Hazel had been ill, in one way or another, for most of her life. As a child she had pains in her stomach a lot of the time, and shooting pains in her arms and legs. She was sick when she ate certain foods, notably fish. Despite this, she was a bright child and did well at school. At 17, she suddenly became very lethargic, put on weight and suffered ’swollen glands’ (enlargement of the lymph nodes, which are part of the immune system). These symptoms looked just like those of glandular fever, and that was what her doctor diagnosed. But the illness lingered for over a year, and in the end the doctor decided that she must be suffering from depression. Her tiredness was such that Hazel could no longer study and she failed all her school exams. She remained unwell, with recurrent headaches, sleepiness, fatigue and inexplicable bouts of fainting. Alcohol made these symptoms worse, she noticed, so she gave up drinking at the age of 20. Her family doctor remained convinced that all her problems were in her mind.

When she was 22, Hazel consulted a doctor who felt that her illness might be something in her diet or environment, rather than a psychosomatic problem. He tried out an elimination diet, and got a reasonably good response. Six common foods were identified as causing symptoms, but even when she avoided all these Hazel was still not particularly well. So she was admitted to a special hospital with controlled environmental conditions. Here she blossomed, recovering a great deal of her former vitality and alertness. She was then exposed to various synthetic chemicals in turn, and reacted badly to diesel fumes, cigarette smoke, natural gas, chlorine and alcohol. Some made her drowsy or faint, others produced a severe headache or nausea. Tap water and filtered tap water also affected her, whereas mineral waters caused no problems.

By avoiding her culprit foods, and removing a number of synthetic chemicals (see pl64) from her home, Hazel managed to maintain a reasonable state of health once she left the environmental unit.

*215\180\8*

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 11:57 am and is filed under Allergies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.