EiR Blog

Intentionality in changing our buying and cleaning habits is vital for protecting our well-being. In order to be stronger and live longer, we must choose to create a healing habitat that effectively eliminates toxins in our bodies and reduces the source of toxins in our environment so that restoration of optimum health can occur.   These check-points will alert you to some of the ways to improve your health through behavioral changes:   1. Check in your sink and under it   Dishwashing liquid residue is left on dishes and eaten, use a non-toxic alternative such as Seventh Generation Free & Clear Laundry Liquid Clean your sponge; studies have shown that the degree of contamination of sponges of a hundred million to one billion microorganisms of any kind per sponge. Wash your sponge (put it in your dishwasher even). Toxic chemical arsenal under the sick! Yes, most of us are...

One of my “All-time” favorite newspaper cartoons pictured a doctor handing a patient a bottle of pills. The caption read, “Take one of these…and if you wake up in the morning, take another!” All humor aside, I want to pass on a medical truth that very few doctors even realize. Every medicine’s primary side-effect is also its primary action! The primary side-effect of an antidepressant is depression and suicidal tendencies. Your insomnia medicine’s primary side-effect is sleeplessness. The same is true for many natural medicines, which is a shocker to many people! The truth is that even if a medicine is perfect for “curing” what is wrong with you, as it is fixing things in the body eventually you reach the point where the correction is complete and you should discontinue the medicine. If you continue the remedy beyond the point of completion you literally go through the correction and...

How many times do you just wolf-down your meal in a mad rush to finish before getting back to work? How many times are you eating out of obligation to just eat? How many times do you see undigested food in your stool? Gross, I know! Do you have food allergies? If you answered “Yes” to any of these questons it is likely you need to retrain yourself in how to eat on purpose. Maintain regular and consistent mealtimes. It is better to eat five smaller meals than three large meals. Before eating relax momentarily for 10 seconds, then begin eating. (Blessing your food in prayer – science has shown that this cleans the food, makes it more bio-available, more digestible, and consequently tastes better) Smell each item on your plate before you take your first bite, like sniffing your wine before drinking, which will awaken the taste centers in...

by  Carolyn Cooper, MPH, RN Multiple Chemical Sensitivity awareness is one of the health observances for the month of May.  MCS is also variously known as Environmental Illness, Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance, and 20th Century Disease.  Over the course of the last 8 years I have become acquainted with a number of individuals who are afflicted with this often misunderstood condition.  MCS causes many of those who are severely affected to isolate themselves in order to take refuge from the synthetic fragrances and fumes that are ubiquitous in industrialized nations.  My interest in MCS resulted from experience caring for one of my hospital patients who is severely afflicted.  (Read about my patient's experience with MCS in my blog post from May of 2009).  Recognizing the lack of scholarly published literature to inform health care providers about the specific needs of the chemically sensitive in the health care setting, I eventually wrote a...

 Browsing through the online news looking for stories about multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) yesterday, I came across a review of a play which features a main character with the illness. The review features in the The Record, a local newspaper serving Troy and surrounding areas in New York state. The play is titled 'Sick' and features a 17-year- old character called Davey who suffers from MCS. Davey's family live in a New York apartment and protect him by turning their home into a chemical-free zone - something anyone who suffers from MCS knows is a necessity. Reading the review got me thinking about the exposure MCS gets in the media and how it is portrayed. It seems to me that there is a steady increase in awareness of the condition and it is beecoming more and more a part of the public consciousness. Just a few short decades ago virtually...

  A little while ago a member posted in the forums about a subject which hasn't been addressed specifically on the site before - 'pathological detoxifiers'. I thought this subject deserved more attention as it can be a vital piece in the puzzle for those suffering from environmental illnesses including multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), and Gulf War syndrome. To define what it means to be a pathological detoxifier first we need to understand the basics of how liver detoxification works:   Liver Detoxification The detoxification of toxins by the liver basically occurs in two phases. Substances the liver must detoxify can be exogenous (from outside of the body) such as alcohol, drugs, pollutants, or endogenous (from inside the body) such as hormones. Most toxins are fat-soluble which means they are easily absorbed and stored in the body (particularly fatty tissues, including the brain), but are difficult to...

Today I was contacted by Vivien Pomfrey who has started a peition on the 10 Downing Street website (UK Government site) calling on the Prime Minister to protect UK citizens from artificial perfumes in all their forms. I have just signed the petition and hope that if you are a UK citizen you will do the same. Vivien and myself also hope that those of you from other countries will petition your own governments through whatever means possible. This is an issue that has widespread implications for human health and the environment and deserves much more attention than it currently receives.  Thank you!   Here is the email from Vivien with the link to the petition and more information she has compiled: There is now a petition to Downing Street demanding a ban on the uncontrolled public use and importation of artificially-perfumed products at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Scents/ You need to be a UK...

Hey all, Just wanted to let everyone know that my website Planet Thrive was recently freshened up, with an updated design and some great new features! We have close to 1500 members, and we are growing every day. Please come check us out. Here are some highlights of the new features we just unveiled: EI Lifestyles - featuring inspirational people and places. Read our first feature on the inspiring world traveler Mirjam, MCS Adventuressa, now exploring Brazil for cleaner air. Latest News - for chemical sensitivity, electrical sensitivity, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, myalgic encephalomyelitis, gulf war syndrome, autism, cancer, and other environmentally based illnesses MCS-TV - live TV and video library for Environmental Illness and related conditions (thanks to MCS-International!) Mind Games - all new games to exercise our injured brains!! We also just posted an interview with filmmaker Michael Roland Williams and Karen Noseff of the upcoming Black Mold...

Hi everyone. My time is currently very limited due to just returning from a trip to California and having a backlog of studying and assignment deadlines for my degree course. I didn't want to leave another week "blogless" however so I thought I'd just draw your attention to a potentially powerful therapy known as 'phospholipid exchange' which Helen64 posted a question about in the forums this week.  Read the forum thread on phospholipid exchange therapy To explain the principal of the therapy we first need a little bit of biochemistry. Basically, cells in the human body have a cell membrane made up of fatty substances called phospholipids along with fatty acids. These fatty substances give the cell membrane a level of fluidity that allows them to efficiently allow nutrients to enter the cell and toxins to be expelled amongst other important functions such as maintaining the structure and shape of...

This week I thought I'd try to get all you multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) sufferers involved and conduct a kind of survey so we can see the most common symptoms of the condition and how it develops in different people. I hope this is an idea that interests you and you'll get involved by leaving comments below. First of all I'd like to discuss my personal feeling on what MCS actually is. There has been a lot of confusion among both doctors and patients about whether MCS is an allergic condition or a neurological condition. My personal feeling through experience of the illness and reveiwing the available scientific literature is that it is most definitely a neurological disease caused by neurotoxicity (toxic damage to the brain).  A leading theory which I believe to be along the right lines involves a process called 'limbic sensitization'. The idea is that either acute or chronic...

Hi everyone, my name is Jason and I am a multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) sufferer. Like anyone who has MCS I have had a hard time convincing anyone (friends, family, doctors) that I am actually sick. Recently I managed to get a SPECT scan of my brain carried out which has given me visible proof that I am actually sick. I thought many of you here would be interested to see the scans so wanted to post this blog.  Just so you understand the scan more clearly- it is the scan and function of 'my' brain overlapping the 'Normal' healthy functioning image of an adult brain.  I try to point out the graphing system used on the side with my finger.  If my scan was functioning within the normal range there wouldn't be any color deviation away from the color 'gray'.  Where it is gray colored is where my brain's functioning (cerebral blood flow) is...

This is a post from my Planet Thrive blog from last month. Thought it would be good to share here so people can see how others are living with MCS.   Not sure how my life came to this. I have 3 outfits, all thin and worn, ripped and stain, unwashed for 4 months, not warm enough for winter. I have no bedding except 1 thin and narrow shawl that does very little to keep me warm. I sleep on a 1" thick chair mat on the cold tiled floor. My pillowcase is stained brown from not being washed for months and months. I don't tolerate the water in my home. I have to go to a friend's house to get drinking water, 1 gallon a day. I get filtered water from the local stinky supermarket, then heat it on a hot plate and wash my hair in the tub...

Those of us severely affected by multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) often have no option but to resort to wearing face masks containing carbon filters to protect us from volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the form of perfume, fragranced products, tobacco smoke, diesel fumes and many other sources. For me wearing such a mask was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because for the first time since developing severe chemical sensitivities I could once again be around people and venture out from the safe haven of my chemical-free home. A curse because clearly, a carbon filter face mask is not the height of fashion and draws much unwanted attention when out in public. A hard thing to deal with when you are a touch on the shy and self-concious side as I am!   Me in the summer of 2003 in Bishop Monkton, near Harrogate, England. When I first developed...

There was a time not so long ago when nobody had even heard of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). In fact, when I first developed the condition only 7 years ago I didn't meet anybody who had heard of it, apart from others who were suffering like I was. This lack of awareness only adds to the considerable suffering and feelings of isolation that come with being affected by MCS.  As any MCS sufferer will tell you it's one thing to have a disabling illness and quite another to have nobody believe you have a disabling illness! Thankfully awareness of MCS now seems to be spreading thanks to a steady stream of coverage in the mainstream media. To stay on top of things I receive daily email updates from the Google News website (Google Alerts) on all topics relating to what we cover here at The Environmental Illness Resource. Not long ago there were rarely any...

I realised the other day that I had never really written about my experiences with multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS). So I thought today I'd give a (relatively!) brief account of my journey through developing MCS, living with it at its most severe, to the point where I am now largely free from symptoms, save for the odd twitch. I had been ill since the age of 11 and was diagnosed with ME/CFS at age 12. Having read a lot about my illness during my late teens I was aware that a large number of ME/CFS patients also suffer from allergies and MCS. I had developed hayfever a few years after being diagnosed with ME/CFS so thought it was a very real possibility that I could develop chemical sensitivities at some point. My fears were realised in late 2002 when I was 23 years old. Ironically, I believe the straw that broke...

MICAGO stands for MCS International Coalition of Allied Groups

To those of us who have been affected by multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) and related conditions, fragranced products are a major menace. I feel those products rather amusingly called 'air fresheners' deserve special attention because of the way they are advertised to the public.

Manufacturers of 'air fresheners' make out that these products will make the air in our homes

As a multiple chemical sensitivity and allergy sufferer myself I can safely say that life hasn't exactly been a walk in the park. This is a sentiment with which I'm sure my fellow "canaries" would agree! However, I am also able to appreciate that things could be much worse for me than they are in 2007. If I had developed MCS in the 1980's for example, I'm sure my life

I had intended to write on a completely different subject today, something much more seasonal and light-hearted. Unfortunately I found myself on a website reading a rather heated debate between multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) sufferers and those who believe (or portain to believe) that MCS is a psychiatric disorder. As a result I felt compelled to write about MCS skeptics and analyse

In the news this week I discovered that the Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP)  journal is getting a new editor-in-chief so I thought this would be a good opportunity to tell you a little bit about EHP for those who haven't come across it before.

Environmental Health Perspectives is a journal published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS

My ASI results indicated that my cortisol

Yesterday I reported on a group of students at Stanislaus State College, California, who are campaigning for a campus ban on fragrances. That story can be read here:

Student Group Pushes for Fragrance Ban on College Campus

As I mentioned in that story,