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My name is Alita, and I suffered with multiple chemical sensitivities, fatigue, and mold allergies for approximately 23 years. I believe what triggered my chemical sensitivities was working as a manicurist for five years. Being in a full service salon, I was exposed not only to the chemicals that I was working with, which was acrylics, polishes glues, things that are pretty toxic, acetone. I was also exposed to all the hair products like dyes and hairsprays, and I was in a salon that didn’t have very good ventilation. In my college days, I was painting a lot, so I had turpentine and oil paints on my hands a lot, and I grew up with a father who was a chain smoker. I think all those things contributed. When I first started experiencing the symptoms, I wasn’t really sure what was wrong with me. I just knew that I was tired a lot and that it was hard to get through my work day.
I started to shorten my schedule. I would leave at 3, 3 30 instead of five. I was feeling extremely fatigued, nauseous, shaky, just not well. I didn’t feel like myself, and I had no idea what was wrong. It started to get worse. When I moved into a home that we remodeled, I now had a sinus infection that would not go away, and I was so tired I could hardly get out of bed. I didn’t make the connection that it was also the new carpet, the new paint. Everything was triggering me and I was feeling so bad. I had to quit work. I couldn’t go into work anymore. At the time, thank goodness I was married because I don’t know how I would’ve taken care of myself. I was that sick a lot of time and effort went into trying to find a way to get well and to stay well, just enough to get to work.
I tried a lot of different things. Every penny I had was spent on trying different things and investigating ways to be well. Some of the things would help a little bit. Some of them didn’t seem to help at all. But eventually with all my efforts, I was at least well enough to get back to work where I was working at a hotel. And after a period of time, I realized that there was mold in the hotel. So my immune system was starting to diminish, and I was beginning to get sensitive to things more than I had. After that experience, I had to quit that job, and I went to work for a chiropractor thinking that that would probably be a pretty healthy environment. But unfortunately, when he would process the x-rays, the chemicals that he had to use in the processing made me really ill.
And so eventually I quit that job as well, because he couldn’t stop doing the x-rays. I then got the job that I have now, which is more on the administrative, and I’m a career advisor, and at this job there was a lot of people coming and going that had extreme perfumes and colognes, and I was exposed to that daily, and it became very difficult to deal with, to the point where I was wearing a mask at work. So, that was a hard thing to have to do because everybody looks at you like there’s something wrong with you, but it was the only way I could stay at work. They eventually had a mold problem too, because some pipes broke and there was water leakage in the building. I had to leave work for a week, and when I came back, I could tell that there it wasn’t gone.
It, it just wasn’t noticeable to other people. I ended up getting pneumonia and I was on medical leave for a while. When I came back, I had my doctor write a note that, you know, she suspected there was mold in the building. I was given a special accommodation where I had an enclosed office with an air purifier, which helped me a lot. But still, when I would have clients come in to speak with me who had colognes on, I would have to either leave the room and sit in the hallway where there was more cubic space and more air for me, or wear a mask. And there were days that I had to actually go home if it was too strong. It was difficult. I was experiencing a sense of, am I going to be able to stay here and how am I going to support myself?
It was very scary. It was hard to maintain hope and optimism. My weekends were reserved for recovering. I would go home and just stay away from everybody and everything. I could no longer drive in somebody’s car because it was probably too new, or maybe they had a scent in there. I couldn’t go to movie theaters because there would likely be somebody sitting near me with a hair product that I was now reacting to, or cologne. If I was in a restaurant, I would have to leave suddenly if somebody was seated next to me who had perfume on because I didn’t wanna be down for three days in bed because of the exposure. So, you know, I had very supportive friends, but you know, I know that they felt badly for me that I know there were times that it was hard for them to understand if all of a sudden I had to run out from, you know, something we were doing together. So it was difficult, a really difficult period in my life. I was especially concerned about having to quit my job and not being able to support myself because at this point I was divorced, so I didn’t have anybody else to take care of me. It was just myself. So it was very scary, and difficult to imagine where was I going to go because I was starting to be sensitive to so many things.
So in my desperation, I got on the computer one night to research yet again to see if there was anything, maybe something had come about that I didn’t know about to help me because I had no idea what was going to become of me and my search. I somehow came upon Annie’s website where she was talking about her own recovery, and I saw testimonials of other people’s recoveries, and I was so elated and so happy. I was overcome with the thought that, oh my goodness, there’s something and I can get well, if they can get well, I can get well. And I remember just reading it and watching this website with tears falling down my face. And I was just, for the first time in 23 years, I had some hope. When I attended the workshop the first day, I was very excited and very happy to be there.
But there was a little part of me that was fearful that, what if this doesn’t work for me? I was afraid that if this wasn’t a fix for me, then there was, there was not going to be any hope. If this helped somebody else get well, but not me, then it was just that I was going to be sick the rest of my life. I noticed immediate changes after the workshop, not just physically, but my mental and emotional attitude. I was flying, I was sky high. I came home and I just felt like I’d been giving, given a new lease on life, that I had a new life, and I was practicing constantly the things that I had learned. I realized that it was making me happier and happier, and not only was I not reacting to things that I had previously, but I was just becoming a much happier person.
And that was a little plus that I wasn’t expecting and didn’t even realize that I had not been happy or as happy as I could have been. I was pretty much probably intolerable to some of my friends. I was so happy. I feel like I was kind of a three day miracle after that workshop because I don’t think I ever had another severe reaction. I could go anywhere in the building. I could be around people and if I had even the slightest reaction, I would overcome it quickly. So my recovery was almost instantaneous. If I did start to have some kind of a reaction, it almost didn’t even exist because I so quickly could circumvent that. I no longer was wearing a mask. I can now freely go into the copy room when copies are being made, and I don’t even detect the smell. But the biggest moment when I realized that I am well now was a day that I went into Walmart. I could go into Walmart first of all, but I was in the aisle where all the scented fragrances are. I could never go in that aisle. In the past, I was there because that’s where the dish washing gloves were, and I was looking for a pair of gloves. I’m looking at the gloves, and all of a sudden it dawned on me they must have moved all those scented products because I don’t smell them. So I turned around to look and there they were, and I wasn’t noticing them. And that was huge.
I would tell anybody who is suffering from a limbic system condition wholeheartedly, no, this will work for them. It worked for me. I suffered for so many years with it. It’s fantastic. It’s the best thing ever happened to me, gave me my life back, and I can’t say enough about it. I’m so grateful.
