Chemical sensitivity is one of those invisible illnesses, like chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, in which the person who has it looks perfectly healthy. Doctors can’t find anything wrong – no blood test, scan, or monitor can detect it. It’s easy to dismiss. But is it real? The answer is a very definite yes.
What exactly is chemical sensitivity?
When someone has a reaction to a chemical that is considerably greater than the reaction of a person without the illness, that person is chemically sensitive. For example, enough inhalation of paint, nail polish, gasoline, or car exhaust fumes will make anyone ill and can even kill them. However, a person with chemical sensitivities can have an almost-instant adverse reaction after even a whiff of these.
Such a person is said to have Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) or Environmental Illness (EI). Its impact on the individual can affect her or his whole daily life to a huge extent.
What kinds of chemicals can a person react to?
Most people with chemical sensitivity react to many chemicals, not just one or a few. These chemicals include solvents such as alcohol and acetone (nail polish remover), gasoline, cologne and scented personal care products, pesticides, diesel and car exhaust fumes, paint, and glue. Formaldehyde, found in many household items from cabinets to paneling to carpets, is a major one, and many EI patients need to live in special environments.
So nearly anything not found in nature and that has an odor can cause problems. In addition, many EI patients also need to avoid food additives, water pollution such as with chlorine and fluoride, and anything that can enter the skin.
What kinds of symptoms are there?
When a person with EI says they’re reacting to a chemical, what exactly is this reaction? What does it feel like? The symptoms of reactivity can vary considerably with the individual. Some people develop a headache, while others experience a drop in blood pressure that can leave them with sudden dizziness. Instant brain fog, losing your train of thought, or an inability to figure out how to get out of a situation of chemical exposure are common reactions. Emotional reactions happen frequently; an exposed person can go from emotionally neutral to instantly feeling tearful, angry, depressed, anxious, or trapped. Some people say they know they’re reacting, yet they have a hard time saying what it is that they feel.
How bad can it get?
The reaction to a chemical exposure differs in intensity and in the amount of chemical needed to cause a reaction. For example, some EI people react if there’s a person wearing cologne in the room, while others who are even more sensitive react if a person wearing cologne has been in the room over the past day, even if there is no remaining cologne smell. The intensity of the reaction can vary from a vague feeling that something isn’t quite right to passing out to a potentially fatal anaphylactic allergic reaction. Chemical sensitivity, then, is not only very real but can be deadly.
What causes chemical reactivity?
The body is designed to be able to get rid of toxins, and people differ in their capacity to do so. Once the body is overloaded with toxic stressors – chemicals, metals such as dental mercury, toxic food, microorganisms, and emotional stress, disease can happen. In many cases the disease is chemical reactivity. The body is so overloaded that it just can’t handle one more molecule of anything toxic. This is comparable to being so emotionally overloaded that one more little thing, even a broken fingernail, can lead to a meltdown.
Once that point of overload is reached, almost any toxin can set off a reaction; it doesn’t have to be the same toxin that you have too much of in your body. You might be overloaded with mercury from dental fillings, for example, and then react to car fumes while walking along a roadside. Or you can be overloaded with pesticides and start reacting to most processed foods.
What can be done about it?
Most EI patients have already, out of necessity, taken the first step: they have eliminated chemicals from their lives to the greatest extent possible. But this only works to the extent that the sources of toxicity are recognized. If solvents make you sick, you avoid solvents, but what about your metal fillings that are always there and so don’t cause an obvious reaction? Or you might not be aware that certain foods and food additives are causing problems.
The first step, then, is to recognize all the sources of toxicity, not just the ones that are associated with sudden, obvious reactions. This takes some education.
The second step is to remove the toxic overload from your body. There are a number of ways to do this, and the best one or ones to choose depends on where your greatest toxic load is coming from. Sauna detox is great for removing solvents, pesticides, and drug residues from your body. A dietary detox such as that at CAM can help with dietary causes, from food sensitivities to toxic food additives. Metal detox, also called chelation, can remove mercury, lead, and other metals from your body. If an overgrowth of harmful microorganisms is a problem, there are protocols to kill these and reduce their toxic waste products in the body.
A warning, though: any kind of detox can temporarily increase the amount of toxins in your body, worsening symptoms. Such a detox, especially in a chemically sensitive person, should be paced and monitored by a trained professional such as those at CAM.
What kind of improvement can you expect?
Once the level of toxins in the body has gone down to a point where the body can take over from there, recovery can occur and has occurred in many people. A combination of educated avoidance and detoxification can reduce the toxins to this level. Dr. Dworkin, coauthor of the books discussed in the next paragraph, is a former chemist whose career ended because of life-threatening chemical sensitivities. She followed CAM protocols for EI more than twenty years ago and remains free of reactivity.
For more information
Dr. Andrea S. Dworkin and Dr. Bill Kellas have written a book on the subject: Ending Fatigue, Pain, and Reactivity. They have also written a book on the various types of detoxification, called Detox or Disease. These books provide an excellent starting point in healing, and are available at CAM.
