I've always been kind of sensitive to chemicals and smells. The travel sickness that plagued me each summer as a kid was half motion sickness, half smells (airplane interior, hot car, gas fumes, exhaust, etc). But this last pregnancy kicked my body into full-on chemical sensitivity.
Fragrance is particularly bad on me. I've always had headache and stomach ache accompany most fragrances. The last few years I've added "fog brain" to my reaction. It stinks not being able to think, especially when that's my most especial talent! ;) But recently, I've also added ANGER to the mix.
One good whiff of cologne or perfume (church is the worst offender), and not only do my head and stomach hurt, and I can't think, but EVERYONE IS PISSING ME OFF AND BEING REALLY BIG FAT JERKS. For about 24 hours, I'm Mrs Hyde.
What does this have to do with petroleum? Well, most fragrances, as well as food coloring, flavoring, and preservatives are petroleum-derived. That's a pretty way of saying that we eat, breathe and rub into our skin chemically altered crude oil. It's a wonder more people don't react like I do. ;)
I also think that Firecracker owes some of her "spunk" to petroleum sensitivity. She adores flavored, colored food, but it does not adore her. Flavored chips, especially Funions, make her a wild animal.
I just rediscovered the Feingold Association. I always thought they were about gluten and casein free eating, but they also keep a list of petroleum-free "safe" foods, by brand and product. I tried to find out more about the list by poking around the internet, but there is nothing specific to be found. It turns out that they only release the "list" to members (it's about $90/year), and members agree not to discuss specifics with non-members. At first I was put off, but then I began to realize how much time and effort must go into researching these things. The best way to make sure that FA can continue to provide this information is to honor it by paying for it.
Some other resources I've been soaking up lately are:
Got Petroleum...in your food? blog
Grist: environmental news and commentary
Environmental Working Group (home of Skin Deep, the database on personal care ingredients)
Women's Voices for the Earth
Healthy Child Healthy World
Debra Lynn Dadd, author of Home Safe Home and extensive list of "green" products
Both Women's Voices and Healthy Child have a "green party" you can throw at home that highlight products and homemade recipes that are safer. I'm thinking about doing one or both of those.
Are you one of the blissfully ignorant and symptom-free, or a fellow sufferer, like me? :)
3 comments:
I must admit that I'm one of those annoying people who wears pretty smells to church...I agree that it's amazing more people don't have reactions like you do. I think MSG and food coloring run through my blood, as does petroleum. Must be. Even Ethan gets reactions, but I never do. I love all sorts of (apparently petroleum based) pretty smells.
Blissfully ignorant. ;o) Just made a cute cake for Bryan's birthday today, with lots of food coloring. :p I do have to say that's one of the things on my to do list, though. Do more research into foods and artificial coloring and flavors and such, and finding alternatives (that don't cost and arm and a leg or involve having a juicer or whatever...).
Sally, I have had similar reactions to petroleum based products most of my life, even from childhood. I think the petroleum based products are part of what is behind (maybe most of it) my deep emotionality. I have always had my emotions immediately under the surface. I have always marveled at anyone who is always poised and calm and peaceful, seemingly in complete control of their emotions.
When I was approx. 13, this one winter my family (my mother, father, myself and Ellen) made a trip to Memphis, to see my paternal grandmother one last time. We only had a pickup and my father used it for work (he was an exterminator). He had built a homemade plywood cover for half of the back, with nothing over the back end except a tarp and that only went down from the top of this half covering, down to the tops of the sides of the bed of the truck. They made a pallet in the back on the floor (yes, it was hard, despite two quilts on the bottom) and I rode the 600 plus miles from Austin to Memphis, with all that truck exhaust being sucked up into the back of the truck and swirling up under the edge of the tarp. I was sick and had a severe headache the whole trip and even when we got my grandmother's and aunt's and cousin's. Eveytime we would stop, I'd tell my father how I felt and that I couldn't stand the fumes of the truck's exhaust. He just poo-pooed me, telling me I was being a baby, etc. (Ellen was still very little and rode up front with my parents). I was very cold the whole way, even with a lot of blankets on me, etc.
Years later, when I first discovered candida and began reading about it, I found out the extreme sensitivity to perfumes, car exhaust, bug sprays, fertilizers, etc., is one of the most classical signs of systemic candida overgrowth. Dr. Remington's office has a sign on the front door, that due to all of the patients who come to that office for treatment for candida and allergies, to please not wear any scented products to the office (i.e. deoderants, hair products, soaps, lotions, perfumes, etc.). Amd I've come to realize that most of our immune system is in our guts, which are faulty and need healing, so that is the first place to begin one's healing campaign.
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