MCS

[Guest guest]

>By the way, Slaya, are you or were you chemically sensitive? If so, did 's

treatment help this? Anne

I had what I would call " moderate " chemical sensitivity for many years.

It wasn't wholly debilitating to the extent that some people's is, thank God.

The ordinary " really bad " things (scented candles, fabric softeners, cigarettes,

perfume, cleaning chemicals, bleach, tar, wood smoke, etc.) made me feel quite

ill, and I did everything I could to avoid them. I seriously thought about

asking my doctor for a handicapped license plate merely so that I wouldn't have

to pump gasoline, but usually I was able to get someone else to pump it for me.

My MCS actually got worse after I moved out of my really moldy house and started

avoiding mold. Over the next eight months, it gradually decreased and then went

away entirely.

There's a catch here though. The chemical sensitivities only stay away insofar

as I continue to avoid mold really scrupulously. If I get much mold exposure,

they come right back again.

For instance, last fall I decided to buy a little Casita trailer and arranged to

drive to the factory in Rice, Texas, to pick it up. I'd heard rumors that Texas

was not good mold-wise but figured.... " How bad could it be? "

Chemicals weren't bothering me at all then. I looked at some new trailers

(including Casitas) in Chicago and found them to be fine.

But the outdoor mold from somewhat south of Tulsa through Dallas was

extraordinarily bad. By the time I got to Rice, I was feeling extremely sick.

The air in Rice was a little better, but not much.

I don't know for sure if the only thing that bothers me in the outdoor air (or

actually the indoor air) is mycotoxins (of whatever type). There could be

something else too. But whatever it is, it has a huge effect on me in the same

ways that I get when I go to buildings that I know are really moldy.

In Rice, I did notice a chemical smell in the factory. But it didn't make me

feel sick at all.

Then I spent the night in the trailer. For the first part of the night, I felt

fine. Then suddenly, within 15 minutes, it became wholly intolerable. I spent

a while longer in it, then went out to the car to get away.

I spent the next 24 hours spitting stuff that tasted like the trailer into a

cup, and then threw up when I went back inside very briefly to get my stuff. So

I had them take it back, at a big financial penalty.

Later, when I was living in Las Cruces, NM (a place that's far better in terms

of outdoor mold), I spent a night in a new trailer and wasn't bothered by it at

all.

I've had the same thing happen at the house of a friend who uses a huge amount

of Febreze. (She even Febrezes her dog.) If I've gotten too much mold exposure

(or exposure to what I think is just mold), I can't go in there for even three

minutes. If I've been avoiding mold scrupulously, I can stay there for hours

and feel fine.

I noted the same thing with (dare I mention his name?) when I was visiting

him. We went to a grocery store one day and it was okay. On another day, we

got some mold exposures but (after showering, changing clothes and resting for

an hour) were feeling fine again. However, the chemicals in that same store

(just a little bit of cleaning stuff) bothered him enough that he got really

confused/woozy and almost passed out. Immediately after we got outside the

store, he felt fine again. He says that's his usual state: that he can be

around unlimited amounts of chemicals most of the time, but that if he's had too

much mold exposure he can't be around any chemicals at all.

Others have reported the same thing happening.

I don't know why it would be that not being around mold would make my MCS go

away so fast, or why my sensitivity would come back on the turn of the dime

rather than returning gradually. Maybe eventually I can persuade someone like

Marty Pall to try to figure it out.

Does anyone here have any thoughts on why it might be?

Best,