> Environmental and Health Concerns > Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS)

Incense, essential oils and aromatic candles may be helpful treatment tools for some patients, but they can be disastrous for patients with chemical sensitivity.

Patients who suffer from environmental illness (EI) or multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) live with a hidden disability. If we’re lucky, we can access one of the handful of physicians specializing in environmental medicine in Canada. Most cannot. Instead, we seek out alternative medicine, presuming we’ll get at least some relief there. For the most part, we will. But too many alternative medicine practitioners who want to treat the environmentally ill ignore our basic needs. We need to have access to scent-free environments. Incense, essential oils and aromatic candles may be helpful treatment tools for some patients, but they can be disastrous for patients with chemical sensitivities.

Patient reactions are triggered by volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that emanate from both synthetic and natural foods, flowers, oils, waxes and perfumes. Natural is almost always better than petrochemical-based products, but for the environmentally ill, no scent is the only thing we tolerate well. VOCs lingering in the air can cause severe reactions in the muscles, brain, lungs, vascular and digestive systems.

I recently started back to work after 11 years of being on a disability pension for my environmental illness. I lucked into an office space in Ottawa that had excellent indoor air quality. It was the only office I had not reacted to in more than 10 hyper-reactive years of living. I timeshared the office with three other alternative medicine practitioners. When I asked them to put their incense, scented creams and oils away in hermetically-sealed containers at the end of the day so that they wouldn’t off-gas into my workspace, I was told by one that she did not believe that I or my patients were disabled, and she refused to cover her incense. When I insisted, I was asked to pack up my practice and leave.

This deplorable reception was devastating. I had been brought to my knees by one of the most dreadful illnesses I’d ever encountered as a nurse. I was trying to get back into the workforce after being on a meagre monthly pension for years. Behind me, I had a decade of experience advocating on behalf of the environmentally ill in my former role as president and CEO of the Environmental Illness Society of Canada (EISC). After clawing my way back to health, inch by inch, I was knocked down once again, financially and emotionally, by this lack of awareness and understanding.

In my eight years with the EISC, I received many letters from patients who had been refused much-needed medical care or access to doctors’ offices. It is my hope that this article will help all frontline practitioners realize that persons who suffer from EI/MCS react to chemicals at levels very far below those that affect healthy Canadians. Ours is an invisible disability. Bad attitudes handicap us.

Some estimates suggest that environmental illness hits roughly one in six Canadians. A high percentage of these patients seek out alternative treatments. The person who hurt my chances of getting back to work in a safe environment and of providing an oasis for my patients was, of all things, a natural medicine practitioner. Such people in positions of influence need to be enlightened role models–accepting and sensitive to the needs of the environmentally ill. The EISC has information of interest to consumers, patients and practitioners on its website: www.eisc.ca .

Judy Spence is a registered nurse and a certified NAET practitioner in Ottawa, Ont. Contact her at (613) 447-NAET or naetottawa@yahoo.ca

Source: alive #231, January 2002