Tag Archives: brain fog

Oops!

Greetings everyone! Please accept my sincere apologies for the post that went out yesterday.

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Who Wants to Help Me Get New Air Purifier Filters?

I need several air purifiers to clean the air of pollutants from unavoidable everyday products and materials (like the mail, receipts, product labels, food packaging, replacement of any basic essentials, etc) and also the neighbourhood pollution (trains, planes, laundry products, pesticides, BBQs, fireplace smoke, etc) from my indoor air so that my brain and body can work more like they were intended to.

To cook, clean, and take care of my very basic needs, (nothing extra going on here, I am housebound) I am dependent on clean air to be able to function. My filters need to be changed annually or every other year (depending on what the air quality has been like) and mine were last changed in 2012, three years ago.

I have looked all over the place for funding to purchase new filters and there just isn’t anyone out there with a mandate to provide clean air to those who require it for medical reasons.

! ! !

IAQ help

Last summer was a disaster for me, this year was even worse. I’ve had a horrid three  months from area roadwork and pesticide use (there was massive spraying of Wild Parsnip around this part of Ontario during the summer, and the pesticide drift got to me really bad), and now other simpler exposures that hadn’t been bothering me as much as they used to, are again having more serious adverse effects on me because my indoor air is not being filtered anymore.

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Why Exposure Monitoring Would Be Medically Validating

We (as a society) are facing unprecedented kinds of health problems and challenges that can easily (if you do any research) be explained by our 24/7 exposure to toxic chemicals in everyday products and materials, GMOs (and pesticides) in our “food” supply, and 24/7 exposure to unsafe levels of wireless radiation.

Harmful pollutants are now in our air, water, food, clothing, and you name it, it’s likely to be either made with toxic materials, or has 2nd or 3rd hand toxic chemical contamination from passing through a toxic environment. These exposures add up, and are messing with our health and well-being in ways that are not yet well-understood, but point to the urgent need to stop business as usual, and stop burdening our bodies with so many harmful pollutants that we were simply not designed to process.

There is money to be made by selling drugs, even if the drugs aren’t appropriate to the condition,  do nothing to heal what’s wrong, and often just make things worse, much worse.

Stephen Genuis is a researcher who has published many peer reviewed articles dealing with environmental health. In 2014 the official journal of the Canadian Family Physician published two of them. I shared the abstract from one of them last year.

I am going to “quote” extensively from the other article here, as most of you don’t follow the links, but will read what I have here.

Pandemic of idiopathic multimorbidity
Stephen J. Genuis, MD FRCSC DABOG DABEM

Canadian Family Physician June 2014 vol. 60 no. 6 511-514

“Sitting among colleagues in the private room of a swank eatery, I recently had the pleasure of participating in a pharmaceutical industry–sponsored medical education event allegedly exploring the management of patients presenting to their health providers with multisystem health complaints.

The animateur for the evening—an eloquent orator with impressive credentials—raised the issue of the rising prevalence of patients who present with a laundry list of ongoing and seemingly unrelated persistent complaints often including headache, joint pain, fatigue, brain fog, bloating, chemical intolerance,1 muscle aches, itchy skin, and so on.”

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UnStopped and Able Until…

I have heard that new ads are out and insinuating people will somehow feel richer  merely by inhaling mysterious blends of chemicals.  Please don’t be fooled. Seriously.

“Unstopables …  will add an indulgent level of luxurious scent to every load of your laundry. Add as much as you wish for up to 12 weeks* of scent enhancement so you can smell like the lifestyle you—and your wardrobe—deserve.”

They fail to mention that your neighbors who get migraines may think that the “scent enhancement” emanating from your dryer vent (which was designed to emit moisture, not chemicals) is not such a good thing for them, their asthmatic children, or for their aging parents who have lung disease and whose window is yards from your vent.

Apparently we also don’t deserve to know what we’d be inhaling if we use these things! P&G will only refer us to the self-regulated fragrance industry’s voluntarily disclosed list of over 3000 ingredients, most of which are petroleum derived. (Scroll down for a PDF of the list, which took quite a bit of sleuthing around their other website to find).

I’ve designed a few new ads for them, simplifying some of their marketing messages into plain English for you :

UnStopped and Able Until

There’s more, much more…

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It’s Not Personal, It’s The Chemicals #2

The images in the 1st It’s Not Personal, It’s The Chemicals  were so popular, I decided to make more while my brain was functioning in this mode. Here are a couple that were very well received on facebook, plus a few new ones featuring children and office workers, as they too are being impacted by what we choose to use and put in the air.

It s not you 16

It s not you children

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Blog-Share: Brain-Fog Part One

I found a blog post with some great descriptions of brain fog and how it can affect those of us who have it. Click on the link title to read Sarah’s stories:

Brain-Fog_Part One.

too foggy

I can relate to so many of the descriptions, having had very similar experiences for  years…

And I am so very glad that I can now make my daily (fair trade, organic) coffee and do other slightly more complex things without needing to exhaust myself using all my (still limited) energy and effort to remain mindful focusing on whatever task is on hand. (The ability to hold more than one thought in my mind and do two things at once again has created new challenges, but that’s another story)

Fun times, not… even though they can make some funny stories when we feel better!

Personal Update: It’s No Longer All In My Head!

Well, it never really ever was all in my head.

My arms, legs and the rest of my body have been affected too. But most of it was because things weren’t functioning as intended in my brain (which still IS in my head), and since brain functions control so many other things (like how our body functions, and how we communicate), when brain chemistry is altered (with or without choice or permission) then body functions will be altered too.

Think of what happens when you have a drink, then a few more, and then finish the bottle… Are you functioning the same way before drinking as after?

Personal Update Part One:

I am doing a lot better these days, in some ways even thousands of times better than I was doing by the time I left Bloor Street in May of 2010. I can now usually get through most of my days without everything requiring constant, exhausting effort, but it hasn’t turned into me being able to do or accomplish that much more in actual practical terms.

I still have brain issues and most of the other practical limitations that come from MCS/ES and a toxic brain injury, but recently, I have started feeling so much better!

I am trying to wrap my mind around that because it doesn’t make logical, rational sense to me. How is it that I can feel so much better without doing so much better?

Maybe it has just been so long since I’ve felt even halfway ok, and because some part of my brain chemistry is working differently and more normally…?

Whatever it is, it isn’t tangible, but it is a very welcome change!

water dance

Part Two: Insights

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Chemical Brain Drain… What Are We Thinking?

This is the most significant issue I have with MCS/ES, the ways my brain (and functioning) are affected from exposures to chemicals in everyday products.

I suspect (and I am not the only one) that some of the bigger problems we are seeing in society now, are due to widespread neuro-toxic chemicals (in addition to wireless radiation) affecting too many people’s ability to think clearly.

Philippe Grandjean:

Our intelligence depends on the integrity of the complete organ. Even subtle effects, such as memory deficits, attention problems, or motor dysfunction, can seriously impact on our health. Thus, the brain differs substantially from other important organs, such as the kidney or the liver, where we can lead successful lives without maximal function…

Our brain functions are valuable to ourselves and to society. Data on exposures to lead, mercury, and pesticides suggest that the losses to society amount to hundreds of billions of dollars every year. This calculation is based solely on losses of income and does not take into account less tangible damages associated with chemical brain drain

http://braindrain.dk/

chemical brain drain 1

Known chemical brain drainers

(chemicals known to cause brain toxicity and neurological symptoms in humans)

Someone needs to check IFRA’s list of ingredients to see how many of these are used in fragrances, I think too many…

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