Toxic tots

Better Capitalism Through Chemistry!!

Ahem. Seriously, Rod, another factor in your son's experience could be ventilation. The presence of toxins in your home and in LA might be comparable, if not similar, but a question would be how much time per day your son spends inside in each location. I'm guessing it's more at home than in LA; another guess would be that local air patterns are conducive to more stagnation of air in Dallas than in LA. I offer no conclusions, just avenues to explore.

I had a severe sinus "condition" for a while in my young adult years. I finally got to an ENT who put me through the then-9-yards of tests, and he was the first physician to be honest with me: I have no allergies per se beyond a normal-range sensitivity to pollen etc. What I do have he called "Philadelphia-itis", a simple, structural reality of my sinuses preventing them from handling the air quality here. He told me how to test it, and I later confirmed it: move to a place with a significantly different air quality (and not necessarily less polluted per se) and compare your sinus condition. Sure enough, during two years in the midwest my sinus symptoms disappeared, and reappeared inside a month of my return to Philly. I have found that people focus on allergies and tend to ignore the significant contributing factor that may reside in the physical structure of the sinuses.

Naturally, one should not draw any conclusions between two individuals with superficially similar experiences. I hope it offers you something not seen so far that might help your son.

Rod, prayers for you and your family. For 15 years, my wife has struggled with an illness that appears to be environmentally related. She has strong reactions (the docs say they aren't allergies) when in certain places: stores that sell chemicals or lots of plastic things, churches where people wear fragrances, new or remodeled homes where carpets or furniture are "offgassing" toxic stuff. She has seen many docs, attended many lectures, read many books. She is convinced that she is one of those folks who has an "environmental illness." No question, she feels better in certain buildings, towns, etc than in others.

We noticed that she felt much better when travelling in Europe than when in most American towns. Why? Because they have older homes, use fewer household chemicals, serve more organic food and less processed food? Hard to know.

When my wife encounters junk (chemicals) in air, food, water, she has the following symptoms: dizziness, headache, ringing in ears, fatigue, nausea, "brain fog" (difficulty with processing information, articulation), etc. Most docs have been clueless or unsympathetic. A few have suspected environmental causes.

Here is a link that might be helpful. www.sharecareprayer.org
It is an evangelical Christian organization ministering to people with environmental illness. A little amateurish and even fringy at times, but there is some good stuff here and there as well.

Avoiding "nasties" in our air, water and food is very difficult. In some places, almost impossible. I certainly am sympathetic to your situation. It is clear that the health care system does not yet understand how to deal with these problems.

It's quite possible he is reacting to nasty stuff in the city environment.

It may also be not having as much "green time." My kids (and especially me!) get VERY irritable, anxious and neurotic if we are indoors too much. We are fortunate to have a lot of space to roam in around here. When we visit the grandparents in the NYC suburbs, we all get seriously weirded out from the traffic, the people, and the general feeling of confinement.

The air quality in any big city isn't good. Recent studies link exposure to vehicle exhausts to childhood asthma and cancers.

Additionally, when we lived in Texas, our house was shut up tight all the time with the a/c running in an attempt to deal with the heat. I have far fewer allergies and my asthma is much better in Tennessee where I can have the windows open rather than recirculating the indoor pollutants. Having a mother who was mildly phobic about germs didn't help; there was always some sort of toxic chemical cleaner being sprayed in our home.

Coming from a family of allergic asthmatics for several generations, my children should have health issues, but they don't. I've always wondered if my lack of interest in house cleaning (my house isn't gross, but neither is it bleached or sprayed down with Lysol) is helping.

I know that there are certain cleansers that I can't be in the presence of for more than a minute without getting a splitting headache.

I can't even walk down the cleaner aisle at the store.

The air in Dallas is terrible with natural pollutants (fungus, pollen, etc.) I never had seasonal allergies in my life until we moved here. My wife and my two sons both have them intensely.

I agree with Andrea; better not clean too much!

Just out of curiosity, how much of what is expressed on this blog is also expressed to your kids at home.

I don't think it's the case that you or your kid or doctors are "making this up", but maybe the fact (if in fact, this is the case) the kid has an overly neurotic dad walking around fretting about environmental toxins (to say nothing about the end of days trend that seems to be gaining traction on this blog) that is having an effect as well.

You said your Dad said to you a few weeks back "I've never seen a generation so stressed as yours" or something along those lines. That stuff has to get translated down to your kids, whether your realize it or not.

But I have no idea, I have no kids and I'm still in my 20's trying to figure a lot of this stuff out as my future bride and I make decisions about kids, where to live, schools, etc.

More and more, I'm coming to believe we just need to move to our small hometown, make the best of the situation there and work on improving our local community and each other. If more people did that instead of focusing on curing all worldly ills, most of those worldly ills would disappear...wouldn't they?

Thanks for listening to the rambling. I'm off to Chipotle.

I think the plastic baby bottle/bisphenol A controversy was the tipping point - the trigger that is making people more aware of the products they bring into and use in their homes. Sure, there's been the green movement. But there's growing awareness that products also have a negative health impact. And that's more personal - and, as a result, more pressing.

Rod, you're right on with all of this. I encourage you to keep looking into ways that you can detox your home. It could have a very positive impact on your son or, at the very least, minimize the negative impact of his condition.

Largely because of the green movement, there are lots of alternatives out there...

Nah, we're bigtime kid filter people. I'm the guy who cuts Ann Landers and other advice columns out of the comics section before giving it to Matthew to read -- when they talk about trannie dipsos and stuff, that is.

Hi, Martha: You wrote: We were the only homeschoolers in our neighborhood and it was rough.

I hear you. As one of those introverts, I found homeschooling very difficult. There was no time to just "recharge the batteries," something a lot of introverts find pretty necessary on a daily basis.

Europe is, once more, a bit ahead of us here. There are many more chemical-free housing items there than here, with labels clearly delineating which do meet those official standards. You can get these things here, too, but you may have to look around a little, or order from overseas. For instance, for bedding: wooden slat beds (surprisingly comfortable and they eliminate the need for box springs), wool and cotton fiber mattress (no plastic foam here) cotton sheets, wool blankets or a cotton covered natural down comforter with cotton duvet. Germans air out the comforter and sheets in natural sunlight and air over the balcony or porch railing every day that the weather is clear, as well!

Wash your clothing in fragrance free "gentle" or natural detergents, and the rest of your house with minimalist cleansers. Save the chemicals for small spot jobs that NEED it, like mildew or gunk on the tiles. Everything else really only needs Borax or vinegar, and bleach occasionally (in a well ventilated area.) And air out your house any time the air is clear out, typically in the early morning or after a good rain (if it's not ridiculously humid.)

One big culprit is carpets and the padding that goes underneath them. Those seep out chemicals for years. See if you can't find wool carpets next time remodeling comes around, and skip the padding.

BUt as everyone's pointed out, websites abound with advice along these lines.

Your son also may feel better in a rural environment because there is a freedom there not possible in a city like Dallas. We've found our kids do well with lots of unsupervised play out in the woods or the garden as it seems to provide an outlet for energies that may otherwise be left untapped. When we lived in the city, even though we tried to keep them engaged in playgroups etc, the effort of shuttling them back and forth, the time constraints it placed on meals and probably the exposure to exhaust and other sundry fumes as well all adds up to a significant amount of physiological stress.