For those people living on Planet Earth in this day and age, (2013 as I begin this blog), who know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the affliction/disease called Multiple Chemical Sensitivities or Multiple Chemical Intolerance or whatever other name it needs to be called, I am but one VOICE to INFORM THE IGNORANT.
After living with this horrible, underestimated and under informed disease for over 13 years, going through all typical levels of awareness and admittance, I am lost. I am lost in the LACK OF INFORMATION, LACK of BELIEF and complete and utter LACK of GENERAL MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE with Health Care Professionals concerning the most GENERALLY DEBILITATING DISEASE on the face of the Evolved Western World.
Throughout your life, your body is attacked by outside influences. Influences in the form of unseen chemicals, toxins and nasty little creatures, as usual, normally brought into existence by man made measures. Floating around unseen in the air you breath, each and every moment of your existence.
Consider your body a test tube.
As a baby, your family washes in scented soaps, cleans their hair in scented shampoos, scented conditioners. They wear scented underarm deodorants, scented colognes, scented aftershaves, scented lotions, scented hair gel, scented hair dyes, scented hair products. They wash the clothes and linens in scented laundry soaps, scented fabric softeners and most of all, scented drier sheets. Every item you see on your dresser, in your bathroom, in your kitchen, in your garage.... scented.
Here you are, a cute little helpless babe in arms; every breath sucking in all those scents.
Childhood Asthma, anyone? My son had SEVERE childhood asthma and the light never came on over the fact that I wore HEAVY perfume and followed my daily routine as all of you do right now with all the products you use. He was breathing it in and so was I.
By the time you are four, maybe five, consider the test tube.... say... 1/8th full, depending on exactly the amount of crap everyone around you has dosed in each and every day. It might even be a quarter full or half full.
Continue on with your life, no one wants to change the way they think, the way they DO around you. Life goes on AND WAIT, have you or anyone you know ever uttered THESE WORDS?
"I HAVE to wear my perfume, I just wouldn't be dressed without it! How could I leave the house?"
AWARENESS NOTE: PEOPLE, Perfumes ARE NOT clothing. You WILL NOT BE NAKED without them!
BUT... now you are using the same products, or BETTER products as your family. Soak in those toxins, those unnamed compounds used by manufacturers.
If you haven't reached your intolerance level yet then your test tube still has room, I can only PRAY that your test tube is so big that it may never be a problem for you.
BUT, I can still WISH, as you walk by me or any other MCS/MCI sufferer one day, poisoning us with your fragrances, that one day you open your product or walk by someone and get a headache (initial warning sign), then wonder why your lungs feel like you have suddenly gotten a case of Pneumonia and the air bubbles in them. Then, if you are lucky, the anxiety will take over and you can't think, reason or fathom what is happening so drastically to you. One of the LISTED symptoms of MCS is IRRITABILITY. Forget that, some of us get ANGRY, hateful and no longer have the ability to keep a conscious calm thought. THINK ABOUT THAT.
As a Matter of POINT:
If only just once, one of us could do to you SO AGGRESIVELY that you would HAVE TO TAKE NOTICE. How about spraying you full in the face with LYSOL?! What EXACTLY do you think your body's reaction would be? STOP and THINK about just that. NOTICE instead of making fun, disbelieving;
I actually had a coworker DO just that! SHE and another woman at the same employer, working in the accounting department seemed to SOAK themselves in perfumes EVERY DAY. She actually made fun and gossiped about how I was just needing attention. Sad, isn't it? I wasn't even the only person it really bothered, but no one else would speak up!
SHE IS THE REASON I REACHED MY INTOLERANCE LIMITS. SHE IS THE REASON I CAN NO LONGER WORK OR WALK INTO ANY KIND OF OFFICE ENVIRONMENT. When I complained, I was the one disbelieved, even though my coworkers listened to me and WATCHED me cough up a lung EVERY day... nearly literally. All the suffering I went through at her hand, all the PAIN, ANXIETY and PANIC every day before going to my job. The constant fatigue, headaches, "irritability"... dead asleep by six p.m., usually without eating...
The week after I had to quit, I found an article on line from Portland and about Detroit, where a city employee had ACTUALLY WON her case against the City of Detroit for not providing her with a SAFE environment in which to work. Please copy and paste to a browser:
http://www.legalnews.com/detroit/1377254/
The City ACTUALLY implemented a SCENT FREE POLICY. How utterly novel. WHY is it such a difficult admittance that the chemicals and toxins in the products around us are very likely to MAKE US SICK.
Why is it SO DIFFICULT to find a DOCTOR, DENTIST or any other health care professional where someone with MCS/MCI can go WITHOUT becoming (practically) DEATHLY ILL???!!!
ARE THEY NOT CALLED HEALTH CARE Professionals???
NOTE FOR THOUGHT: I bought an UNFRAGRANCED bottle of body wash one day. Stated right on the front label UNFRAGRANCED. Super, right?? Got home, popped in the shower and popped the top, poured it into my hand.... knocked me right out of the water stream, no lie. Started COUGHING. Mucus built up in my lungs so fast, I COULDN'T CATCH MY BREATH. Then the headache hit, lights behind my eyes... my lungs start to BURN along with my THROAT... all this in moments. I had breathed it directly into my lungs.
Then, just for fun, to top it all off, the ANXIETY hits. PANIC ATTACKS... all this along with the coughing enough to lose bladder control, burning, gasping for air. And all that, for an UNFRAGRANCED shower.
Now I read EVERY label.
These Sensitivities, Intolerances or whatEVER they want to be called, react differently with each person who loses their lives and literally their EXISTANCE to the chemicals/fragrances and VOCs,
VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUNDS, see Wikipedia; Please copy and paste to your browser;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatile_organic_compound
I quote from the Wikipedia article:
"Some VOCs are dangerous to human health or cause harm to the environment. Anthropogenic VOCs are regulated by law, especially indoors, where concentrations are the highest. Harmful VOCs are typically not acutely toxic, but instead have compounding long-term health effects. Because the concentrations are usually low and the symptoms slow to develop, research into VOCs and their effects is difficult."
Test tube theory, here we come....
You know how your food labels have to have EVERYTHING listed for your information and HEALTH, by the government, none the less. For Heavens' sake, they even have to tell you what is in and how many calories and content your SANWICH from the market as in it!
What about your HEALTH CARE PRODUCTS?
Home cleaning products?
Grooming products? And on, and on and on...
Although SOME VOCs are regulated BY LAW, the manufacturers ARE NOT REQUIRED to list in their ingredients list the exact COMPOUND making up the FRAGRANCE in the products you are buying EVERY DAY. They are not regulated to do so and they DO NOT CARE as long as YOU THINK you smell good, your house smells good, your dog smells good, your clothes smell good.
VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUNDS. Those are just the carcinogenic ORGANIC ones. What about the MAN MADE ones? What about the cheap perfumes, what about the EXPENSIVE perfumes? Have you EVER given a tiny glance around you to see who is reacting AND HOW?
Yes, let's go out and JUST BECAUSE THE MANUFACTURER TELLS US SO... buy TIDE (can cause entire body rash in sensitive people where the fabric touches your skin and will spread with scratching [I am living proof]), buy the DOWNY fabric softener to go with it and IF THAT ISN'T ENOUGH, buy BOUNCE DRYER SHEETS and REALLY make your neighborhood SICK.
Please copy and paste to your browser;
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/toxic-chemicals-in-your-dryer-sheets-and-fabric-softener.html
http://www.amillionwaystogogreen.com/dangerous-toxic-chemicals-found-in-dryer-sheets-and-fabric-softeners/
Thank you, Dr. Steinemann, for your research into the causes and cautions of MCS living and your work to make society AWARE.
http://www.drsteinemann.com/Resources/Toxic%20Chemicals%20in%20Fragranced%20Laundry%20Products.pdf
http://www.drsteinemann.com/publications.html
MORE AWARENESS TO FOLLOW!!!
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