This makes me think it’s more of a mental issue rather than a biological one. I’m not doubting that she does better at the hotel, but I’m guessing it’s because she likes being there. Whatever immune response she has at her home doesn’t trigger at the hotel, but I doubt it’s because of “cleaner air” at the hotel. A hotel seems like a terrible place for someone with chemical sensitivity. There will be all different kinds of chemicals from cleaning solutions, detergents, scented body products from the patrons, and so on. Perhaps where she’s living now has some sort of toxin in the area and she’s reacting to that. If so, then it seems like moving to a different area would resolve that. But it wouldn’t have to be an ultra-pure, chemical free environment. If she does better in a hotel, then it seems like she should do better in a wide variety of housing.
As a kid, I never heard of peanut allergies. Today, many schools ban kids from bringing anything with peanuts in them to school for lunch for the sake of safety.
Apparently peanut allergies are real, and potentially serious, but not nearly as common as people think. Nor are food allergies in general.
Food allergies affect between 4% and 8% of children and between 1% and 2% of adults. They occur most often in young children and in individuals with a personal or family history of other atopic diseases. The majority of children outgrow their food allergies, and the foods can safely be reintroduced when they are older.
The perceived prevalence of food allergies is substantially higher than the actual prevalence. Up to 30% of the general population believe they have a food allergy, and up to 30% of parents believe that their children have a food allergy.
As far as peanut allergies specifically…
On the basis of this and other studies that have reported similar prevalences, the estimated prevalence of peanut allergy in developed countries is between 0.6% and 1.0%.
My point is that there can be a massive gulf between the perception of what someone is allergic to and what they are actually allergic to. They are real and can be serious, even life-threatening, but other times they are psychosomatic or just assumed.
While they are the minority, there is a non-zero number of quacks out there who have impressive sounding initials after their names, and who have wrangled association with legitimate sounding institutions. Who do you want making determinations about eligibility for governmental benefits? If all you need is a recommendation from some doctor, well, you could save some $ in administrative costs. But I suspect any such savings would be more than made up by increased benefits awarded.
But I imagine only a small fraction of these people - a handful - suffer such severe symptoms as hemiplegia (paralysis on one side of the body) from everyday chemical exposure.
Huh? Insurance companies spend a lot of money every year remediating potentially deadly mold.
As for pollens, And other stuff produced by plants and animals… I don’t know what this woman is allergic to, but my sister and brother both have skin allergies to pretty much everything. If a product has botanicals in it, they can’t use it without breaking out in a rash. The only “moisturizer” my sister can use safely is vasoline.
Pine trees outgas lots of volatile stuff. I’m sure someone is allergic to that, whether or not this woman is.
Anyway, I’m not a doctor, i don’t know this woman, and i don’t even know what she claims to be allergic to. But i think it’s inappropriate to reject her claims of “multiple environmental allergies” out of hand, especially if she suffers so much she is seeking to end her life.
There has never been a firm scientific link established between mold and deaths, despite investigations by the CDC and others.
That’s not to say that there isn’t a connection, but it’s not a fact. The belief that deadly mold is found in homes is driven mostly by media hype, and insurance companies are reacting to that.
People can be highly allergic to mold and it’s not harmless, but deadly mold at this point is conjecture.
I’ve worked in the area of disability law for 35 years, and have long been stricken at the way various diagnoses seem to come in and out of fashion. I’ve thought it would be interesting to track how conditions in which people complain of various symptoms - quite often pain and fatigue - with few if any accompanying testable findings. The medical community seems to switch back and forth somewhat, as to whether they attribute such complaints to physiological or psychological causes. And individual practitioners vary widely in their willingness to accept some of the more unconventional diagnoses, and the degree of support/corroboration/exclusion of alternative diagnoses they require.
I acknowledge that the body is exceedingly complex, and that this largely reflects the way medicine progresses.
ISTM that back in the 90s or so, there was a bit of a flurry of what was called “Environmental Sensitivity Syndrome” or some such - often correlated with “sick buildings.” Often seemed to involve the kookier segment of practitioners. Pretty sure Epstein-Barre and chronic fatigue were more commonly diagnosed back then. For the past several years, fibromyalgia has been huge. Long Lyme seems to have been replaced with Long Covid.
Chronic fatigue isn’t in the news so much, but it’s still very common, and a lot of “long covid” is probably chronic fatigue syndrome. I read a historical article about it years ago, and its name has changed about a dozen times, but the same constellation of symptoms has been around since doctors have been writing this stuff up.
Having had a couple of friends who suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome:
it’s certainly a real thing. People i know to have been energetic suddenly didn’t feel up to doing anything, and then got better.
it’s annoying as hell to have your symptoms blamed on mental illness. One friend was advised to have a baby to fix her. Wow, would that have been a disaster.
doctors don’t understand it, and can’t do much other than be sympathetic, unfortunately.
If there are no physical signs, how do you know it is NOT a mental illness? Serious question. Wouldn’t take much for folk to come out and remind you that mental illness is just as real and can be just as debilitating as physical…
I always assumed the deathly element (if it even exists) comes from toxicity, not allergic reactions. Allergies can make life miserable but I’ve never heard of people dying because they breathed in mold/pollen/dust. If there are such people… they would simply die. Air contains mold, pollen, and dust. That’s just a fact of life.
It seems totally plausible that someone could have a very real reaction to believing the air is dirty which is actually a psychosomatic reaction rather than their immune system reacting to anything actually in the air. That’s the sense I get in the news story. If she’s fine in a nice hotel, then my impression is that it’s a psychosomatic reaction since the hotel air is likely loaded with chemicals and things that should be triggering her chemical sensitivity.
Well, one went to a psychiatrist at the urging of her PCP, who was very helpful. He told her, “your mental health is very good considering what you are going through. Don’t let these people gaslight you into thinking there’s something wrong with your perception of what’s wrong with you”. And generally supported her emotionally while all the other doctors blew her off.
Women tend to get told that their physical illnesses are psychological.
When my mother had myasthenia gravis, which took months to diagnose and nearly killed her, a lot of doctors thought she might be suffering from depression. She was also helped by a psychologist who said “this is not in her head, keep looking”.
But maybe a “nice hotel --” particularly during/since/in light of COVID – may use more ‘natural,’ ‘organic,’ or ‘hypoallergenic’ cleaning (and other) products across every aspect of their operation.
Everything might be newer, better quality, and better maintained, too.
Cheap hotels are probably far more likely to have old linens, old pillows, more water leaks, older carpet/padding (possibly affected by aforementioned leaks), and generally poorer maintenance.
They’re also probably more likely to clean everything with Methyl Ethyl Death (or equivalent).
So … maybe.
And maybe lots of these people are of very limited resources, cannot advocate forcefully on their own behalf, don’t understand the science well enough to manage their own care, lack the confidence to dispute a doctor’s approach, the limitations of a test, the misinterpretation of a test, or to find their way to research facilities where different questions are asked by different health care people (ie, researchers).
Most health care providers – particularly in primary care – have a very loud ticking clock pushing them through every visit.
The specialists in the US that tend to treat some of these zebras tend to be cash-pay only (limiting, in a huge way, who has access to them), and can often succeed where others have failed.
Woe befall people who are medical mysteries. It’s a horrible row to hoe.
It seems counterproductive to argue if this woman’s, or any case of MCS, is “real” or not. If it’s having a deleterious effect on her life it’s real, regardless of if it has any testable physical effects. Even if it’s psychosomatic you can’t just say “get over it” any more than you can tell a depressed or anxious person to get over it.
There is much we don’t know about the human body, and much that we do know about how it can have an overzealous reaction to substances most people find innocuous. It doesn’t matter if a patient presents with something that defies current medical understanding, what’s important is their suffering is real and they deserve the best help that society can provide.
And if she’s literally seeking death to end her suffering, it must be pretty bad.
On the other hand, if she really is allergic to vast swathes of common stuff, her life must be pretty horrible in ways that quite possibly can’t be effectively alleviated.
But the question needs to be addressed - both in terms of getting her effective medical treatment (whether it should be psychiatric), and what taxpayer-funded resources should be provided to her. If there is no physical basis for her symptoms, it is not appropriate to devote public resources to providing expensive “clean” living arrangements.
Holy crap. That’s like suggesting that a person suffering from a concussion smack themselves with a mallet to the head to “knock things right again”. Were leeches offered as an alternative remedy?