Re: Welcome to the Winter Flame Wars

[Guest guest]

Thank you Serena, the first part funny, yea I was noticing a little

stress in some posts. God you hit my illness right on the nail, the

yeast, allergies and gene problem. I am just so scared about it. It

is a comfort to have you guys. I can't believe you typed all that but

very intellegent post. I don't see your brain fog. You seem very

clear to me.

[Guest guest]

Thanks for the levity........I am actually feeling pretty good for now, what

with everything

all frozen, I am dealing with less stuff than in the fall, thank heavens. But

that may still not

be too good, what with all being shut up.

>

> Sorry some of us are feel a little less than spectacular. The comments

about indoor

vs. outdoor mold sensitivities were pretty much on the mark, I think. We're

running a

couple of weeks behind the expected schedule, but the Winter Wars are off to a

lovely start

this year. Close the windows, close the doors, roll up the car windows, turn on

the heat,

and get ready to spend a few months cozied up to whatever indoor environmentals

are

trapped in there with you. And let the good times roll, y'all, because if

there's anybody

anywhere who knows how to become irritable from the junk in our environments,

it's

definitely us! The airlines can only wish their arrival and departure times were

as steady.

Merry Bah Humbug, everyone. : )

>

> " " " The Allergen vs. Toxin thing. I may live to regret this, but I'm gonna

try to explain it

as best I can, given my present understanding. And then I'm probably gonna duck

and

cover and you all can do as you will with it.

>

> There are two sides to the two sides of it, if you will. If you _are_

colonized, fungi like

aspergillus can do stuff to your intestinal tract that makes the gut

permeability candida

causes look rather pretty and benign. We're not talking microscopic pinholes.

We're talking

holes you could put a finger through. A little diet and nystatin for that,

thinking you're

only killing off c.albicans, and you could just about kill someone if you didn't

have a clue

what was really going on. You'd tell them incredibly stupid things like " Herxing

is good. It

means it's working. " You wouldn't know whether you were killing off candida, or

provoking a total mother of a response from the dieoff of some fungi that are

known

killers - like aspergillus, with its aflatoxin product. You wouldn't get that

people who have

become sufficiently loaded up with other mycotoxins are going to suffer some

responses

Herxheimer didn't even think about. You wouldn't realize that c.albicans is just

the

newborn puppy in the wolfpack. " First, do no harm " means that first, you'd

better know

what you're dealing with. C. albicans is grossly underrated and grossly

undertreated, but it

doesn't hold a candle to the big boys like stachy. " " " "

This is what I think happened to me. I only took 1 small diflucan every 3 1/2

days, and I

still thought I was going to die for months. I am so grateful for my

chiropractor, who

supported me with detox and supplements, and moral support, since the docs don't

really

know much about that part of it.

" " " " "

> There's another side to the allergen/toxin mess. If I'm understanding what

Shoemaker

was trying to say about the biotoxin pathway, it's more like the tollbooth on

the biotoxin

superhighway. Once the toxins are able to provoke a sufficient inflammatory

response, it's

ALL on - every (apparent) allergic response all the way up to MCS status. As

long as those

toxins remain riding around on those fat cells, you can't really dial it back

down. To treat

allergies, you have to be dealing with someone before they have gone so toxic

that they

can no longer be dealt with by those means. But if you CAN remove the toxins

sufficiently,

the allergic responses will get dialled back down right along with the reaction

caused by

the toxin load. For those who don't possess the genetic problem with offloading

the toxins

in the first place, this is a pretty simple matter. Get away from the mold, and

treat the

allergy. Problem solved, it's your lucky day.

>

> But for those who do have the genetic problem, you have a messy problem that

will

increase slowly throughout your whole life until you hit " the wall " - the point

where the

inflammation cycle is switched on and can't switch back off again. That is what

happens

when the very low-level background exposure that happens in normal life is

replaced by

the higher level of exposure we get when indoor mold is allowed to grow. When

that

happens, ALL inflammatory responses are exacerbated - allergies, toxins, and

every other

ache or pain you possess. The whole thing. You could treat any accompanying

allergies

until hell freezes over, but until you remove the toxin load sufficiently, it

won't really

help. " " " '''

This is also what happened to me.

" " " And God help any of us who have additional problems lying in the muck that

used to

be a functioning body. It just complicates the mess.

> We have at hand a real possibility of seeing a lot more people get more well,

and of

experiencing less harm along the way, and actually, creating more success

stories

amongst those who are trying to help us - and what we get are these running

arguments

instead about what is the ONLY " right " way to treat this. And it's just a shame.

There's not

a right or a wrong in it. There's just new information, and the only really

stupid move is to

not to engage with it fully and see what we can do with it.

>

> So. Ho Ho Ho and Bah Humbug. All I want for Christmas is an open,

functioning mind

and maybe a semi-decent attitude.

I agree. There is no such thing as an anomaly. There is only a deficient thesis.

Maybe a

good start, but not covering everything. So we have to go with what we have.

I really appreciate your clarifing the toxic/allergy response. It really helps

me to make

more sense of my life, as for so many years I had no idea what was wrong, and

the current

theories didn't quite fit my slow descent into illness, depression and nearly,

death. All the

while being told it was all in my head, and that I was thinking myself into the

grave, etc

and all that kind of absolute no-holds-barred HOOEY.

A functioning mind is a great gift, and if it is open to boot, Halleluia! That

would indeed

make a great Christmas present.

[Guest guest]

Dear Serena,

What to say? This whole thing is so difficult. I am glad you are feeling better,

and sorry you

went through that.

If the antibiotics are mold in pill form (at least the one you took) then it is

no surprise to

me that your system went AWOL. Just inhaling the smell of hot pizza used to make

my

throat swell up, and my whole body go wacky- probably from the mold in it, the

doc said.

It is better now, though we attacked it on several fronts: getting it out of the

house,

getting out of the body with diflucan and desensitization with the mold drops,

which

surprisingly helps, though it has been a mother to work with. I am a bad

patient, and fool

around with doses all the time- it drives them nuts, but i know what my body can

tolerate,

and I hate it when I overdo something, you know what happens.

If you took it for 30 days, no wonder you were messed up. One of the most

difficult parts

of this is the mental incompetence that happens to many of us. It makes it so

much worse,

I end up making myself sicker by stupid things, because I just can't think. I

am starting to

venture out in the world a little bit, and have to be really careful, but even

that doesn't

work very well, cause it is impossible to control environments and situations

" out there " .

For me too, a small hit puts me back in a bad bad place. But now, I am

recovering faster

than before- I am hoping it is because the mold is gone at home, so my body CAN

recover, not being rehit every single day.

Thanks for the reminder about vigilance. SInce I have been allergic most of my

life

(starting with an infection at age 2 & 1/2) I have always had to deal with

restrictions in my

life, diet and lifestyle. As a child I used to wonder if I would ever be able to

lead a normal

life. The docs said that many people grow out of their allergies, and I might

too. They did

change alot, but never entirely went away. I was able to maintian a Normal

enough life for

many years, but still had to be mindful of some things. I hope to one day be

able to have a

job again. I hope that my reactivity will reverse with treatment so I can be

productive and

helpful. I have to be optimistic; there is hope, there has to be.

Going forward is always the best idea! Onwards and Upwards!

Just look at how much better you are now, your body is healing itself, and you

certainly are

thinking and reasoning well. I don't know how smart you are, but you are smarter

now

than I used to be, so, keep on thinkin', that's all I got to say.

>

> You know, , I read and pondered this whole illness for so long now,

that I think

it's just really beginning to make sense to me. That bad run-in I had with the

antibiotics in

September is what really capped it. No way 30 days of that stuff should have

wiped me out

for a full 8 weeks. But it did. I was so wrecked it took another week of Actos

after that

before I could tolerate CSM again. It was royally miserable, and it was just

like a mini-

version of the really ultra-bad stuff last year. Only this time, I had a clue

what was

happening. (Not that being clueful is worth anything when you're that

brain-dead, or I'd

have called the doc the minute I knew things were going badly and saved myself a

world of

hurt.)

>

> But it may have been worth it all, in a very perverse way. What happened was

just

stunning in its ferocity and how fast it got me. That's how close it is - just a

single new

exposure away. And suddenly, I was reacting to everything, and hurting

everywhere. Had

the bronchial stuff, too. And this stuff was NOT airborn! It was in a tablet. So

I finally, at

long last, ate some mold. And hey - whaddya know? The reaction is absolutely

identical to

breathing it, just in case anyone was still wondering what the heck they're

talking about

over on Planet CDC. But the second it got hold of me, I started reacting to

airborn stuff as

well, like the hit coming off that cleanser I got near. When I react, I itch.

Here, there, all

over, all the time. I was digging holes in my skin again. The myoclonus got

worse and

hasn't completely cleared up yet. The blurry vision and nightblindness came

right back. I

was an emotional wreck (though a lot of that had to do with Katrina). Being sick

just made

it

> all the worse. Various foods were making me nauseus, and I could barely tell

what was

a hit from what wasn't again, except for that cleanser stuff. I finally got back

on the CSM,

the reactivity got dialed back down to the somewhat-do-able range after a few

weeks, and

I'm pretty much back where I was when the Great Antibiotic Surprise Adventure

started.

>

> The lessons to me were just how little it really takes, how far and how

quickly the

illness can go, and how much more vigilant I need to be if I want to be even

sort of well.

And I can see even more plainly than before how I got so sick when others around

me took

longer to react and didn't get as ill or stay this way. I had already hit the

wall, and some of

them hadn't. And now I can never go back, which the antibiotic experience proved

to me

once and for all. (BTW - it doesn't matter which antibiotic it was that got me.

Everyone is

different, and there are still some I can take safely if I really need to. I'm

not downing

antibiotics, just urging caution.) Anyway, not something I'd care to repeat, so

I hope I took

the best information I could get from it. In an odd way, I'm probably more

reconciled to

this situation than I ever was before. That is, I'm still mad as hell about it

all, and I'll keep

fighting until the government and these corporations do right by us, but I

> understand that no matter what they do, I can't go back. I'm already

" cooked " . It would

be all swell if somebody could actually invent a super-duper mold cleaner-upper,

but they

can never build one sufficient for the likes of me. It just is what it is and I

have to deal.

>

>

>

>

> Serena

>

> There is no such thing as an anomaly. Recheck your original premise.

> ...Ayn Rand,

paraphrased

[Guest guest]

SERENA EDWARDS

> There's another side to the allergen/toxin mess. If I'm

understanding what Shoemaker was trying to say about the biotoxin

pathway, it's more like the tollbooth on the biotoxin superhighway.

Once the toxins are able to provoke a sufficient inflammatory

response, it's ALL on - every (apparent) allergic response all the

way up to MCS status.

> In a situation like this, some of the CFS researchers believe

that the inflammatory response of a patient is such that they can

bang their shin and get a migraine. Not referred pain - but a total

body response caused by extremely exaggerated inflammatory

responses.

> Within the CFS community, there are two opposing lines of lore -

the one that says we are the people who will roll over for the first

bug that bites us, and then there's the other one, which says that

we are so immunologically tuned up that we should probably be the

first to volunteer to work with cholera victims, because we won't

get it no matter what we do. <

Yes. This is the entire point of my chapter, the reason for

disagreement with Dr about the " specificity " of my

reactivity to Stachy, and the basis for the strategy that has

allowed me to " escape " CFS and MCS.

Like you, Serena, I am one of the " invulnerables " identiifed by Dr

Cheney.

At first, people said that CFS was an " immune weakness " and

projected that CFSers would all die-off at the very next cold or flu

outbreak. We not only DIDN " T die, we didn't even catch anything.

The Mold Warriors story is supposed to illustrate that the toxic

values of the exposure are not driven by dosage, and that

conventional concepts of allergy don't apply. My commanding officer

didn't become so reactive by overdosing on peanuts, yet this

exposure is an incredible mediator of the inflammatory response and

provides a comparable conceptual model for Biotoxin Mediated Illness.

When I had such a strong reaction to my green binoculars, as told

in the old messages, I knew darn well that no level of remediation

was ever going to restore a functional lifestyle in that

environment - so I went all-out on extreme avoidance, using my

military training in biowarfare as a guide. Although being a pain

in the butt - it sure beats the alternative.

I'm looking forward for that curative " magic bullet " so I won't have

to put so much effort into avoidance, but I'll let you guys test it

out first and see if it works.

-

[Guest guest]

,

> At first, people said that CFS was an " immune weakness " and

> projected that CFSers would all die-off at the very next cold or flu

> outbreak. We not only DIDN " T die, we didn't even catch anything.

This was my experience, also. At the peak of my illness 20 years ago,

I never had a viral infection - no colds, flu or anything. After I

started getting better, then I had a monster head cold.

Carl Grimes

Healthy Habitats LLC