truly thriving in the realm of the social. I look forward to my present setback being put behind me and exploring a new chapter of thriving in my life.

*If need be I will also do what I can to strengthen my internal state. As I have talked about before this it can be done by returning to the homeopath & naturopath, perhaps fasting, and researching what else may be needed.

Two Weeks Down the Road…

2010-08-27T16:33:00.000-07:00

It has been two weeks since I started working my plan to recover from this Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) bump in the road. I feel that I’m at 80% to 90% capacity a lot of the time. Over the last several days I have even had a few hours here and there of feeling fully normal again. For the most part each day has been little better than the one before. I feel pretty good the majority of the time in most places, but there is still farther to go. I have cleaned my environment as well as is possible for the time being but it looks as if a little more effort is called for.

The work location was still presenting a significant MCS challenge for me. I had to put more effort into it. The MCS triggers released in the changes that were done were still taking their toll on me, especially after a few hours of being there. I was hoping that it would just ‘air out’ but with no luck. I came in last night and did more to reverse the ‘work’ that was done to it some three weeks ago. Today things are much better but not quite where I want them to be. Let’s hope that this time a little more surface cleaning and a little more ‘airing out’ will do the trick over the next few days.

The bedding is much better but also not quite what I would want. Sending everything through the laundry two weeks ago worked pretty well but more is needed. I suspect that if I just wash the bedding again things will be good. Of course I am doing the washing method mentioned a previous post, a way that I know will strip off just about any MCS triggers.

Thankfully the dental work that was done is presenting no further problems. Out of everything this one is a done deal.

The part of my recovery plan that I want to sing high praises for is the Heavy Metal Detox program. This has been a huge contributing factor to my feeling better each day. Getting MCS triggers cleaned out of my environment will assist in keeping me from taking in new triggers. But cleaning myself out from the inside will give me greater resistance to the triggers that do cross my path. If I am honest with myself it has probably been about a year now that metals have presented a significant issue for me. Coming into contact with even the smallest amount of any low quality metals that haven’t been fully sealed in has caused an often severe reaction. Up until now avoidance has been sufficient to stop any reaction. With this new bump in the road more was needed.

I picked up the “Renew Life - Heavy Metal Cleanse” from my local Whole Foods. I was thinking about getting a digestive/liver cleanse system that I have had luck with in the past but something in me said no, I should get a heavy metal detox. At first I thought about getting both but the lady in the vitamin/supplement section said it would be better if I got only one at a time. She said that it is a system that she has used and had gotten great results with. I decided to give it a try. The system consists of two parts; the first is a multi vitamin to support the body while it detoxes, the second is a supplement consisting of several plant extracts that are meant to bind to the metals in our bodies and assist in flushing them out. Another part of the program is to drink a lot of water each day. The amount recommended is to take your body weight in ounces and drink half that number of ounces each day. For instance if someone weighs 200lbs then they should drink 100oz of water each day. At first I thought this would be a bit difficult to keep but there is something in the program that is making me extremely thirsty. Drinking over 12 cups of water each day has been no problem. In fact I have probably gone over the recommended amount each day just due to how constantly thirsty I have been.

One item that kept coming up over and over again when I was doing research into heavy metal detox programs was cilantro. Each information source recommended that I eat at least two table spoons of cilantro once to twice a day. I have a friend who loves to garden and this year she grew some cilantro. I told her what I was doing and she was nice enough to give me her entire crop from her garden. I will picking up a few good sized hand full’s of freshly picked cilantro from her this evening. I am looking forward to seeing if this helps.

I have no empirical method at my immediate disposal to confirm that I have been getting metals out of my system. But I can say with certainty that I have felt better each day I have taken the supplements in this program. If metals are a MCS trigger for you this may be something that you might want to look into.

A good question at this point may be, what if my present plan of action does not get me back to where I want to be? Honestly I’m not too worried about it. I have enough experience with MCS to know that there are several strategies I have at my disposal that I can employ. I can, and most likely will, try the digestive/liver cleanse that I have done in the past. I can continue to clean my environment. I can set appointments with the Homeopath and Naturopath couple that I have discussed in past posts. I can even try fasting and eating purely organically again to clean out my system.

One very wonderful thing about the last five or so years is that there is a lot more information about MCS available. When MCS first started for me I was alone and had to largely discover what worked through intuition or trial and error. Discussing MCS with people, even health care professionals, would all too often bring blank stares, disbelief and arguments of how it was all in my imagination. Now there are massive amounts of material on the subject. This material has not only increased MCS awareness but can also give us direct instructions, or at least give us clues, to creating our own recovery. Even If I exhaust my personal knowledge base on how to recover from my present MCS setback I have total faith that the answer is available. If I have a true desire to recover my health and have sufficient belief that it is possible I know from experience the answer will appear.

The Comfort Zone

2010-08-22T23:46:00.000-07:00

What is the ‘Comfort Zone’? It has been a ubiquities concept in our culture since the eighties but perhaps it could warrant a little more focus here.

Our comfort zone is whatever we're most familiar with. It includes our family, friends, house, income level, significant other, health, etc... It is that which we have surrounded ourselves with that makes us comfortable. It is important to remember that our personal comfort zone has an upper limit where things can be too good as well as the more easily seen lower limit where things can be too bad. Of course good and bad are just judgments we put on the world but as far as the comfort zone is concerned we perceive these labels as very real. Our brains are wired in such as way that makes us want to stay in our personal comfort zone because as long as we are there we inoculate ourselves from anxiety.

The Comfort Zone

So how does this work? Over time our lives will unfold in ways that we like and a in ways we don’t. As long as things tend to stay in a rather narrow band we feel a relative calm about our circumstances. But if things start going too poorly we will feel anxiety and we will do whatever it takes to get back within our comfort zone. For example if we get into a big fight with our significant other we may apologize, engage in ‘make up sex’, and cook them their favorite dinner to bring our internal emotional state back to normal. But let’s say the other side of the spectrum shows up, things start going too well. Perhaps you come back from an adventitious vacation and you have the strongest sense of togetherness your relationship has ever experienced. Again we will feel anxiety and will do something, often unconsciously, to get ourselves back into the comfort zone. Maybe we will pick a fight or spend too many days in a row not paying enough attention to them. Things in our relationship may not be going quite as well as before but we feel much more comfortable. We again will be in our comfort zone.

Our comfort zone is a very useful tool. It gives us boundaries, it is an unconscious way of quickly determining if something is tolerable. If circumstances do go poorly for us it will give us a strong emotional need to ‘get back to normal’. At its best the Comfort Zone will grant us a place of calm to rest between adventures. The down side is that if we stay in any one place too long our comfort zone can become our own personal velvet lined cage. If we are not carful our place of calm can become a trap that we do not wish to escape from.

The Comfort Zone works so well because it is guarded by the ‘worst thing all the world’, anxiety. Now, anxiety is just an emotion, a sensation felt in the body but that is not the way we perceive it. We are hardwired to experience it has a horrible thing; a monster in the corner of our minds that must be avoided at all costs, a terrible thing that we don’t want to look at let alone think about. The irony about anxiety is that if we actually wake up, just for a moment, from the half dream we all like to live in and look at it, anxiety almost always evaporates. The thing that we feared a moment before suddenly looks like a tree branch instead of a ghost trying to get into our bedroom window. We often realize that what we feared never really existed, at least not in the way we previously thought.

The good news about the Comfort Zone is that, no matter what it may feel like, it is not set in stone. We have all probably heard the phrase ‘expanding our comfort zone’. Expanding what we find tolerable is a great practice* but it is not really what we are after when it comes to recovery from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), at least not for the purposes of our immediate discussion. What we really want is to move our comfort zone up the scale to being comfortable with better and better things happening.

Of course the real question is how do we do this? The best way is to become increasingly comfortable with better and better events in our lives. If 0% is the bottom of our comfort zone and 100% is the top, then the real juice of life hangs out at 110%. If we can stay in the place where life is an adventure but is not so far out that we panic then we will begin to grow. One of the great things about the Comfort Zone is that it will move as we do. If we spend consistent time 10% above the upper limit we will begin to get used to things going better in our lives. Our comfort zone will move upward to encompass these new experiences. One of the great aspects of this is that the upper limit will drag the lower limit up with it making 0% move to the previous 10% bracket. **

A huge thing to beware of here that our comfort zone can also move downward. If we allow ourselves to get comfortable with bad things happening then we can get stuck in a situation that would never have been tolerable before. This is a process that I raged against for a decade. I tried to each day to not let myself become comfortable in the misery that was my daily MCS nightmare. I refused to lose focus on what I really wanted, to return to a state of good health.

The challenge is that my single minded focus lead me to stumble squarely into the trap that the comfort zone can become. Once I achieved my goal I didn’t move forward, and moving forward is the only way to cement gains that are made.

Using the paradigm of the comfort zone how do we cement these gains exactly? We set a goal that is bigger than our immediate target, raising the comfort zone to fully surround our target experience. For instance if I want to lose weight I should aim for a healthy life lifestyle, if I want to get to a point where running five miles each day is no big deal then I should train for a marathon. If where you really want to be is 10% higher than your present comfort zone then aim even 10% higher than that. Ratchet up your comfort zone to not only hit your goal but go beyond. Once your comfort zone has absorbed your goal well enough your goal will become your new norm. Then traveling too far away from this will create anxiety making sure you keep your gains.

I will get over this bump in the road. I know how to do it, I have done it before. This time it will not take years. Since I know the path the process will take weeks or at most months. The real trick is to inoculate myself against getting back here. I must get beyond the experience that I presently find comfortable to a new one. I must accept that anxiety will present itself and move forward anyway. Without fear there can be no bravery, and those of us with MCS can be some of the bravest people I have ever met.

*If you are interested in expanding what you find tolerable you may want to learn more about Zen Buddhism.

**This process of ‘ratcheting up’ the scale only seems to work fully for one item at a time. If we upgrade our income it will not see a one to one increase in the quality of our relationships. If we work on our health it will not automatically take us to the next level in the our spiritual practice. I’m not saying we should work on a bunch of items on one occasion. We as humans only have a finite amount of force to exert in any one given vicinity. If we spread this force over a large area we will get only limited movement across that area, but if we focus ourselves on just one item we will get amazing results with that item. The amazing results we will receive with that one item cannot help but to drag the surrounding issues with it as you grow.

Something I Have Forgotten

2010-08-21T16:30:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me a question a few days ago; What can I do each day that would make my life better that I am not presently doing? It could be as little as ten minutes a day if that is what is called for, but some form of consistent effort so that in a year there is no doubt in my mind that my life would be vastly better for this activity. What would it be? The answer came quickly and with impact. The answer; to invest time each day contemplating, reading, writing, generally taking action to improve my health.

From the sound of this blog you may think that this is a normal part of my day, and it was, but it is a habit I have forgotten over the last several years. I have taken my health for granted. In fact I spend at least ten minutes each day thinking about the opposite. I all too often give into fear that Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) might get worse. Whether you believe in the yes machine of a universe presented in the book the ‘Secret’ or the more academic argument presented in a previous post that our expectations filter our perceptions, it makes no difference. That which we focus on will increase and become our reality. If I am honest with myself I have to admit that my focus has been on things going wrong not going right. Since I have been focusing on things falling apart perhaps it is inevitable that they have.

So how did I get here? Having MCS has put me outside of my comfort zone. I was chronically ‘uncomfortable’ for many, many years. When I got better, I became complacent. Like most of us I am good at being comfortable. I am discovering that one of my biggest pitfalls in recovery from MCS is not taking further action to strengthen my health once I am already relatively healthy. I have ‘rested on my laurels’, I have coasted. Of course as the saying goes, you can only coast downhill. And since every system in the universe tends to go from an organized to a disorganized state over time, if we are not growing we are dying. I have forgotten to grow as far as MCS is concerned.

What can I change? The first thing is to spend mental energy each day contemplating how my health has improved, is improving and how it is only going to get better. Not the opposite. Now this may be easier for me at the moment; I am not doing well, I am outside of my comfort zone. Putting forth tremendous mental, emotional, financial and physical effort to get my health back is something I am good at. The goal has always been to get my health back, but what will I do when I have reached this goal? Do I go back to eating poorly, or will I consciously eat better? Will I continue to not exercise or will I start running and walking? Will I continue with vitamins and other supplements to support health or will I just give into spending my money on something else that appears more important at the moment? In short will I keep my health in conscious focus or will I again fall asleep? Perhaps today I can start setting habits that will carry over to when I start feeling truly better.

So, what are these habits? Hmmm… I’m actually finding it a little difficult to come up with this. There is some part of me that really does not want to look at moving past a comfortable complacency, at least as far as health is concerned. If I am honest with myself I am quite scared of taking any risk with moving forward once I feel good. After all the years of being lost in a MCS purgatory I want to hold on to feeling MCS free at all costs. One of my favorite tools to accomplish this is living in denial that things have to change. I must remember that things become worn-out and need replacing, situations must change over time, nothing remains the same forever.

I have demonstrated the ability to take risk several times but even the thought of moving forward once I am doing well is now causing me anxiety. What is up with this? The truth is that change has caused me extreme hardship in the past, at least as far as MCS is concerned. If something is disrupted then an MCS reaction can occur and MSC reactions hurt, even if they are relatively short lived. But the other side of this is that change has given me the opportunity to receive some wonderful gifts; new places to live, new people to meet, great material gain, personal and professional growth. My life is as good as it is today because of change.

Moving forward requires forward movement. I can’t just sit back, and hope for the best while I watch TV on the computer. Life is meant to be full of active participation. So before I can really talk about actively building my health let me talk about the theory of complacency known as the Comfort Zone…

A Few Days Later

2010-08-15T20:03:00.000-07:00

Well, I’m starting to feel human again. At least for the moment, the feeling has come and gone today.

I have been followed the plan of:
Getting the porcelain dental work put in. Washing the entire bedding. Dusting, vacuuming, and general cleaning of the apartment. Undoing what was done to my work environment. Also taking the heavy metal detox program. All of this since the last post. I can’t say I yet feel anything near one hundred percent yet but I can say that today is the first day I haven’t felt totally awful for a little while now.

The tooth was almost instantly better. It amazed me how in a second or two after it was swapped out it felt as if a pressure had been taking off me. Things looked a little brighter. The tooth may have been expensive but it was a worthwhile investment.

The beading seems pretty good although by no means perfect. The pillows are most likely a lost cause. I’m bummed but they really have needed replacing or a long time now. I just haven’t wanted to deal with process.

The general cleaning was a complete pain. But good.

Taking care of the work environment helped but to my dismay, not as much as I had hoped. I undid what was done and resealed what had become exposed but the MCS triggers that had gotten into the rest of the environment proved to be a worse problem than expected. I’ll keep cleaning but mostly I suspect the whole things just needs to ‘air out’ over the next week.

As for the Heavy Metal Detox program? It has only been three days since I started it and I can’t completely say it has been helping yet but I certainly doesn’t not appear to be hurting anything. Three, perhaps four, of the challenges I have been facing lately have revolved around metals being a sever MCS trigger. Metals have caused increasingly challenging MSC reactions over the last six plus months or so. Perhaps my system has hit it’s max so that any exposure has set me over the edge. I am hoping that this detox program will clean out my system and help increase my resistance to this class of trigger. I’ll let you know how it goes in a week or so.

A prison break in progress

2010-08-15T20:02:00.000-07:00

I have made a conscious effort to write this blog about what goes right in recovery not the things that do occasionally go wrong. Those of us with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) are all very aware of the down side of living with MCS. It is also very easy is to get stuck in a negative mind set about our circumstances. I have to keep in mind that my life is better. Even the down times of today are great compared to how I felt ten years ago. I write this to help people draw strength from my experience, not so that we can commiserate. Don’t get me wrong; sympathy, nurturing and handholding are at times very important on anyone’s journey, but drawing too much on the empathy of our fellows can lead to a trap. We can remain stuck because of their attention.

The point of any healing journey is to… well… heal. We will again contribute to life. Often what we go through on our way to healing will give us much more to contribute when we reach a point where giving back is possible. But what if being sick brings us things that feel good? Being sick often gives us, the attention of those who want us to get better. When other people focus upon us it can be seductive. If I get better then the attention will stop, and no one wants things that feel good to stop. This sympathy can come from, friends, family members and support groups. I have heard people say, “But I couldn’t possible leave my (insert attention source here)” often with the phrase “they Need ME!” attached to it. But all too often it is us who needs them. The problem is that we have to leave, in at least some capacity, when we get better. This can make, perhaps on an unconscious level, staying stuck somewhat tempting. This may mean that we will have to go from being in a support group to leading one. Don’t hesitate to take this step. Things will change as we do.

Remember that velvet lined bars can still make a cage. I write this to keep us focused on picking the lock or stealing the key, not to make the cage more comfortable. If the person in the cage next to mine escaped in the night would I feel abandoned or would I look for clues as to how they did it? This blog is here to assist in finding the clues that can facilitate our own escape.

With all of that in mind what I write in this entry and the next few posts is intended to be a description of an escape in progress…

Things have gone to crap lately. It has been my worst fear that everything would fall apart at the same time Amy moved out. Well my worst fears has come true. From a MCS point of view it could not get much worse. Some dental work has not gone well, my motorcycle helmet has been infected with a MCS trigger, my beading has gotten things in it that are not good for me and my work place has had some changes that have created an environment we where I have had a constant MCS reaction on the job. There is now nowhere that I am not having a MCS reaction. Things have been going wrong for several weeks. I am now having a MCS reaction pretty much 24/7 for the last ten days. My reserves are wearing thin.

It started about 6 weeks ago when a porcelain crown broke. What they replaced it with was a different kind of material, one that was not as good. Thankfully an exact replacement could be manufactured but it would be expensive and it would take a while. In the mean time I have not felt at full capacity.

I finally got some work done on my motorcycle so that I could ride it. The next day the water pump on my truck went out. Of course it’s not just water but antifreeze as well, an incredibly toxic substance. Water and antifreeze covered the engine of the truck giving me a heck of a MCS shock. Between the expenses of the tooth and the motorcycle I have not yet had an opportunity to repair this. Thankfully the weather has been very nice in Seattle the last few weeks. Riding my motorcycle has been rather pleasant.

A few days later Amy and I went to a friend who can weld and had him assist us on doing some welding on her motorcycle. Metal from the welding process got into my helmet, Amy’s helmet and both of our hair. We took a shower when we got home but each time we put our helmets on our hair became re-infected with metal from the welding process. This has created a situation where metal has gotten into the pillows and bedding. Each morning I wake up feeling terrible from this MCS trigger.

About ten days ago someone came by and modified my work space. What they did has been an absolutely terrible MCS trigger. I have not had anything near full capacity of my mental and social faculties while I have been at work since that event.

On top of all this I did something incredibly stupid a few days ago. I won’t go into what this was exactly but let’s just say it lessened my overall resistance to MCS triggers. I have been for the last while in the worst place I have been in for about six or seven years. Each moment is viewing reality threw a fog of MCS. I am at a terrible low.

All of this on top of Amy moving to Hawaii. I have lost a great friend and a tremendous anchor to calm any MCS freak-outs I may be going through. To say the least life has been increasingly challenging for a while.

The up side to all of this is that I have a plan. Action on this plan is going to start tonight. The modifications that were made to my work environment will be undone and sealed in. Hopefully correcting the previous mistake. The place I work does not know about this but they don’t have to and will never notice.

Tomorrow morning I am getting the not so good tooth taken out and having the better material put back in. After that I will be doing laundry and putting in a good six to eight hours of house cleaning. Amy moving out has kicked up a lot of dust and it’s time to clean it all out. The day after that I will be washing all of the bedding. I’m waiting until last to do the bedding so that in the cleaning process nothing else can infect the bed after it has been through the laundry.

The motorcycle helmet has been largely cleaned, yes I need a new one but it is not in the budget at the moment. I can always take a shower when I get home at night and clean anything off me in the process.

Tonight I spent a lot of time and effort getting ready for the next few days of cleaning. I also invested in a Heavy Metal Detox kit. Since many of the MCS triggers have revolved around metal I figured this may be a good idea.

As for that stupid thing I did, well I can make damn sure I never do that again.

I’ll write again in three days and let you know how it all is going. God knows I don’t think I can take much more of this. On side effect of feeling good almost all of the time for the last many years is that when something does happen it seems to hurt worse than it did before. I can’t really take being ‘three paces back from reality’ most of the time like I once was. Being cut off from my own brain power and social skills really sucks.

Talk to you in a few days…

What Life is Like Now

2010-07-30T16:45:00.000-07:00

In about six months it will be the springtime after my 42nd birthday. At this time I will have lived with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) for half of my life. This will mark a time that I have long since hoped would see the end of MCS. MCS may still be a element of my life but, thankfully, today it is a largely a manageable component. MCS may not have gone away but it’s effects are not felt on a daily basis as they once were. I have not only found how to avoid many triggers, I have healed my body enough that many small triggers are no longer a problem. Nine times out of ten I now feel that I control MCS, not the other way around.

I have not had a drink or a cigarette in almost eighteen years. I have developed a sense of the spiritual. I have overcome social anxiety and largely feel comfortable and happy in my interactions with other people. Many of the demons that drove me the brink of death and into the arms of MCS have been put to bed.

On the whole life is pretty good. I have become accustomed to spending prolonged periods without any MCS reactions. Of course I keep an eye on my surroundings and take precautions that have become largely habitual. As long as I remain mindful of my circumstances things go pretty well most of the time. This is a life that I could have only dreamed of ten years before.

The vast majority of days I wake up and look forward to what the day will bring. I know that I can create an experience that is happy and good. Things are not always great but I wouldn’t trade what I have to day and where I expect to be going for anything in the world.

To make a long story short, I am not fully recovered but I’m farther down the road then I would have thought possible at times. I have more to go and I have faith that I will get there, for hope for the future is a luxury I did not have for many years.

For all that I now have I am very thankful.

Relationships and MCS - Pt 3…

2010-07-19T21:34:00.000-07:00

Where to go from here -

I have only dated, well seriously dated for long periods of time, women that I am not all that attracted to. This has come up for me big in the last couple of months. Don’t get me wrong, I usually date women who are quite attractive. It’s just that other people find them more attractive then I do. Looking back on my relationship history, if I am having a great time being intimate with a particular women and actually enjoy being with her in a wide range of situations then I have without fail found a reason to break up with her in under three months. The truth is that this has been a fantastic defense mechanism. If the ones I do go out with for a longer period of time ever reject me sexually, romantically, affectionately there is not really any pain in it for me. I get to remain aloof and in control. Of course this means that I chronically reject them sexually, romantically and affectionately in exactly the same way I am afraid they will reject me. In my quest for avoiding pain I have inflicted a vast amount of suffering on exactly those women I care most for. One way or the other I will reject them long before they have a chance to reject me.

As I have talked about before, all of this stuff goes back to my relationship with my mom. She was aloof, distant, overly rational, and almost incapable of giving heartfelt affection. This left my sister and I starved for affection as small children. When a baby wants to be loved and there is none, it starves the soul. For myself it inflicted a wound that is still in the process of healing to this day. This has left me with a lifetime of relationships that I have never really invested in. Why would I want to go through that again if I can just reject the other person first.

One side effect of this pain is that it has left me with a deep programming that I have been unworthy of getting love, in all its forms, from those that I actually want to share it with the most. I have been convinced that I can’t find love from those I would want it from. If I do get it I’ll just make them go away anyway. That leaves me with having relationships with women I don’t really like half as well as they like me. The question is, how do I change all of this. I went to counseling for years to assist me with digging up old pain and seeing where some of my present challenges have come from. Of course knowing where a pain originated is be an important part of the process but if I don’t live my life in a more conscious way, the way I really want to live it, have I in truth done anything?

So what am I going to do about it? That answer is partly what all of this is about, not feeling trapped. I’m going to learn how to attract, date and create relationships with women I find sexually, spiritually and intellectually attractive. Exactly what these relationships may look like will depend on who the other person is and who I am at the moment.

At first I’m looking to develop a skill set that will allow me to talk to, build attraction with, create comfort with, and become physically intimate with the women I find most interesting. Developing this skill set will allow me the benefit of having choice in who I cultivate relationships with. If I have choice and enjoy the company of a wide range of women I will also create a very good idea of what I actually want my primary relationship to look like in a realistic way.

How do I overcome my dysfunctional emotional programming? The answer is to build skill set through study and practice. There is massive amounts of material out there on the subject of attraction and dating.** Building this skill set creates options and options are always good. If one woman rejects me then who cares. I have other places to be and other women to talk to. This has a twofold benefit. First, if I have other options then why should I really care if one option is not available. If McDonalds is closed I can still eat at Berger King. No need to go hungry. Secondly , options create confidence, if I don’t flinch at all when a women says or does something that she thinks I may react to negativity then I have passed a test. If a women rejects me in some small way and I don’t react to it then I will appear more dominate and in control. This will make me feel safe to her and increase her attraction level. Of course no one should put up with outright bad behavior from anyone but a little ‘shit test’ now and again will be inevitable. If fact I have come to see a woman being challenging to me as an indicator of her interest in me.

Getting options and not being trapped by Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS), nor my childhood programming, is really what the journey I have embarked on is all about.

**There are many people out there who’s full time job is to teach others how to attract intimate partners. If you are looking to attract women see the teachings of: David DeAngelo, Mystery, Neil Strauss (Style), Pick-Up 101 and Real Social Dynamics to mention only a few. If you a looking to attract a man see: (Ok I haven't researched this as in depth but do a search in Google and a lot of good stuff comes up). In our modern society there is information on any possible subject. Information taught by those who have already achieved high levels of success in the areas you may be interested in. In the end achieving anything only takes belief that it is possible and the desire to see the result of your activity. Saying I can’t or I don’t know is only an excuse to stay stuck.

Relationships and MCS - Pt 2

2010-07-19T21:31:00.000-07:00

In the later part of 2004 I, was starting to feel pretty good most of the time, I had a new job, things were looking up. I discovered a new understanding of human relations and with this new job I had ample opportunity to practice interacting with new an interesting people on a daily basis. One of these people was Amy, an office manager at one of my accounts. We quickly discovered we enjoyed each other company and went out a few times. In a short time we started dating and spending a fair portion of our free moments together.

As far as Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) is concerned I was very thankful to discover that where she lived did not present me with any MCS triggers. She did not wear perfume, did she use any strong hair products nor smelly dryer sheets. She would not be disqualified for MCS reasons.

An inevitable question arises at this point. Should I tell her upfront about MCS or should I wait until she is invested in the interaction? Tell too soon and a potential partner can be scared off, wait too long and I run the risk of being dishonest. Since MCS is simply not something that can be hidden from those most close to me, it will inevitably come up at some point in time anyway. Better it be a time of my choosing then when I am in the middle of a bad reaction at an inconvenient time. So when is this time? The answer I have found is fairly straight forward. Right before it will most likely come up all on its own. This time is usually after a few dates when I have spent time in her environment, she has spent time in mine. When I do tell a potential partner about living with MCS I do not give them a long winded tale of woe. I talk about what MCS is, how it affects me, and what I do about it. I will keep it short, simple, and to the point. If this person sticks around there will be plenty of time to talk about MCS further.

Amy looked as if she would be sticking around. After dating about six or so months we began talking about moving in with each other. This scared the hell out of me at the time. The thought of losing control over where I lived was not a happy thought. Each time she brought something new into the apartment it would have to pass the MCS test. I was scared not only of having something brought into my environment I was afraid also of rejecting it. If my MCS caused her to not have the objects she desired in the apartment would she eventually get tired of this and therefore get tired of me? The first few years of living together, I lived in constant fear of her leaving due to my MCS. How could anyone, by default, choose to live with MCS as their master as it was mine? Now I had two people living under the tyrant of MCS not just one. To my amazement she loved me more then she loved the stuff she wanted to bring into our shared living space. In the end all she really wanted was for me to try new things and find alternatives for the things that didn’t work out.

Amy has often forced me to try new things, and is an absolute genius at finding things that might work for me. She is a big portion of the reason my wardrobe is as stylish and MCS trigger free as it has become. When I am just being resistant and scared to try something new she will often help me over this hump. This assistance will often manifest in the form of a fight but I am always grateful to find something new that I can use.

A good question to ask at this point is; how did we work out the Chemical Sensitivity issues? Well, I knew what I needed and was firm, she also knew what she wanted and was firm as well. In other words we both brought our true selves to the table and trusted that whatever fight may erupt our caring for each other would be stronger then the temporary clashing of personalities (although in the moment I was at times afraid that this was not always going to be the case). We both brought our true selves to the table and held nothing back. There was no hidden agenda. It was raw, real and often volatile. I think this is the only reason we made it work. Eventually there was nothing that stayed in the apartment that effected me and eventually she got what she needed in the way of new stuff.

Over the years we have acquired furniture, TVs, book shelves, an entertainment center, computers, a truck and much more. There were a few notable failures that caused a lot of trouble while they were being sorted out, but on the whole there were more successes then I would have expected before I lived with her. I was living not only with my best friend but I had material abundance I had not known since before MCS started for me. In many ways the last six years have been extremely good for me.

After several years the job I had loved so much changed, and so had I. Where I used to look forward to going into work each day, I was at the end dreading it. It was time for a change. We had saved up some money, I quit my job, and we shipped my motorcycle off to Europe for a nine week trip. This is a change I don’t believe I would have been able to make had Amy not been in my life believing in me. Not only did I have to have faith that the trip would not be an MCS disaster, I needed faith that I would get a better job upon returning to Seattle.

We rode my 1993 Honda Nighthawk through nine countries: Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Italy, Greece, France, Monaco, Spain, England and Canada (where we shipped the bike out of and into). During this time there were several small MCS reactions but nothing major. The trip was virtually MCS free. Something I could have barely imagined only a few years before. This trip gave me faith that I could handle just about anything. Perhaps I could begin to relax that the worst of it was finally over.

I came back and took about six weeks off before I started to look for a job. After a while being unemployed became not only a financial burden but also started to get a little boring. It was time to go back to work. The two jobs I wanted most were to sell cars with a higher end dealership or to sell mattresses with a big retailer. Both of these jobs would present an opportunity to make good money and further develop my sales skill that I had began with my last job. Only about a week after updating my resume I was offered jobs at both a Honda Dealership and at Sleep Country. I had to choose and I chose to sell cars. I was good at selling cars. As a new salesman I made a lot of money but I soon discovered that I hated just about every minute of it. I was miserable and Amy said that I was miserable to be around. After only seven weeks I quit. Only a week later I found my present job selling educational software. A job I have enjoyed for the last two years now.

As with all human relationships there are good points and bad. For me she is my best friend and my favorite adventure buddy. She has assisted me in overcoming a great deal of the fear that MCS has generated in my life over the last twenty years. Amy is fiercely loyal and very much in love with me. She is also very needy and demands more of my attention then I am often willing to give. This creates a feedback loop that makes me want to give her less attention which makes her want more. Often if there is something that I find myself wanting to do that takes some of my time and attention I always feel like I am having to fight with her over where I put my focus. If I’m not focused on her there is always a struggle. Not being able to freely spotlight my own passions, nor her fully finding her own, has left me a difficulty finding passion for her. This dynamic has left certain important aspects of the relationship extremely flat. In many ways this has been a great relationship that has propelled me forward. In some other ways it has held me back from achieving many of my dreams. Without a doubt the balance has been in the positive.

Where does this leave us? In about three weeks as of the writing of this post she will be moving to Hawaii to go to college. At that time we will still be friends but the relationship aspect will be over. Somehow we have managed to make it work for some time now but soon it will be over. I will miss her.

For the first time in over six years I will be single. This prospect brings about all the emotions one would expect: fear, excitement, anticipation, sadness and more. Where I go from here is what the next post is about.

A Short Aside…

2010-07-17T16:17:00.000-07:00

To get a little off track here I’ll talk about two things I should have mentioned a long way back in this blog. The first one is that less than a year after Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome(MCS) started for me I got into a motorcycle accident.

I had been riding two wheeled motorized vehicles for six years at this point and should have known what I was doing. In high school I drove a Honda Spree scooter and when I graduated I took the Motorcycle Safety Course, passed the tests to get the endorsement on my driver’s license and have never looked back. Motorcycles have been a part of my life ever since.

One of the important things they taught me a the class was that if it rains after a prolonged dry period the road can get very slick. It takes a few hours of good solid rain to wash the built up oil and tire residue off the streets. In a car this can be a little un-nerving but on a motorcycle it can be extremely dangerous. I chose to ignore this warning on that day.

When I left the house it was sunny and dry. It had not rained in almost three weeks, a rare event in Seattle. After being out for only fifteen minutes it started to pour. I was heading south on I-5 and was right at downtown when traffic came to a dead stop. I hit the brakes but the back tire locked up on the slick road. The bike went sideways and I hit the car in front of me. My right lower leg was between the motorcycle engine and the back of the car as I impacted. I instinctively rolled onto the trunk of the car but my leg stayed in place. It was one of the worst pains I had ever felt in my life. In time an ambulance came and I was taken to the hospital. The bike was towed off the road and I had caused a traffic jam that backed up the freeway for miles.

In the emergency room they gave me a shot of morphine and they shuttled me around to different doctors and x-ray rooms. Thankfully there were no broken bones. After what seemed like and eternity they let me go and told me to keep an eye on my leg.

A few days later, after the swelling had gone down, I began to notice that my knee was bending in ways it had never done before and decided to see a specialist. He said that I had blown out three of the four ligaments in my right knee and would need to have surgery as soon as possible. I had the surgery three days later.

What does all of this have to do with MCS? Two of the ligaments were rebuilt with parts of other tendons from my own leg. The last one they used a material that I was told is similar to Gortex. At the time didn’t yet have any comprehension of MCS. It was an idea that was more than a few years coming. I didn’t know to argue against it or to ask more questions, I simply trusted the expert.

I have always had a strong suspicion that this event has made my MCS worse but I don’t really know. I felt terrible all the time at that point anyway and I don’t really know if I felt permanently worse after the operation. What I do know is that I could walk, run, play sports and even ride motorcycles again in the months that followed. Even if it did make my MCS worse it was a small trade for being able to engage in any chosen activity during the decades that have followed. I have contemplated having the fake tendon removed some day but unfortunately insurance will not pay for this, I would have to pay out of pocket. Anyway, these days when I feel good I feel really good and don’t think the small piece of material is holding me back. It may make me more susceptible to next MCS trigger but does not appear to cause a reaction all on its own.

The second event I should mention here is that about twelve years ago I had four mercury amalgam fillings removed from my mouth and had porcelain fillings put in. I had known another person I worked with who had this done. She claimed her health had drastically improved from the procedure. Knowing at this point that this could very well be an issue for me as well I made the decision and got it done. I was a little disappointed that I did not see an overnight drop in MCS symptoms, but over time things did seem to improve.

Years later I had a temporary piece of metal put into my mouth after a root canal. Almost instantly I felt spacey, hopeless and occasionally suicidal. Of course I knew what was causing it and didn’t take these experiences too seriously but it was a thoroughly miserable ten days. When the next dentist took this piece of metal out it was as if a huge weight had been taken off my soul. In seconds all the misery I had experienced for the last week evaporated. I knew that metal in my body could not be tolerated.

The moral of the story… Be careful about what doctors and dentists want to leave in you.

Relationships and MCS – Pt 1

2010-07-13T16:14:00.000-07:00

How many days do you think each of us gets to spend on this planet? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? Perhaps more? If the average life span of a person in the US is 73 we can multiply that by 365. That means we have only 26,645 days total to do what we feel we have to. One of the most challenging things we will do in our time on this planet is create primary intimate relationships with other people. As far as building these ,relationships is concerned we can knock off the first twelve or so years leaving only 21,000 days (approximately). The right partner can accelerate our lives forward at a thrilling pace. The wrong relationship can drain our resources, hold us back and cause tremendous harm. Twenty one thousand days is not a lot of time for such an important task.

Under even the best of circumstances learning how to attract and maintain a healthy relationship with a quality partner is not often easy. We have to balance time constraints, self esteem issues, cultural norms, and the perceived applicant pool to name only a few. Throw Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) into the mix and the challenges can increase exponentially. For myself when I am in the thick of an MCS reaction I don’t even want to leave the house let alone attempt to be charming when I do. Just like when I was drinking, the Vodka Fairy never left a pint under my pillow while I slept, Cupid has never thrown a great relationship at me when I was at home playing Nintendo.

One of the most profound things anyone has ever told me was that in order to attract the sort of person I am most interested in I need to improve myself to become who that person would naturally be attracted to. The biggest challenges to this are: most of us are creatures of inertia and don’t really want to change, and that most of us don’t have any real clue what we actually desire. Just about all of us have gone to school for years to prepare ourselves for a job/career but how many of us have even read one book on attraction or relationships? It is expected that at some point we be very clear on what kind of job we want but have we ever sat down and become clear on what we want our primary relationship to look like? Have we ever thought of improving our selves so that we can naturally attract the quality of relationship we actually want? Let me come back to these questions in a few. For now let me talk about my experience with MCS and relationships.

Since the onset of MCS I have been by no means celibate. I certainly have not achieved the level of success I would have hoped for but in retrospect, given the circumstances, I am rather happy with my results. Looking back I can see that as I recover from MCS and alcoholism the quality of my relationships have gotten correspondingly better. While some of the less then stellar relationships I have had in the past don’t really need a full airing; I can say that anyone I would want to date (or who would want to date me) in the early stages of recovery is not the sort of person I would want to have a relationship with a few years down the line. As I evolve the quality of relationship I am capable of havening has also evolved.

So, personally what has been some of my biggest stumbling blocks in this area? I was a ‘Sensitive New Age Guy’ or ‘Wuss’ depending on how you want to say it. Being a Wuss is any man’s biggest roadblock to generating attraction in woman. Combine this with an upbringing that lacked in interpersonal skills. Sprinkle in a little low self esteem added to the belief that any quality woman would run away as soon as she found out I suffered from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) and I find it rather amazing that I ever dated anyone at all.

About three years after quitting drinking I rediscovered a book that had been referenced a few times in my psych classed in collage, Daniel Goldman’s “Emotional Intelligence”. Coming from a lineage where emotions were not valued, I decided to check it out. The book blew my mind, not only were emotions a good thing (completely contradictory to my upbringing) but they were necessary and above all inevitable. Trying to burry my emotions was not only anti-productive and unhealthy, it was impossible. If I could not escape them I may as well learn to make them work to my advantage. After all that is what emotions are there for, they are an advantage to help us navigate our world.

This book brought me a revolutionary way of looking at the world. It said that the best way to know what someone else was feeling was to ask myself what I was feeling. I could not, at least on some level, help but pick up on the emotions of the people around me. This was amazing, after only a few weeks of me focusing on my own emotions, I found that the people around me were not so much of a mystery. Making the futile attempt to suppress my emotions had been the biggest stumbling block to easily interacting with other people. Understanding my own emotional state was a huge assistance in relating to the emotional state of the women I dated.

About a year later I found the councilor I have previously mentioned in this narrative. After seeing her for only a short time I realized that the next issue to be dealt with was low self-esteem. Perhaps to call it low self-esteem is a bit of an understatement. It was really an underlying belief that ‘I sucked’. Deep down I believed there was something inherently flawed in me. I thought this flaw was rendering me not just unloved but actually unlovable. The biggest emotional breakthrough I had while seeing the councilor and yelling in to pillows was breaking this belief down and seeing where it had come from. It took months to even get to the point where I could even look at this belief. It took months more to get to a point where I could challenge this beliefs validity. We talked, I screamed, I cried, got pissed off, and eventually vomited as some of the last layers came off. For me the real breakthrough didn’t actually come in the councilor’s, office it came a few days later after I had coffee with a friend and her new born daughter.

My friend had her new born with her at the coffee shop and I watched as she paid rapt attention to her daughter. Several times it was almost as if I was not at the table, all that mattered to her was the baby. I could see the love she had for her child, it was amazing to watch. The next day I had lunch with my mother and I described to her what I saw with my friend. My mom, being the overly rational person she is, said that a million years of evolution had made a cascade of hormones course through her body so she couldn’t see what that baby really meant. My mom’s statement was a little shocking but I let it slide for the moment.

For the next hour or so my mother’s comment sat at the edge of my conciseness. After a while it hit me what she had meant by this. What she had communicated was that this child was going to be a burden on her for the next untold years and that my mother had known better, despite the million years of evolution, when I was a child. It hit me, it hit me so hard I had to literally take a step back from the impact. My mom had not showered me with rapt attention when I most needed it. She had not seen a shining object of love when she looked at me, as my friend had, but as she had seen something else entirely. She had done to me the same thing I was sure that my overly emotionally controlled grandmother must had done to her. For the first time I knew that it wasn’t me, it was her own emotional programming that left me feeling unlovable. I had been as bright and wonderful as my friends baby had been but the lesson my mom could not help to teach was one of rejection. I understood for the first time in my life that I what I had always believed at my core about my worth of love had not been the truth. It had only been a teaching, an illusion placed on my by a generational misunderstanding. I finally knew at my core that I didn’t suck, I was worthy of love.

Of course feeling worthy of love makes for much more successful relationships then the opposite but there was more work to be done. One day I saw a short newspaper article about a local author, Dr. Robert Glover, who wrote a book called, “No More Mr. Nice Guy”. The article essentially said this about the ‘Nice Guy’:

“Nice Guys are concerned about looking good and doing it ‘right.’ They are happiest when they are making others happy. Nice guys avoid conflict like the plague and will go to great lengths to avoid upsetting anyone. In general, Nice Guys are peaceful and generous. Nice Guys are especially concerned about pleasing women and being different from other men. In a nutshell, Nice Guys believe that if they are good, giving, and caring, they will in return be happy, loved, and fulfilled.

Sound too good to be true?

It is.”

~”No More Mr. Nice Guy”, Robert Glover

This short article discussed how in the modern world a lot of men had become ‘Nice Guys’, and how it left them resentful and unfulfilled. I got the book and read it that night. It was as if Dr. Glover had followed me around with a clipboard for the last five years. He had me pegged, I was a nice guy, he had exposed my inner wuss. The book talked about solutions to this dilemma. I dove in and tried to rewire my interpersonal programming.

One of the best ways to sum up what the book talks about is this, ‘Women cannot help but to test the men they are with, if he will stand up TO her then she knows that, when the time comes, he will stand up For her’.

What does this mean? Pretend I am standing directly in front of my female partner. She says something challenging (if you have ever been in a male/female relationship for an extended period then you know what I mean by this). Let’s say, for this example, that I cave in. I apologize and I appease her; she pushes me back. In that moment she may feel good that she has won the argument but on a deeper level she will feel as if her man is not solid and she will feel anxiety. This anxiety will cause her to test again. Again I give in and I back up. The process starts over, and she feels more anxiety until I’m backed into a wall. In reality it is not just me who has lost the interaction she has lost as well. Her sense of security that comes from being with a strong man will have vanished and she will lose attraction as a result. She will have lost the knowledge that her man is ‘Solid’.

Let’s look at this scenario again, but this time I don’t ‘fail’ the test. When she comes up to me and says something challenging I stand there, I don’t acquiesce. In that short moment she will most likely get more agitated. I stand my ground, keeping an attitude similar to that I may have toward my bratty little sister, one of love and not taking this particular outburst too seriously. Again she challenges and again I hold my ground. She begins to relax. She knows I am solid and she feels secure. This leads to an increase in attraction and affection. This time we have both won. ***

This was another big piece of the puzzle. I knew that I must stand up for myself and get my needs met. When doing this I discovered that the women I interacted with responded better. Just about everything I had learned about interacting with other people, especially women, had been wrong.

These social learning’s along with the naturopathic/homeopathic treatments starting to work set the stage for me to have the first truly adult relationship of my life. I met my present girlfriend.

***This scenario is not the way to deal with all situations. Sometimes I have been a real A$#hole (all too often after a bad MCS attack) and I do need to apologies for my actions. When this does happen, I take care of things with sincerity and a desire to set my actions right. I do not grovel or become obsequious.

An Outside Rearrangement…

2010-07-04T20:08:00.001-07:00

About six and a half years ago I found myself at a point where for the first time in over a decade my brain was ‘de-fogged’ a large portion of the time. I could think clearly again. Along with this clarity came the ability to socially interact with the people around me with a competency that had up ‘till now had only been distant memory. Of course it was a lack of social skills that had perhaps created this entire mess in the first place but being back to at least this level of ability was a grand gift.

One of the greatest gifts I received at this time came in the form of what looked then like a terrible blow. I was fired from my job as a waiter. All I knew was waiting tables, I had been doing it since I left collage. Don’t get me wrong, for the last couple of years I hated every moment of it, but before this I didn’t believe I was able to be good at anything else. I was freaked. I had no idea what to do.

Because I was feeling better I started to want to exercise again. There was another man in my apartment building that was going jogging each day and I asked if I could join him. We got into a routine of running together three to five times each week. In what seemed a relatively short time we were running about four miles each time we went out. My running partner not only had good jogging skills he also truly amazing resume writing skills. He helped me rework my resume and showed me how to send out five to ten copies each day with my computer. In less than a month a had a brand new job, and this time not as a waiter.

I was making more money, had better benefits, and most importantly I was doing something I enjoyed. I was doing route sales for an in-office coffee delivery service. What is this you may ask? Have you ever worked in an office with a coffee machine in the back? I was the person who maintained and cleaned the machine. I would restock the supplies all with great customer service and a eye on up selling. Between the office managers I interacted with each month and the never ending supply of receptionist to flirt with I had ample opportunity to work on increasing my social skills. I was actually looking forward to going to work each day.

Before I knew it I was dating one of the office managers I had gotten to know. I was feeling better all the time from an MCS perspective. I had money coming in. I was dating a girl I really enjoyed. Things were looking up. The better my health got the more I began noticing something unexpected, I felt better just about everywhere except my own apartment. At my girlfriends place I felt pretty good, at work I felt pretty good but at the place I had lived for the previous decade was a different story. At first I didn’t want to admit it. How could this place I viewed as my refuge be an MCS trigger? But the better I felt the more obvious the difficulty became. Perhaps it was time to move.

To boil a complex story down to its essential components, I moved in with my girlfriend. In doing so I packed up just about everything I owned and put it into storage. I didn’t want to risk bringing anything into this new environment that may have triggered MCS reactions in my last apartment. I held to this rule with only one exception… my TV. One of the last items to be moved was one of my most prized positions, but when I moved the TV it became instantly obvious that it would not work. It turned out that the TV was a major MCS trigger. So I sold it to a friend and moved on. I would not have my new environment contaminated. Thankfully only a few days later a friend of ours was selling his TV, a nice 27” Sony that actually had a better picture then the one I just sold. I bought it and had absolutely no problems with it.

In about a six month period I had gotten a new job, a new girlfriend, a new apartment and even a new TV to boot. At the time I felt as if a metaphorical re-set button had been pressed on my life. Looking back that was more was even more true then I knew at the time.

The Beginnings of Rapid Change…

2010-07-04T20:06:00.000-07:00

The husband and wife team had gotten me to a point where change seemed possible, and in the next year a lot of change would happen. This was one of the several occurrences that helped trigger that change.

One of the most important secrets in managing Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) triggers was told to me while shopping for a futon. There is a store in Seattle that sells futons and other bedding made completely form organically grown materials. I was talking to the sales woman about what I was looking for and why. In the conversation she told me that the best way to strip any contaminates from clothing was to wash cloths with ¼ cup of Borax and ¼ cup of apple cider vinegar along with a natural liquid laundry detergent. Not only did I walk away with a new bed that day, I would soon discover that I had received something far more valuable in the transaction. I had been told how to render almost any cotton clothing wearable.

For the vast majority of us who live in North America constant nudity is not an option. Whether it be from local cultural norms, harsh climate or just our own personal upbringing we all find ourselves having to wear cloths most of the time. From an MCS perspective this can be a huge challenge. Since the our cloths come with us everywhere we go we run the risk of bringing MCS triggers with us into every environment we go to. One of the greatest advantages I have learned is to making sure this does not happen.

Clothing that is bought ‘off the rack’ often is full of harsh MCS triggers. Whether it be what the clothing is made of, how the fabric was processed, what the clothing was shipped next to and perhaps worst of all the ‘sizing’ chemicals that the clothing is finished with to make it look good at the store. All of these can cause terrible MCS reactions.

One of the first things I learned around this time was to buy only cloths made from all natural fabrics. I prefer organic cotton when possible but just about any all cotton clothing usually works. Many people prefer hemp and linen but I have had only limited success with them. I have had about a 50/50 track record with wool and no real success with silk. I became an astute label reader. I was amazed at the number of products advertising that they were made with organic cotton only to read the label and find they were also made with Spandex, polyester, Dacron or any other number of things that rendered the organic cotton worse than useless. I was very happy to discover that, for me, Nylon in small quantities did not present and MCS trigger.

I began to buy many cloths form used shops. Not only were these cloths often well ‘aired out’ but they were also inexpensive. When I would buy cloths many of them did not work out. It was always better to donate a $5 pair of pants that did not work out instead of a $50 pair. Thankfully now days there are a huge amount of 100% organic cotton clothing available online and at many local retailers such as American Apparel. This makes new clothing a much better option than it was only ten or so years ago.

After I brought these cloths home I still had to ‘process’ them. This consists of washing each article in the above mentioned Borax / Apple Cider Vinegar mixture. I learned that washing most cloths this way two to five times would wash out any MCS triggers that may have gotten into the fabric. A world of clothing options had opened up to me.

There is one more step to doing laundry this way. A trick a friend taught me some years before when I was stuck with out detergent was to wash a load of laundry with 8-12oz of Baking Soda and an equal amount of Lemon Juice. This will get your cloths just as clean as detergent without any toxic residue. The only trick to this is to make sure the lemon juice and the baking soda do not mix right off the bat. The real action of them works when they mix in the wash cycle. Put one on one side and the other on the other. After doing any load of laundry with the Borax and apple cider vinegar wash them again with the baking soda lemon juice combo. Even now when doing laundry at home I’ll do one ‘processing’ lode then re-wash the same clothing with the baking soda and lemon juice. I have had almost no problems with my clothing since I started this habbit.

Knowing what cloths to wear, how to process them and how to properly clean them has done as much for me in recovering from MCS as any other discovery. With the health improvements I had gained from the husband and wife team and knowing what to do with my cloths, I actually began to feel good most of the time. It became increasing obvious when there was something in my environment that was triggering an MCS reaction. This awareness armed me with knowledge on how to avoid the trigger. In many ways avoiding MCS triggers is one of the keys to real thriving.

The Dynamic Duo…

2010-07-03T16:42:00.000-07:00

Don’t get me wrong the adventure of the previous year and a half had not been a complete waste of time. In some significant ways I did feel better. I was stronger than I had been in many years. My cholesterol was a very healthy 95. I been suffering from an intolerance to wheat gluten before the experiment and after it seemed to be completely gone. I had lost weight. But the one thing I really wanted had not come, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) was still an unending reality.

In recovery from alcohol there is narrative I like to use:
“No One Ever Really Drinks Alone”. I loved to tell new arrivals to recovery this and then let them unravel. They would tell me stories about how, at least in the end, much/most of the drinking they did was done with no one else around. When they were done I’d let them know that I too liked to drink with no one else in the room, but that the imagined self-sufficiency of the lone drinker was only an illusion. I would explain that when I did drink I went to the store and bought the alcohol. I had to go to a job and get the money to buy the alcohol where I interacted with others and trusted that my boss would pay me for the work done. Teams of people were needed to grow the crops that then would be distilled to the gin I used to enjoy. Other teams of people would gather the recourses to make the bottle I drank the gin from. I didn’t build the house I drank it in. In the end, every sip I took, I owed to perhaps thousands of other people who took part in the process of creating my experience of getting drunk.

I would then say, “If you could not really drink alone than what makes you think you can get sober alone” (one of the great fallacies that everyone new to recovery believes is that they don’t need others to get better, that they can do it on their own). Just as each of us needed to go to the store and buy our favorite drink each of us needs to go out and find someone who has the recovery we are looking for. Nobody really drinks alone and nobody recovers alone.

Of course I completely failed to take my own advise. At least as far as MCS was concerned. I believed I was on my own and that I had to do it all myself. Once again my best thinking had gotten me to a place I did not want to be.

My mentor in recovery was a chiropractor. His office was not too far from where I lived and about once a week he would give me a chiropractic adjustment and we would talk about how things were going. Now I don’t really know if seven years of chiropractic adjustments helped with MCS recovery but I do believe that it certainly didn’t hurt anything.

About this time a husband and wife team rented a pair of rooms in the same offices as my mentor. The husband was a naturopath and the wife was a homeopath. I must admit that I didn’t really know much about either discipline but I did know that I could no longer just plow through recovery from MCS on my own. I needed help. I booked a set of appointments with them for the following week and purposely did not educate myself on what to expect. I simply threw up my hands in surrender and trusted in the universe while I waited for a new adventure.

When I talked to the husband and wife team a small miracle happened; they both had not only heard of MCS but they had also encountered others like me over their years of practice. They were the first health care professionals who believed me when I told them of my experience of living with MCS. They also had faith that they could help me get better. I was excited to see what would happen.

The first appointment was with the husband, the naturopath. He looked at the iris of my eye, talked about what my concerns were, and where I wanted to get to health wise. We talked about many possible health issues including; sleep patterns, physical energy levels and digestion. At the end of the appointment he put me on a battery of supplements for liver cleansing and rebuilding. He put me on supplements for healing some of the damage I most likely caused to my digestive track while fasting. I went home with an array of bottles that I put on my counter and labeled 1x, 2x, and 3x. Each morning, afternoon and evening I would take a small hand full of often foul smelling pills. In a few days I got into the rhythm of the regimen and before I knew it I felt absolutely awful. Of course feeling worse before getting better seemed to be a normal pattern in recovery from MCS at this point, so I didn’t worry and waited to see where this new path would take me.

Next it was time to see the wife, the homeopath. At this point I knew nothing about homeopathy and had no idea what to expect. Before the visit I sat in the waiting room and filled out a lengthy questionnaire that asked about everything from my favorite foods to how I felt about my relationship with my mother. I had seen psych evaluation forms that did not seem this in-depth. After I completed the paperwork I went in and talked to her about many of the questions on the form. We must have talked for almost an hour. At the end of the interview process she got up, poured over some reference books while occasionally muttering ‘Oh’ or ‘Ah’. She then walked over to a large cabinet that had perhaps a hundred small drawers, pulled out a little paper packet from one of the drawers and put a measured amount of its contents into tiny paper cup. Inside the cup were several dozen uneven white spheres about a millimeter in diameter that looked as if they were made of sugar. She told me to put the contents of the cup under my tongue and let them dissolve. The granules tasted like sugar. I was absolutely mystified. Had I just spent the last two hours waiting to be given a placebo? After her many years of practice she must have anticipated my questions and gave me a book entitled simply enough ‘Homeopathy’.

I read all one hundred plus pages that evening and found the answers I was looking for. Homeopathy was like nothing I had encountered before. It is based on the premise that if you give the body a little of something it will learn how to deal with a lot of it. It posits that every substance taken into the body will have an effect on it. This effect is called a Symptom Cluster. So if a person takes an incredibly small amount of substance X then they will exhibit symptom cluster Y. The way homeopathic treatments works is, the practitioner will start by finding out what your symptoms are for your particular disease state. Then they will match your symptoms with a known symptom cluster caused by a certain substance. Finally they will give you an incredibly small amount of that substance. The result is that your body will naturally adapt to that substance and symptom cluster, thus causing your body to heal from the disease state causing the same symptoms. This seemed a little ‘far out’ for my college educated, overly rational brain to accept but I had to remember that my best thinking was simply not getting me the results I was looking for. I needed to try something different.

In about a week the worst of it was over. A week or so after that I felt even better then when I had started to explore this new option. In about a month I had experienced more real recovery from MCS then I had in the entire previous year and a half. Perhaps I had found something that was actually working.

It was time for a second round of visits. The homeopath appointment was about the same as before, just shorter. She felt that everything was going according to plan and she gave me a second set of granules to dissolve under my tongue. This time I didn’t really feel all that bad after the treatment, in fact I felt kind of good.

In the naturopath appointment things took a slightly different approach from the previous time. The liver support treatments were working well, he felt it was time to look at my sleep patterns. He sent me home with a kit to measure the level of hormones that control our natural patterns of being asleep and being awake. Three times a day at pre-prescribed intervals I put a cotton swab in my mouth and then put it into a sealed plastic bag. When I had used up all the cotton swabs I mailed the box off to the lab. A couple of weeks later I went back in for the results. He told me his eyes almost bulged out of his head like a surprised cartoon character when he saw the results. My sleep patterns were about as messed up as was humanly possible. He gave me even more pills to take. These new supplements would try and return my natural sleep cycle back to normal. I also started taking long lasting Sudafed before bed to open up my sinuses and help my night time breathing. In less than a month I was waking up feeling rested and energized, something I had not felt in many years.

I continued to see this husband and wife team over the next nine months or so. Recovery continued to happen for that entire time and for an extended period after. I took the liver support supplements for almost two years before my body no longer needed them. During this time I got some surgery on my nose to open up my sinuses to help me breath better especially while I slept.

This time period my not have seen a cure of MCS for me but it did see an very drastic reduction in symptoms. Because I actually felt good (perhaps not yet great) a lot of the time I could see a dramatic shift in symptoms when a MCS trigger would come my way. I was learning, at a rapid pace, what to avoid and what was ok to have in my environment. For the first time in what seemed to be an eternity I had not only hope for MCS recovery but was actually beginning to experience the fruits of that recovery.

Perhaps there was actually going to be a way out of the purgatory that I had condemned myself to over a decade before.

You are what you eat…

2010-07-02T18:14:00.002-07:00

About the same time I started seeing the counselor I saw a brief blurb on the TV about a book called “The Yeast Connection” by … This excited me. The symptoms described in this short TV spot mirrored what I was experiencing on a daily basis….

(Ok, what you just read is as far as I have been able to make it on this post for about a year now. Perhaps I should just get something out then maybe I can move on.)

Long story short, I became a wheat free vegan for about a year and a half. During this time I devoured every book and magazine article I could find on eating healthy. I fasted for a three day period each month and went on two seven day fasts during the first year. Over 90% of the food I ate was organic. I meditated, exercised, took the recommended vitamins and consumed sufficient protein. I became a poster child for the natural health community.

***before doing any fasting read Paul Bragg’s ‘The Miracle of Fasting’ and check with a natural health professional***

This period brought me great physical health, but to my overwhelming dismay, this life change did not cure me of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS). The entire goal of this prolonged experiment was to clean out my system and rebuild it with clean and healthy foods. Although to this day I look a good five to ten years younger than my driver’s license says my age is, I did not get the results I had hoped for. MCS was still my ruthless master.

This year and a half was hard. Keeping such a stick diet required a huge amount of effort and planning. I stuck to my plan without deviating despite the hunger, despite the effort, despite the expense. I lost weight during this time, I went from a bloated 205 to a healthy, glowing 155. I lost more than six inches off my waist. I bought a bicycle for exercise and rode each day. But despite the Herculean effort put forth, the essential healing I so desperately craved never arrived. I felt lied to by every book and magazine article that said I was on the true path to healing. I was promised that everything from allergies to cancer could be cured by doing what I was doing, if only I could follow the plan. Well I followed the plan but I did not find the results. I felt betrayed. A deep part of me felt as if I had wasted a year and a half of my life on a fool’s errand.

I don’t think I’ve ever really admitted before today the sadness and sense of betrayal I have felt over this. Perhaps this is why I lost all momentum for this blog over the last year. I felt that the entire natural health community had given me its solemn word that if only I could put in the effort MCS would be no more than an unpleasant memory. I put in the effort but the results never came.

Changing my diet was not to be the path to cure MCS.

****An After Thought…

Perhaps the effort put forth during this period of my life was not a complete waste. It is very possible that cleaning out my system this way set the stage for the rapid improvements that were to follow.

Screaming into Pillows

2009-08-06T17:08:00.000-07:00

The process of clearing out the old and unneeded from my past and my mind thus making way for the new was working well. A little over a year without a drink I encountered a friend of mine who told me her tale of seemingly miraculous recovery from cancer. A large part of her getting better was releasing old emotions that had long since gummed up the energies of her life. As she told me of the process of letting go I was intrigued. I wanted the healing she had experienced. I was experiencing each day that letting go of the past was working. It was time to take it to the next level.

My friend told me that a year before then her doctors had found a small tumor in the forward sections of her brain. It was located in such a spot that it could not be operated on without a huge risk of losing much of who she was as a person. Chemotherapy held many of the same risks as surgery. There were some drugs that had a good chance of slowing or stopping the tumor but the overall chances of recovery were very slim. Against all odds the cancer had disappeared. It was gone from her brain as if it had never happened. The largest factor she had attributed her unlikely recovery too was a very intensive process of emotional release. A collage acquaintance of hers had just gotten out of a course to become a councilor. The focus of her studies was on emotional release.

Old, unresolved emotions can stay with us for a lifetime if they are not dealt with. They act like a deep cut that never fully heals. Even if the skin heals but the tissue underneath does not, these unhealed wounds can cause us to hold back or favor those areas. We can not live up to our full potential if we have unhealed wounds. The reason most of us do not take care of these wounds is that it hurts to look at them. To truly deal with the wound and let it heal we will need to go through the painful process of reopening the wound, cleaning it out and letting it heal. It’s much easier in the short term to just forget about them and pretend they are not there. Many of us even feel that these wounds define us. Our ego tells us that we would disappear along with our pain if they were to heal. Letting these wounds just be is a great strategy for short term survival, but it is a sure fire way to keep you stuck and prevent long term thriving.

My friend dove into this process of uncovering, cleaning and healing old emotional wounds as if her life depended on it, and in her case if most likely did. She talked, she read, she screamed into pillows, she hit punching bags, she cried and some times it was all so intense her body would release old trauma by vomiting. She did this for the better part of a year. Towards the end she felt as if she had nothing else to let go of, she was finished. Amazingly enough at this point the tumor in her brain went away, and has not come back. She was healed.

I very much wanted this healing. I found the councilor she had worked with and told her that I wanted what my friend had found. I dove in. I also talked, screamed, hit, and released. I discovered things about the way I viewed the world that were holding me back and let them go. After a time I felt light and free but the sought after healing did not come. I tried harder and found that things got better but were nowhere near where I wanted them to be. For me the healing would not be directly found in letting go of old emotional wounds but this letting go would set a stage where other true healing could be found.

Emotional release and self discovery allowed me to view the world very differently. I felt a lightness after letting go of old patterns. It cleaned out mental and spiritual space for new and better things to come in. This release was like a tilling of the soil for the crops to come. A fertile field had been set for new things to grow and these new things would be where the sought after healing would come from.

Letting go of Alcohol

2009-07-20T01:14:00.000-07:00

Alcohol was a magical elixir. For years only a small amount would cure everything I felt was a problem in my life. It would instantly alleviate social anxiety. It would ease both emotional and physical pain in a heart beat. Loneliness would evaporate before my eyes. The day in high school when I discovered what a few beers could provide me was a very good day. I knew I had discovered a panacea that had been hidden from me my whole life. But as with all things of this sort a little turned into a lot and a lot turned into not enough. What was once a ray of hope all too soon became an albatross that I was powerless to discard. Alcohol was the trigger that began my Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) and it would have to be let go it I had any chance at real recovery.

One night, only five years after discovering my personal cure for everything, it turned on me (in fact it had be turning on me since the first day I had found alcohol, I was just completely unaware of it at the time). After a particularly stressful and sober twelve hours I sat on the front porch of the house I was living in and started drinking. I started drinking a lot. In approximately one hour I had ingested the equivalent of an entire half gallon of eighty-proof liquor (See appendix #1). In a vain attempt to again feel the sense of ease and comfort that drinking once provided I had franticly over shot the mark. I had caused myself severe alcohol poisoning. In one hour of desperate drinking I had set in motion a course for my health that would forever alter the way I lived. For many of us MCS is started by an exposure to severe toxicity. My exposure was found in the bottom of an empty plastic jug.

Any sane person would have quite drinking after that, or not done it in the first place. Unfortunately I was not completely sane as far as alcohol was concerned. Secretly, silently I had years before crossed a line that would be described to me as the UF or ‘You Are F#@ked’ line. The UF line is a threshold that those of us with the genetic predisposition for alcoholism almost always cross. It is the point that after ingesting a certain amount of alcohol, an amount that is different for each of us, our bodies can no longer metabolize alcohol correctly. For a normal person alcohol is metabolized in a way that allows for safe disposal of all its by-products. For those of us that have crossed the UF line our bodies begin to break down alcohol slightly differently. In the body of an alcoholic one of the by-products of metabolizing alcohol is a chemical that feeds back into our system and creates a desire for more drink. The more we imbibe the more we crave. The real problem with crossing this line is there is no way to go back. Once a cucumber has turned into a pickle it can not go back to being a cucumber. I had long before this night already been pickled.

Drink would be my companion for another two and a half years before I would have my moment of clarity. Each person finds their own bottom as far as any addiction goes. Unlike popular opinion states, each person’s bottom is not something we land on, rather it’s that point where each of us decides to stop digging our own hole.

When I became tired of digging I was surprised to find that I could not stop running to my old friend. Alcohol had long since stopped giving me what it once had, but I could not stop chasing the hope that it again would. I had encountered sober people who seamed to live life in a happy manor and who said that they had once drank like I did. I wanted what they had. Could it be true that I could be both sober and happy?

For a full week I sat in the same chair with a drink in my hand and thought about the possibility of getting sober. I knew in my heart that if I kept on this path that I would not live long, but to not drink loomed as a fate worse then any other. Each day I weighed the options of death or sobriety. Each day I did not know. At the end of the week the veil that was in front of my eyes slipped off just enough to give me a glimpse of clarity. I knew that the path I was on offered no hope for improvement. To be free of alcohol at least offered the possibility of hope that things might get better. The possibility of hope was enough. The next day I took my last drink.

My own best thinking had gotten me to the worst point I could have imagined. I swallowed every last belief that I had any idea how to live my life. My health was awful. I did not know how to live with a drink in my hand and I now knew I had no idea how to live life without one. Any resolve to do it on my own had vanished. I knew what needed to be done. I pried myself out of my chair and talked to the people who claimed to not drink. They seemed to have a few things I did not, a smile on their face and no drink in their hand. They said that all I had to do was follow the same instructions they had followed and be willing to trust in a higher power of my own choosing. If I could do that I could learn to live my life both happy and sober. These were two things I had not been in a long time.

The people I spent time with were very action oriented. They gave me instructions to follow and I did what they said. I attended book readings and discussions groups. I cleaned up my past and developed a relationship with the spiritual. That first year with out a drink was the worst year I have had on this planet. After that a seaming miracle happened, I started to feel better. It had been a very long time since things got better instead of worse. The possibility of hope had been replaced with real hope. If things could at least for now move in a positive direction then just maybe things could continue in that direction. I began to dive into this path with gusto, and slowly things continued to improve.

Developing a relationship with a spiritual center seemed to be an effective tool for change. I could rely on something greater then myself. My own best ideas did not seem to work; maybe inspiration from another source would. Even after several years I still found myself skeptical about why it worked but I saw no reason to argue with success. The more time I spent in this direction the more the world seamed to change around me.

These sober people I had found asked me to not only rely on a higher power but also to take an inventory of my life. Where had I wronged others, where was I unwilling to forgive, at whom did I hold resentments. It was like cleaning out the storage room of my mind. If I got rid of what was not working I could make room for things that would.

Once I had a list of who I had harmed I was sent out to set right the wrongs I had created. I had to make amends for what I had done. Taking inventory is good; acting on that inventory is true willingness to do what it takes to recover. The more I went through this process the better I felt. I still felt terrible most of the time but slightly less awful is still progress.

Because of the constant need to rely on the strength and inspiration of a higher power during this process I was grateful for the insight talked about in the last post. Only a year before this I would never have been willing to accept the idea of a spiritual center, now I was living this idea on a daily basis. Baby steps were being made and often with my ego rallying against them but I was trudging forward none the less.

Through the people I have met, the instructions I have followed and the relationship that I now have with my higher power; I have been blessed with the ability to remain sober for a good many years now. Each day sober is a gift. Each day sober is a day that I get to live with less toxicity. Each day sober is a day I have a chance at recovering from MCS.

Not everyone with MCS suffers form what we normally think of as an addiction. I doubt most of us got were we are by intentionally over ingesting a certain chemical. Almost all of us do however find ourselves addicted to various ways of doing things, ways of viewing the world, or beliefs. These ideas may have served us in the past, but after MCS our lives have changed. I had to give up drinking to find a path to recovery from MCS. Is there something you need to give up? Is there something you need to discard to make room for what works? What is that one thing you would be better with out but refuse to let go of? This may be your ‘addiction’ your ‘point of practice’ on your personal road to recovery. To get everything you ever wanted you must be at least willing to give up everything you’ve ever gotten.

Just discarding things is not thriving. Of course, remove from your environment anything that is an MCS trigger. Disposing of things is a process by with we make room for more. If I want to buy a new motorcycle the first thing I have to be willing to do is to get rid of the old one. I had to let go of alcohol to make room for many other wonderful ways of living. Is there something you need to give up to make room for what is really meant to be in your life?

Appendix #1 – During this night I never blacked out. I was walking fine. For years after I could remember each detail of those few hours between when I started drinking and when I walked upstairs and went to sleep. I never even had a hangover. As I would discover over the next several days things were far from normal. Years later I would read an article and discover that I had drank approximately twice as much as was needed to kill a man my size. This information hit deep. I had survived something that was medically very unlikely. This was followed by a renewed resolve to recover from MCS. If I could survive that level of alcohol poising then I knew I could recover to full health.

Finding a Spiritual Path…

2009-07-13T09:19:00.000-07:00

To recover from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) I will not say that a spiritual path is absolutely necessary. I will say that a spiritual path can be extremely helpful. I was adamantly against the idea of spirituality of any sort for the first half of my life, but becoming willing to explore the relm of the spiritual has opened some wonderful opportunities in recovery. Although I know the road my spiritual development has taken, the exact direction this path may take for you will be unique to you.

As a kid I loved books on Greek and Roman mythology. I understood at an early age that these were stories created by peoples with an incomplete understanding of their world for the purpose of making the universe more comprehensible. I also understood at an early age that despite all of our scientific advances we still had a less then complete understanding of the world around us and thus all the stories we have created to describe it were not meant to be taken too seriously. As a result of this I found myself skeptical when individuals or groups would tell me that their particular view of the universe was the Absolute Truth.

Growing up in America most of the cosmologies presented to me were some variation of a judgmental monotheism that demanded not only my unwavering belief but also that I ask very few questions. The view I tended to trust the most was that of the scientists; at lest they admitted that their view was incomplete. The scientists thrived on asking questions and built careers on looking for answers. The answers science brings forth convey intellectual understanding and generate technological progress. Although science has began to show us our address in the cosmos it has yet to describe our place in it. Science brings understanding but not meaning.

When Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) started for me I would have called my self an atheist. At the time I had a very strong problem with the idea of God (I would later discover that what I really had a problem with was everyone else’s idea of God). I knew that everything I had ever been told on the subject was most probably not empirically true. The answers presented by religion could not be independently verified. I was resolute that religion was wrong and therefore any spirituality was delusion.

About a year after the onset of MCS the strangest thing happened, the book “Contact” by Carl Sagan just appeared on my front porch. I asked my roommates if it was one of theirs, and even asked the next door neighbors if it belonged to them but no one knew where it had come from. No one clamed it. I had been a great fan of Carl Sagan. Years before this I had thoroughly enjoyed his PBS “Cosmos” series. I had heard good things about the book “Contact” and had wanted to read it. So I did. It was about Earth’s first contact with an extraterrestrial race. That race had sent us a broadcast that gave us plans for building a machine that would transport a few people to the beings that sent the message. Once I picked it up I did not want to put it down. I savored each page. I would think about the book when I was at work. I even dreamed about it while I slept. I was enamored by the ideas it presented. In the end there was a twist. The people that traveled in the machine were left with no proof that they had met a different race of beings. They had the experience but could not prove it. The same arguments that the main character had used against the religious figures in the book were now being used against them. The religious figures could not prove what they experienced to be real but then again neither could the people who had traveled in the machine (see appendix #1).

I was mesmerized by the idea that what was not real for me could perhaps still be real for you even thought it could not be proved. I went to my job that night and reflected on how the book had ended. I was in a thought filled trance when about three hours into my shift something happened. Suddenly I felt like someone had hit me hard. My mind completely shut down for about a second, every thing went black. When I came to I was still standing but I knew something had changed. I knew for the first time in my life that a sense of the spiritual was possible. In that one moment of physical shock I had gone from an atheist to an agnostic. I had for the first time in my life become open to the possibility of a spiritual experience (see appendix #2).

In a rebooting of my mind I gained a willingness to explore the possibility of a personal spiritual experience. That willingness has confirmed itself to be one of the greatest tools I have had at my disposal in finding answers to MSC. That willingness has proven to be the cornerstone to three revolutions of thought that I would be necessary for recovery. The first revolution took place while learning to stop drinking. The second took place while exploring Zen Buddhism. The third came about while devouring roughly eight thousand pages of book on physics. Each of these completely changed the way I viewed the world. Each was necessary to my personal recovery. Each could only have happened because I became open to a personal spiritual experience.

If we choose to be open to a spiritual experience the form it takes will be different for each of us. What stories we place around the concept of spirituality will be uniquely our own even if we share stories with others in a group (see appendix #3). The ideas we have around our own higher power will be ours alone. The only thing I can say for sure about your own relationship with your higher power is that your relationship with it will change as you do. Don’t become too attached to your particular view point. If you have sufficient desire and belief to move forward when things are tough you will change as a person as you get healthier. Let your spirituality change as you do.

Appendix #1 – Oddly a week after I read the book it disappeared just as suddenly as it had appeared. I had put the book in my closet and when I went to look for it, it was gone. When I moved out later I expected to find it when packing. I did not. Just as no one laid claim to where it had come from no one knew where it had gone.

Appendix #2 – That night, a person who I had talked to only briefly before this, came up to me and said that they had an overwhelming feeling that they should ask me if I wanted to go to church with them the next day. I politely declined but was amazed that what had happened to me was strong enough that someone else had picked up on it some way.

Appendix #3 – Spirituality is something we do one on one with our higher power. Religion is something we do in a group. Although religion can be helpful for some of us in maintaining our spirituality, it is only that one on one relationship with your higher power that will truly assist in our recovery.

Belief and Desire in Recovery…

2009-07-13T09:17:00.000-07:00

The two single most important tools I have used in recovering from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) have been the belief that recovery is possible and the desire for that recovery. It has been this belief and desire that has allowed me to put forth tremendous effort in different potential paths to recovery. In my past I have survived and recovered from occurrences that it was extremely unlikely that I would have. There I was a testament that recovery was possible. If I could have survived until the arrival of MCS, I knew that I could recover from that as well.

I remembered what life was like before MCS. I never forgot the clarity of mind and the strength of body. Each day with MCS was a reminder that life was not what I wanted it to be. I wanted to again feel what it was like to live in vibrant health. Even though there were times I felt bogged down and times I felt discouraged I never gave up the hope that life could again be what I once remembered.

It was not always a steady march forward toward some bright future like in an old Soviet propaganda poster. It was much more two step forwards one step back, peaks of tremendous success and valleys to slide back down into. Despite this messy ebb and flow, I never forgot my goal of returning to health. I’ll admit that I was assisted in keeping my eyes on the goal of recovery by the unrelenting discomfort MSC caused in my moment to moment existence for the first many years. I was driven forward by the carrot of recovery and the stick of immediate pain.

One of the most influential books I have read in my recovery from MCS has been, “2150 AD” by Thea Plym Alexander. One idea that the book puts forth is that anything is possible with sufficient Belief and Desire. To achieve recovery I must believe recovery is possible. I if don’t belief it then there is no point in trying. Belief is why we do anything. I go to work each day because I believe I will be financially rewarded for my time and effort. If I did not believe that I would receive a paycheck at the agreed upon time in an agreed upon amount I would find a different job. Belief is why we do a thing but desire is why we keep doing it. To again use the analogy of the job, I keep going to work because I continue desiring that pay check. If I found a sufficient source of income elsewhere I would no longer keep going to work because I would no longer desire the financial reward associated with my job. If we have sufficient belief that recovery from MSC is possible and sufficient desire to recover then we can not help but to take the action needed to experience improvement in our health.

Fear

2009-07-08T10:27:00.000-07:00

“I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.”

-The Bene Gesserit litany against fear
-Dune, by Frank Herbert

One way to interpret certain aspects of Zen Buddhism is to see it as a practice of accepting the unacceptable. This does not mean becoming happy about the worlds myriad unpleasantries but rather acknowledging their existence with an open hand and not a closed fist. Have you ever tried to throw something away with your fist closed around it? It’s very difficult. Instead, open your hand and really look at what you are holding onto. What does it look like? What does it feel like? Is this thing useful in the moment? If not then it is much easier to discard if your hand is open.

Each of us has many experiences each day that we don’t like but are simply unwilling to open our hands and let go of. Perhaps it’s a person in traffic that wronged us. Perhaps it’s a roommate who does not empty the dish washer. Perhaps it’s a political figure who acts differently then we would like. That thing we do not accept, but yet hold on to because we just know we are right, is the point at which we need to practice. My point of practice for a while now has been fear of new things.

As a person with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) having MCS reactions has caused an amazing amount of hardship and loss over the years. During the first five years of having MCS I dropped out of collage and worked several minimum wage jobs. During this time I did not have the mental recourses to focus on anything that was not either: absolutely necessary for daily life or that was needed for recovery. As a result I became removed from many things I used to enjoy and isolated from entire groups of people I once knew.

It seemed at times that everything I once loved had fallen away and I was left with just my self and ill health. Even as things improved there was more then one time than the unexpected arrival of an MCS trigger caused the loss of people, living spaces, and possessions. Several times I experienced occurrences that made me feel as if my world had let me slip through the cracks, leaving me dropped into an abyss that I did not have the recourses to escape. Years of having MCS cause great trauma to my life has taught me to be afraid of the new and unexpected.

Over the last four years I have not lost any major possessions due to MCS. I have not lost any relationships, nor have I been forced to change jobs or to change apartments. During this time I have gained much. I now have a closet full of cloths I enjoy wearing; I have purchased a truck, and have developed several close relationships. I have taken great vacations, started new jobs and lived with a wonderful woman. Despite all of this I still find myself dealing with the deep fear of the new and unexpected (from an MCS perspective) on a daily basis.

The fear that perhaps, five to six years ago, was a useful tool for arranging my environment can now often be a hindrance to progress. I have developed strategies for arranging my environment. I have strategies in place for dealing with unexpected MCS triggers. I even have strategies for dealing with MCS reactions once they arrive. The unexpected will always be there, I am now confidant that I know how to deal with it. But yet the fear remains. A part of me is attached to the fear and does not want to let go.

The greatest MCS challenge I face today is distinguishing between what is something I should be truly cautious about and what is simply a fear reaction. Is my present reaction something that is letting me know to be cautious or is it an old and no longer useful fear of being again dropped into the abyss? The real question I have to ask myself is “Is it fear or is it useful action?” Since this is my point of practice the only way to know is to hold the fear with an open hand and see if it is useful in the moment. Oddly even writing this causes me to feel a strong compulsion to look away. Just looking at the fear causes anxiety to rise.

A case in point is the belt I am wearing right now. This belt is old and starting to show more wear then is appropriate for a professional environment. A few months back I bought a belt and tried it out. Wearing it caused me to have a MCS reaction. Not a bad one but enough that I did not want to feel this way at work. I went to a couple of thrift stores and purchased a few more belts. After handling them I discarded a couple of them. The one I felt has the best chance of working I have hung up in the cab of my truck. Although being next to it has not caused me a reaction the fear of trying new things has taken grip and I have not tried it out. This belt has been hanging on the cloths hook in my truck for at least a month and I have been unwilling to try it out for even a short while. There is no logical reason for me not to put the belt on for a few hours but yet I find my self unwilling to do so. My girlfriend often jokes that the only way I am willing to try something new is when the old one suffers catastrophic failure.

What is the absolutely worst scenario that could happen if I put the belt on? Some chemical could infect my work slacks to such a point that I could not wear them… I would cause such a bad MCS reaction that I make several mistakes at work… Putting the old belt back on would cause it to become infected with chemicals from the new belt… Chemicals from the belt would get on my work shirt and cause that to be unwearable… I would feel like crud for up to one to two days…

So let’s say the worst scenario happens. I have more then one pair of work slacks that I can wear. I can always get more belts to try out. I can always triple and quadruple check my work for the day, minimizing any mistakes that will happen and I will not get fired over one bad day. I have more then one work shirt and I can wash it in a way that will almost certainly get any MCS triggers out of the material. I have ways of taking a shower that can minimize a MSC exposure once it has occurred. Also one to two days of feeling bad is nothing compared to five to seven years that I felt bad in the past.

The absolute worst case scenario is really not all that bad. Yet I still feel anxiety at the thought of trying the belt out. Hhmmm… What does that Anxiety feel like? It is showing up as tightness in my chest and back. It makes me want to turn away and to run a from the cause of the anxiety. It makes me want to stop writing about the cause of the anxiety. I find my self getting distracted as I try to focus on exactly what the anxiety feels like. But yet it is still just a sensation. There is no immediate threat, there is no immediate danger. It only feels as if there is.

All of this and I still find myself unwilling to let go and discard the fear of trying out a new article of clothing. This is why it is called the ‘Point of Practice’; it is that place where I need to keep coming to and move beyond. I need to practice letting go of the fear and trying new items even though I am afraid to do so.
…Skip forward twenty-four hours. I am trying the belt out at work for the day. It seems to be causing me a mild MCS reaction but it is really not all that bad. I’m not sure I’d be willing to wear this particular belt for the long term but it is not too bad for today. Wearing it has given me some ideas of what to look for in a belt when I buy another one this coming weekend. I have lost little and I have gained experience from trying it out. Perhaps next time it will not take me a month to try on the next belt.

Turning “We Create Our Own Reality” to Our Advantage

2009-06-14T23:26:00.001-07:00

Perception (noun)
per⋅cep⋅tion [per-sep-shuhn]
psychology Any neurological process of acquiring and mentally interpreting information from the senses

Attitude (noun)
at⋅ti⋅tude [at-i-tood, -tyood]
manner, disposition, feeling, position, etc., with regard to a person or thing; tendency or orientation, esp. of the mind

Focus (noun)
fo⋅cus [foh-kuh s]
concentrated effort or attention on a particular thing

Each of us is constantly participating in the creation of our own perceptions. From moment to moment we are blocking out what we don’t expect to see. We also literally create experience from our own expectations to fill in gaps of what we are missing. An expression that has gained much popularity since the 1960’s is “We create our own reality”. Psychologically/perceptually we are doing this all the time (see appendix #1 and #2). The true power of saying “We create our own reality” lay in the fact that; if we change our attitude and focus we can change our expectations. Then our changed expectations will transform the way we perceive the world around us. When those of us with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) change our perception we will begin to see opportunities for greater health; opportunities that were perhaps right in front of us all the time but were unconsciously not allowing ourselves to see.

A vague, intellectual understanding of how we participate in our own perception is not all that useful to those of us with (MCS). Through a couple of easy exercises we will be able to experience how this is happening in each moment. I will also discuss how we can use our attitude and focus to literally experiance a different world around us.

The human mind is a marvelous device for not seeing what it doesn’t expect to see. A wonderful example of this can be seen in the following awareness test.

Did you see the unexpected the first time through? When the video is rewound and played again notice that you actually took in a very different experience of the exact same video. Without any conscious participation a significant aspect of the video was rendered completely invisible. It was not a part of our expectations and thus it was not experienced.

Not only will our brain filter out what it is not expecting to see it will also make things up. This allows us to not realize that there are holes in what we are experiencing. This is happening right now as you are looking at these words. At the back of each eyeball we have a small spot without photo receptors. This is where the optic nerve connects to each eye. Where these nerves connect to the eye is a blind spot in our visual field. Normally we never notice the blind spots in what we are seeing; where one eye is blind the other eye compensates. Close one eye. Without specifically looking for it can you see the hole in your visual field? The answer an overwhelming amount of the time will be no. If you haven’t experienced the blind spot before it can be fun to become familiar with it.

Close your left and eye and just focus your right eye on the tiny cross. At some point the big circle will disappear as it crosses your ‘blind spot’. If you can’t see this effect, then try sitting closer/further from the screen.

If this is your first time experiencing the blind spot; it’s a little surprising to see the larger dot disappear and reaper isn’t it? Although we now intellectually understand that the blind spot exists we still can’t easily find it. Close one eye again and look around the room. Do you see a hole in what you see? No? Hmm…

The reason we can not see this gap is that our brains are constantly filling in the blind spot with what it unconsciously expects to see (see appendix #3). Psychologically our brains are doing this for us in a variety of ways all the time. Our minds are literally creating experiences to fill in the gaps of all our scenes, not just our visual perceptions. What it creates to put in our perceptual holes is drawn form our past experiences and put together using our expectations. We are constantly filling in the gaps with what we already expect to experience. It is difficult for us as humans to see what we do not expect and even harder to experience what we don’t ‘see’ (see appendix #4).

Years ago I was perplexed by the fact that all of the people I knew seemed to live in exactly the world they expected to live in. No matter their religious faith, their political leanings, their income level, their sexual orientation or any other variable each of them lived in a world that reflected their own belief systems. I’m not saying they lived in the world they ‘Wanted’ to live in but rather in the world that they ‘Believed’ they lived in. Like the above examples of the bear and the blind spot our brains are wired to block out and fill in our experience of the world in accordance with our, often unconscious, expectations. This often leaves us enamored by what we think we are seeing and often completely missing what is actually happening around us. In the end we will all too often wind up with the moment to moment experience we already expect to have.

A good question at this point might be, “How do we reprogram our expectations and thus change our perceptions?” The answer is to change our attitude and focus. For those of us with MCS keeping an attitude that change is possible can at times be immensely challenging; it can also be immensely rewarding. Keeping our attention focused on increased health instead of lack of health can also at times be very difficult; especially when our moment to moment experience is that we are often not healthy. On a day to day basis our emotions will be buffeted by life’s normal occurrences. Those of us with MCS can also have our emotions and our ability to focus negativity affected as a result of different MCS triggers. For myself, there are several triggers that not only cause mental confusion but can also cause me to be depressed and/or angry just be being exposed to them (see appendix #5). Despite these challenges it is very possible to, in the long run, keep ourselves pointed in a useful direction. What we think and feel on a moment to moment basis is not nearly as important as what we allow ourselves to focus on over time. When I have given myself over to an attitude of despair and frustration I have remained stuck for months and months on end. When I focus on continued improvement, and believe improvement is possible, I am consistently discovering new opportunities for thriving with MCS. Like a ship at sea that is buffeted by waves, winds, and tides; if the person at the rudder keeps focused on the destination and believes he will get there, the ship will eventually reach port. For us regaining our health can be much the same.

How do we actually keep an attitude that change is possible and a focus on thriving? Let me ask you this, “Are you willing to change, to try something different, to dive into a different way of being?” Yes, great! Or perhaps it’s. Hmmm… well I don’t know… maybe? The good news is that all we really need to start a new path is the willingness to be willing. I have had great experience that willingness is indeed the key, but action is the greatest expression of willingness. Reading a book, seeing a councilor, praying, meditating, talking to people, changing our environment, changing our diet, exercising, etc… are all actions. If we take different actions we will get different results. Sometimes we will get results that were not what we wanted, this is not failure. Failure is not a useful attitude. Each result you get will bring greater understanding and greater knowledge. Enjoying the gaining of understanding and knowledge is a very useful attitude. Focusing on what we want (health) and not what we don’t want (sickness) will become easier and easier as we take more and more action in the desired direction. Keeping a useful attitude and focus requires practice and practice is action.

Imagine two farmers who live in the same valley. One year a drought comes to their region. The first farmer, being a very pious man, goes to the temple and makes an offering to the gods. He donates some coins to the priests and sacrificed a goat on the alter. But at the end of the day the first farmer goes back to his farmhouse and waits for things to improve. The second farmer also goes to the temple to pay his respects to the gods but on his way home he stops by the local market to buy a pick, a shovel and a book on how to dig a strange new thing called a well. That night the second farmer read as much of his new book as he could; he wanted to know how to dig his well. The next day he meditated when he woke up to keep his mind clear for digging. After breakfast he took his pick & shovel and started moving wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of dirt out of the hole that would be his well. When he took his midday break he talked about his well to the people who passed by. At the end of the work day he ate dinner and prayed for the wisdom to dig in a manner that would best find water. Now, no one in the region had ever seen a well before. The passersby at the farm don’t quite know what to make of someone looking for water underground, the only water they had ever seen came from the sky and not the earth. Despite the odd looks of others, he kept digging each and every day.

Do you think he found water in the first week, month or season? No he did not. But neither did the first farmer who was sitting at home, thirsty and increasingly hungry while he was waiting for the gods to bring him rain. In that first season the second farmer had learned a lot about digging, the more he dug the faster the progress. His wife had found a different book on digging that he was now reading. At times people who were impressed by his enthusiasm would come by to lend a hand. He took what he had learned and put an order in with the town black smith for a better shovel. He was surprised how if someone mentioned the words digging, or shovel anywhere around him he would notice their conversation. He began to become aware of how other people dug their holes, something he had never seen before. One day he overheard a conversation on the other side of the village square, they were talking about a man in the next province over that was using a motorized drill to look for water under ground. He was thankful he had heard this conversation and he was amazed that he had heard this thing form such a distance. He found out where the man was drilling and went there to learn.

By the end of the second year the man had dug a well. He had water for his farm, he also had enough to share with others. Other people around the region came to him to ask what he had learned about digging and began to dig their own wells. Our farmer remained focused on his goal, he had the attitude that it was possible, he took daily action, and was amazed at how his perception had changed to work to his advantage. In the end he had a well, his farm recovered and he was no longer thirsty.

For many of us regaining our health will be a similar journey. Seemingly miraculous, rapid changes can happen but they usually follow a period of prolonged action. A friend of mine’s father who had a net worth of many millions of dollars was fond of saying, “Everybody wants to get rich quick and you can. In my experience it takes a bout fifteen years of hard work to make a million dollars overnight”.

MCS has been a reality in my life for the last nineteen years. For the first ten years I suffered a non stop MCS reaction. Yes, there were times that I despaired of ever finding a way out, but I never really gave up. I never forgot what it was like before MCS, and I wanted to experience life that way again. Each day, even during the worst of times, I never lost focus on getting better. Sometimes I moved forward and sometimes I moved back. The time scale that improvement happened in seamed almost geologic some days but it did move forward. The last four years have presented an opportunity to be largely MCS reaction free. I get to live weeks or even months between reactions. Two years ago I rode ride my motorcycle through Europe for nine weeks with my girlfriend, something I would have never allowed myself to dream of five years before.

The following section of this blog is going to be not so much about how I arrange my environment but rather how I used my pick & shovel. I’ll focus on what I did to improve my overall health and resistance to environmental toxicity. I’ll discuss the books I read, the people I talked to and the experts I employed. I’ll talk about how the world I lived in actually seamed to change around me as my expectations of it changed. I’ll talk about what worked and perhaps a thing or two that didn’t. This is another piece of the puzzle on how I have learned to thrive with MCS.

Appendices:

#1 – I am in no way, at any point in this post saying to just snap out of it. I give you permission to stick your tongue out at the any person who tells you to.

#2 It is very possible that we could follow this concept even further by taking it out of the realm of the purely psychological and into the spiritual or even the physical. The ‘New Age’ tenants of ‘What we give our attention to expands’ and ‘We create our own reality’ may have some good evidence to back it up. I personally believe that that there is a very good chance that the physical universe itself, and not just our brain, is constantly giving us what we expect to find. I will however save the structure of the so called material universe for a discussion in a different post. I will say that our attitude and focus is causing our personal world to be filtered in accordance with our own expectations from moment to moment. This filtering allows our personal creative energies to flow in ways that are giving us what we already expect to find.

#3 – Let’s take a more in-depth look the previous experience of the blind spot. The visual blind spot is circular; there is right now a round hole in your visual field of each eye. Even after watching the right hand dot disappear on its back and forth travel we can not see this hole in our visual field when we look around ourselves.

A very important question to ask at this point is, “Does our brain just block out the hole in our vision or does it put visual sensations in the hole to compensate?” To help answer this let me ask you a question “What do you think would happen if, at the point in the above animation where the larger dot disappeared, we put a colored disc (perhaps yellow) that was just a little larger then your blind spot?” Do we see a yellow disc with a hole in it? Do we see an entire yellow disc? Remember, we are not actually seeing the inside of the disc that is covering our blind spot.

Our brains fill in the entire yellow disc for us. We would not actually see the entire yellow disc that is covering our blind spot, but we experience it anyway.

Now that we understand that our brains do indeed fill in the blind spot let me ask you a second slightly different, more important question, “What would happen if we did the same experiment as before but this time we cut out a hole in the yellow disc then placed the disc over our blind spot so that the inside was within the blind spot and the outer edge was out side of the blind spot?” Here is what’s different about this question, this time our conscious mind knows that there is a hole in the disc. Due to the size and shape of the blind spot we can not see the hole in the disc but we can see the outer edge. We know on a conscious level this time that there is a circle cut out of the disc. Will we see a disc with a hole? Or will we see an entire disc, the same as before?

Even though our conscious mind knows it is not a complete disc our brains will fill in the hole and again create an entire disc. Our brains will bypass what our conscious minds know and still create the experience it expects to have.

#4 Why does out brains fill in these blind spots? The unknown creates anxiety. Anxiety creates hesitation and ‘He who hesitates is lunch’. Somewhere in our deep ancestral past those who were aware of what they did not know would too often delay taking the correct action when needed and would not make it to adult hood. If these ancestors did not make it to a breading age they could not pass on their genes and thus the ability to see the blind spot was weeded out of the gene pool. This strategy of blocking out the unknown worked well in the wild but does not always serve us in the modern world.

#5 - “Instant A$#hole, just add ~~Alcohol~~ MCS trigger”; of course if I actually want to have friends and maintain close relationships, it is to my great advantage to minimize the impact of these reactions on the people around me. Just because I’m having a reaction does not mean I get to take it out on the people I care about. Of course this is often easier said then done. I’ll talk more about this in a future post.

Motorized Vehicles

2009-06-02T16:42:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine once said, “A car is just a big chemical bomb waiting to go off”. From a Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) perspective I had to laugh when she said this. Motorized vehicles are the biggest cause of environmental damage in the world today; there is no reason to doubt that they can be a complete pain the butt when it comes to our personal environments as well.

I just can’t find an organically grown internal combustion engine any where at my local natural market or on the web. There is nothing naturally occurring about a car. Just the sheer number of toxic fluids that the average automobile carries around with it on a consistent basis should give someone with MCS a moments pause. Cars, trucks, busses, motorcycles and airplanes are an unavoidable part of our modern world. Even if we were to give up and live in an Amish village we would still encounter motorized vehicles when they pass us in our horse drawn buggy.

So what’s a MCS’r to do? We can just through our hands up and ride a bicycle around as much as possible, an option I took for about a year. Of course I was still breathing in the fumes of the cars around me. This is an option I think a fair amount of us try but for a great many it’s just not a practical option in the long run. We have to buy groceries for the family, we need to haul around kids and significant others. We just need more hauling capacity. I’ve spent several years riding a motorcycle as my only form of transportation. With this I still had to deal with all sorts of gear and maintenance which presented their own set of MCS challenges. Of course there are also many of the same drawbacks as the bicycle such as carrying capacity and dealing with bad weather. There is also the bus. An option I’ve used a lot over the years. With all the uncontrollable variables inherent in public transportation the bus is not exactly an MCS free zone. Not to mention that trying to bring home a new mattress on the bus is largely frowned upon by the bus driver. In the end, most of us who live North America will wind up needing to own privet transportation of some sort. Like it or not cars, for a lot of us, are simply realities of our modern world

A good number of years back, when I was just starting to discover MCS, I needed a car. I had just received an unexpected windfall and I went out to look for reliable, inexpensive transportation. What I wound up with was a used, four door, hatchback Geo Metro five speed. I drove off the lot excited that I had again joined the ranks of the mobile. It was not stylish but it was reliable and dirt cheap to operate. I drove that car for about sixty thousand miles before one morning I forgot to put the oil cap back on after topping it off. I drove it for the day until white smoke began to come out of the engine. When I got back home and opened the hood I found oil all over the engine. A lot of that oil had burned off and turned in to oil smoke. That smoke got into the air intake for the interior of the car and all over me. Thankfully I could just go inside, take a shower and change my cloths. The car on the other hand, from a MCS perspective, was not going to recover.

I cleaned out the engine compartment as best I could. I shampooed and vacuumed the entire inside of the car. I even took a friends suggestion and put an ozone generator in it over night. All with no luck. The car caused me to feel awful each time I drove it. I tried on and off to clean it out for the next three months but in the end I just sold it and drove my motorcycle for the next several years.

Since that time I have learned a fair amount about how to keep my vehicles from being MCS triggers. I have a friend who works as a car detailer at a local Toyota dealership, and I spent a summer selling cars for Honda. The number one thing I learned is that I will never again buy a used are form a dealership. Don’t get me wrong, often the most reliable vehicles will come out of the used car programs of big car companies. My concern is with MCS and how dealerships prep the used cars for sale, they look great but I wouldn’t want to sit in one.

As with al lot of items the first question to ask is; which kind of car will cause me the least or no MCS reaction. During my time as a car salesman I did a fair amount of research in the form of trying competitor’s cars. New Hondas and Toyotas did not once cause me a MCS reaction. One caveat to this is that cars with leather seats that come form the factory were great; if the leather was after market I could not tolerate it. Of course the more expressive versions of them, the Acura’s and the Lexus were also ok. Mazdas and Nissans I had a hard time with. I was a little surprised that Fords seemed ok while Chevrolets were hit and miss. A few years back Volkswagens were good but I have not sat in one for the last several years.

As usual my experience will perhaps be a useful guide but it is only your experience that will really matter. Where to start? Do you spend time in a friend’s car? Does it bother you? How was the last rental car you tried? Perhaps spend a day going around to different dealerships and spend time sitting in different vehicles. If you do this I recommend printing out some fake business cards on your home computer. Use a fake phone number and email address, if you give the sales person real ones they will each be calling you for days and perhaps months. A great way to get exposure to many different vehicles at one time, with a lot less sales pressure, is to go to your local car show. Each dealership from around the area will be represented. You can sit in many cars in a short period of time with out the sales men asking you buy. Get brochures from the different cars, if you can, then use them for muscle testing when you get back home. Perhaps, if you are comfortable, you can put one hand on the car in question and do muscle testing at the show. These strategies can assist you finding the correct make and model for your transportation needs and individual sensitivities.*

Once you know what kind of car you want, and a new car is not what you are looking for, then I would suggest taking a look on Craig’s List or your local classifieds. A lot of the cars sold by individuals will be vacuumed out and washed but will not have a large amount of toxic chemicals used in making them look pretty. Also pre-owned cars often will be well used and ‘aired out’. Many MCS triggers will have simply dissipated over the years before you come into contact with them. Also there are the advantages of getting a little better price form most privet sellers and the pressure to buy will be much lower.

Perhaps you already have a car and something unexpected happens. The automobile that the day before caused you no problems is now suddenly emitting a MCS trigger. I have had this happen a few times in the last couple of years. Thankfully I have been able to correct it each time. First of all take care of any mechanical issues that may be causing the problem. Then remember, situations where the unexpected happens is a time where the detail shop at your local dealership can work to your advantage. It is important then when you take the car in, ask to be able to talk to the person who will actually be working on your car. If the person processing you request won’t allow this then simply drive it down the block to the next guy.

I have found that starting conversations with people by discussing MCS and various triggers only illicit blank stairs and strange looks. Not all that helpful. A tack that I find works well is to discuss what I need taken care of and then simply saying that I have allergies to different kinds of chemicals. “Please get rid of the cause of the problem but please don’t leave anything behind.” Most people don’t get MCS when I talk about it, what people do understand are allergies. When I have had discussions with the person doing the cleaning work on my car and I frame it in this way I have had some great results. Cleaning chemicals are designed to clean then to go away themselves. If you get your vehicle back and it still causes you a problem then try driving it for the next couple of days. Each time I have had any residual MCS triggers dissipate quite quickly. **

*If you do decide to purchase a new car from a dealership make sure you have test drove the exact car you are thinking about buying. If you find it has no, or at least tolerable, MCS triggers then talk to the salesmen before they prep it for delivery. Before a car is handed over to the buyer it will be sent down to their detailing department. Make sure they do nothing but a vacuuming to the inside of the car. Some dealerships will use unpleasant chemicals to make the inside of the car shinier and give it that ‘new car smell’. Make sure the salesman does not allow the dealership to do this.

**An added note: if a MCS trigger comes into your car from the outside it will often leave a residue in the passenger compartments air intake system. This can be cleaned out by the detailer by putting compressed air and fast dissipating aerosol solvent in the system. Of course this must be done from the inside of the car so it blows outward, thus cleaning your heating/cooling system.

Electrical Fields…

2009-06-01T11:16:00.000-07:00

Just as chemicals are everywhere so are electric fields. In a physical sense our bodies are just incredibly complex chemical and electrical machines. So the problem for those of us with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) is not the chemicals and electric fields themselves but rather the versions of them that are out of sync with the natural world.

A few years back I had a job where I was required to keep the company cell phone on me at all time. This was an ancient Nokia phone that had been discontinued well before the company I worked for got a deal on about two dozen of them. Thankfully, from a chemical point of view it caused me no discomfort. From an electric field perspective I could barely tolerate it. If I clipped it to my belt I would feel a ‘buzzing’ in my hip. After a short while that buzzing would travel up my torso and finish off in my head. Within only a few minutes the ‘buzzing’ would get worse and I would become somewhat disoriented and confused. This effect would go away immediately upon taking the phone back off my belt. In the end I just wound up clipping it to outside of a container that I always had with me and avoided using it as much as possible. Thankfully more modern phones seem to not have the same effect on me.

I am quite grateful that as a general rule electric fields don’t seem to be a primary MCS trigger for me; although I have met those who are greatly effected by them. I have spent time with one person who has no specific indication of MCS but still could not tolerate strong electrical fields. Close proximity to cell phones, CRT TV’s, CRT computer monitors, and high voltage power lines all create a hefty level of discomfort in her. I once heard her jokingly refer to herself as ‘The Canary of Electricity’.

Here again avoidance seems to be the best short term solution for us. Electrical fields that are of different intensities and frequencies then are encountered in nature are almost unavoidable in our modern world. If electrical fields are a MCS trigger for you then, a little attention and testing can go a long way in minimizing exposure. Do you live near high voltage wires? Is there a cell phone tower on your building? Do you feel differently when around a CRT TV vs. being around a newer flat panel TV? Have you tried a different cell phone? One of the true challenges with MCS is that there are few hard and fast rules. What may almost destroy one of us will not always effect the next. The fields created by modern electronics is no different, we all need to discover what we can tolerate and what we must avoid to fit our own personal experience of MCS.

Electronics

2009-05-27T08:05:00.000-07:00

The good news is… if you are reading this you must have mastered this portion of your environment to some extent. Try as we might in the modern world, for most of us, attempting to get along with out electronics is like endeavoring to get by with out clothing. It’s just something we are stuck with. The dirty little secret of micro chips and consumer electronics is that they are made out of some extremely toxic materials. So much so that most urban garbage companies will not even take your old computers and TVs. In the Seattle area we are required to take such items to our local Household Hazard Disposal site for proper recycling and removal.

In the last ten years I’ve had to learn a lot about computers. The only way I have been able to afford the ones that I wanted was to build them my self. I have worked with many different components and discovered one surprising thing. Although the electronic components will be a significant Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MSC) trigger for about a week, the real culprit has often been the plastic that houses them. I have not purchased a computer part that did not cause me some level of discomfort for at least a few days. With use of that part, the discomfort has almost always gone away. The pieces that have caused me the worst and most prolonged MCS reactions have been mice, key boards, and monitors. One thing these items have in common is plastic, or more to the point they have plastic that has a nasty fire retardant as an ingredient.

Back up a few years to the day Bill Clinton was elected President of the US. That day I jumped into my friends Mazda hatchback and drove to the Bon Marche. That evening I purchased a Magnavox 27’ TV, the first major possession I had ever acquired with my own money. I loved that TV. The VCR looked great with it and the Nintendo was glorious. Now, this was back when MCS was an idea that was still many years in coming. I was experiencing a bad MCS reaction 24/7 and had no idea what was going on. Looking back on bringing that TV into my environment I don’t remember feeling any different, but then again I felt terrible all the time any way. One clue I had was that if I played video games for more then a couple of hours I would start to feel even more out of it. At the time I just chalked that up to a normal reaction to playing Nintendo for too many hours at a time.

One day I had to bring the TV into the shop. By this time I had discovered a little about what was going on with me and I was starting to notice how I felt at different times in relation to my surroundings. My TV was not in the apartment for a couple of days. I noticed I felt better with it gone. When I got back I felt worse. I did not want to believe that this prized item of mine was not good for me. I kept in back in the apartment for a week and I did not again feel better. Then I placed it out in the hall for a day and I started to feel better. Damn, I loved that TV. If I got rid of it would I never be able to own a TV again? Movies and video games are a wonderful diversion, was I ready to give them up?

I wound up giving my TV to a friend who had just moved out of his boyfriend’s house. It was a sad day parting with my TV. I lived for about a week without one then bought a used TV that was just about as old, it messed with me even more then the last. A few weeks later a friend of mine was buying a brand new TV for himself. He was selling his old TV and it was only a year or two old. I bought it from him and to my amazement it did not trigger any MCS reactions at all. I was happy, but also curious. What was going on between the different TVs?

Around the same time as the TV, I was having a similar experience with a computer monitor. Both of these items did not fit my usual pattern of experience. Usually the older and more ‘aired out’ an item was the better it was for me. These two things were the opposite of this pattern, the newer the better. I believe the main culprit in this was the class of fire retardant known as PBDEs. The form that are used in electronics are known as Deca. This was an item used in consumer plastics for years. It has been outlawed in the EU and is still allowed on the federal level of the US. On the state level Washington (2007) and California (2003) have banned the use and sale of products containing this material. Main (2007) has enacted a partial ban. As a result many manufactures have stopped using it all together. What does this mean for those of us with MCS? When it comes to consumer electronics the newer can at times be the better.

Getting rid of that TV was a great move. It was creating a huge amount of background toxicity for me. When I finally got rid of it my life improved dramatically. If you own a TV or other large piece of plastic made before 2003 - 2007 try getting it out of your environment for a few days and seeing if there is an improvement in how you feel. If you are not sure bring it back and then move it out again. If the TV is not an item then see if there is that one item that is the ‘elephant in the living room’, that thing that is just there that no-one wants to see. Test a few things out. Try muscle testing a bunch of different items in your house. If you can clear out one big item then it will be worth it.

There is one other major item to consumer electronics that I have not mentioned yet. That item is…

Furniture and Household Items

2009-05-24T09:51:00.001-07:00

Furniture and household items have created more arguments between me and the various people I’ve lived with over the years then anything else. The proper item of furniture can bring an often underestimated improvement to our lives. The wrong piece of furniture can cause immense hardship for those of us with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS). Experimentation with a bar of soap or a pair of second hand pants presents very little investment and therefore little risk, a piece of furniture can be a different animal altogether. Not only is there a greater investment in the purchase of furniture but it is often large, hard to move and if it is an MCS trigger for us it is a big MCS trigger. If we get the wrong piece of furniture it is often not easy to get rid of or recoup our financial investment.

As a person with MCS I like to have an environment that is trigger free. Once I find a set of things that works for me I have a tendency to never want anything to ever change again. It’s good, don’t mess with it, leave it alone. Not only is this a less then thriving way to live life, it is impossible. Try as I might, entropy will always catch up with my fears. Things simply wear out and need replacing, life changes; sometimes I need new and better stuff.

Bamboo has not let me down. A large portion of my kitchen items are bamboo. My dish rack, spatulas, spoons, etc. are all made from bamboo. This is all great for the little stuff but I have yet to see a readily available bamboo chest of drawers and entertainment center. For the bigger stuff I need to try something different. For quite some time I would scour the second hand stores. I would look for items that were old, and well ‘aired out’. This strategy had some success but only a small fraction of what I bought would work out. Even when it did work, I would be left with items that I really didn’t like but only used out of necessity. I needed another strategy.

Years ago I read an article about how the US had a very different idea about what was a safe to use in consumer goods then the European Union. Not only does the US have a much longer list of approved chemicals, many of the chemicals on that list have been banned as harmful by other countries around the world. Do those of us with MCS really want to use a wood glue/preservative that has been outlawed in the EU and Japan? Probably not.

Fast-forward a little. It’s time for new furniture. What to buy? I have a friend who is a bit of a ‘stuff guy’. He likes his things. In the last five years he had bought all new furniture. His new furniture never seemed to be an MCS trigger for me. Perhaps there is a clue here as to what to buy. I knew he bought all his stuff from IKEA and IKEA is all made in the EU. What I really needed was something I could use as storage and put my TV on. My friend had something that would foot the bill, an Expedit. It was time to take a leap of faith and a drive to IKEA.

I got what I need home with me and put it together. This part of the process defiantly triggered MCS symptoms. I knew it would, this is where the leap of faith really came in. I had been around one of these pieces of furniture for hours on end on several occasions and it was not a trigger. I had to have faith that this one would also work for me. I set it up, wiped it down, vacuumed up the mess and took a shower. It triggered symptoms pretty bad that night and the next day. On the third day it started to lessen, after a week it was not a problem at all. It had worked, I had brought a new piece of furniture into my living space. I was using something I actually liked as an entertainment center. This was pretty exciting. I liked it so much I bought a second one and used it as a shelving unit.

I’m not saying this particular piece of furniture will work for everyone. It’s the process of discovery that might prove useful. We all have to go out sometime. Check out friend’s homes and what they have. Where did they buy it? Where was it made? I’ve found that the EU and Japan often better then the US or China. Is it made only out of solid wood or is there particleboard or plywood in it? Are you willing to put up with an MCS trigger in the home for a few days while it ‘airs out’? Is there another safe place you could store it while it ‘airs out’? In the end just find things that work for you but are not necessarily yours. Buy what you like and be willing to try it out for a few days to a week. If it works great! If it doesn’t then Craig’s List is a useful way to recoup some of your financial loses from the purchase.

Another option for discovery is to employ the muscle testing technique talked about a couple of posts ago. As an example, say you want to try out some items from IKEA. Buying one of everything you want is of course impractical. Taking a small sample, perhaps in the form of a wood chip, from each different item will most likely get you kicked out of the store. What to do? I would suggest going down there and touching everything you want to try out. The important thing is to grab the little slip of paper that has the name and item number of the object you want test. When you get home do the muscle testing exercise on each slip of paper you brought back. Your body will know what it good for you and what isn’t. If an item shows up in the ‘very good’ category then you may want to go back and try it out.

I have found that furniture made with solid wood seem to work pretty well. Pay attention to this, I’ve seen pieces advertised as solid wood but have plywood components to them. Plywood is just particleboard stuck between two sheets of real wood; I have had no luck with this. For me I find that one of the biggest challenges with furniture is to look beyond the immediate fear and have faith that the proper solution can be found.

Clothing & Laundry

2009-05-12T21:10:00.001-07:00

Clothing has been one of my biggest challenges. Gaining control over this challenge as been one of my biggest rewards. The clothes we put on are with us all the time. Not only can many cloths emit a toxicity that can be breathed in, but different noxious fabrics and dyes can allow toxicity to be absorbed directly thought the skin. I am constantly amazed at how strong and how immediate a Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) reaction can be when I am wearing clothing that are a trigger for me. Discovering what to wear and how to process these clothes so I can wear them, is a major key in thriving with MCS.

There are three main parts to the clothing puzzle. The first is, what to buy? The second is, how to process it once you get it? The third is, how to put them through the laundry, maintaining a MCS reaction free environment? In the last few years I’ve put these pieces together and I am now incredibly grateful to have a closet full of clothes that I love.

What clothing to choose? The answer is a consistent theme you will encounter in this blog, ‘The more natural the better’. Of course, as with everything, I have found exceptions to this rule and as we all know, individual results may vary.

I absolutely enjoy organic cotton clothing. With the advent of the internet there are a lot of great outlets for organic clothing. A website called Rawganique is one of my favorites. American Apparel also has some fantastic organic cotton t-shirts and underwear. To maximize my success with this I make sure, as much as possible, that the clothing I acquire is machine washable (more about this in a moment).

If we were to take a look in my closet right now we would find a half a dozen t-shirts. Most are from American Apparel. Some button down white professional shirts, several organic cotton/hemp ties, and a purple corduroy shirt, all from Rawganique. A lot of cotton work shirts form my last job. Several pairs of Levies jeans, purchased second hand. Several pairs of Smart Wool socks. A gray polyester/cotton sweatshirt that I was very surprised to be able to wear. Two pairs of Pronto-Uomo wool slacks form Men’s Wearhouse. And a rather old and well used leather jacket.

Before I discuss each of these items in more detail, let me introduce the concept of ‘processing’ clothing. Clothing, before we purchase them, are exposed to all sorts of potential MCS triggers. Where have they been stored? How were they transported? What were they transported with and stored with? Were the cloths processed with ‘sizing’; a class of chemicals used on new clothes? (The purpose of ‘sizing’ is to help the clothing keep their shape and sizes, making them look good on the rack before you purchase them) These are all aspects of our clothing we have no control over. How to virtually eliminate their effects is something we can take charge of. I try to only buy clothing that is machine washable and therefore can be processed. There will be exceptions to this, for instance most professional clothing needs to be dry-cleaned.

What do I mean by the ‘processing’ of clothing? Everything I can, I wash with a mixture of 1/3 cup of Borax, 1/3 cup of apple cider vinegar and a ½ a cup of Planet liquid laundry soap (I just happen to like Planet, any will work). This mixture is a hint I have found immensely valuable. I process every thing I can this way. The Borax is a base and the apple cider vinegar is an acid. The reaction between the two will strip many of the MCS triggers from cotton clothing. Many clothing items will need to be washed this way several times. How many times you will need to process each item of clothing will vary. Not every piece of cotton clothing will become wearable this way, but all the organic cotton clothing I’ve purchased has been wearable after only a few washes of ‘processing’.

There is the third piece that I should mention at this point, how to wash clothes. The best trick I’ve found for this is a combo of 12oz of baking soda and 12oz of lemon juice. After I put my cloths in the washing machine I will pour the baking soda on one side of the cloths and the lemon juice on the other. Let the machine combine the two. Like before the base of the baking powder and the acid of the lemon juice will clean your cloths quite well. If your clothes are particularity dirty or have gotten a MCS trigger on them just double wash your cloths. Do a processing load immediately followed by a washing load. Washing my clothes this way has kept my attire MCS trigger free for several years now.

Back to what to buy. Organic cotton/hemp clothing has been a fantastic discovery. Admittedly it is more expensive then normal clothing, not to mention that the best selection is on the internet and shipping charges from outside the US can be a little exorbitant. Organic clothing has not had the underlying material interfered with before we buy it. This means that for cotton and hemp some of the natural oils are still in the fabric. I find that these oils can be a MCS trigger for me. Processing the cloths in the above manner a few times, followed by a regular washing, will eliminate this challenge. Possessing quality, stylish clothing that contains no MCS triggers is invaluable; the extra cost is repeatedly worth it.

Jeans are a bit bigger of a test. I have yet to find a source for jeans that I can purchase ‘off the rack’. The biggest difficulty for me is that most new jeans use low quality rivets in their construction. A strong MCS trigger for me is cheap metal, especially when it touches my skin. I often scour second hand stores for older Levies jeans that have higher quality copper rivets. The real challenge is that I never know what the previous owner did with these jeans. I usually process these jeans a good half-dozen times before trying them on. Even after I find and process jeans that look like they might work, only about fifty percent of them actually do. Another reason I buy them from second hand stores is that they tend to cost only five to ten dollars per pair. If a pair of jeans does not work for me I don’t mind donating them back to the place I bought them, I’m only out ten bucks.

Socks are my nemesis, or least they have been. The primary ingredient in most socks is either cotton or wool, something that with enough processing will most often work. The real problem is the secondary fibers. Most of these present a MCS trigger for me. The worst of the lot is Spandex (lycra) If you read the list of items that the socks are made of, you will find that just about every pair of socks made in the last five years contains Spandex. I was very happy to find one fantastic exception to this rule, Smart Wool socks. The fiber they use for stretchiness is nylon, something that generally tends to not be an MCS trigger. Smart Wool socks are just about the only clothing product I have found that I can wear right off the rack, with out processing. As an added bonus they also are the single most comfortable socks I have ever owned.

What about cloths that are dry-clean only? They can not be processed and washed the above manner. I try to keep to natural fabrics. The slacks I wear for my job are all wool and took a few tries to find a brand that works for me. Dry-cleaning can be an added challenge for most of us with MCS, but there are things we can do. There are two main chemicals used in dry-cleaning today, a normal one and an environmentally friendly version. Ironically the environmentally friendly version is the one I can not tolerate. Before I use a new dry-cleaner I always ask which they use. After I get my cloths dry-cleaned from the correct cleaner I often hang them up in the bathroom and let them air our over night. Even then, I will often experience a mild MCS reaction the first time I put them on again, but the next day that will often fade away.

Jackets have been a challenge for me. I recently purchased a nice organic cotton jacket but when I got it and read the label it had a polyester/rayon lining that I could not tolerate. I took the lining out and found that the metal zipper was also an MCS trigger for me. (As of the writing of this blog it is in with a local seamstress that I trust, having a plastic zipper put in to replace the metal one) My leather jacket it one of my most prized positions, it does not mess with me at all. It’s got good leather and a high quality stainless steal zipper. When it needs cleaning a little rubbing alcohol on a clean cotton cloth does the trick. Yes, cleaning leather with alcohol is not the best for the leather but it works great for me.

One last thing about doing laundry. If you have your own washer and dryer then, fantastic. You can have control over what gets used in the machines. I’m sure I hardly need to mention that items such as fabric softeners and dryer sheets are right out. Both items are designed to leave lasting manmade chemicals behind on clothes. I generally attempt to avoid public Laundromats; I never know what the last person put into the machine before I use it. I live in an apartment building that has one washer and one dryer for fourteen people. I do not have control over what others do with these machines. Something I do each time I do laundry is to wash my towels first. I will do a towel load with just a little soap then I dry them. This will clean out both machines form whatever the last person used. Of course I then re-wash the towels first in the borax and apple cider vinegar, then wash again with the baking soda and lemon juice. I then dry them and only after I have done this will I wash my cloths. I have found much better results with the clothing I actually wear after I started to clean out the machines.

Clothing like personal care products are ‘water’, that thing that fish never think of. They have just been there our whole lives. Finding out how to manage my cloths is an area that has brought much relief from MCS symptoms. Again I’ll say that this is probably an area that is easier for men then women. Men simply need fewer outfits and most clothing made for men tend to be made of natural fabrics. Take a look at this area of your life, a little attention can create much relief.

Muscle Testing

2009-05-11T21:51:00.001-07:00

I have already talked about the ABAB (on/off, on/off) style of testing for Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) triggers. Another style of testing that I have had tremendous results with is a process called Muscle Testing.

Muscle testing is a little woo-woo for my general taste but I have to say, “If it works then use it”. What is muscle testing? It’s a process of allowing your body to bypass your conscious mind and give you information you might not otherwise have access too. The theory is that our bodies know instinctively if something is good for us or not. Have you ever had an unexplained strong negative/positive reaction to a person, place or thing that you could not readily explain? Muscle testing is a way of tapping into that instinct without the information getting clouded by our own thinking.

I was introduced to Muscle Testing about ten years ago by a Naturopath/Dentist. I had all my metal fillings removed and had porcelain fillings put in. One of the best decisions I have every made as far as MCS is concerned. He used muscle testing to determine what would be the best material to use for the replacement fillings. It seemed a little strange at the time but we have not made an incorrect decision about materials to use when we have employed this technique.

How do you Muscle Test? You will need a partner but first pick what items you wish to test. Let’s say you are curious if some personal care products you saw at your local natural market are good for you or not. You want to test two shampoos, one soap and a moisturizer. To begin the testing process you only need a very small amount of each one, only a drop of each liquid and a flake from the soap. It is important that you put each in a container that will allow no scent or texture to get through. It has to be a blind test. Neither you nor the person assisting you in this process can know what is in each sample. The way I find works best is to put a very small sample into a Ziploc snack bag. Once the sample is in the bag it can be sealed then placed into a white envelope. This way the smell, color and texture will be hidden.

Face your partner. Put your right arm outwards, pointing toward their left shoulder. Place the item to be tested over the center of your chest, hold it in place with your left hand. Your partner, who is facing towards you, will place their right palm over your right wrist. Look forward and say “I know this item to be good for me”. Immediately after saying this, your partner will gently but firmly attempt to push your arm down with the palm of their hand. If your arm remains rigid your body is indicating the truth of your statement, if you arm is easily pushed down your body knows that it is false statement. If you try this a few times you will be amazed how there will be times when you simply can not keep your arm facing straight out. Your partner will be able to very easily push your arm down. This reaction will indicate that the item being tested is NOT good for you.

When I do this test, I break the responses down into four categories: Very Good, Good, Bad, and Very Bad. After each test I’ll write one of those statements on the envelope so I will know which item was graded what way. Most things are not simply black or white. It will be up to you to decide what to do about the different items in each category.

It is not necessary to use full samples of each item to be tested. Do your best to find a sample but if sample is not available you can get a reliable test just by, say, rubbing a cotton ball on the item in question. You can even write down names of people or places and put them into the Ziploc bag. Trust your body’s intuition. Muscle testing has been an invaluable tool for me in determining what I should have and should not have in my immediate environment.

Personal Care Products

2009-05-11T15:03:00.000-07:00

Personal care products were one of the first set of items I learned to take charge of. Some of it was an immediate no brainer but other aspects took drastic steps to make better. One thing I will say before I jump into this section is that I believe this is an aspect of environmental control that may be easier for most men then for most women. Why? Because most women use a lot more personal care products then men. Men, if we have to, can usually get buy with only a bar of soap, a toothbrush and a razor (the razor often being optional) but I have not dated a single woman who has less then a dozen different items she uses on a daily basis. Some of those items can be swapped out for better ones, others will probable need to be let go of all together.

Many aspects of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) make me think of a question a Zen Monk once asked me “What is the one thing a fish never thinks about?” The answer is… Water. Why? Water surrounds, supports, and allows a fish to breath. For a fish water is simply the nature of the universe. Personal care products are like that for us. Our entire lives have been spent with soap, shampoo, toothpaste. Since we hit puberty we have hardly known a day without deodorant, conditioner, hair product, mouthwash, after shave for men, makeup and perfume for women. Before MCS, once we found what we liked, those personal care products hardly warranted a second thought. After the onset of MCS proper management of these items is vital for our well being.

I’ll start with an easy one, toothpaste. Tom’s of main has been a god send. Not only does it use, mostly, all natural ingredients but just as importantly it can be purchased from just about any larger grocery store nation wide. Many toothpastes use saccharin as a ‘sweetener’. Artificial sweeteners tend to be a MCS. Tom’s of Main toothpaste uses no artificial whitening agent. All whitening toothpaste I have used has also been a MCS trigger for me. If you wish to take it even a step further there are several recipes for making your own toothpaste that can be found of the web. I will not mention any of these specifically here because I have not found any of them effective.

When I first started exploring options for alternate personal care products I was blessed to have a store called PCC Natural Market near where I lived. PCC had many options of soaps, shampoos, perfumes, deodorants and more that were all natural. Now, unless you live in the greater Seattle area you probably have not heard of PCC, but in the last ten years just about every major US city has gotten a Whole Foods. Whole Foods is a great place to start your own personal search for the products that work for you.

Soap. I quickly learned that any scented soap was right out. A good general rule of thumb is if there is any artificial scent in the thing I can’t use it. As far as soap is concerned I got kind of lucky, Ivory works lake a charm for me. I can go in to any grocery store in the developed world and buy Ivory soap. That being said it is not my favorite. What I do like is an unscented all natural oatmeal based soap that I buy from my local natural market, brand name ‘Sappo Hill’. I have not known any one to have an MCS reaction from this soap. Even if this particular one is not available in your area see if you can find one like it.

Shampoo is a little more complicated. I have been blessed with a nicely shaped head. What do I mean by that? I can shave my head and I look just fine. Being a guy I have a bit of an advantage in this area, I can just buzz cut my hair down to a quarter of an inch and use the same bar of soap I have on hand as a shampoo. I’ll just lather up my head as I would any other part of my body, making shower time a lot easier. I’ll freely acknowledge that most people reading this, especially the women, will be uncomfortable with going to such a drastic hairstyle. What I can recommend is again to go to your local Whole Foods or other natural market and see what is available. Unscented is almost always better. The more natural the healthier. What we are looking for is a shampoo that cleans your hair but leaves no scent and/or chemical residue behind. Don’t hesitate to ask the courtesy clerk what they think about some products. Many of the people who work at local natural markets don’t really work there for the money. They work there because they love what they do. These people may even be able to assist you in finding products that are known to work for people with MCS.

Conditioner is something I would avoid if at all possible. The main difficulty with conditioner is… conditioners’ main job is to leave a lasting chemical residue on your hair. This is the exact sort of thing people with MCS are looking to avoid. The number one thing I would recommend is to get a shorter hair style that does not require you to use conditioner. If you absolutely can not live without conditioner I would again try your local natural market. See what they have. Remember; don’t be afraid to try many things. If the first conditioner you purchase does not work then try another. Each attempt will only cost a few dollars to try, but the payoff of having a product that you know you can use without reaction is priceless.

Hair spray, hair gel, mouse and the like are all things that should be avoided. Like conditioner, hair styling products are made to leave long lasting man made chemicals in your hair. I have not found one product like this that works well for those with MCS (that being said we all have different triggers, if styling products work for you then by all means use them). This is one of the most toxic classes of personal care products that I know of. I do not date women who use these items in excess, I have found I often get a MCS reaction just from being near those use them.

Deodorant is a relatively easy one. The first rule is to get something unscented. I tried about half a dozen different brands before I found the one I like, unscented ‘Speed Stick’ by ‘Mennon’ (ok, not exactly all-natural but thankfully I have had no MCS reactions to this item). There are many natural alternatives, even Tom’s of Main makes a line of deodorants. For those of us who can not tolerate any chemical based deodorants, there are options in the form of a stone, such as the ‘Crystal, Body Deodorant Rock’.

Perfume can have its own challenges. I would generally recommend giving it up altogether. Strong smells, of any sort, can be a MCS trigger for many of us. Most common forms of “department store” scents also contain many man made chemicals that assist with the longevity of the perfume, with scent dispersal, and with the smell of the perfume itself. If you must have some scent to your personal care regimen then there are several ‘essential oils’ that contain no manmade chemicals. Explore ‘essential oils’ with caution, many with MCS cannot tolerate them.

Makeup is not a subject that I can talk about at great length having little personal experience with it. My first suggestion is to try to use as little as is need in this area. The less background toxicity we add to ourselves the better we will be. But I am not so naive to believe that makeup is something that can be done without by most of the people who use it. My main suggestion is to find a brand name that works for you. A few suggestions I have are: ‘Gabriel’ and ‘Zuzu Lux’ all natural and vegan makeup’s found at my local natural market and ‘Origins’, Dr. Wiles’ brand of natural makeup and skin care solutions found at Macy’s. Again explore this area with care.

Shaving cream and aftershave are two things I have long since given up. To get by without shaving cream, just shave in the shower. The hot steam and water combined with the soap you have chosen, should work well on their own. As for aftershave I have chosen to side step this one all together and grow a short, well groomed beard. A goatee/Vandyke or any beard that covers the mouth and chin area will allow you to not shave the most sensitive areas of the face. If these areas are not agitated by shaving then aftershave should not be needed. If your circumstance is such that growing a beard in not an option then try substituting a small amount of rubbing alcohol or even a high proof vodka. Both of these I have used and yes they hurt like heck. Within 30-60 seconds the pain and any MCS reaction usually dissipates for me. After going this route you may wish to use a small amount of a good moisturizer.

Skin moisturizer is something I use everyday. Pure Vaseline is good but I really don’t like the texture of it. Unscented Lubriderm is not bad, for me. By far my favorite is ‘Genes, Swiss Collagen Complex’ that I get from Sam’s Club, it works like a charm and has never caused me a MCS reaction.

The real trick is finding something that works for you. We all have different MCS triggers, different reactions, and different levels to our severity of symptoms. If one of these specific suggestions works for you then fantastic, if not explore your options. Take something home and try it, see how you feel, the next day don’t use it and make a note of how you feel without it. On the third day try it again and make a not of any MCS reactions to it this time and compare how you feel to how you felt on the first day. The on/off, on/off method is a great way of discovering something you may enjoy using. If it is not something you like then just discard/donate or pass it along. Possessing a set of personal care products that cause no MCS reactions is a vital step in thriving with MCS.

Smoking, Drinking, Addiction

2009-05-05T16:31:00.000-07:00

I fully acknowledge that each of these are subjects that an entire blog can be written about (and I know have been). In fact I could probably write a blog on each of these subjects myself. I, in no way wish to appear to be making light of these subject by giving them only a brief overview on how they relate to Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS). Remember, if you find yourself struggling with these issues there is a wealth of information out there and many recovery groups that are eager to assist you.

Smoking:

I smoked for ten years and I loved it. I loved everything about smoking. I loved the way it tasted. I loved the way it smelled (and oddly still do). I loved the affectation of smoking. Above all I loved the emotional shield it created. I believe that I could have stood naked in a crowd and felt completely clothed as long as that cigarette burned.

Cigarettes were a constant companion that I never left the house with. To this day I sometimes find myself checking my breast pocket as I’m going out the door, checking for a pack of cigarettes that I have not carried for sixteen years. No matter how great my fondness for smoking, if I wanted to get better I knew I had to quit.

For the last year of my smoking career I did not feel the ease and happiness that came with each cigarette. What I felt was confusion, depression, and exhaustion. At the time I did not know to call smoking an MCS trigger but I felt the results none the less. It was one of the few triggers that caused an instant reaction of depression and despair. Each cigarette felt like someone had struck me in the chest with an almost overwhelming emotional blow. After ten years my friend had let me down too many times, I had to let smoking go.

Any one who has quit smoking, or has been close to someone who has quit, knows it is no easy task. Even after the pain of the physical craving is gone the, behavioral habit can taunt you for months or years to come. Even years after I quite I would have smoking dreams. I would wake up in the morning with a sense of dread that I had started again, all my hard work gone in a moment of weakness. Of course that sense of dread would quickly vanish in relief that it was only a dream and a reaffirming of my resolve to never smoke again.

As I said in a previous post, our bodies are now different. If we wish to thrive we must change our behavior to fit our new circumstances. If cigarettes are a challenge for you then quitting smoking is one of the most difficult and rewarding adjustments that can be made.

Smoking is one of the most toxic things we can do to our bodies. From my experience and what I have studied smoking does not only increase your background toxicity but the longer we smoke with MCS the more it may decrease our resistance to toxicity. Smoking affects us badly on both fronts. If you suffer from MCS and smoke then find any way you can to stop as soon as possible*. The longer you smoke the worse your MCS will get.

Drinking:

If you have read all the posts before this one you know that I also loved drinking. In fact it was a round of severe alcohol poisoning that caused MCS for me. For myself I know that I can never safely drink again and have not done so for a little over sixteen years now. The good news is that many of us who have MCS can continue to drink with moderation. There have been studies that moderate consumption of wine and beer and can actually improve health. The real key here, especially for us, is the word ‘moderate’. Alcohol is a toxin. If we have too many drinks we will put ourselves over our own person toxicity threshold. If we do this too often we risk lowering our over all resistance to toxicity. For most of us a glass of beer or wine with dinner will do no harm.

Find out for yourself if moderate alcohol consumption is a MCS trigger for you. Also be carful about what is in the drink you are having. Many of us find such things as the sulfites in wine are a MCS trigger. Perhaps a certain brand of beer uses an ingredient that does now react well with you. If drinking is something you enjoy, I recommend you test it for yourself with caution. You may find it is something you can enjoy in moderation. You may find instead, it is something you have to give up to find true health.

Addiction:

For our purposes, addiction can be seen as the consistent, compulsive, overuse of any drug. If you have an addiction and MCS, find help to recover from your dependence. Real thriving will not happen until the addiction has stopped. As long as we over use anything we will continue to raise our background toxicity and lower our overall resistance.

On all three subjects of smoking, drinking and addiction I will not say that total abstinence is the only key. A complete cessation maybe the answer for many of us but I suspect not for all of us. Whether complete self denial or moderate usage is the correct path is a question that can only be answered by you. Use common sense in your experimentation with different items you may be tempted by. Ultimately the question is between you, any experts you employ and your spiritual center.

*I would discuss one possible exception to the above rule of abstinence form smoking. After not smoking for ten years and working hard to improve the conditions of my MCS, I discovered I could enjoy and occasional cigar with my friends. This is something I enjoyed one or two times a month for a few years. One day, after about three and a half years of entertaining cigars, I lost my taste for smoking. Unexpectedly I just no longer liked even the best cigars, for the last couple of years they have ceased to be even a temptation.

What Do I Do About…

2009-05-04T22:29:00.002-07:00

Not all of us experience Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) in the same way. We have different levels of tolerance. We experience the symptoms of MCS in different ways. Triggers for a MCS reaction will be different from person to person. Although there are many variations between people who have MCS, I believe that the similarities outweigh the differences. Look to see if you can relate to these similarities.

When I talk about say, cleaning the car, with luck that idea will lead to an quick lessening of symptoms. Perhaps it is a subject you have not yet thought about and is a hidden background trigger. Or maybe you don’t drive, but it gives you an idea on how to clean something else in your life. Possibly it will give you an idea that you can use later when confronted with a stubborn challenge. As with all information of this sort ‘Take what you need and leave the rest’.

So without further ado I will jump in and discuss what I do about…

A Thought Experiment

2009-05-04T22:29:00.001-07:00

MCS is a lessening of our body’s natural resistance to different substances. Even the healthiest of people when exposed to a potentially toxic substance will have an adverse reaction if the quantities are large enough.

Let’s take a look at the following thought experiment:

Envision a hypothetical healthy person who has a resistance to toxicity of 100. Below a toxic level of 100 our person has no ill effects; their body can deal with what is going on. Above a toxic level of 100 problems start to arise. The symptoms of having their toxicity go over a 100 will take different forms depending on what is causing the problem. Perhaps the result will be an upset stomach, tiredness, difficulty concentrating or maybe even a skin rash.

The toxicity level in our hypothetical person’s body does not have to rise all from the same source. Perhaps their day to day level is normally 40. This is due to different background items from their daily lives:
· +15 from the pollution of the city they live in.
· +10 from their hair care products (gel, scented conditioner, etc…).
· +5 from the polyester pants they are fond of wearing.
· +10 from the scented air freshener they use in their house.

Up until this point they have felt no Ill effects and have paid no attention what is going on.

Let’s make this day a little different. Today they are painting the bathroom, +50 for being exposed to paint fumes. This brings their toxic total to 90. They may begin to feel a little ‘out of it’ but no big deal; they expected it from the paint. Now, on the way to the grocery store after painting, our person’s car develops a leak in the coolant system. Coolant fumes are getting into to the cab of the car, +50. This puts the total toxicity in our person to 140. Our person is now feeling some mental confusion, slightly nauseous and more then a little dizzy. The coolant or the paint on their own would not have caused a problem, but combined they add to the over all toxicity of the situation and our person became ill.

Those of us with MCS are not too different. The main distinction is that we no longer have a resistance of 100. Ours is perhaps only a 20-30. (There are even those of us who for all intents and purposes have a resistance threshold of zero) This means that our hypothetical person’s normal life would be too much for our system to handle. If we were in their shoes we would feel poorly most of the time.

Of course the above thought experiment is meant to be a metaphor of our condition and not an explanation of MCS’s exact way of working. The real power in this metaphor is it has allowed me to create a couple of very effective strategies.

There are two parts of this metaphor that we have some control over. The first, and I believe the most powerful for us, is we can lower our background toxicity. This will keep us from feeling a constant MCS reaction. Also when something unexpected does happen it will not put our overall bodily toxicity higher then is absolutely necessary. To use the above metaphor; let’s say your threshold is a 40, the back ground toxicity is a 20, and something unexpected toxic agent comes along and adds another 30. This would put your total to a 50. Yes, you would have a MCS reaction but it would only be 10 over your threshold. If the background items had not been taken care of it might have been 20-40 over the threshold. I have found from experience that something much like this actually happens. I would rather experience a lesser MCS reaction that is only 10 above my tolerance level then a severe one that is 40 above*.

The fist main strategy I use is to lower my consistent back ground toxicity. I have found that not only does this lead me to feel good most of the time but also it will lower the severity of the MCS reactions when they do come.

The second thing we can do is to raise our tolerance level. If it is now a 30 then there are things we can do to make it perhaps a 50 or a 60. Although this second part is what most of us really want, there is a huge pitfall in it. We miss the dozen or so opportunities we have right now to feel better in favor of a hoped for future that may not come. Every one who has ever suffered form MCS has had the thought “How do I get rid of this problem and get back to my normal life?” Since people are creatures of inertia, what we really want is to keep living our lives in the same way we did before the onset of MCS. What none of us want at first is to change our own behavior. (I will be doing a lot of discussing on how to raise our personal toxicity thresholds later in this blog)

Our bodies are now different then they were before. After the onset of MCS we must change our actions if we are to thrive. I have experience with many paths that have raised my over all resistance to toxicity. I believe this is a very important path to follow. I will talk about this aspect of recovery later on in this blog. For now I’ll spend a fair amount of time discussing how I interact with different aspects of my environment to lower my immediate exposure. It is this strategy that creates relief now.

*For the first ten years of having MCS I suffered from constant symptoms. There was not a time in those years where I felt normal, or even close to it. I was suffering from a severe MCS reaction all the time. I would have given anything to have a solution that would have lessened my symptoms. So for those of us who have a threshold of zero, gaining control of our environment can lead to feeling better, even if feeling perfect is not an option at the moment. I would always rather experience a milder MCS reaction then a greater one.

Avoidance is the key

2009-05-03T20:16:00.000-07:00

Both the good news and the bad news about Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) is this… ‘Avoidance is the Key’.

The bad part of ‘Avoidance is the Key’ is, at this point, there is no cure for MCS. The vast majority of us will most likely not - just get better over time. The phrase ‘You can’t turn a pickle back into a cucumber’ that is often used in the addiction/alcoholism recovery community seems to hold true for us also, once we cross that line into MCS there is no going back.

The good news portion of ‘Avoidance is the Key’ is that we can make many choices that will improve our lives. Since MCS reactions are triggered by being exposed to some form of environmental toxicity, the number one thing we can all do is to minimize these exposures. We can choose healthy versions of the clothing we wear, the personal care products we put on our bodies, how we care for the cars we drive, and many more aspects of our environments.

Of course we can not manage everything around us. There will be times when we will be exposed to one of our MCS triggers and we will have a reaction. This is an aspect of living with MCS that we can not change. What we can change are our strategies for living with MCS. With the proper strategies we can minimize our exposure to environmental challenges and reduce the severity of our reactions to them.

At first glance ‘Avoidance is the Key’ may seem almost too obvious. Of course if exposure to something causes me to feel poorly then I should attempt to avoid being exposed. Those of us with MCS know that doing this is not always as easy as it sounds. I have found from experience that doing everything I can to avoid exposure from all sources can also have a secondary benefit. It can assist in lessening the severity of the symptoms of the next unexpected exposure.

What is a Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Reaction

2009-05-02T16:11:00.000-07:00

What is a Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Reaction…

Before we go further into how to prevent Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) reactions, a good question to start with would be… What is a MCS reaction?

The answer is a little more complex then I think most would expect. In fact, what triggers a MCS reaction and how that reaction manifests differs from person to person. Symptoms can take the form of the mental, the emotional and the physical.

Here is a partial list of symptoms:
· Mental confusion
· Temporary memory loss
· Sleepiness / Exhaustion
· Depression
· Irritability / Anger
· Headache
· Itchy eyes / Scratchy throat
· Ear ache / Ear ringing
· Palpitations of the heart
· Upset stomach / Nausea / Diarrhea
· Abdominal cramping
· Dizziness / Vertigo

What triggers a MCS reaction can be even more diverse then the symptoms. It is exactly this varied set of causes and reactions that makes MCS so hard to diagnose. However there are some guidelines we can use to find our own personal set of causes and symptoms.

If you think you are having a MCS reaction notice how it makes you feel and what may be causing it. At your first possible convenience remove that toxic element from your environment (or remove yourself from it). Notice if you feel better after a period of time. If you do , and this is often the hard part for those of us that live with MCS, bring yourself back into contact with that thing or place. If on a second exposure you feel the same as you did before, then you have a good indication of what is causing the reaction and what kind of symptoms that trigger is eliciting. Repeatability is an important part of discovering your personal set of causes and symptoms.

Once we learn what our triggers are we can work to avoid them. When we know what our symptoms are we can start to manage them.

The Start of Real Thriving

2009-05-02T16:10:00.000-07:00

For the first time since the Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) had started I was finding real ways to manage it. The next couple of years presented a time of ever increasing knowledge about how to improve things. I had found out what the problem was at its root and I was in a position to make it better.

The apartment I was in was great but I still did not feel as good as I wanted to most of the time. There began to be flashes of what I remembered as normal, an hour here and a few minutes there. Over the next several years of living in that apartment I would discover a lot of the triggers for different reactions and how to manage them.

The real blessing of the time I spent in my 1920’s, hard wood floor, with real wood construction apartment is that the space itself did not cause a MCS reaction with me. Being in a reaction free environment allowed me to test individual theories and what was a trigger to MCS and what was not. It also permitted me to discover how to minimize the reactions I was having and even to discover the existence of false reactions.

The next few years of putting what I was learning into practice would allow me to go from feeling not so good most of the time to being reaction free most of the time. I would discover what kind of cloths to buy and how to wash them. I would find out that taking showers in a certain way could almost always get rid of a reaction. I would learn a lot about bedding, kitchenware and how to work on my motorcycle. I would study a lot about plastics and how most of the plastics made after 2005 are almost always better. I would learn how to care for and clean my car. I discovered that often putting up with a short term MSC reaction would save me hours or days of an effect in the future. I would even find that some the things I was once afraid of would turn out to be ok.

The main purpose for everything I am writing here is to help you, the reader, get better faster. In the following posts you may find strategies for management that can be put into place tonight instead of spending months or years discovering them on you own. If life gets better for you then I will have achieved my goal in all of this. No matter how bleak it seams it can get better.

I hope you find what you are looking for in the posts to come.

Learning Where to Live

2009-05-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

The place I was moving out from was an old house made some time right after WWII. It had hard wood floors, no dish washer, and an inificiant electric furnace. At the time I didn’t like it very much. I was about to discover what a blessing it had been.

The first place I moved into was a one bedroom apartment from mid 70’s construction. It had shag carpet and aluminum window frames. The price and location were good and it seemed to be a excellent place to live. I was wrong. A few hours after I moved in I started to feel awful. I couldn’t concentrate; I was groggy and slept almost every moment I was in that apartment. I hated coming home each day. Thankfully the landlord let me out of my lease and I found another apartment the following month.

I never fully determined what was effecting me in that apartment but I did form a few educated guesses; the carpet and perhaps the window frames. During the 1970’s a lot of carpet was ‘finished’ with highly toxic chemicals. There was a rash of people who got sick from their carpets. It was found that the makers of these carpets were leaving formaldehyde (and other unpleasant things) behind in the in the manufacturing process*. The other most likely culprit was the aluminum window panes. To be clear it was not primarily the exposed metal but it was the mold that constantly grew on the aluminum. These type of window panes are no longer manufactured because of exactly this sort of trouble.

The next place I moved into was even worse then the first. It was a third floor, one bedroom that was constructed in the mid 1980’s. I would leave the apartment and feel pretty good only to return and have some the worst chemical sensitivity reactions I have ever experienced. Most of the time my reactions to things cause me to feel mentally thick, groggy, and tired, but this was something different. It affected me on an emotional level I had not yet experienced. Within a half an hour of coming home from work it felt as if my soul would to break into a thousand pieces. For no other reason, apart from a reaction to my environment, I would feel deep emotional pain. Depression and despair so strong it actually hurt physically would come over me and not leave again until I went outside for at least an hour. I did what I could to minimize what was going on. I kept the windows open as mush as possible. I purchased an indoor air filter and kept it running 24/7. I attempted to not come home as much as possible. I talked to my new landlords but this time I was stuck, I would have to ride out the entire six month lease.

Again, I never did find out what exactly was causing such a bad reaction in that place but years later I did come up with one good possibility, particleboard. About five years after I moved out from that place I read an article about how particleboard was being used in a lot of new home construction since the 1980’s, and how it may be causing some problems. If you look at a house made before the 1950’s most of the kitchen construction, such as the cupboards and cabinets are all made of real unprocessed wood. After the 1980’s, almost all of the same objects are made from particleboard.** The two main problems with particleboard are the toxic glues used to hold all the wood ‘chips’ together and other chemicals used as preservatives to keep the wood from decomposing. Once again the culprit was, for a time, formaldehyde used as a preservative. Thankfully today many of the chemicals used in the past are no longer allowed in modern construction.

My third attempt at a place to live that year paid off. I found a studio apartment in a 1920’s brick building. The apartment had hard wood floors, solid wood construction in the kitchen and did not seem to cause me problems. I had found a place of my own that I liked and I could be in charge of what came into the space. I was still not at a point where I felt great all the time. I had a way to go before I would again feel unaffected by my environment, but for the first time that year I believed I was capable of getting there.

*As an aside to this point, what can be put into carpets and carpet pads these days have become strictly regulated due to these problems. I have been in several places that have recently had there carpet redone and have been surprised that I have not reacted badly to these environments.

**I have since found out that America and Europe have very different ideas about what is toxic and not. I have tried several different American made items that contain particleboard and have not found any that work for me. The good news is that Items bought from Ikea are all made with the European Union standards. I now own several pieces of furniture containing particleboard that were made in Europe, and have had no problems with them. (Well… they often do space me out for the first couple of days but this passes quickly as they ‘air out’)

Discovering Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome

2009-04-30T21:12:00.000-07:00

The husband and wife team I had been seeing knew their stuff. I was actually feeling good some of the time. I had not felt this well in eight or nine years. I also noticed that I did not feel good sometimes. At times I felt as bad as I did before I started seeing the naturopath / homeopath team. What was going on? Was is simply a random swing associated with getting better or was there a pattern?

From taking psychology classes in collage I knew it was possible to find out. One of the most basic forms of isolating a variable is the ABAB style of experiment. In this case if I suspected something of having a negative impact on how I felt I would expose myself to it, then take it away, then reintroduce it, take it away again. After doing this a few times it is possible to find things that cause me to not feel so good. So the question is what caused me to feel bad? It is food? Places? People? Things?

A big clue came when I housemate of mine moved in a new carpet for his bedroom. I had been feeling good for a while until the day he brought home a roll of old. I got home from work that day and suddenly felt awful. The next day I went off to work and felt much better, and again I felt terrible when I got home. The carpet did not seem to affect my other housemates. After a little coaxing I talked him into trying a little experiment with me, we put the carpet out in the carport for the night. About an hour later I felt better again, in 2 hours I felt as good as I had a few days before. To me this was both exciting and puzzling. Carpet had never made me feel bad before and the carpet did not seem to affect anyone else. Were there other things out there that also effected the way I felt? If so, where to begin?

I started with what I felt was the most likely candidates, food. I Did an ABAB style experiment with the most probable contestants; wheat, soy, corn and dairy. No effect (well, maybe a little for wheat but I'll get to that later). I tried a few other food related items, reading labels for a cluster for food preservatives, and found little to no effect. Next, I focused on clothing. I a very short time I was surprised at how much of a difference clothing seemed to make. Some of my favorite items made things mush worse while others had little to no effect. Quickly a pattern seemed to emerge, natural fabrics good, artificial fibers bad. The next logical set seemed to be personal care products. I started with deodorant, I tied scented vs. unscented and found a big difference. Toothpastes had no effect. The Shampoo I had was bad and the conditioner was worse. I then went down to the local natural market and bought an all-natural unscented shampoo and tried it again. Much, much better this time. I then went and got a short haircut and have never touched conditioner again.

The overall pattern that was beginning to emerge was this: I did not react well to man made stuff, things that were all natural had a much better chance of working well. I wanted more control of my environment after this and decided to move out on my own.

Recovery Continues

2009-02-26T17:22:00.000-08:00

For the last few years I had been using chiropractic adjustments as an excuse to visit a friend of mine. One to two times a week I went in to get a tune-up. I was never really sure if the adjustments were helping but I figured the treatments couldn't hurt, and anyway I enjoyed my friend's company.

One day, two new practitioners set up shop in the clinic he was working out of. They were a husband and wife team who were focused in the area of alternative medicine. The husband was a naturopath, specializing in treating people using vitamins and herbs. The wife was a homeopath, treating people with homeopathic remedies. They would work in concert with each other to assist people where western medicine would often offer no cure. My friend told me a little about what they did and I was intrigued. Perhaps this was the next thing on my path to recovery. I made appointments with them both. I was a little skeptical after my experience with regular doctors. I was scared that I would once again be pronounced healthy and sent on my way.

I was a slightly embarrassed to admit that I knew little about either naturopathy or homeopathy. I had studied much about food and what to eat and what not too. I understood that to be healthy I needed to take in healthy building blocks to construct my body with. These to practitioners revealed that there was more to learn. By this time I was tired of doing it on my own, instead of trying to become an expert on a new subject I would got to see them both and let the process unfold.

Let's back up a little. For the last six months I was feeling better, not good most of the time, but better. Through this time I started to notice that I felt improved at some times and poorer at others. I began asking why? There must be some variable that was causing it. Was it internal or external? Could I notice a pattern? The times of feeling good and the times of feeling bad were not dramatically different, but they were noticeable. With only a rather short time of noticing the fluctuation I had not put together any real theory of what was going on before I started to see this alternative medicine team.

I started by seeing the naturopath. I told him how thinking was often a challenge. I said how ideas seemed to start in one place and get blown by a whirlwind and miss their intended mark. Where once learning had come easy it was now a struggle. I talked about how my vision was always grainy and how I was almost always never fully awake. The most amazing thing happened on that first visit; where I had experienced only blank stairs and disbelief from heal care professionals, and a lot of other people, he believed every word I spoke. It was the often spoke of, weight off the shoulders. Not only did he believe me, he said that he had spoken with people about this sort of thing before. Oh My God, I was not alone. He even said that there was a good chance we could correct the issue. I breathed a sigh of relief and waited with rapt attention as he said what we would do next.

He said that since it had all started with alcohol poising we should clean out the liver. He put me on a regimen of liver cleansing and rebuilding. He warned me that as things detoxified I would most likely feel worse before I got better. Sure enough this is what happened, but after a few weeks of feeling a little sick I was again feeling better.

A few days after seeing the naturopath I went to his wife the homeopath. I walked into her office knowing nothing about homeopathy, but it didn't matter. Her husband had believed me when I talked about my symptoms and I had faith in her. The first thing she had me do was fill out a long questionnaire. It asked about my past health, my relationship with both my parents, my relationship with other people. It asked about my views on life, love, money, and just about every thing else I could imagine. I was confused. I came here to clear up my brain. Why did she want to know about all of this? For the next half hour we talked about the questionnaire and lots of other stuff. At the end of the visit she went to large filing cabinet and pulled out a small white packet that looked like it contained sugar granules. She told me to put the contents of the packed under my tongue and let it dissolve. It tasted like sugar also. Now I was really confused. Had I just paid a fair amount of money just to be given a sugar pill, a placebo? Thankfully she sent me home with a book on what homeopathy was and asked me to read it before I came back in two weeks.

Homeopathy was like nothing I had encountered before. It is based on the premise that if you give the body a little of something it will learn how to deal with a lot of it. It posits that every substance taken into the body will have an effect on it. This effect is called a Symptom Cluster. So if a person takes an incredibly small amount of substance X then they will exhibit symptom cluster Y. The way homeopathic treatments works is, the practitioner will start by finding out what your symptoms are for your particular disease state. Then they will match your symptoms with a known symptom cluster caused by a cretin substance. Finally they will give you an incredibly small amount of that substance. The result is that your body will naturally adapt to that substance and symptom cluster, thus causing your body to heal from the disease state causing the same symptoms.

I was skeptical at best when I found out what homeopathy was, but it did seam to be working. To follow an increasingly common pattern, taking her treatment made me feel worse almost instantly. The first week or two after seeing them both was rough, but after that things started to make a marked improvement. After a month of doing what they said I felt noticeably better. In only three months of working with this husband and wife pair I had experienced more recovery then I had over the last two years. Things were still not where I remembered them but I was beginning to have days that approached it. Things were good, but there was still obviously something else going on.

Note:
Looking back on it I'm still not sure if homeopathy really did something for me or if it was just an elaborate method for eliciting the placebo response. To be absolutely honest I still don't care if this answer is ever fully answered for me. The results were worth every bit of the time, money and effort. I will be grateful to both of them for years to come.

The Beginnings of Recovery

2009-02-26T17:21:00.000-08:00

I had discovered a strategy that seemed to be paying off. Almost six years after it all began I was starting to feel better. I was convinced that I had found the answer to getting well again. Over the next couple of years I dove into the work of recovery. I would clean up my psyche, nourish my spirit, and cleanse my body. I had not only the lash of my daily experience of being sick but I had also found a carrot in a possible way to get better. The carrot and the stick drove me hard; I was determined to pursue the answer.

I found a councilor. We talked about my childhood. I screamed into pillows. I grabbed a bat and beat on a punching bag. We discovered things about my relationship with my parents that had held me back. This was great; I was feeling better all the time. A bunch of old stuff was being cleared out of my psyche. Surely this was going to be a big part of the answer.

Of all the spiritual concepts I had studied it was Zen Buddhism that resonated best with me. Not really knowing where I might find a group to teach me, I looked up Zen Buddhism in the phone book. There was only one entry and it was within walking distance of my apartment. Two to three times a week I would make the walk and practice Zen Meditation. I went on Zen retreats. I continued to read books on the subject. I found others who seamed to have something to say and I learned what they had to teach. I continued to fell better; surely this was also a huge part of recovery.

While flipping through the channels one day I saw a small blurb about a book called, "The Yeast Connection". The symptoms associated with having too much yeast in your system sounded like me. The next day I ran down to the local bookstore and read the back cover and bought the book. I began to follow the anti-yeast diet. A few weeks later I ran across a book called, "The Miracle of Fasting". It promised to clean out my system of all toxins that had accumulated over the years. Since I had poisoned my self with vodka this would surely help. Over the next year I became vegan, I tried to eat organic as much as possible, and I fasted. Each month I would go on a 24 to 36 hour fast to clean my self out. Twice in that year I fasted for 7 days. Each month I would notice an improvement over the month before. I believed I was on the road to putting the way I had felt behind me. Rebuilding my body with healthy ingredients was surely a part of the way to recovery.

At the end of that year I looked like a different person. I had lost 45lbs. My skin was clear and bright. My cholesterol was a low 95 despite the fact that I ate French fries three times a week. Physically I was the picture of wellbeing. Everything I encountered in the organic health community pointed to the wisdom of what I was doing. If I had enough faith, practiced harder, cleared out the blockages from my psyche, and ate healthy there was no malady that could not be overcome. I had become a poster child for new age health.

Things got better, but began to plateau at the end of the first year. I felt better then I had in a long time but I was still nowhere near what I remembered was possible. I had found something that had shown results. I redoubled my efforts and lasted on this path for another year, but no matter how hard I worked full recovery was out of reach. My brain was clearing up but only to a point. My body shined but there was still deadness behind my eyes that I could not bring back to life.

If I could make it this far back to thriving again then I could make it further. I had discovered things that had worked and now it was just a matter of finding what else was out there.

The First Few Years, Part Two

2009-02-08T17:23:00.000-08:00

The drinking again accelerated. What had been a few to relax a couple times a week became an every night event. The frequency was greater and so was the amount consumed at each sitting. Being numb and suffering was better then fully awake and suffering. My old cure had found a new purpose, anestitizing a downward slide.

Six months later my health could no longer support the drinking. I had hit bottom. Being sober was intolerable and so was being drunk. I had an understanding of the expression 'Between a rock and a hard place' I had never before imagined.

I knew to drink meant a very dark and possibly short future and to not drink felt like a fate worse then any other. Somewhere in the darkness I remembered a seemingly long gone hope to be better. Perhaps not drinking was the answer to again feeling alive.

Somewhere during the night of January 31st that year I took my last drink*. I realized that to drink ultimately left me with no hope, being sober left me with the possibility of hope. I slept for a week. I expected things to get better, they didn't. Things got worse at first then much worse in a short period of time. My body and my spirit had no idea how to live this way. That first year without alcohol was the worst of my life.

During that year I dove into gaining a spiritual relationship with a higher power. I discovered that the main block I had with the idea of God was every one else's ideas about God. I let all my preconceived notions behind and read every book on the subject I could get my hands on.

This year I also set forth on cleaning up my past. I knew that, like a shopkeeper with a stock room full of un-sellable items, it was necessary to get rid of what was not working and make way for what would.

Somewhere around one year sober I started to feel better. Don't get me wrong, I still felt bad, but for the fist time in a very long while things were headed in the right direction. For the next several months I noticed improvement, the strategy I was using was working. I dove into the three-pronged plan with gusto. I stopped putting things in my body that did not belong there. I started getting rid of the things in my psyche that were not working. All the while searching for a spiritual connectedness. Perhaps I had finally found the path back clarity. The rode to recovery had finally begun.

*I had up until this point also been smoking a pack a day for the previous ten years. One month after I quit drinking I also quit smoking. The cessation of putting this toxicity into my body was a vital step in my recovery from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.

The First Few Years - Part One

2009-02-07T15:31:00.000-08:00

In the spring of 1989 I was in my second year at an academically intensive privet college. I had been getting good grades in upper level classes; I had a girlfriend, and a cure for social anxiety. All of this changed seemingly overnight.

I found cognitive tasks that were easy for me only a few weeks before had become exceedingly challenging. I dropped out of two of my classes after failing the first exams. In history 101, a class that should have been easy, I found myself struggling to get a D. Once where I posessed clarity, I could now only find fog. It was as if any thought that formed was quickly lost in a whirlwind before it could reach its destination.

Not only was my thinking impaired but my vision was different also. The world looked like it was playing on a VHS tape that had been recorded over too many times. Everything appeared grainy. No matter how much I focused the details of what I was focusing on seemed to drop away.

Among other things my sense of direction seemed to also disappear. I always had a firm map in my head; I knew where I was and where the things around me were. I could wonder off anywhere and never dread for finding my way back. Suddenly I would get lost in places I had known my whole life. Going in to any building that had more then one floor caused me to fear for my ability to find my way back out. It was as if the world out side of my immediate field of vision has simply vanished.

For the first few weeks I didn't worry much. I thought everything would get better. I believed that a month from then I would look back on that time as a simple curiosity. But as time passed things did not get better. Six weeks went by and there was no improvement. I had seen pictures of chronic alcoholics with 'wet brain', dead tissue showing up on MRIs as dark spots where healthy gray should be. I imagined my own brain looking like this. It was time to see the doctor.

On the next break from college I saw several specialists and had a lot of tests run. I had my blood drawn, every thing normal. A complete physical only showed I was enjoying above average health. The eye exam displayed 20/20 vision. The EEG was fine. Even the MRI I so feared showed a totally healthy brain. What was going on? I felt far from normal but all the experts kept saying I was the picture of physical health.

If physical health was not the problem then it must have been mental. I wanted this gone so I could get on with my life. Time to go see a psychiatrist. After only one visit she diagnosed me with depression. I felt so relieved. There was an answer after all. A couple of months on the antidepressants and I did not feel better, in fact if anything I felt even worse. Try again; change the dosage, no luck this time either. The psychiatrist changed the medication. The new antidepressant did was even worse. OMFG, this had to work, let's try again. A third antidepressant was a total bust. Despair.

A year and a half after it all started I had dropped out of collage, lost the girlfriend, and was making pizzas for minimum wage. I had been declared healthy and I knew depression was not my problem. The drinking had not gone away during this period, but it had lessened considerably. After exhausting all the avenues for getting better that I knew of at the time, desperation began to set in. So did a renewed love of drinking. I figured if I was to be without hope I might as well be drunk.

How it all started for me

2009-02-05T20:09:00.000-08:00

For me the onset of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) came about after a massive overload of toxicity in the spring of 1989. To understand this potentially lethal event that heralded the arrival of MCS, I think it is important to under stand some of the events that lead up to it.

The academic side of school was always easy for me. Where the true challenge lay was in the social realm. Other kids always seemed to fit in a little better and interact a little easier. Most kids wilted in class and thrived at recess. I was exactly the opposite. The classroom was an alcove of logical thinking in a sea of messy social interactions. The best rewards often went to those who put forth the least intellectual effort. I perpetually felt isolated, alone and was convince I was somehow flawed.

Now it wasn't that I lacked an innate social ability (as I found out much later in life) but rater I suffered from an almost complete lack of learned social skills. When I first started to realize this I, like many when starting voyage of self-discovery, blamed my parents. What were they thinking? How could they do this to me? Why had they withheld these vital teachings from me? Of course the truth is they could not teach what they themselves did not know. The grandparents obviously did not know it either, and from the stories I heard, neither did the great-grandparents. How to interact with the rest of the social world was simply not part of the family tree. This left me permanently in the shallow end, scared and barely keeping my head above water while the rest of the kids frolicked in the deep end of the social pool.

Now I don't mention all of this for any cathartic reason but simply to set the stage for that magical moment when I found the cure for all my self-doubt, fear and anxiety I experienced in the social world. The day came early in my freshmen year of high school when I found the grand elixir of interactivity… Alcohol! To my great relief I discovered that after only a few drinks I was as seemingly relaxed and happy as anyone else. All the uncomfortable feelings of being with others were gone. This was wonderful! I was home!

If this story sounds familiar to you or reminds you of someone you love, I suspect you already know the punch line… The happy upside of drinking doesn't last forever. It was not long before the sense of ease and comfort I enjoyed was harder and harder to come by. More drinking was need and it was needed more often. By the time I got to college there was simply not enough beer to make me feel as if I fit in. The cure I had celebrated for so long was letting me down. Not having another option, I continued to peruse drink with an increased gusto. But no matter how much I drank, the feeling of being on the outside of all could not be drowned.

One night, after a particularly successful and stressful party that I had thrown, I started drinking. I had been sober from noon to midnight working hard at making others happy. All had a good time. It was time to make up for my last twelve hours of sobriety and start drinking. I stared with a few beers, and nothing happened. I dove into last tray of vodka jell-o, still nothing was happening. I was starting to get frantic. Then in a seaming flash of brilliance I remembered that we had not used all the vodka. I opened a half gallon bottle and chugged. Finally some relaxation was coming over me, things would be all right once again. I sat on the front porch of the house and kept drinking straight from the plastic jug. Occasionally someone would come home and have a sip or two then move on. By one o'clock, an hour later, there was only about two inches left at the bottom. I sat amazed in the realization that between the beers, the jell-o and this bottle I had drank the equivalent of a half-gallon of cheap eighty-proof liquor. I hoped that maybe this time the alcohol would again bring the sense of peace and happiness that it once did. Maybe this amount would be enough.

Oddly, I could remember every detail of that night for years to come. Neither that night nor the next morning did I ever feel ill, my stomach was never queasy, I never even felt dizzy. Much later on I realized that I had drank much more then was enough to kill a man my size, and I still never even got a hangover. Although I may have dodged the bullet of the immediate effects of my over consumption, the bomb of long-term consequence had fallen squarely on me. I was lucky to have woken up the next day, but I awoke to a life that would never again be the same.

What is Multiple Chemical Sensitivity?

2009-02-02T19:01:00.000-08:00

Before we begin discussing how to thrive with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) I feel it is important to have a good understanding what MCS is.

In 1989 a group of researchers looking into MCS came up with the following list of criteria for the disorder:

Symptoms are reproducible with repeated (chemical) exposures.
The condition has persisted for a significant period of time.
Low levels of exposure (lower than previously or commonly tolerated) result in manifestations of the syndrome (i.e. increased sensitivity).
The symptoms improve, or resolve completely, when the triggering chemicals are removed.
Responses often occur to multiple, chemically unrelated substances.
Symptoms (can) involve multiple-organ symptoms (runny nose, itchy eyes, headache, scratchy throat, ear ache, scalp pain, mental confusion or sleepiness, palpitations of the heart, upset stomach, nausea and/or diarrhea, abdominal cramping, aching joints

I'll admit that this is a somewhat 'clinical' viewing of MCS but when I saw the list for the first time I thought, "Oh my God, That's me!" After seeing this short list of criteria for MCS I felt as if I wanted to run around and shout at the world, "Look everyone… it's real! I told you I was not imagining it!" Just knowing that people were researching MCS meant that I was not the only person in the world experiencing it.

Many people who have MCS had it start with an acute toxic event such as an unintended exposure to industrial chemicals, alcohol poisoning or chemotherapy. With some it coincides with the onset of a chronic disease such as lupus or fibromyalgia. For others simply being repeatedly exposed to the barrage of manmade chemicals in our modern world lowers their resistance over time. What causes MCS varies from person to person. But one defining attribute we all have is a drastically lowered resistance to environmental toxicity.