chemical issues and health

[snikwahpn]

Grumpy Sniky here...

I posted a thread the Builds section to fill out some things my wife said about what we had to do with our van, and Optimistic Paranoid asked that I expand it and put it over here.  I've had trouble finding time to write, but I have been doing some thinking about it since then.

Maybe the best place to start this section is to consider the question, "Why would any of the rest of us need to worry about this?"  If you aren't chemically sensitive, why should you worry about it?  And I'm afraid the answer to that is, you never know when it will hit you until it's too late.  It may not be something that builds up gradually but gives lots of warning; it can hit suddenly without warning, and it it does hit you it may affect you for the rest of your life.  So in the next few posts I put on this thread I will lay out some of what happened to us, what we learned about it, and some of what we have learned to do.

I have also invited Heidi Mull to chip in on this topic as we go.  She also is chemically sensitive, but may have found other helpful things that will contribute.

[snikwahpn]

One thing I bring to this is that I have spent more than thirty years in the building trades, specifically residential--mostly remodeling but some new construction. I spent five years working with a friend from college days, and we read a lot of the trade magazines for the field, trying to catch up since we were latecomers. So I know that chemical sensitivity is related not just to cars, trucks and RVs, but also to manufactured housing and the new home construction field as well. Two trends that have affected this are the efforts to tighten up dwellings of all kinds to make them more energy efficient, and the changes in products used in building and furnishing dwellings of all kinds. Quick example: we used to use a lot of real wood in construction; now, more and more is done with what I sometimes call "used-to-be-wood"--particleboard, fiberboard, glu-lam beams, and so on. All of them use glues of various kinds, developed by the chemical industry.

Tightening up houses saves money on heating costs. But it also means any indoor air pollution is hard to get rid of. Back in the 1950s, houses were mostly uninsulated, windows leaked some air even when they were closed, doors had little or no weatherstripping, and air and moisture came and went easily. And energy costs were low enough that nobody worried that much unless a cold draft caught them in a particular favorite spot, because it didn't really cost that much to heat your home. When the Arab oil embargo started in the '70s, that changed. And once it became clear it was not temporary, all energy costs went up, people started insisting on more insulation, no drafts, double-pane glass, insulated and weatherstripped doors...and that started a new set of problems people had not seen before--bad air inside the home, mold around windows, rotting framing from trapped moisture in the walls...all kinds of things not seen before. Some of it was in new construction, some of it was from trying to apply the new standards to older houses. One item I read back in the 80s was about a study of Wisconsin's government buildings: many of them were solid brick, built without insulated walls in the old days, and the state began framing in the walls, putting up insulation and drywall on the inside. And they did save money on heating--but the outside brick began to deteriorate faster! The lost heat flowing from the inside had protected the brick from cracking as much during winter weather. What they saved on heating was spent on brick repairs. This one doesn't really apply to our chemical issues, but gives an idea of the unexpected consequences of trying to improve energy efficiency.

The changes in building materials are being driven by two things: one was the shift in lumber harvesting practices from relying on old-growth timber to using smaller trees (they are making two-by-fours out of nine-inch diameter logs these days) and the other is the use of manufactured products made from wood chips and glue (which can be made from low-grade wood or scraps). Some of this is driven by price--a desk or bookshelf made from solid wood costs a lot more than one made from particleboard with a veneer of real wood or even laminate on the outside. Most kitchen cabinets now have the face frames and doors made of wood, and the sides, back and shelves made of particleboard.

[snikwahpn]

So how did Mrs. Sniky and I get into this problem? In early 2003 she became ill, and was having heart attack symptoms. After 3 days in a cardiac hospital and a lot of tests the doctors concluded there was nothing wrong with her heart or her arteries. One of them suggested it might be her gall bladder.

We did not have medical insurance in those days; and we had developed a habit of doing our own research on every problem, and looking for alternatives to doctors and prescriptions when we could. So we did some digging. We also found a doctor who had gotten into alternative medicine because he had problems himself that standard medicine could not solve. Our research uncovered the answer, and Dr. Carson confirmed that her symptoms were consistent with formaldehyde poisoning. At the time we were living in a mobile home on 5 acres, and she was working with canvas treated with flame retardants. We also had a 30x50 pole barn, with foam panel insulation on the walls and roof, where she was doing the canvas work. And then we put a brand-new memory foam mattress pad on our bed, and that may have been what pushed her over the edge. Dr. Carson gave us advice on how she could clear the toxins from her system, but we also had to make changes in our lifestyle to reduce the pressure on her system. The gall bladder suggestion was closer than they knew--formaldehyde poisoning doesn't make you break out in hives; it messes up your liver and kidneys!

[snikwahpn]

So, what is formaldehyde? It is a long name for a simple chemical (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formaldehyde)--one carbon atom, two hydrogen atoms, and one oxygen atom. About the only things simpler are methane, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide. This means when other more complicated chemicals break down, formaldehyde is one of the results. I had never been all that fond of diet sodas, but once I learned that when the body digests aspartame it breaks down to wood alcohol and formaldehyde, I have avoided them like the plague.

The other danger about formaldehyde is that it has what is called a "spreading effect"--it can cause you to be sensitive to other chemicals as well. And there are a lot of chemicals used in our society, not only in building products but in furnishings and even clothing. It is used in the glues that hold particleboard and interior plywood together (urea-formaldehyde resin is the base for many glues).

How does it get out of the products and into your body? Over time it migrates from the product to the air, a process called "out-gassing" that puts it into the air you breathe. The one bright spot we found was that this is not a continuous thing--it is a "half-life" situation, like radioactive materials. Half of it outgasses in the first 3-4 years, half of the rest over the next 3-4 years, and so on. After enough time passes, most of it is gone.

To be continued, when I get time.

[snikwahpn]

Back again....

I'm going to take this post to toss out two resources: One that helped us at the start, and one that turned up recently.

The first is a book that we stumbled across in a bookstore back in 2003--it's still available from Amazon and other places--https://www.amazon.com/Allergy-Relief-Prevention-Treatment-Self-Care/dp/0881791946
It covers more traditional allergies, chemical sensitivities (it's from 2000, so there may be more up-to-date info in places, but it helped us a lot), and some even odder stuff like electromagnetic issues (Mrs. Sniky has some of these, too: she never could wear a wristwatch back in the early years of our marriage; they always quit working on her, even higher end and self-winding; when cell phones came out, we found she could use one for a watch--the clock is in the cell tower, not the phone. She also sleeps best when her body is oriented north-south; doesn't matter which way her head is, but can't be east-west or she won't sleep worth beans. I keep a compass in the van, and when we camp I walk away from the van a bit, locate north, and arrange our parking as we need to. Could be worse--the book talks about people who walk into an office and every computer in the room would crash!

The other was a link to a website Gary posted on my wife's original thread on this topic: http://www.mychemicalfreehouse.net/p/abo...-blog.html
It covers MCS (mulitple chemical sensitivities) and a few other things. Much of it is geared to houses, but there are sections on tiny houses, converting cargo trailers, and RVs. Some of the material is similar to what I have seen over the years in some of the better building trade magazines (a lot of them I quit reading--they were mostly puff pieces and advertising for products, and little concern over issues such as this). The one thing I would advise on that site is be careful to sort out what kind of issue you are concerned with, because they cover so much--including people who can't stand to be around wood! For us, real wood is one of the best choices.

[snikwahpn]

So what did we do for my wife? One thing was de-toxing techniques, suggested by the doctor I mentioned earlier. But we also had to take steps to reduce the background level of formaldehyde and other toxins in our home. The book recommended getting at least one room as a safe area, and then expand from there. But we had to learn a lot more about safe materials. On wood and wood products, the closer to real wood, the better; particleboard is the worst, exterior plywood uses a different-based glue and is safer than particleboard or interior plywood. Formica is a thin layer of plastic on a particleboard base, so we had to quit using it for countertops. With plastics and vinyl, the softer it is the worse it is--cushioned sheet vinyl is bad, old-fashioned commercial vinyl tile is one of the best. Carpet is a no-no for us; the carpet industry claims they don't use formaldehyde, but the truth is they use chemicals on carpets that break down and release formaldehyde. Laminate flooring is a thin layer on a fiberboard base, so we avoid that.

So we got carpets out of our dwelling, re-did the kitchen and ditched the particleboard cabinets for used kitchen cabinets that were about 20 years old but in good shape (not the latest style--people tend to re-do kitchens every 20-25 years--I know that because I've done a lot of kitchen remodels for customers!). I made our countertops out of ceramic tile on exterior plywood backing, using oak for trim at the edges and walls. We had always preferred real wood furniture, so that was not too much of an issue. Beds are an issue: federal law requires most mattresses to be treated with flame retardant--that was started because of people smoking in bed, and they have left the rule up in spite of the decline in smoking these days. For our current mattress use I found an online company that sold non-flame-retardant foam, cut to the size you need, for making your own replacement cushions for furniture--https://www.foambymail.com/. But we still got it and let it sit for a year or so before using, to allow some time for out-gassing.

There were some other oddball issues we had to deal with. Drywall itself is safe enough, but it can absorb toxins like formaldehyde, and release it later. Even latex paint is not safe for her when applied; we found that if I painted the bedroom, it would be two weeks before she could sleep in it again. An old friend of ours was head of the lab at a paint manufacturer--when I told him about this, he named the chemical; it is used as a defoamer, to reduce bubbles in the paint as you apply it. But while the paint may dry in an hour or so, it takes two weeks for the defoamer to outgas and go away. For most people that would not be a problem; for chemically sensitive people it is.

[snikwahpn]

Thought I might give some idea of how our coping systems have worked out in our current home (we are now living with my wife's parents, which is giving her issues because their house is not that safe for her, but her mom needs her right now--but we do have a small home of our own). It was built in the 1940s, the subfloor is the old pine boards, with hardwood on top for most of it. Most of the walls and ceilings are plaster over gypsum lath. Our kitchen has a restaurant-style single bowl stainless steel sink and counter, about 4' wide. There's a metal cabinet above it, given to us by a friend--it was originally made to store small parts in an auto shop. We have one wood kitchen cabinet in the room, a drawer unit by the range, probably 30 years old with a plywood body. Our big counter area is made from a steel workbench frame, topped by a thick butcher block top salvaged from a work table a restaurant was throwing away, with a couple of small steel drawers from IKEA under the top and a shelf. The big storage area is a pantry in a closet (our kitchen was originally a bedroom) with varnished plywood shelves. It is not a traditional kitchen (pretty much of an industrial look) and it isn't big, but it worked for us while we lived there.

[Snikwahjm]

The current kitchen has an industrial look... The van will be getting similar treatment and is evolving...

[snikwahpn]

One resource Heidi mentioned in the earlier thread was AFM Safecoat--http://www.afmsafecoat.com/

We did not run across this company when we were learning to cope with the problems, and we have never used their products. We have not had much problems with traditional wood finishes--shellac, polyurethane, etc. If I'm varnishing a piece I do it outside and don't bring it in until the next day. Generally the solvents in oil-based finishes disappear faster than the formaldehyde in glues and manufactured materials. (Mrs. Sniky does need to stay away from the solvents when I'm working.) They apparently make paints, varnishes, other finishes, caulks and a few other products. I do not know how their prices compare to the more traditional finishes. I invite anyone who has used them to chime in on this thread.

[TrainChaser]

Another chemical that causes many problems (including mimicking heart attacks) is bromide. It's EVERYWHERE: it's used as a fire retardant in carpeting, fabrics, it causes that 'new car smell' that some people like, in swimming pools (to replace chlorine), sprayed onto non-organic vegetables, washed into water supplies, in fire extinguishers, in insecticides and dyes, fed to you in bromated vegetable oil (sometimes abbreviated BVO in ingredient lists, in baby blankets and children's pajamas, in electronics and insulation, crib mattress and car seats.