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Multiple Sensitivities - Underlying Cause?

mrquasar

Senior Member
Messages
358
Location
Houston, TX USA
So I am still in the midst of testing for my underlying condition which remains a mystery after many years. My symptoms are pretty similar to ME/CFS, but I have very unusual sensitivities which make me feel like something else must be causing this.

These are my following sensitivities and reactions:

1. Mold spores - increased brain fog and sedation (can be extreme)
2. Mildew - inflammation in my head (ears and sinuses), headache, general sick feeling
3. Cheese and yogurt - generalized inflammation, increased brain fog
4. Perfumes and artificial scents - feel woozy, increased brain fog

Thankfully, I've been mostly able to eliminate these triggers, but when I do encounter them, the reaction is very marked. And it basically gets more and more severe until I remove the trigger. (BTW, it doesn't feel like a traditional allergic reaction. More like being intoxicated / drugged.)

I just wonder if any of you are familiar with this and have any suggestions of what the underlying physiology is and what potential treatments are. My hunch is that my baseline condition is likely from the same cause as these sensitivities. I'm hoping I can ask for some specific tests that might be able to shed some light on what is going on.

Thanks!
 

Never Give Up

Collecting improvements, until there's a cure.
Messages
971
You might look into Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. You can search for it here on Phoenix Rising with terms like Mast cell and MCAS to find member experiences and credible sources of information on the subject.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
These are my following sensitivities and reactions:

1. Mold spores - increased brain fog and sedation (can be extreme)
2. Mildew - inflammation in my head (ears and sinuses), headache, general sick feeling

You might want to look into whether you have mold-induced illness, which can have similar symptoms to ME/CFS, but is treated differently. Mold expert Dr Ritchie Shoemaker calls the disease caused by mold toxins and other biotoxins chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS).

ME/CFS is typically triggered by a viral infection, whereas CIRS is caused by exposure to mold (or other biotoxins such as toxic blue-green algae).

One easy way to diagnose CIRS is via a free online visual contrast sensitivity test. Biotoxins alter the eye's ability to discern shades of gray, and the VCS test can detect this, and thus determine if you are exposed to biotoxins like mold.

Shoemaker's 11 step protocol for treating CIRS is summarized here, with a more detailed description give here.


Alternatively, it's possible you might have regular ME/CFS, and in addition a mold allergy.


This recent thread may be of interest: ME is not mould intolerance; mould intolerance is not ME
 
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caledonia

Senior Member
Hi, I have MCS as well as ME. I've been told on the Cutler Frequent Dose Chelation Yahoo Group that MCS is due to mercury + arsenic toxicity. I've done the hair testing suggested and also looked symptom lists in Cutler's books. I have dozens of symptoms of both mercury and arsenic as well as lead.

My MCS reduced by about half some time after I got my last mercury filling out. That was in 2014. I was able to stop neutralization drops at that time. The past 6 months or so, I've been chelating with the Cutler protocol and am on round #25. I recently noticed my MCS has gotten another notch better.

So it really does seem to fit for me.

If you click on my signature link, I have links to Cutler info (about 3/4 of the way down the page).
 
Messages
6
You might want to look into whether you have mold-induced illness, which can have similar symptoms to ME/CFS, but is treated differently. Mold expert Dr Ritchie Shoemaker calls the disease caused by mold toxins and other biotoxins chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS).

ME/CFS is typically triggered by a viral infection, whereas CIRS is caused by exposure to mold (or other biotoxins such as toxic blue-green algae).

One easy way to diagnose CIRS is via a free online visual contrast sensitivity test. Biotoxins alter the eye's ability to discern shades of gray, and the VCS test can detect this, and thus determine if you are exposed to biotoxins like mold.

Shoemaker's 11 step protocol for treating CIRS is summarized here, with a more detailed description give here.


Alternatively, it's possible you might have regular ME/CFS, and in addition a mold allergy.


This recent thread may be of interest: ME is not mould intolerance; mould intolerance is not ME


Hi, so I have taken the test two times and failed both times. Thank you so much for explaining the difference in CIRS and CFS! I don't show for viral on blood test but show things that point to mold. This is very interesting!
 
Messages
56
That was exactly how i used to be, until it got much worse and set off by everything. Atypical mcas. Not much by the way of degranulation/allergic type symptoms, most of the time anyways for alot of people actually. Other cell functions, specifically toll like receptors and igg receptors become more sensitive and dont take much stimulation to start dumping inflammatory mediators, cytokines and chemokines. Things that can help are avoidance, benzos (lorazepam is the most popular one), and a few specific herbals like luteolin, curcumin, and boswellia, possibly chondroitan sulfate. Sometimes more typical mcas treatments like antihistamines and mast cell stabilizers can be helpful. STAY AWAY from anything that increases interferons, particularly interferon gamma (ifn-g) as that can make the situation dramatically permanently worse. A popular mast cell stabilizing herbal, quercitin, can be ifn-g stimulating enough to make some people worse actually, fyi. The condition can be caused by mold exposure, infections like lyme or mycoplasma, or cvid. High tgf-b1 contributes by lowering levels of the intracellular compounds (socs) that put the brakes on the reactive/inflammatory processes. High c4a can aggravate it as well as it activates the mast cells, though in a more general fashion. I suggest getting checked thoroughly for lyme by an llmd and if you do treat it, do so carefully and gently, herxing can make it much worse. Look up the lists of general things that can set off mast cells, like opiates/endorphins, heat/cold, hypoxia, neuropeptides like vip/msh, etc etc and avoid them. Good luck.
 
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Messages
56
I developed food and chemical sensitivities when I came down with ME/CFS. Although they don't show up in traditional allergy tests, I've identified them from a food elimination diet. The reactions are very obvious and different foods give me very specific symptoms, so it was easy for me to identify them all. Also, I tested negative for MCAS.

Unfortunately, my ME/CFS symptoms don't go away when I completely avoid my food sensitivities. Taking a probiotic has helped lessen some of my food sensitivity reactions, but hasn't completely eliminated the reactions. I've only been taking them for 2 months, so maybe it will help more over time.


Even for those with typical degranulating type mcas problems, getting a positive test can be difficult. For the more inflammatory/less allergic type the only labs that might turn up positive are prostaglandins and leukotrienes as far as the official tests go. There are other indicators like increased nerve growth factor (ngf), elevated tnf & il-13 on cytokine panels, or high mast cell counts in a biopsy (cd117 stain). But it can still boil down to a clinical diagnosis based on symptoms/triggers. In many cases that can be pretty obvious.