Enviromental exposures and sarc

[Guest guest]

One of the many questions that continues to come up is whether we've been exposed to enviromental pollutants and did that cause our sarcoidosis.

In the FSR brochure, as well as several articles they've posted at their site www.stopsarcoidosis.org-- it is stated that there seems to be a correlation of genetic predisposition to sarcoidosis between siblings. So for those of us that have brothers or sisters, they stand a higher risk of sarc.

It is also found that with caucasians, we seem to have common thread of being around agricultural dust. This would also mean that for those of us that grew up or live in areas where farming is a primary resource-- that we've obviously been around alot of pesticides.

I know I grew up in Chico California, and rice and almond and walnut farms were all around us. I lived in the middle of the almond orchards for most all of my life. When harvest time comes, you knock the trees with a bat wrapped with old tire treads, hence the pronunciation of aMond vs. aLmond. (You know once you've done this that it is necessary to "knock the "L" out of the trees.)

It was a bone of contention that the rice farmers burn their fields after harvest, so that the rice stubble would be able to be churned back into the soil, and that eliminates the diseases that could end up if they don't burn them off. So for several months each year, we put up with very poor air quality.

Oh, the advent of the tractor sweepers in the orchard added so much dust in the air-- I was always fighting sinus and respiratory infections as a kid.

They also believe that we had a "trigger insult, virus or rogue tb or something" that caused our immune systems to turn on, and they've yet to figure out how to turn them off.

They do know now that we are missing a DNA chain protein that should be the one to deactivate the B cell proteins-- and in caucasians it's one marker down from the same chain in people of color.

It's a start-- but can they say what is the cause-- not yet. Did the World Trade Center bombing cause our sarc, or a lifetime of growing up in the agricultural communities around the world, and the advent of science in pest control, fertilization, genetic farming, etc-- cause this disease.

I suspect it is a combination of all of the above. What we can do to empower our journey with this disease is to take into consideration what we eat, how we exercise, what we drink, and how we think-- and do our best day by day, to treat our bodies with love and compassion, and see our healing come from the small changes that we make-- in our daily choices.

Will this be a physical healing-- we don't know-- but our self talk can influence our journey, and it can influence our spirit and our minds and our pain levels.

We have to continue to see that we are, and that our physicians and scientists are working towards finding answers.

Blessings,

Tracie

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