So with MCS, people can have mild symptoms or severe symptoms, mild disruption to their life or severe, mild energy problems or severe, and all levels in between. But the overall trend is what determines ability to stay in a certain environment or not and affects healing potential.
Most will fit into one of these categories, though people can change categories over time, especially if the environment changes, whether for better or worse:
A. Getting worse. This person’s symptoms, whether beginning mild or severe, keep getting worse where they are. The downhill journey can be slow or fast, and of course if the person begins as rather severe (in a symptom or energy), getting worse becomes more serious quicker. Either way, this can eventually lead to becoming bedridden and to life-threatening situations.
I was in this category for much of 5 years, which is why I had to keep moving, trying to find a place I did better. Sometimes a change in which toxicants I was around helped me survive.
B. Stable. This person’s body is able to deal with whatever chemicals or mold is in their environment enough to remain generally okay. Symptoms may still go up and down, sometimes even wildly, but their body is able to bring it back into a place where they can cope without too much risk of a downhill trend or life-threatening situations. (Although some will still face life-threatening symptoms which they have learned to manage even while overall relatively stable.) This person has learned their limits and can function at one level or another.
C. Getting better. The environment has been altered enough for this person to begin healing and improving. This of course is the goal, but often it is unattainable because of money or other constraints. 🙁
D. Getting much better. This person’s improvement includes tolerating previously intolerable chemicals, recovering quicker from exposures, and a point at which the body is detoxing faster than what is coming in. The person may still be susceptible to new exposures, especially ones particularly troublesome for their body, but generally they are able to heal again.
This category is where I have been since we moved in here, our low-tox house. Since I could not achieve category B anywhere we found, we had to go drastic and build.
One symptom that affects progress greatly is something called Post-Exertional Malaise. This is an extreme tiredness after physical activity that is impossible to overcome. This of course makes an uphill spiral extremely difficult. After about 4 months living here, I began to experience relief from my PEM, sometimes for hours, sometimes for whole days if i did not overdo. It felt amazing and of course allowed for much more progress.
Another aspect is specific symptoms. If a certain chemical gives one atrial fibrillation or asthma or inability to eat, these can lay one flat even though it is just one chemical in an otherwise-good environment. This has happened to me three major times since moving here, the first major time being the cast for my broken wrist. I reacted to it with heart problems and therefore extreme exhaustion for 7 weeks. Ugh. Unfortunately it causes a cascade of health problems. Being bedridden causes all cardiovascular improvement to go backwards, can affect digestion, does not allow for good detox, and affects ability to do things to get better like get out in the sun. Within an hour of getting my cast off, my energy lifted a little bit. But it took more than 2 months to get to where I was strong enough and had energy enough to bathe myself again. And then within a week, the bad wildfires hit our area….. But I digress.
Next time I will share general categories of what people need in order to move to category B., C., or D.
Christa Upton Black Hills Picture Books Edgemont, SD 57735
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