Machaon

There are MCS doctors. MCS sufferers can also qualify for Social Security Disability.

Most doctors, just like any other profession, just do their job out of their professional manuals. Doctors only see their patients once in a long while, and only see a tiny microcosm of a patient's real symptoms, lifestyle and experiences. Each patient is different. Their immune system experiences are different. How a patient reacts to irritants is usually based and developed over many years. It is very complex. Each patient, like you, is like a chess game to a doctor.

A doctor could just take your case and almost spend full time trying to figure out how to cure you. Doctors really have almost impossible jobs. Then you have to figure in the factor that many doctors choose the wrong profession, and should have been mailmen or car mechanics instead.

In your case, the doctor scratches his head, looks your symptoms up in his job manual, finds something about acid reflux, and gives you a pill that he can understand. He can treat acid reflux. He just can't understand or treat the weird problems that we have!

Could be. Have you read about out-gassing? Paneling, carpets, furniture, etc. outgas stuff like formaldehyde.

You have nailed my main problems right on the head. I have a slight sensitivity to cotton. Usually this doesn't bother me. If I use 100% organic, pure cotton, and I lie under it, I will almost immediately get a little tightness in my chest and some problems breathing, my heart then will first start to skip a beat every once in a while, followed by a thud! Then, as time goes by, my heart will skip additional beats, and then get more erratic. If I fall asleep, I will wake up about 3am with my heart racing, thumping, skipping, jumping, and with me feeling totally exhausted, sweaty and weak. For the next day or two I will feel totally drained and ill.

Unfortunately, I experience these same problems at other times, for other reasons, so it just isn't limited to organic cotton, and when I go to sleep.

I only get the top two, plus the feeling drained and fatigued.

Explaining symptoms just falls on deaf ears. It isn't in their shop manuals. So, they wait until you say something that is in their shop manuals, like you have a sore big toe. They will look up sore big toe, see how much to charge your insurance, and then they smile because THEIR problems are solved.

There are so many problems with the air indoors, including mold, outgassing of furniture, paneling, insulation, rugs, etc. Add to that the dusts and chemicals used for cleaning and you really have a complicated mess.

Then....... there is the biggy! The outside air. You might be living in a place that has more pollutants and pollens in the air. There could be some plants or bushes or trees or flowers, in your neighborhood, that are spewing out their stuff, and making you react even worse.

I have similar problems to you. If I leave my home, and go outside on a low pollen/low pollution day, my blood pressure and my symptoms are diminished. On the other hand, if I go outside when the pollens and pollution are bad, my symptoms get worse.

So, as you, I realize that the environment where I live is not the best for my health.

I've got large air cleaners (cost about $50 each at auction) in each major room of my house, with two in this office, and two in my bedroom. I vacuum the filters often, and if there was smoke in the air, I will blow out the filters with a large fan that I own.

I also air my place out. I open all the windows for about 30 minutes, but not during rush hour, and not when the air pollution or pollen level is high. That seems to help. Otherwise, though, I keep my windows closed.

What am I doing right now to help stop these maddening symptoms and reactions? This note is too long. I will finish in the next note. I have made some major changes in my home to deal with my illness. I will cover those also in the next note.