Extreme Chemical Sensitivity Makes Sufferers Allergic to Life

[Lance]

http://discovermagazine.com/2013/nov/13-allergic-life

So for decades, these patients were cast aside as mentally ill. If you see a person wearing a honeycomb mask in the detergent aisle of the supermarket, if they tell you that the fabric softener scent you love is making them ill, if they say your perfume is causing headaches and asthma and that the carpet store causes brain fog, irritability and depression, your reflexive response may just be, “You may be sick, but you are probably sick in the head.”

Science for Toxic Times

 

For scientists studying the illness, however, that view has changed, in large part due to Miller’s indefatigable research and her groundbreaking finds. According to a July 2012 study of 400 primary care patients (published by Miller and her colleagues in the popular family practice journal Annals of Family Medicine), 22 percent of individuals with chronic health issues suffer from some degree of chemical intolerance. That’s more than one in five — and, says Miller, they are vulnerable to TILT if life happens to toss them too much toxic exposure. 

“The fact that chemical intolerance is so prevalent, yet unrecognized, is important for primary care physicians,” says physician David Katerndahl, Miller’s colleague and lead author on the study. “On the one hand, simple therapeutic approaches (avoiding chemicals) may be quite effective, while on the other hand, conventional treatments (allergy shots, immune suppressants) may fail. This means that we must change our clinical paradigm with these patients.”

 

The new study is based on an inventory of 50 questions called the QEESI (the Quick Environmental Exposure and Sensitivity Inventory, available for free at familymed.uthscsa.edu/qeesi.pdf). The QEESI isolates sensitivities to common triggers, such as diesel, paint thinner, foods and products like fabric softener. It is very effective at culling the one in five individuals who are vulnerable to severe TILT, and it has been validated in Sweden, Denmark, Japan and the United States.

 

It is severe TILT, where the individual’s life is seriously impacted, that worries Miller, however. “In the study, I was astounded to find that over 6 percent of people visiting a primary care clinic for any kind of chronic health condition were greatly affected by TILT, based on their symptoms and chemical and other intolerance scores from the QEESI. By greatly affected, I mean that they had chronic health symptoms that were severe, and they scored high on sensitivities to common chemicals, foods and medications,” says Miller. “Another 15.8 percent were moderately affected, with scores that were still well above average.” 

Miller’s mission is to catch those vulnerable folks, like fish in a net, before they run headlong into a toxic exposure that derails their lives. She would like to see the QEESI given as standard practice along with the typical sheaf of forms patients fill out.

 

“TILT describes a genuinely new class of diseases unique to our toxic, modern times,” says Miller. “People suddenly cannot tolerate chemicals and exposures they’d tolerated their whole lives. It’s the hallmark of TILT. Some people I’ve counseled even use it as a verb. They say they’ve been ‘tilted.’”

Navigating a Tilted World

 

The two-step process of TILT — getting sick upon toxicant exposure and failing to get well — may be driven by epigenetic changes, which occur when the environment alters the expression of genes without changing the core DNA code itself. “Environmental events can dramatically impact gene activity,” explains reproductive endocrinologist Frederick vom Saal of the University of Missouri-Columbia. 

[kejedo]

Thank you for citing this. YS. pauline

[Myew]

Thank you very much for this article link, Brother Lance. I just happened to find it while searching for something else. Some interesting insight here that I hadn't read before. I've often linked many of my other issues including chronic nerve pain to pesticides and herbicides eating away the gut/brain barrier and causing nerve inflammation. I grew up surrounded by chemical covered farms that would wash into the creek. I played outside all the time and we drank from the well and local springs... Hmm. I also have reason to believe it can be linked to heavy metals like the article mentioned women soldering electronics... lead smoke is seriously bad. I now live in an old mining town surrounded by massive mounds of lead with the dust being blown onto the nearby farms with all of this lovely local 'organic' produce and grass fed beef. Nothing we can do to get away from it in this broken system.

My sensitivities are slowly improving in the past few years thanks to diet and lifestyle changes that help to heal the nerves and brain. Still, it's difficult being around other people and plenty of things that I can't tolerate at all like previously used clothing. I've actively been trying to reset my epigenetics, and I'd even consider electroshock therapy. It's nice to see this all backed up by the pubmed studies, I must've read some stuff based on Claudia Miller's work before.

[kejedo]

One of my acute med concerns is a mass in my lower right lung (also enlarged lymph node in entirely different part of different lobe. ) 2015 CAt skin = no mass. 2017= catscan reveals mass has developed. Extra catscan 1 month later to measure mass. One guess, may be scarring from pneumonia. Curiously,  i have not had a diagnosis of pneumonia in any of those years. a.) Could have overcome some walking pneumonia with perseverance; b .  could be the result of chemical poisoning from exposure to environmental tortures; c.) could be something else, like lung cancer.  

      Y (lung and winding road) S