The Masking Phenomenon
"New fragrances bother me for a few days, but then I get accustomed to them."
You go to work in a new office building. The first few days you don't feel well--headaches, dizzinesss, and watery eyes. But after several days your symptoms go away. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing. It's hard to tell what's behind the mask.
What mask, you say? The one that your body put on when you kept ignoring the warnings it was giving you. You see, your body will send you warnings by way of your immune system--usually for about three days-- but after that, if the challenge remains, the body has to get serious about figuring out how to handle this problem on a long-term basis.
Let's back up a bit. Let's go back to the first few days when you felt so rotten. The fact that you reacted to the new surroundings was an indication that your body was not able to break down certain substances that you encountered. (See What Is MCS?) But then you became more accustomed to the surroundings. How? Did you suddenly acquire every nutrient, every enzyme, your body needed to break down those chemicals? No, rather your body learned to adapt to the ongoing challenge by releasing anti-inflammatory hormones to cover up the symptoms that you felt initially. No problem, then, right?
Wrong. Your body is kept in a constant state of adaptation, and it doesn't come without cost to the body. It is an added stress called a "hidden allergy." Unlike a fixed allergy, one which will illicit a reaction upon every challenge, a hidden allergy may be endured for weeks, months, or years without even being recognized. On the other hand, with repeated stresses, nutritional deficits, lack of sleep, and so on, your body may eventually lose the ability to adapt and develop a fixed allergy, one that cannot be ignored.
So what if you have been using fragranced products and other chemicals regularly for quite some time? How do you know if you can really tolerate them or if your symptoms have simply been masked? The best way to determine this is to try to get away from the chemicals in question for a week or more, if possible, and then see if you have any symptoms upon returning. This may take some doing. You need to identify as many hidden sources of chemicals as you possibly can for the experiment. If you leave the perfume and smoke of the office and then hang out in a lounge, you are not going to get accurate results.
I will warn you that once you determine that perfumes and other chemicals are making you sick, it will be hard to live with them again. Many people do not realize just how bad they feel until they get a taste of feeling good. In fact, some people know that chemicals are making them sick but feel that to do anything about it would require such radical changes that they would just rather live behind the mask. Is that wise?
If your body sends you strong signals indicating that you can't tolerate something, you will eventually have to listen. You can live behind the mask for a while, but eventually something's gotta give. Better it is for such a person to try to limit their exposure to whatever degree possible and to take whatever health measures they can to build up their system.
© Dorothy Herrmann 2003
