Winter Preparations

Determined not to freeze to death like I did last year, I have spent most of this year planning for this winter's cold weather. First step on my list was to remove the old, fiberglass heating ducts as well as the Freon-filled heater and air conditioner that has made me sick for the last eight winters. It's been such a nice feeling to have the crawlspace cleared of all those toxic materials.

Next I had cadet heaters installed in the living room, kitchen, bathroom, and office. I already had two cadet heaters in the bedrooms upstairs, so that's a total of SIX! Although it's not nearly close to freezing outside, we've had a few mornings when the temperatures dipped a little low and I could hardly wait to try them out. Within minutes the rooms were toasty. This is a huge difference as the old, creepy heating system would take at least an hour to warm up the house before I would feel a difference. I have lots of hope for a toasty winter! It'll be interesting to see what happens with my electric bill. With heat this efficient, I have high (unrealistic) hopes heating costs will be lower than they've ever been.


The next step in the plan was to buy warm, comfortable, organic bedding. I was tired of cheap, formaldehyde-soaked sheets so I splurged and bought organic jersey sheets. Although they arrived with silicon gel packs to prevent mildew in transportation and storage, after six washings they now smell fine and they are soft and so very comfortable.

The final step in the plan was to purchase an organic, wool-stuffed comforter. This has been a dream of mine for many years, but cost prohibitive. Last winter when it got really cold, I used my old polyester sleeping bag on top all my blankets, comforter, and sheets for warmth. So I headed back to Holy Lamb Organics to find out about discounted merchandise.

I love this company. It's located in an old, remodeled turn-of-the-century grocery store and all the original wood counters, shelves and hardwood floors are still there. There is a sign on the door stating it is a fragrance-free facility and asking people to refrain from the stink. My kind of business!

They make their comforter shells from organic cotton and they had fabric with flaws offered at a discount. I informed the salesperson of my concerns with packing chemicals and my not-so-good experience with the organic sheets from one of their suppliers. In order to alleviate my worries, she actually went into their stockroom, retrieved a queen-sized comforter shell and let me smell it. When I deemed it safe by exclaiming it smells natural, like a plant (cotton!?), she put my name on it.

Then I had a choice between thin, medium or thick wool filling. She asked if I slept hot or cold. I said, "Oh, God...Have you ever had a hot flash?" I told her I used to sleep cold, but that's not a guarantee. Last winter I fantasized about the thickest comforter possible, but now during a hot summer day, I waffled. I ended up ordering the medium thickness as I was worried the thicker comforter would never fit in any washing machine, let alone mine.

They HAND SEW these comforters together. I wish I would have taken photos of the tables with the fabric pieces. I watched one comforter-maker climb inside the shell to strategically place the wool batting. There was something very organic watching people hand-create something. The downside to hand-made, organic items is they don't come cheap. I kept chanting to myself, This WILL add joy to my life!!!  An organic, wool-filled, hand-made comforter is definitely a luxurious item.

While shopping online I found most of the organic, wool comforters needed to be dry cleaned. Eeeww! I have seen dry cleaners who advertise they are "organic", but I don't know what that means. Holy Lamb Organic comforters may be washed, but they give specific directions on HOW to wash them and make no guarantees. Their ultimate advice is to cover them with a duvet and avoid washing them if possible.



 

It's definitely beautiful, soft and fluffy. One thing I didn't expect is it smells like WOOL, a oily, sheep-y smell. I only smelled the shell before ordering, not the insides. It smells like the vitamin D capsules I used to use for moisturizer before the side effects started. Lanolin has never been a problem for me, nor wool, so I assumed the glycerin in the capsules were the cause of my discomfort.  I intend to cover the comforter with a cotton, flannel duvet so I'm hoping it'll seal it. Or maybe with time it'll offgas. With MCS, there is always a risk with trying out new products. It could be a very expensive, money-wasting experiment OR it could be incredibly joyous. Right now I am very hopeful!

UPDATES:  Good lord, this comforter is the best purchase I've made in a long, long time! I placed a duvet cover over it and that could be why I haven't smelled the wool. The wool is amazingly heat regulating. I love it!

Popular Protocols: Pill Pushing

I believe our bodies are always in a state of healing, always moving toward optimum health. This is what bodies do naturally regardless of what we do to circumvent the process. I read every two years we have a brand new body as it takes about that long to regenerate everything. I'm fairly certain it is the belief of most doctors our bodies aren't doing it fast enough so they need an extra push...with pills. Pharmaceuticals or supplements, it doesn't matter. Most are chemicals. All are drugs.

Yum! Yum! Why eat when we can take pills?

Americans love convenience. Why do the hard work when you can just pop a pill? I shouldn't even need to discuss the dangers of pharmaceuticals, but so many people blindly take them without much thought to the small-print warnings on the labels. All one needs to do is watch the news for another celebrity who has died from a pharmaceutical overdose. Nearly all drugs have a history of emergency room visits for overdosing, even the over-the-counter type you can get without a prescription. Pharmaceuticals are chemicals. They will add to the chemical overload your body is already experiencing.

Notes on pharmaceuticals and chemical sensitivity:  If one of your side effects is respiratory dysfunction, the easy assumption most conventional doctors will make is it's asthma and they will want to further poison you with inhalers. In addition to the drug, most inhalers use a chemical propellant and for the MCS patient, this will often make breathing more difficult and painful. Another common prescription is anti-depressants. A well-known side effect of anti-depressants is suicidal tendencies.  Does that make sense? The chemical overload is messing with our brain function. It doesn't seem rational to me to add more chemicals that might make it all worse.

What worries me more are the over-the-counter supplements that holistic doctors prescribe and anyone can buy and take freely. And they do, usually without any thought to how the particular supplement is manufactured, in what ratios and dosages, and how it might affect the natural chemistry of the body. Doctors rarely confess that many of the nutrients in the mix can negatively react with one another. Maybe they don't know? Maybe they don't care?

For instance, if you take too much vitamin C, it affects your body's ability to absorb iron. How many people eat flavored, synthetic vitamin C like it's candy and assume it's good for you? Synthetic vitamin E affects your ability to utilize real vitamin E. Calcium not in proper ratios with magnesium affects the absorption of both. The premise behind these issues is if you are giving your body extra synthetic nutrients,  it gets lazy and starts using the synthetics instead of the natural ones, but it can't utilize the synthetic ones as well.  Then the body shuts down its own absorption/utilization processes of natural nutrients.  I just recently read if you are taking calcium you have a higher risk of heart attack. Detoxification theories suggest taking all these extra synthetic supplements makes  your body work twice as hard to get rid of the excess when we should put our energy toward healing instead. These are just a few examples of the bad chemistry of unnatural supplements. 

What I want to know is how do manufacturers know the proper amounts and ratios for MY body specifically? I can't be the same as everyone else on the planet, but this is the assumption. Still, every doctor I've ever seen in my life wants to force a vitamin down my throat and not one of them can tell me the side effects of taking these drugs. They claim they are all safe. Hardly.

And what about the additives and fillers used to make these pills? Magnesium stearate, calcium stearate, silica, soy lecithin, cellulose, microcrystalline cellulose, glycerin, gelatin. Isn't silica in ceramics? Synthetic forms of nutrients with industrial strength fillers...it makes no sense. Eat some fresh fruit instead.

I grew up working in health food stores so for years I was brainwashed into believing because of modern agricultural processes, we MUST take supplements because there are not enough nutrients in the soil to produce nutritious foods.  REALLY? If there weren't enough nutrients in the soil, the plants wouldn't grow! It makes you wonder who started that rumor and what were they trying to sell? Supplements, you think?

If you are eating a healthy diet of fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, you should be getting enough nutrients. Add some organically grass-fed, steroid-free fresh meats and you'll get more. If you aren't digesting the nutrients well, that is a whole other health issue you need to address, but as I started this post, our bodies WANT to heal themselves. Give them time, proper diets and health lifestyles, they will.

Herbs, on the other hand, ARE drugs and have been used as drugs for centuries. Yet so many people take herbal supplements everyday as if they are food stuffs with no safety issues.  After all, herbs are available on the shelves for anyone to buy and the FDA hasn't restricted them so they must be safe, right? We don't even need a prescription, just money. We are far too trusting of the FDA to protect us from everything. Many herbal drugs react with pharmaceuticals, too, so that has to be a common-sense warning. I read once no one should take an herb for more than two weeks at a time, yet manufacture advertising  promotes eating Echinacea non-stop during the winter to fight off colds. We need to stop being so naive and instead start using our brains to protect ourselves instead relying on a steady diet of pills.

MY PERSONAL DRUG STASH: Aside from my lofty opinions and soap-box lecture on the evils of pills, I do understand when push comes to shove and a person is so miserable with illness or pain they would do anything, drugs have their place. I have emergency relief drugs I take only if absolutely necessary:

Benadryl  This over-the-counter allergy medication seems to be the go-to drug to give to anyone so I've always been against how easy it is for everyone to trust taking it or giving to their kids. However, one day while I was surfing the internet looking for clues I came across a woman's comment on how she uses Benadryl when her brain swells and becomes inflamed due to a bad exposure. Whoa! She went on to explain about the severe mood swings and neck pain, basically describing those scary ultradian cycles I have experienced. This to me was a lifesaver, literally. So my next bad exposure I tried it. It worked! Benadryl is an anti-histamine and controls swelling.  It also makes my ears ring, is dehydrating, and knocks me out for hours so I can only take it at night.

Ibuprofen  Migraines are a bitch. I can tolerate one for about 24 hours before I realize it's affecting my ability to function and then I give up. I take only one which only reduces the pain slightly, enough so I can get out of bed. I know what this drug can do to a person's liver so I avoid partaking as much as possible and only when desperate.

Dr. Shulze's Intestinal Formula #1  Dr. Shulze is into herbal dextoxification programs and through his website www.herbdoc.com and mail catalog he is willing to sell you any remedy for any bodily affliction. He's a wheeler and dealer, too, like an old-fashioned snake oil salesman. I love listening to him. He believes if you keep your colon clean, then your other detox organs (liver, gall bladder, bladder, skin) can clean your body properly and efficiently. His theories make a lot of sense. I have done his intestinal cleansing program and it works fine. I wouldn't make a habit out of it as I think one needs to eat right to properly motivate the intestines, but in an emergency situation, I use this formula to expedite the process. Any time I have a bad exposure whether it's toxic air or something I ate, this is my first line of defense: get it out of my body. Whoosh!  He used to give out a free tape recording of his philosophy one could order off his website. It's hilarious!

In my part of the country we suffer from solar deficiency so I'm buying into the fact I don't get enough sunshine on my face. My labs are showing low levels of Vitamin D so lately I've been testing Vitamin D to see if it makes any difference. I'm not having any side effects, which is rare with a supplement, so we'll see what happens. Regardless, it's a temporary test. It would take a heck of a lot of misery for me to take a pill every day for any reason and I'm not there yet. (Update: Even if I use Vitamin D as a moisturizer my neck and spine start hurting. I think it's the glycerin, but I don't see how lanolin is good for anyone to eat and it's the source for this natural Vitamin D supplement. I also read Vitamin D can cause kidney stones which is not a selling point. I've been eating lots of eggs and getting out in the sun as often as possible and my labs have improved.)

Do you take anything that helps alleviate your chemical sensitivity?

Do the supplements you take really help or are they contributing to the load?