Colleen and her friend Beth discuss statistics and friendship challenges and benefits in another revealing post for Invisible Illness week…
Just like Colleen waited for years to get officially diagnosed with MCS, so did I, and for mainly the same reasons.
I knew that the doctors at the time knew nothing about it (or they would have given me a clue as to what the early signs were years ago).
Eventually I came to realize that statistics ARE important (to decision makers), and if we don’t make the effort to get an official dx (I say effort, because many people go from uneducated doctor to uneducated doctor for years… see my post about good news for Ontario to understand what a major deal the announcement of training 2 doctors in environmental health is) then in the eyes of decision makers, we do not exist.
That means that services for us continue to not exist also…
But when we speak up, things change.
I love how Colleen is speaking up, and how her friends are too!
For day 5 of Invisible Illness Awareness Week, my buddy Beth has agreed to give her perspective of what it is like having a friend disabled from MCS. In a Canadian study, in 2010, over 800,000 people were diagnosed with MCS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivities) an 31% increase in 5 years. Those during the same time period with one or more of Chronic Fatigue, Fibromyalgia, and MCS were 1,415,000 (a 25% increase). This study excluded children with MCS and focused mostly on people with MCS diagnosed by a doctor. I personally went undiagnosed for decades. I avoided the triggers of perfume as much as I could. I figured there was nothing a doctor could do for me anyway and why be just another statistic. I now understand how important it is for our governments to have accurate statistics. The more people who give MCS a voice — the more likely we…
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Seriously "Sensitive" to Pollution 