[Erin524]

Found this on my local newspaper's (The Omaha World~Herald) website.


"First, asthma cases shot up, along with hay fever and other common allergic reactions, such as eczema. Then pediatricians started seeing more children with food allergies.

Now experts are increasingly convinced that a suspected jump in lupus, multiple sclerosis and other afflictions caused by misfiring immune systems is real..."

The rest of the article can be read here.

[CayoKay]

that was very interesting, Erin, thank you for posting it.

I didn't know there was a surge in MS happening... although I *did* know about the odd little fact that MS occurs more readily in areas with HIGH sanitation.

and I was unaware that type I Diabetes was actually an immune disorder... (my mom had type II, and I never researched type I), and this news came out *after* I moved to the jungle, and I guess I sorta missed it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes_mellitus

I found this part of the piece you posted to be particularly fascinating, along with the tidbit that more than HALF of Americans now have at least one allergy!

wow!

Although hay fever, eczema, asthma and food allergies seem quite different, they are all "allergic diseases" because they are caused by the immune system responding to substances that are ordinarily benign, such as pollen or peanuts.

Autoimmune diseases also result from the body's defense mechanisms malfunctioning. But in these diseases, which include lupus, MS, Type 1 diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease, the immune system attacks parts of the body such as nerves, the pancreas or digestive tract.

this fascinates me, as I recently (last November) ended up in the hospital with a severe allergic reaction to the local fire ants.

it took the doctors a while to figure it out, because... they USUALLY only see this kind of blistering, swelling, and hives in little CHILDREN... so, I was the FIRST adult they'd seen with a case so bad.

anyway, it's interesting... that it's all so *connected*

[Erin524]

Maybe MS is just heck of an allergic reaction to something?

I dont know...hopefully they'll figure out exactly what all the causes for MS are sometime during my lifetime, because I really want to know. (I think there are several things that cause MS)

[Jensequitur]

I've often wondered if we're just getting better at diagnosing diseases like MS. Diabetes is definitely caused by our diets - they call it the Western diet, and it's responsible for heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity, just to name a few.

MS has been around for a long time, but we didn't know what it was. I think a lot of people with MS were diagnosed as hypochondriacs, because they didn't know or couldn't find what was wrong with them. My grandmother was thought of as a hypochondriac, and I've wondered if she had MS.

[Bearygood]

Erin, thanks for posting this interesting article. I personally don't buy the hyper-cleanliness thing as a catch-all but I absolutely think in some cases of autoimmune disorders, an allergic reaction might be at play as a trigger of some sort. This has come up in many other things I've read.

My MS became known to me after I discovered I'd been living with mold in my apartment for 7 years and ironically, my recent blood work showed allergies. I don't think I've been tested for that regularly but this is the first time it's ever come up. I am actually on a mission right now to take out the horrible carpet in my bedroom that was left by the previous tenant!

[Erin524]

Originally Posted by Bearygood

Erin, thanks for posting this interesting article. I personally don't buy the hyper-cleanliness thing as a catch-all but I absolutely think in some cases of autoimmune disorders, an allergic reaction might be at play as a trigger of some sort. This has come up in many other things I've read.

My MS became known to me after I discovered I'd been living with mold in my apartment for 7 years and ironically, my recent blood work showed allergies. I don't think I've been tested for that regularly but this is the first time it's ever come up. I am actually on a mission right now to take out the horrible carpet in my bedroom that was left by the previous tenant!

Maybe you'll luck out and find perfectly preserved wood floors under the carpet.

The house I grew up in had wood floors, I didnt know we had wood floors there until I was about 17 and and lifted up one of the carpet squares my dad had put in my sister's bedroom 18yrs before. Perfectly perserved wood floors. (in that room at least) We moved a year later. I'm not sure we told the new owner the floors were really nice maple floors under the carpeting. (my dad covered all the floors with carpet, and in the kitchen, he'd had linoleum installed! eek! The heathen!)

I keep hoping the woman who bought that house will put the place up for sale, so I can go back and see if she changed anything. (probably not, she still hasnt fixed the roof that got damaged in a storm in the early 1990s. I'm scared to see how she's let the rest of the house go inside)

I worked in a McD's restaurant for 8 years that had a wall in the back of the store (right next to the drive thru window I worked in every day) that was molding and crumbling, and allowing all manner of critters into the store. It had a serious mold, and mildew, and critter poo problem. (I'm now seriously phobic about those critters!)

The drains under the drink stations in the drive thru also had serious rotting problems. It smelled seriously bad, and we were constantly using the wet-vac to suck nasty water and pop up out of the drain because it backed up all the time while we were in the middle of a lunch rush. The floors for at least the last year that I worked there were always wet during a lunch rush. (ewwwwwww! I'm starting to have scary flashbacks of working those shifts! )

I wonder if I can go back and sue the place for mental trauma and the possibility they triggered my MS?? (probably not...quit working there in late '96, and there's no proof the moldy, crumbling walls triggered my MS) I dont know why I worked there for so long, with all the Boys Town kids trying to kill me at least once a year, and customers tossing fish sandwiches at me...

Strangely enough, occasionally I miss working there (because the management at the time was nice, and the owners were the sweetest people in the world)

[Bearygood]

You're right -- it's hard to prove and the statutes of limitations has probably run out. Not too much is finitely known about mold but it can trigger allergic reactions and also affect the CNS. Another interesting tidbit I found when I was researching a possible connection between chronic sinusitis and MS was that when you do have recurring sinusitis it actually increases your allergic susceptibility. It can make people very sensitive to things that wouldn't bother a "normal" person. Between the sinus problems I've had, the stupid carpet and the mold, it was intriguing enough for me to do research on possible allergic and bacterial connections. Let's just say I've had MS for a as long as my specialist thinks -- personally, I'm not convinced it was just coincidence that I came out of what was obviously a very long remission when faced with these problems.

Re: my carpet, I actually couldn't stand it anymore and pulled some of it up myself over the last week. Not the best idea and I definitely did not feel so well doing it but I discovered the original parquet floors. Not the prettiest flooring in the world but it seems to be in good condition! I'm headed out of town next week but am going to get a pro in here when I get back!

[Erin524]

Originally Posted by Bearygood

You're right -- it's hard to prove and the statutes of limitations has probably run out. Not too much is finitely known about mold but it can trigger allergic reactions and also affect the CNS. Another interesting tidbit I found when I was researching a possible connection between chronic sinusitis and MS was that when you do have recurring sinusitis it actually increases your allergic susceptibility. It can make people very sensitive to things that wouldn't bother a "normal" person. Between the sinus problems I've had, the stupid carpet and the mold, it was intriguing enough for me to do research on possible allergic and bacterial connections. Let's just say I've had MS for a as long as my specialist thinks -- personally, I'm not convinced it was just coincidence that I came out of what was obviously a very long remission when faced with these problems.

Re: my carpet, I actually couldn't stand it anymore and pulled some of it up myself over the last week. Not the best idea and I definitely did not feel so well doing it but I discovered the original parquet floors. Not the prettiest flooring in the world but it seems to be in good condition! I'm headed out of town next week but am going to get a pro in here when I get back!

Are you getting someone to refinish the floors? Hope they can be reconditioned.

Why people ruin perfectly good floors with carpet, I'll never know.

Our last house (I've lived in 3 places) I was hoping we would find wood floors, and a friend of mine helped me pull up a corner of carpet in my bedroom. Totally disappointed to see that it was an unfinished floor. So, when we replaced the carpeting in that room, a friend of mine and I got the big Sharpie markers out, and drew pictures on the floor...wrote silly jokes about the dog, and also dated when the carpeting was replaced.

When my parents and I moved about 3 years later, the new owners ripped up ALL of the upgrades my parents had done to the floors in that house. Carpeting that was only a year old was ripped up. (we dated those upgrades too on the cement floor) They took the kitchen carpet out and put down cheap linoleum.

I went back to the house about a year and a half after we sold it because the new owners were going to sell, and looked at the house. One of my neighbors went in with me and we compared what had been done. My neighbor thought they were morons for taking our perfectly matched carpeting out of the rooms and replacing it with el cheapo carpet. It was nuts. They put carpet in that contrasted with the walls and then never repainted.

I dont understand people...maybe they were colorblind?

I do remember when we moved from that house, I was having some serious allergy issues. I couldnt breathe the whole time because we were kicking up about 18yrs of dust, and possibly some mold. (we were not known for our cleaning skills...still arent, but that's what the cleaning lady is for now!)

It took me about 2 or 3 months to recover from breathing in all that dust. I was sick for the first 4 months we lived in the house we're in now. (built brand new, now all the dust in this house is truly ours, and not someone else's leftovers)

It was after we moved in here that I started to wake up with numb fingertips that would take 8hrs or more to un-numb themselves. I wonder if there's a connection between all the crud I breathed in when we moved and that numbness starting?