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Welcome to Living With Environmental Illness, it is my goal thru this website to share with you what I have learned over the past 3+ decades living with this disorder.

My hope is that through sharing what has worked and what has not along with the latest research that you can bypass much of the struggle’s that I experienced, allowing you to rapidly return to a life that is as close to normal as possible.

What is Environmental Illness?

Environmental Illness is a term that encompasses disorders including but not limited to Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Toxin-Induced Loss of Tolerance, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Etc.

Symptoms include but are not limited to: Chronic Fatigue, Cognitive Impairment (brain fog), Neurological Issues (nerve pain, involuntary muscle movement, vertigo, numbness and tingling and vision issues.), Nausea, Skin Rash, Seizures, Digestive Difficulties, Vomiting, Suppression of the Immune System(auto-immune disorder), Difficulty Breathing, Fever and Chills, Headaches and Muscle Aches.

Left untreated Environmental Illness often leads to more serious Health Issues including but not limited to Heart Disease, Lung Disease, Kidney Disease, Liver Disease, Cancer, Dementia, Alzheimer’s, Auto-Immune Disorders, Etc.

Environmental Illness Root Causes.

Although it is possible to contract an Environmental Illness through a one-time High-level exposure to industrial chemicals, poisons, radiation, etc. This is not normally the case.

For most of us, our Environmental illness is a long-term result of living in an environment of poor air quality containing low levels of hundreds of V.O.C. class chemicals and other toxins combined with nutritional shortfalls in our daily diet.

The end result leaves us with a body that is being damaged faster than it can detox, repair or replace damaged cells.

Primary Sources Of Air Pollution In Our Lives.

Understanding what is making us sick is the first step in reversing our Environmental Illness. Recent studies published in April of 2018 have shown that most of us wear a cloud of toxins as we move through our daily lives.

Links To These Studies

Daily Emissions from Personal Care Products Contribute to Urban Air Pollution

Personal Plumes

Products Responsible

  • Products Containing Fragrance (including Natural Fragrance and Essential Oils)
  • Products that are Chemically Un-scented
  • Products Containing Chemical Preservatives
  • Aromatic Plants, Flowers, Herbs, Spices, Etc.

Includes Most

  • Soap
  • Body Wash
  • Shampoo
  • Conditioner
  • Deodorant
  • Household Cleaning Products
  • Laundry Detergent
  • Fabric Softener
  • Dryer Sheets
  • Air Fresheners
  • Muscle Sprays and Rubs

Treatment

Treatment for an environmental illness is not actually a treatment in the medical sense of the word. It is a series of educated changes that allow us to break free from the crippling effects of environmental illness and put us on a path of continually improving wellness.

    • Remove and replace the products responsible for air pollution in your home.
    • Purify the air that you breathe.
    • Provide your body with the tools it needs to detox, repair or replace damaged cells through complete nutrition.
    • Target and remove toxins that your body has locked away in long-term storage.

Treatment Links

Removing and Replacing Toxic Products

Air Purifiers

Complete Nutrition

Understanding V.O.C. Chemicals

V.O.C. stands for Volatile Organic Compound.

Volatile: A liquid or solid that has a high vapor pressure at ordinary room temperature. This high vapor pressure results from a low boiling point, which causes large numbers of molecules to evaporate in a short period of time.

Organic:  Originated from living matter. (Plants, Animals or Humans)

Compound: A group of chemicals bound together.

A quick search on the Internet only yields a vague description that V.O.C. chemicals can come from manufactured products like home furnishings, construction materials and even some personal care products. Dig a little deeper and you will find that most of these V.O.C. chemicals were obtained from the processing of crude oil (petroleum chemicals).

Much has been written regarding how to live a less toxic life, in most cases, the primary recommendation is to remove all petroleum chemicals sources from your home and replace them with natural, plant-based products.

The missing piece of information that makes this recommendation so dangerous is the fact that everything on the planet originates from natural sources. Our planets fossil fuels (petroleum, coal, natural gas, propane, etc.) are all byproducts of the death and decay of organic life.

In the simplest of terms: Plants generate oils, plants die and release those oils into the soil, rain washes those oils deep into the earth, we drill down and pump those oils to the surface and refine them into petroleum chemicals.

Why plants generate V.O.C. oils

At the risk of stating the obvious, “plants can’t run”. Plants generate V.O.C. Oils for the purpose of self-preservation. These V.O.C. Oils, that we recognize as the plant’s fragrance, are generated by the plants to protect themselves from predators (animals and insects). Plant generated V.O.C. Oils are all-natural pesticides and insecticides.

At the bottom of this page, you will find three links to abstracts from scientific studies examining the effects of Essential Oils (all natural plant fragrance), on the indoor air quality and on our bodies.

The Effects of Evaporating Essential Oils on Indoor Air Quality.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231006009939

Effects of essential oils on the formation of formaldehyde and secondary organic aerosols in an aromatherapy environment.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231009006785

Biological effects of essential oils – A review

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691507004541.

To summarize these three articles in plain English, use of fragrance indoors not only releases hazardous chemicals into the air but also react with atmospheric gases to produce increased levels of carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2). Our lungs, having no capacity to filter out chemicals and toxins pass these hazardous chemicals directly into the bloodstream where they are carried throughout the body. These hazardous chemicals are known to have cytotoxic (toxic to cells) as well as pro-oxidant (resistant to removal by antioxidants) qualities.