~ Just Feeling Bad Is Still Better Than The Burn ~
by
Suzy Rice
I call this
one: The Face of Terror. Because it is. One can't possibly
know unless one's been sucked into this unimaginable world for
oneself. It isn't real. It's pain. Confusion. Terror. Unimaginable
suffering. One wouldn't choose to go there. Not even to visit.
But once one does… hallelujah, the dance is on! And one's
dancing all by oneself… unless EVERYONE or at least SOMEONE
else in one's sphere dances with one. More commonly, one will
be forced to bear the butt of ignorance and/or negligence, suffering
layered with unconscionable, yet, ever-so-handy labeling i.e.:
'nuts,' or worse yet, mis-diagnoses, more professionally languaged,
'psychiatric problems,' PMS or menopause [because it currently
but erroneously seems to most often present in women, (and children)].
The Grand Pubah of Scapegoats: Stress!, or any number of additionally
convenient 'syndromes' in misdiagnoses and avoidance of 'getting
involved' in the Truth of this long-term, high-level, multi-industry
cover-up, prevail.This offering from The Detroit Free Press with a several page cover article on the family, including mom, dad, and babe unwittingly drawn into the incomprehensible world of Chemical Injury, C/I, also called Environmental Illness, EI, erroneously, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, MCS, [also; Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, CFS, Fibromyalgia Syndrome, FMS, and Electromagnetic Field Sensitivity Syndrome, EMFS, among others], which it causes. The Big Machine holds strong to date by not making tests that would detect injuries as such available, and issuing threats of severe reprimand and loss of license to more ethical physicians who would otherwise address the issue appropriately.
This pyx
posted at the site
a few years past with appropriate commentary during the worst
of an 8-year episode to date [5-2001] noted herein.The 'kindling effect.'
There's nothing quite like it. Rather self-explanatory, save
in this respect, references whatever one's particular 'effects'
might be. Within the four basic human chemistries, those most
'prone' to chemical injury, or most 'aware' that they are being
or have been chemically injured, suffer two relative categories:
sludge symptoms; with headaches, dizziness, cognitive impairment,
flu-like effects, etc., and burners; with actual burning of internal
as well as external tissue, nerves, organs, etc., with any number
of other dastardly bodily effects/sensations thrown in for good
measure, strokes kin to both. Yes, it's a wonderful life, this.
And totally avoidable. Dr. Jay W. Seastrunk II, M.D., shares years of first-hand knowledge of the effects of Kindling, TDS, and Focal Brain Injury in Chemical and Electrical Sensitivity in his article of the same name in March 1997's Our Toxic Times, a publication of the Chemical Injury Information Network. He couldn't have been more accurate. He reiterates the work of Dr. Iris Bell, M.D., and co-workers whose 1992 research with animals and humans confirms the olfactory system admitting access of environmental chemicals directly to the brain, via the nose, of course. These molecules usually sink to the depths of lipid brain tissue into the limbic system before dancing their way around the entire body. Researched as being the seat of the emotional matrix, this system is also the location where information is organized into understandable categories; where information is processed into understandable perceptions. Memory, with its emotional connections, is stored there. "Not limited to one sensory input, it is 'tuned' into all possible inputs, whether sensory, imaginative, verbal or motor. This is why odors, movements, sights, sounds, ideas or a combination of these can rapidly trigger memories, emotions and behaviors;" trauma defusion being one of the few techniques of possible relief here.
Imbedded nesting allows for this seat or matrix to also house the higher senses of intuition, extended range perception, geometric and musical function among the greater arts and sciences which are oft first damaged in their essene nature. As such, tests rarely conclude 'damage' to the organ itself, but to the similarly illusive 'card catalogue' with the good doctor's analogy of the 'bookshelves' being intact but the organization and retrieval mechanism being decommissioned, not easily detectable, if at all, even with the highest-tech devices.
"How does the kindling and the mirror focus phenomenon fit into this? Researchers into epilepsy have long known that the olfactory and limbic systems are particularly susceptible to kindling. In fact, two limbic structures, the amygdala and the hippocampus, are frequently used in animals to study epilepsy because of the ease with which they can be kindled."
"This means that individuals whose brains have been injured can be kindled by either repeated low-level stimulation by a chemical or electrical irritant, or by a single peak exposure. Thus, an individual will continue to experience more and more effects from exposures too weak to affect a previously unaffected person, and the individual will possibly become more and more sensitive to weaker and weaker exposures."
As if that isn't enough, another hellacious effect to deal with coined TDS: Time-Dependent Sensitization, makes life for the sufferer even more unbearable. In TDS, the chemical at large has no effect at all in the immediate ranges, but major affects after the fact. One can imagine how impossible determining one's incitants would be.
"By definition, kindling eventually leads to seizures whereas TDS does not necessarily lead to seizures. Instead, it can lead to changes in the animal's [or human's] behavior, its sensations, cognition, autonomic nervous system responses, vestibular (balance) responses, motion responses, and/or in its immune or hormonal functions." Having experienced and documented all of these mentions in each injury and recovery, I can only salute their findings. Knowledge of the progressive nature of the injuries with seizures and fatality in end organ failure the primary reasons why being re-injured was fought to the death each round, pun intended, having lost all of them, no laughing matter.
Impossible to forecast, TDS may transpire with a single high-level exposure, or a few small, recurring ones. The combinations are endless. Without notice, a new exposure can unexpectedly effect an altered experience and/or behavior or alter the immune function. As this author found true, Dr. Robert S. Mayer, Ph.D., psychiatry and a recovering C/I sufferer, also expounds on the exasperating nature of the beast confirming that the effects will bounce around the system as the organ best equipped at the time takes the hit for those in a greater state of damage.
One might now glean a clearer understanding of just how impossible
coping with recurrent or continuing chemical injury is. Compounded further with the prospect of cross-sensitization, it's no wonder so many C/I sufferers finally present in CIIN's obituary section from one of the equally common causes of death: suicide. One can only know if one goes there for oneself. Otherwise, it appears to be a crazy world of hysterical reactions to non-existent assailants… to the observer… and even to those who've suffered universal reactivity, once recovered, and I'm told, some do.
Electromagnetic sensitivity is one of the most terrifying aspects of this type injury, found at its core, as did I. Description defied as one kindles at play in the fields, running thither and yon from invisible foes emanating from electrical appliances and devices of every ilk, one finds solace only in the offing.
Dr. Seastrunk concludes his report with mention of the findings of Ester Sternberg describing how the central nervous system affects the immune system through the endocrine, paracrine, and neuronal mechanisms. This only punctuates, with the endocrine system known to be the central neural net of higher mind function; i.e.: intuition, telepathy, geometric and musical faculties, with the variety of extended range perceptive abilities at the fore; the ease with which these functions can be damaged or destroyed. Belligerent destruction of which I do not take lightly after years of determined cultivation, intolerable pain and suffering of the lower systems notwithstanding.
As a final example, a recently burned fingertip fills the bill in conveying the nature of chemical injury, it's kindling and related effects. Preparing dinner, a large, steaming grain of gummy organic rice lodged itself under a fingernail searing the highly sensitive tissue underneath. The pain was intense as it seemed to shoot up the center of my arm to the shoulder, though I'm sure in retrospect it actually may not have. Certainly one can empathize having had a cut or burn in a highly sensitive area. I immediately attempted higher mind function without apparent relief as I headed for the cold water faucet finding comfort in its chill.
I enjoyed the evening faire left-handed with the seared fingertip on the dominant right's magnetically affixed to a rapidly melting ice cube. Thereafter, each time the seared tip would near any degree of heat from any source, the burn's intensity would immediately and equally rise to the occasion. In fact, the kindling effect revisited, literally. I spent the remainder of the evening with the injured fingertip soaking in a soothing cup of organic aloe vera juice in reprise of the gallons I drank which spared me through the worst of the injuries. Months turned years of recurring kindling for the various, unnecessary, totally avoidable, near-fatal internal and external chemical burns needlessly yet repeatedly suffered at the hands of bad little boys, brute force and ignorance.
Not having been able to vacate the arena long enough between bouts to sufficiently heal for what became, the next round, or eliminate its future sans remaining funds or formal assistance for rental of a porcelain trailer or even greater expense for adequate stays at one of the few very expensive chemical injury clinics, progressive injuries, uncovered medical expenses, and incalculable losses mounted. One C/I specialist encapsulated the situation reporting that the body shorts out after such extreme, long-term pain and suffering and can no longer interpret what it experiences. Salute. Leaving us all in mass confusion, I'll add.
Expecting contractors and workmen on the job to actually follow pre-and-post contract specifications with repeatedly exhaustive coaching, especially with a serious given medical issue at the fore [after the first and worst near-fatal injuries from particle/strand board
due to balled-faced negligence re: manufacturer, retailer, and
contractor] was another apparent faux pas. Failing workmanship
the rule, perpetrators are still at large with subsequent formal
requests re: accountability still in wait, with our farcical legal
and social systems in every branch, failing.Equally heinous, our illustrious medical profession also escapes with blatant malpractice, and in my case, let me literally burn to death, before any one of the many physicians petitioned, common with C/I victims, would appropriately address the situation. One physician solicited during the unwitting early stages even lamented, "Why me?" Contrasting, generous assistance was administered by each very knowledgeable and very caring alternative practitioner in attendance.
And so it goes, tallying up one's quota in accumulation of total body burden, internal burns, overall damage and dysfunction as well as those more obvious en exterior, brilliantly summed in a line from Starship's, The Burn: "They say you pay with what you earn, bad is better than The Burn."
Whatever your poison, be it lumber and construction materials as was mine, Healthy House Institute's, Lynn Bower, and hosts of others with lumber products being chemically manufactured, produced, dried, and preserved in lieu of simple kiln drying as in the past;
other construction, remodeling, and/or refurbishing materials
produced with known lethal and/or untested compounds as was CIIN's
President, Cynthia Wilson and Chaplain, Jim Forbes, pesticides,
as was the late E.A.R.N.'s President, Cindy Duehring, finally
succumbing from complications thereof as have countless others, or any combination
of the 70% of the 70,000
chemicals in commercial use never having been tested for effects
on human or other planetary faire as suffered by the rapidly growing
subculture of 37-75 million
plus… an escalating 15% of the current global population…
heretofore unwitting Chemical Injury victims… … a call
to arms! Echo the cry of the Audubon:
