Eye Appt Today: Unbearable Fragrances & Unfair Treatment

[turbo]

I had an eye appointment this morning with a couple of doctors that I have previously worked with. Unfortunately, the staff continues to wear cosmetics and fragrances and I have been in misery all day. Migraines, COPD, and inflamed arthritis are not fun.

I worked with many of those same people in an ophthalmic practice until the use of fragrances got too much to bear. These people are putting their fingers near patients' eyes, so why can't they catch a clue and treat patients fairly?

 

[Drakkith]

What 'clue' are they supposed to catch?

 

[EricVT]

It's common knowledge that if you work in healthcare you don't wear fragrances because they can make many patients feel very sick (much worse than they already do). This is occasionally a problem where I work as well, though we have visual reminders posted everywhere. We've even had staff wear strong perfume and be given feedback about how it can negatively affect the patients we are serving...only to have them wearing perfume again within a few days.

For whatever reason some people in healthcare seem to not get it.

 

[Drakkith]

I see. I wasn't aware this was even an issue, much less such a big one.

 

[Evo]

Some perfume is stinky, I hate musk, that was really popular for awhile. Any strong smell can bother people, make them sneeze, give them headaches, make them nauseous. It's not harmful, but it's unpleasant.

 

[turbo]

It's not harmful, but it's unpleasant.

Actually, it can be quite harmful. Anybody with MCS can explain how loss of breathing capacity, migraines, etc, can ruin their lives, and possibly land them in the ER for treatment.

What is quite disturbing to me is that professionals with nursing degrees blithely apply their perfumes with their hands and then tend to eye patients. When they retract patients' eyelids, help them remove and re-install contacts, etc, they are exposing the patients' most sensitive body-parts to chemical injury.

I avoid health-care "professionals" like the plague, and if I must be around them for some reason, I have an epi-pen in my pocket. For a while, I was treated by the most prominent chemical-injury doctor in the northeast. Unfortunately, he accepted a position at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, and I could no longer see him, since the staff there never got the word on fragrance-free. When he was in Exeter, I could visit him with no problems, but after one disastrous trip to D-H, I had to get my wife to drive me home from the follow-up. You wouldn't want to meet me on the road after I spiked myself with an epi-pen.

 

[Evo]

Actually, it can be quite harmful. Anybody with MCS can explain how loss of breathing capacity, migraines, etc, can ruin their lives, and possibly land them in the ER for treatment.

Let's stick with the current medical view please.

MCS is a psychological condition.

Edit suggested by mentors: "MCS is not recognized, so your attacks can't be classified as MCS".

Psychological effects can be harmful to your health.

MCS is a controversial diagnosis and is not recognized as an organic, chemical-caused illness by the American Medical Association or other authorities.[1] Richard J. Jackson, MD, director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and co-chair of the interagency work group that drafted a 1999 US government report on MCS, has said, "There is extreme polarization around the issue of MCS. MCS advocates believe we have not adequately incorporated the literature that supports their position, and the critics have argued that we have been too willing to listen to the advocates."[2] Blinded clinical trials have shown MCS patients react as often and as strongly to placebos, including clean air

The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD), maintained by the World Health Organization, does not recognize multiple chemical sensitivity or environmental sensitivity as a valid diagnosis.[14]

The American Medical Association (AMA) has stated that because of the lack of scientific evidence, based on well-controlled clinical trials, that supports a cause-and-effect relationship between exposure to very low levels of chemicals and the myriad symptoms reported by clinical ecologists, MCS is not recognized as an established organic disease. The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, the California Medical Association, the American College of Physicians, and the International Society of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology also do not recognise it.[1][15][16] In 1994, the AMA, American Lung Association, US EPA and US Consumer Product Safety Commission published a booklet on indoor air pollution that discusses MCS, among other issues. Although sometimes misrepresented as evidence these groups recognize MCS as a specific disease, the booklet states a pathogenesis of MCS has not been definitively proven. The booklet further states symptoms that have been self-diagnosed by a patient as related to MCS could actually be related to allergies or have a psychological basis.

Ronald E. Gots, M.D., an environmental toxicologist and frequent defense consultant in toxic tort litigation,
[18] describes MCS as "a label given to people who do not feel well for a variety of reasons and who share the common belief that chemical sensitivities are to blame. ... It has no consistent characteristics, no uniform cause, no objective or measurable features. It exists because a patient believes it does and a doctor validates that belief."[19] In editorial in the Journal of Toxicology - Clinical Toxicology Gots wrote, "The phenomenon of multiple chemical sensitivities is a peculiar manifestation of our technophobic and chemophobic society. ... It may be the only ailment in existence in which the patient defines both the cause and the manifestations of his own condition."[1]

A 1997 court decision held that MCS "is untested, speculative, and far from generally accepted in the medical or toxicological community," and thus cannot be used as the basis for disability claims.[23] Furthermore, accommodations sought for MCS are sometimes denied as being unreasonable as a matter of law.[24]

United States courts and several medical organizations reject MCS as a physiological disease. An approach called clinical ecology attempts to treat the disease, but this work is controversial.[39] Critics charge:

MCS has never been clearly defined,

no scientifically plausible mechanism has been proposed for it,

no diagnostic tests have been substantiated,[40] and

not a single case has been scientifically validated.[41]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_chemical_sensitivity#Lack_of_widespread_recognition