Good books about allergy and chemical sensitivity

Some good books have appeared over the last few years, filling what was a void until recently. I found these helpful for me:

Steen

Most books available at American Environmental Health Foundation.

General Health

Health and Healing
Andrew Weil, MD
Houghton Mifflin, 1995
Dr. Weil's book is a very upbeat and easy to read story about maintaining good health. He has for decades been interested in the different medical systems of the world, of which western medicine is just one. He has visited doctors on many continents, even "witch doctors" in the dark rainforest of South America, to see what works and what doesn't. His conclusion is that no system has all the answers, including western medicine, which often does more harm than good - expressly when it comes to allergies.

Allergies

	Sneezing Your Head Off? Peter B. Boggs, MD ISBN 0-9642569-0-8 Published with money from Schering Corp.. This book is strictly traditional drug-based, but is very informative about the different allergy drugs that exist and how to tell them apart, as most are the same type, in different packaging.
	Taming Asthma and Allergy by Controlling your Environment Robert A. Wood, MD The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America ISBN 0-9643272-0-1 Good advice in how to battle dust mites, etc.

Allergies and Chemical Sensitivity

	An Alternative Approach to Allergies Theron Randolph, MD and Ralph Moss, PH. D. Harper Perennial, 1989. If you are only going to read one book about treating allergies and chemical sensitivities, let this be the one. Written by the pioneer in the field, it has been revised and is the best overall introduction to the methods and sciences of Environmental Medicine. The reader will be surprised about how many diseases can be traced back to underlying allergies.
	Chemical Sensitivity Sherry Rogers, MD Keats Publishing, 1995. Dr. Rogers specializes in treating MCS cases, and explains how the condition is believed to be caused, and how our bodies normally break down the toxins we all are exposed to every day, by using vitamins and minerals. She also explains why MCS is such a difficult disease to pin down and study, as each patient is different, and changing over time. This makes it hard to produce clinical studies, which are essential for the accept of the condition by many health providers. The booklet is only 40 pages long, and is easy to read, but does not offer any help either. This is more a book for those who are unsure if they have MCS or not.
	Tired or Toxic Sherry Rogers, M.D. Prestige Publishers ISBN 0-9618821-2-3 I wish I had found this book years earlier, it is written by one of worlds foremost specialists on MCS, who has her own clinic in Syracuse, NY. She had a bad case of MCS herself while in med-school, which caused her to figure out how to cure herself, as no textbook was of help. The book describes how MCS works, and why we get it, from a physicians point of view, so this book is also for regular doctors (they should skip the first five chapters). The book is also good for the rest of us, to see that there is hard science behind this new medical specialty, and is recommended to anyone who wants to know why this happens, in plain English. The only beef I have with the author is that she lashes out against regular drug-oriented doctors too much, so I suggest you skip chapter one, for not to be put off by the entire book. I do understand her, as I'm sure her original research has been put down by many small-minded doctors, the same that says "it's all in your head" to the rest of us.
	The E.I. Syndrome Sherry Rogers, M.D. SK Publishing ISBN 0-9618821-7-4 This book covers most of the treatments Dr. Rogers uses in her medical practice to treat people with MCS. She simply require her patients to read this book, and for good reason, as the treatments are more involved than popping a set of pills. If you expect not to do your part in getting well, go look at another web site, please.

	Wellness Against all Odds Sherry Rogers, M.D. SK Publishing This is the sequel to The E.I.Syndrome, which it assumes you have read. Even though this her best book, I think, you will not get much out of it without reading the other one first. In this one, she takes the subject matter several steps further, especially for people who are very sick and need more involved treatment.
	It's all in your head Dr Hal Huggins Dr Huggins is a pioneer in the field of mercury-free dentistry. Many diseases can be traced back to mercury poisoning from the patients teeth. Even though the silver amalgams are a stable form of mercury, molecules do leach out over time, as a result of chewing and chemical action in the mouth. From there, it is absorbed is the body through the stomach.

Children

	Is This Your Child? Dr Doris Rapp, MD QUILL Dr Rapp is a pediatrician, who noticed many troubled children had allergies and then found out that allergies can make dramatic changes in their behavior. Any parent with an ADD/ADHD child should read this book (see also the video section further down). Thousands of children are on mind-altering drugs, while they are just have a bad case of allergies.
	Blair, Bear and Hare Meet Dr DeFehr Margaret Tatlock and Audrey Plew A children's coloring book about the treatment for Environmental Illness, which can be scary for small children.

Cleaning up

The Nontoxic Home & Office
by Debra Lynn Dadd
Tarcher Putnam, ISBN 0-87477-676-7, 1992, 190 pages
The book covers the different chemicals we can get exposed to in our homes and offices. For each type of product, she lists what warnings there can be on the labels, and what they contain of harmful chemicals. She then provides sensible recommendations on what to do - in many cases the alternatives are both cheaper and simpler.

The book is organized so it starts with the most dangerous items first (cleaners and pesticides) and then works down to lesser evils, such as clothing and detergents.

The author has MCS herself and the book shows her personal experiences finding better alternatives.

If you thought manufacturers kept the consumers health in mind, this is your wake-up call, especially in the personal-care area that is largely unregulated.

Political / testimonial

The Dispossessed
by Rhonda Zwillinger
Send $16 to The Dispossessed Project, PO Box 402, Paulden, AZ 83334
ISBN 0-9661571-0-9
This chilling book portrays fifty people who lives with severe chemical sensitivity. Each short story shows the person and his or her living situation, many of them can not even live in a regular house, but have to live in specially built trailers, etc. The author has MCS herself, and could therefore get access to these people, that covers all ranks of life, including two M.D's.

If you doubt whether MCS exist or not, I do NOT recommend you read this book. The stark reality may make you completely write off the whole idea, just like the world would not believe the Nazi concentration camps in World War II - the comparison is not as far off as one would think.

Staying Well in a Toxic World
by Lynn Lawson
Lynnword Press, 1994, 480 pages, $16
A real eye-opener on chemical sensitivity, with lots of anecdotes and references. The author tells her story, and the story of many other people, including how MCS was first discovered. She also inspects the responsibilities of the chemical industry, which has caused much of this problem.

The Environment

I believe some cancer types, allergies and chemical sensitivity is natures way of showing that we have gone too far in our polluting ways. Two books that put this very much in perspective, are:

The Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson
Houghton Mifflin

This book was published in 1962, and caused such an uproar that it lead to the creation of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency in the US), to do something about the gross pollution and indiscriminate sprayings with DDT and other chemicals still in use. It is still very much current today, as we have not really learned that much, sad to say.

Living Downstream
by Sandra Steingraber
Random House, 1997, 1998

This is a sequel to Silent Spring, with the perspective of the late nineties, the author discovers that we have not learned much since Silent Spring was published. The author has had cancer herself, and watched other people die from it. She is a scientist, but also weaves her own story into the text, as she goes back to her childhood town in industrial Illinois.

Earth in the Balance
Al Gore
Houghton Mifflin

Al Gore, Vice President of the United States, used Carson's book as inspiration, when he wrote his book, which includes more than the chemical destruction we still cause. Unfortunately, the world is not listening much.

Articles

Chemical Warfare by Jim Atkinson in Texas Monthly, September 1994. Describes the life of a Dallas engineer with MCS and some of the treatments he has received, and lifestyle changes he had to do.

Chemical Warfare at Work by Howard Baker in New Scientist, June 21, 1997. The article covers the multiple chemicals we are exposed to at work from copiers, printers, perfumes, carpets, etc.

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