Wednesday, September 19, 2012

An MCS-friendly Drug list

The links in this post are obsolete. 
See the updated March 25, 2015 post.

In the February 2012 issue of Our Toxic Times (page 6), we published 2 lists of drugs that are likely to be better tolerated by those with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS). They come from web sites aimed at sufferers of Porphyria, a metabolic illness that is considered very rare. However, research has shown that many of those with MCS also test positive for one or more of the Porphyrias. That means there is a high likelihood that drugs tolerated by Porphyria sufferers will also be tolerated by MCS sufferers. It's not a guarantee, but it's a very good place to start. And these lists are something doctors can respect and work from, if you give them a copy of the list to keep.

The more extensive list is from South Africa where Porphyria is much more common than it is in the U.S.:
www.porphyria.uct.ac.za/druginfo/drug-frameset-group.htm


The other list is from the drug company Merck, and the link we gave is no longer active. I looked around the Merck site and found the list again at:
www.merckmanuals.com/professional/endocrine_and_metabolic_disorders/porphyrias/acute_porphyrias.html

If you end up copying and pasting these links, remember to close up any spaces that may show up. There are never spaces in web addresses. Also, FYI, if you find a hyphen in the middle of a word in a web address, it probably should not be there, especially if the address does not work when you try it.

Porphyria is incurable, the same as MCS. It is manageable (as is MCS) by avoidance. There is testing for Porphyria, but only 4 of the 8 known Porphyrias can be tested for, and it's not cheap, so testing is not something to jump into without some thought.

CIIN has a lot of information on Porphyria, but it is available only to its members. Take care.