What's working for me.

[Guest guest]

When I first came down with cfs I had fleeting bouts of dizziness that did not

affect my ability to go to my physically demanding work. I owned and operated a

lawn care business. I was working 40 to 50 hour weeks in the hot sun and

spending at least another 10 to 15 working on equipment running errands clerical

etc.

I was exposed to pesticides in a way they were not meant to be used on a

wholesale level. Took me 40 hours to to mow the areas that were treated with

fungicides, insecticides, and herbicides. The PCO (pest control operator) took

a shortcut by putting down granular forms of these products that were meant to

be watered in but he did not do this.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x74/antares41_41/eparesponce.gif

Of interest is the way the authorities we pay to protect the public interests

instead seemed to be protecting the interest's of the industry they are supposed

to be regulating.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x74/antares41_41/SNAG-0001.jpg

Naturally I thought that my condition was brought about by this and thought this

was the way life was going to be for me from here on out. When in reality my

house had serious mold problems:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x74/antares41_41/floor.jpg

This to a very large degree was responsible for my day to day suffering. I was

in denial about it for almost two years despite the fact that I would feel

better almost every time I left my residence for extended periods say more than

a few days.

After this I spent about two years living underneath a carport where I went from

essentially being bed ridden to being somewhat functional and not wishing I

would die because the fatigue and other symptoms were so overwhelming. Being I

never really got better and having constant badgering and belittling from my

compassionant brother and sister in law that I was doing it to myself cause I

didn't want to move. I eventually was able to sell my home and rental properties

to a bargain hunter at roughly 65% of their market value and I moved many times

over the years looking for mold free living arrangements but never seeming to

get any better, and in fact got much worse and always was keenly focused on my

environment as being a mediator of this. Fast forward 14 years from 1997 when I

first took ill to now. I moved out here to the sw nm desert where I finally

broke down and bought a piece of property and built this home made out of metal

drywall studs and drywall housed inside a metal building. My theory was if I can

control " outside " allergens such as mold, pollen, grass seed, etc. I could get

some degree of my health back which has at this point gotten unbearable again

almost as bad as it was living inside of the original moldy house.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x74/antares41_41/house1_2.jpg

I started living inside the house with the doors shut trying to keep allergens

out and to my dismay I did no better inside it than I did when was living inside

my station wagon.

It's funny how you don't see things than all the sudden POW you look at them in

a different light. I don't have a lot of time to read and I am a slow reader I

never understood that Cieliac Disease is a well documented condition and the

gluten diet is not just a fad for people who suffer but the cards they have been

dealt where they do it or suffer the consequences.

I started going on Cieliac web sites and learning about the diet (uninsured

can't simply go to a dr without paying out of pocket)I reasoned I had nothing to

lose by going on this diet. I got almost immediate results, astonishing relief

from my symptoms. I learned almost over night that all this time I have been

chasing this mold and pollen free utopia that the whole time there was another

condition that was not being addressed. I have for the last 2 months been

pursuing this diet and I am trying to take it to the strictness levels until I

can sort out which foods are causing the reactions. I am on a gluten free casein

free diet and I avoid all nuts also. I am hoping to reintroduce certain foods

once I find what is causing my reactions but I think this is going to take over

a year to sort out and I have to get sick from reactions to find out. Let me be

clear about the symptoms that have subsided: Extreme fatigue, Flue like malaise,

brain fog, in addition to extreme gastronomical problems.

Where I am going with my long drawn out story here is that some with cfs might

do well to find a better living condition if they have hidden mold in their

homes, others might do well to do the GF and Casein and nut free diet. If one is

done without the other you might come up with a false negative or in other words

tell yourself it didn't help when in fact it might have but was being masked by

the other.

As far as mold free living situations go the best I could recommend is what I

tried once which was going online and finding someone on craigs list with a

brand new home in which he wanted to rent out a room. That or a brand new

apartment complex which I steered away from because of the leases and deposit's

they required. I never took any of the hysteria about mold and toxins or toxin

induced illness and all the hype about having to throw out all my belongings. I

have always and still believe in common sense mold avoidance even though some

may think I took it to an extreme moving out into the desert and spending

thousands on a metal building and a building inside of that building. I do

suspect that just being in wood structures, especially ones that emit inordinate

amounts of formaldehyde might also exasperate my symptoms but am really not

sure. The other problem is mold can always be hidden and hard to detect. For

God's sake though don't move into a small travel trailer I tried this and it was

horrible! A tent maybe a trailer for gods sake NO!

Christ

[Guest guest]

Thanks for sharing such important info !

Have you shared it with or Petrison ?

They are amongst a group trying to figure out more about

mould avoidance, ec.

It's sad that researchers aren't interested in such recovery

stories. The resulting knowledge would lead to a lot of ME

people being helped : perhaps even ME people who aren't

poisoned by mould.

- B.