Chemical Sensitivity: the Truth About Environmental Illness
BMJ 1998; 317 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.317.7163.957a (Published 03 October 1998) Cite this as: BMJ 1998;317:957All rapid responses
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I had no problems with chemical sensitivies until AFTER I was mercury poisoned by my dentist. I was more susceptible to being poisoned because I had been taking prednisone for Belle's palsy and it had pulled down my immune system.
I breathed mercury vapor in my dentist's office when he drilled into a "silver" amalgam mercury filling. He did not protect me from the vapor by using a respiratory device such as a oxygen mask or a mask connected to a clean air supply. MOST dentists do not use these protections to keep patients from breathing mercury vapor. So when I breathed the vapor it went into my brain.
Nine days later my head had a burning sensation that felt like my brain was "on fire." I developed electrical surges throughout my body for a few seconds and my brain felt like it was vibrating inside my skull.
I have seen a reference to a 1972 British Medical Journal article that said that mercury is a known catalyst that causes aluminum to oxidize rapidly, with the production of heat. This was in an article about thimerosal and aluminum. (I have not been able to locate the name of the article online.)
When I had a heavy metals test, it showed high levels of aluminim and thallium and low levels of mercury. Since I had high levels of aluminum, that may be the reason for the buring sensation when the mercury vapor vapor hit the aluminum that was already in my body.
Mercury does not always show up in high levels in poisoned individuals since people who are susceptible to being poisoned are RETAINERS of mercury, therefore high levels of mercury may not show up in a provoked (with a mercury chelator) urine test, or with a hair test. Mercury only stays in the blood for brief periods of time so it is not a good test.
When I would smell cigarette smoke, perfume, household chemicals, hairspray, car exhaust, gasoline fumes, tar on the highway, etc. my buring sensation would increase and my glands would swell in my neck and my head would throb.
I had severe memory loss, vertigo, floaters in my eyes, food allergies, muscles aches, chronic fatigue, numbness and tingling throughout my body after being exposed to the mercury. However, many mercury poisoned people do not experience my symptoms but others. It depends on one's genetic susceptible as to how mercury will affect different individuals.
I had my fillings safely replaced by a BIOLOGICAL dentist and was diagnosed as toxic by an alternative physician belonging to the American College for the Advancement in Medicine. He gave me the chelator DMSA (Chemet) to pull the mercury from my body.
Regular doctors in my hometown did not recognize I was poisoned even though I suggested I might be. Since symptoms of chronic low level poisoning from amalgam fillings are so varied, doctors have a hard time diagnosing the disease.
My story is on my website at www.MercuryPoisoned.com I belong to a grassroots non profit international organization
DAMS, Dental Amalgam Mercury Syndrome. We give referrals to biological dentists who know how to remove fillings while minimizing the patient's exposure to mercury vapor, and referrals to physicians who understand how to diagnose and treat mercury toxicity. DAMS' website is at www.amalgam.org.
An excellent website to reseach mercury toxicity is www.testfoundation.org. This is the site of Chemistry Professor Dr. Boyd Haley, who has researched mercury for 30 years and is often called as an expert witness before Congressional hearings about mercury in dental and medical products.
To recover from multiple chemical sensitivities, one needs to remove all sources of toxicities to the body and use chelation drugs/ supplements/ sauna to detox the body. My chemical sensitivites are decreasing as I am removing more and more mercury from my body. However, I still need to avoid the source of toxic exposures to chemicals to give my body an opportunity to heal.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
People who do not suffer from multiple chemical sensitivity,
are not qualified to judge those of us who do. I have lived
with this miserable affliction for more then seventeen
years. I can't go anywhere, without suffering severe
reactions to many, many chemicals. Perfume being one of the
worst offenders, because it's everywhere. It's difficult
for me to find non-toxic products for my own use.
What caused me to become sensitive to chemicals was the
paint strippers, varnishes, adhesives, and other products
that my husband used to renovate our kitchen. Then more
problems with new carpeting, new furniture, and more. I
lost my health, and came very close to losing my life.
Oh yes, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is real, and I will
have to live with it for the rest of my life.
Competing interests: No competing interests
Re: Chemical Sensitivity: the Truth About Environmental Illness
Dear Editor,
This article is very old because it has been published prior to 2013 when the UK had signed the Minamata Convention, now ratified. It has always been a scientific fact that mercury is the second most poisonous chemical element on Earth. The fact that many governments had allowed this atrocity to poison millions of people around the world did not and could not ever change this fact.
This publication, however, is now akin to the UNESCO heritage site because of the two rapid responses you had received, especially from a teacher in the USA who had described how her body could not handle mercury due to additional aluminum toxicity. Whether mercury in her was lodged in tissues and bones and did not circulate as much in the blood is a big question, because mercury from one or more dental amalgam fillings would gradually accumulate in various tissues and only a DMSA challenge test could pull some of it into the urine or blood.
Notice how this woman is trying to persuade how bad it was for her and also how she wrote: as if she did not know her language. It is clear she was chronic mercury (and aluminum) poisoned at the time of writing and possibly had not chelated properly and had not yet fully regenerated her health. Her response is a cry out for help and also for the truth.
Let us call for the UK Government to ban dental amalgam fillings within several months rather than place 8 million of amalgam fillings per year in this country until after 2029 - the date currently proposed by the Minamata Convention parties for the phasing out and ban of amalgam fillings. Millions of people would become chronic mercury poisoned (CMP) for many years ahead with considerable damage to their health.
Competing interests: No competing interests