Be cautious, please

People with MCS or chemical injury always seem to be looking for a product or treatment that will make them better. Perfectly understandable. However, they need to approach all such things with a super large amount of caution. One of the hallmarks of MCS is overreacting or strangely reacting to most anything that comes into their lives.

That means that when a doctor or health-care practitioner or sales person says a certain dose or product will be appropriate, the MCSer's first reaction must be to step back and ask a few questions. Such as, does this person actually understand MCS? Can I start with a very low, partial dose to measure my reaction? Is there any actual evidence to suggest this will help me?

Be cautious, please. Very few people have an in-depth understanding of Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. There is too much uncertainty in the field of environmental illness and medicine to make broad assumptions about the illness, its dynamics, and possible treatments. People with the best of intentions can too often cause things to get much worse. And, of course, some people are simply peddling crap to make money.

That being said, there are a few things out there that have helped people — sometimes substantially. In pursuing treatments and the like, take two large suitcases along, one filled with caution and the other filled with common sense. And if need be, contact the Chemical Injury Information Network to see if they have any information that might help.

Case definition update

At this time, there is a new case definition for MCS (multiple chemical sensitivity). It was written in a meeting of doctors/researchers that took place in August of last year (2007). It is now working its way through the peer review process on its way to publication. Difficult to tell how long that will take, but it probably won't come out until early next year, at a guess.
When it is published, we will shout it to the world in the pages of Our Toxic Times.