Diet and Diets

Most of us were raised on the Standard American Diet (SAD) filled with chemically-grown and manufactured foods. Junk food. Fast food. Getting rid of unnecessary chemicals means eating only organically grown produce, organically, grass-fed meats with no additives for preservation or taste enhancing.

So many people have said to me, "I don't see the difference in organic versus chemically-grown food other than the price." Well, these critics aren't chemically sensitive...yet! There are some non-organic foods that have made me violently ill with stomach or intestinal cramps, headaches/migraines, rashes, nausea, dizziness. Even if you don't react to non-organic food, you still need to reduce the load in your body. Going organic is a step in the right direction.

Organic, whole food is pricy, no doubt, but as you make other changes to your lifestyle you'll find it'll all balances out. For instance, the amount of money I used to spend on cosmetics, facial cleansers and make-up removers, hair products, beauty parlor visits, soaps, lotions, detergents and toxic household cleaners would feed a small, third world country. I'd much rather buy quality food that is an investment in my health and in my future.

In addition to an organic diet, there are many other diets to consider:

Sugar-free Sugar isn't good for anyone. Besides weight gain, it also screws with your blood sugar levels. Because sugar has no nutrients and we need nutrients in order to digest, it sucks the nutrients out of your body in order to be digested. If you have a cold or illness and eat sugar, you'll have a really hard time getting over it.

Dairy-free Dairy products like milk, cheese, cream, ice cream, cottage cheese, and cream cheese  create inflammation and are difficult to digest for most. Non-organic dairy products have all kinds of chemical additives from artificial nutrients to preservatives, not to mention the antibiotics and growth hormones given to the animals so they may produce more.

Gluten-free  I've read most people are gluten sensitive in some way. Our bodies just aren't good at digesting grains. In addition, leaky gut is caused by undigested foods, usually grains, and bacteria permeating the intestinal tract and it is believed by many those toxic compounds are then leaked into our bloodstream causing a host of health problems including chemical sensitivity. And gluten is in nearly everything from cosmetics to tuna to chili powder! It's really sneaky.

GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) Diet This diet eliminates grains, dairy and sugars in order to heal leaky gut.

Paleo (caveman) diet Similar to gluten-free and GAPS in eliminating grains, sugars and dairy and going back to the natural diet of our ancestors. No processed foods, no chemically-grown foods, no genetically-modified foods.

Raw food diet This diet involves eating only raw food as high temperatures kill the nutrients and enzymes making food less beneficial. Raw food is easier to digest and more nutritious.  Any diet should consist of at least 75% raw foods for optimum health.

Juicing  Fresh, organic fruit and vegetable juices are like blood transfusions - liquid nutrients. And they taste so good! Beet and apple juice are natural liver detoxers. Fresh lemonade is heavenly. My favorite is carrot juice. There is some warning about the sugar content of fruit juice especially if you have any blood sugar issues, and juicing isn't really "natural" as it removes all the good pulp fiber from the plant. But it's fabulous!

Rotation diets For anyone who is finding themselves sensitive to any foods, be sure to rotate the foods you can tolerate so you don't develop a sensitivity. If you eat too much of one thing, your body starts seeing it as an "invader" triggering an immune response. Try to eat foods no more than once every four days so you have a variety.

There are also low-histamine diets, low-oxalate diets, low-salicylate diets, anti-Candida diets, anti-inflammatory diets, etc., etc. You name it, it's out there, but if you start mixing them your list of what you can eat gets very small!

Currently I'm doing a mix of the GAPS and Paleo diets with a Hashimoto twist. (It sounds like an alcoholic beverage!) No sugar, grains, dairy, tomatoes, mushrooms, potatoes, soy, iodine,  high-glycemic fruits along with all kinds of other weird rules. What that leaves are some meats, some veggies, some fruits, some nuts with coconut milk, olive and coconut oils. I'm being creative with meals, but I'm damn hungry all the time. I'm not really hungry,  just unsatisfied. I really miss the freedom of snacking.

There are also a number of cleansing diets designed to help the detoxification process:

Master Cleanse, or lemonade diet This lemonade is absolutely yummy made with fresh, organic lemon juice, Grade B organic maple syrup and a dash of cayenne pepper. Drink only this non-stop for a day or a month, alternating with herbal teas. The recipe and directions are online with many people gushing about healing miracles. It was yummy, but I got really tired of just lemonade. I wasn't hungry, just bored. You must follow the directions especially  coming off of it to avoid gastro-intestinal problems.

Liver and gall bladder cleanses It involves drinking lots of apple juice (a natural liver detoxer), grapefruit or lemon juice with 1/2 cup of olive oil. I know that sounds gross. It is. Hold your nose and drink it down. What's worse is drinking Epsom salts. Eeeww.  I did this once with great results. This is also a natural remedy for gall stones and kidney stones and is much cheaper and safer than surgery.  AND you won't be missing any body parts in the end!  Get proper directions online.

Fasting  Total water fasts for one day to two months.  This sounds crazy, I know, but fasting has been practiced for centuries. Socrates use to require it of his students as it cleans the body and opens the brain. One theory is all animals stop eating when they are sick to rest their bodies in order to heal. This makes sense to me. I think only the human species feeds itself to death. I tried it following Loren Lockman's protocol which he uses at his Tanglewood fasting clinic. Lockman claims with periodic fasting and a raw food diet, he cured himself of fibromyalgia.  It is said you stop craving food and stop being hungry after a few days. At day four I thought I was starving! I went right into a raw food diet which also says after seven days you stop being hungry. At twenty one days I still felt like I was starving. BUT I have to say, in the end, I was less reactive to chemicals and felt better. An option to water fasts are juice fasts, but again, the sugar content in fresh juices are a concern for many.

These are mere ideas to consider. With any special diets or dietary changes, it would be advisable to get specific directions online so you don't hurt yourself or seek the advice of a doctor or dietician. Not that I'm saying doctors or dieticians would even know about half these diets or approve of them. My personal rule is: follow your instincts and what makes your body feel good, unless it tells you to eat chocolate everyday then assume your body has been hijacked. Addictions will make you crave what they want, but in most cases your body will tell you what it wants.

What kind of diets have helped reduce your chemical overload?

What were your most difficult sacrifices?
What do you miss the most!?

Popular Protocols: Doctor Play

Here are some other ways doctor practice with MCS patients:

IV treatments - Same as supplement therapy only using a direct IV line right into your bloodstream. I've done some minor IVs like magnesium pushes. It seems very unnatural and incredibly invasive to me. Most patients I've watched do this have no complaints, unless no one could find a suitable vein. The few who were crying in pain during the drip left a lasting impression. Not a fan.

Immunotherapy  These are vaccine-like injections are related to the provocation neutralization testing results. Toxins are shot into your system with the premise you should become desensitized to the substance in small doses. Again, very invasive, but hey, if it works for deadly diseases like cholera and malaria, why not toxins?

Bioenergy sublingual treatments Supplements and extracts are used in small doses based on your bioenergy testing results to create desensitization. Very much like immunotherapy except through the digestive tract instead of injected. I tried one of these and I had the opposite effect with symptoms much worse than normal. I was told the dosage needed to be adjusted.  


Energy treatments  The patient lays on a massage table and the practitioner holds their hands over you and does secret stuff to unblock and rebalance your energy flow. Only twice did I feel like it did something. Once I experienced shooting pains down my left arm right after the session making me think I was having a heart attack. The second time the practitioner told me not to do any detoxification that evening or the energy flow would compound it. I forgot those instructions, did some detox cleanses and I had uncontrollable diarrhea in the middle of the night.  Oops! He was right! However, I never felt like the treatments relieved or eliminated the chemical sensitivity nor did my health improve in any way. I must be outstandingly blocked.

NAET (Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Treatment) This is very much related to the bioenergy testing, pulse testing, muscle testing, energy treatments and immunotherapy. Although I have not had the whole set for chemical sensitivity, I will share my limited experiences.

I knew a doctor who gave a talk on NAET to a group of nurses where I worked and he used me as his demonstration guinea pig. He said most people are allergic to eggs and had me hold a vial formulated to represent eggs. As I held tight, he did whatever he was doing, magically moving hands around and such. I have no idea if it worked as I didn't think I had a problem with eggs. However those bioenergy tests told me I was/am allergic to fertilized eggs?? Maybe I don't have reactions to eggs because I had this done? But I didn't have egg issues before either.

About a year later I was having a bad reaction after going to a funeral (formaldehyde, pesticide-laden flowers, perfumes) and I went to see this doctor again as he was also a chiropractor. I tried to tell him it was the chemicals that were making my head and spine swell causing the excruciating neck pain. I was hoping he could give me an adjustment to ease the pressure.

"No, no," he said. "You are grieving." He badgered me into another NAET treatment for grief. I wasn't grieving. I tried to tell him that but in the end I had hoped maybe he was right and this treatment would take all the pain away. It didn't. What a waste. It kind of put me off the whole NAET thing. I think some doctors get blinded by their enthusiasm for these odd treatments, they refuse to see anything else including the patient. As it is, in all my years and research, I've never met anyone who had benefited from the NAET. As I recall the NAET treatments are very expensive. I'm still open minded, but I'd want a money-back guarantee.

 

Heavy metal chelation using DMPS or EDTA - This is a detoxification IV therapy using incredibly smelly stuff that I'd never in my life trust being siphoned directly into the blood stream to flush (chelate) heavy metals out. Both substances report a host of side effects and it is recommended this is only used as a last resort. I don't get the impression it is used a last resort for most doctors. I've never done this. I've only smelled it and that was good enough for me.


Mercury amalgam removals - It is believed the mercury we have in our cavity fillings are poisoning us. Every time we breathe or eat/drink anything hot they offgas mercury into our bodies contributing to our overload. I've checked into this and they often use plastics to replace the mercury. Hmmm...not sure if plastic in my mouth would be any less toxic?  Still, I've read some people claim removing these heavy metals have made all the difference and I'm sure it contributes toward reducing the toxic overload.


I don't deny some of these treatments do affect our bodies, but I've never personally met anyone who said any of these protocols reduced or eliminated chemical sensitivity specifically.  I've read anonymous reviews claiming people have had miraculous improvement. Are patients really writing the reviews or are doctors advertising their services? Most often I hear from people, "Well, I think it helped...maybe?" Often MCSers will see benefits because of the placebo effect.  We are so desperate for answers we are willing to believe anything works even when it doesn't. Until there is a money-back guarantee or if you have unlimited funds, I wouldn't waste the money.


As cynical as I am, I would love to hear from others who have had positive experiences. Over the years I heard only two success stories. One woman professed a 95% reduction in exposure side effects by being on a raw food diet. Another said after numerous Traditional Chinese Medicine treatments having to do with balancing the north, south, east and west she was able to go to the theater and church for the first time in years without problems. She said the key was finding a quality Chinese medicine practitioner.


Do you have any experiences with these treatments? Any of them work?