Multiple Chemical Sensitivities & Electrical Hypersensitivities Syndrome

Well, the first thing I'd like to do is talk about the application of the hypothesis for mcs. And I want to go right back to basics because some people are still confused as to how the existing hypothesis applies to mcs. And I completely understand that. And so I want to make sure that you fully understand how these things are linked. But I'm. And an explanation is on the website. So on the mcs page of guptaprogram.com I do explain how I see MCS, but I'm going to explain it in even simpler terms right now. Now, the first thing I want to do is talk about this brain structure called the amygdala. Now the amygdala is part of the limbic system of the brain. And the limbic system of the brain is the, the more ancient brain in the sense that it's the mammalian brain. It's the part of our brain that is designed to protect us, to keep us healthy, to do a lot of the automatic functions of the subconscious mind, to make sure that our bodies survive the threats and dangers around us. And so the amygdala is made up of many different parts. You know, the hypothalamus, pituitary gland. But one of the main things that we're going to focus on is this brain structure called the amygdala. And they're two small almond shaped structures right in the center of the brain. And very simply the amygdala's role, or one of the amygdala's roles is to use emotional reactions to protect us from danger. And the key thing that is relevant to MCS here is that the amygdala and the limbic system do not differentiate between threats. Okay, so what I'm trying to address here is the psychological versus physiological or immunological debate. Some people saying, ah, but you know, mcs, it is not psychological. Or some people saying, actually it is a psychological condition, or some people saying it's a physiological condition and purely a physiological condition. And there's all these arguments going to and fro between different people. And the funny thing is actually the way the brain works, the brain doesn't make that differentiation. The body does not make that differentiation between the mind and the physical body. It's all part of one system. And that is why these kinds of conditions are so difficult to treat, because people end up in one of the two camps and saying, well, it's purely this or it's purely that. Every physical illness has a psychological component and every psychological illness has a physiological component or physical component. And you cannot differentiate the two. And whilst that may not play well politically in terms of how different illnesses are viewed, that is just the way the brain, I believe, sees the body. So let me explain what I mean. Traditionally, when we think of amygdala reactions, we think of emotional, psychological reactions. So, for instance, if you're afraid of something, let's say someone's afraid of flying and they board a plane and they suddenly feel this anxiety. We know that the amygdala is the root cause of that emotional response. But this is the interesting thing, and I've seen this time and time again, this is part of my deductive hypothesis, but also it's part of such evidence that I see in a neurological research and also their physiological research, which is this. The brain does not differentiate between emotional threats, physical threats, chemical threats, mental threats, even immunological threats. They are just seen as threats to survival. And if you think about it, that makes sense. The emotional brain, the subconscious brain, is designed to protect us, to ensure our survival, to ensure that our genes get passed on to the next generation. And in order to do that, the amygdala and the limbic system will elicit reactions to protect us from whatever danger approaches us. It's only us. It's only here in the 21st century that we're saying, okay, this is a psychological threat. This is an immune system, physiological threat, and therefore we're going to treat them separately. The brain doesn't care. It just wants you to survive. I hope that makes sense. So this part of the brain, the amygdala, is designed to protect us from threats. And what it will do in order to send signals to the conscious mind to help with the threats, it will give an emotional part of a response as well, to inform us to remove ourselves from that particular threat. So, for instance, a rabbit goes into a field and suddenly sees a fox. Now, at the time that happens, there is a physical threat to the rabbit's presence in that field. But the emotional mind will also send an emotional message to the brain or to itself to essentially avoid that particular situation, so it can protect itself from a physical threat. So that's where a physical threat is represented by an emotional response. And the rabbit will actually experience and feel fear at the level of consciousness that a rabbit can feel fear. Now, when the brain is aroused, it will feel vulnerable to milder threats, and it errs on the side of caution. It overprotects. Now, let me explain what I mean by this in relation to mcs. This is the crux of it. We Are surrounded by artificial chemicals. These artificial chemicals that we're exposed to are a recent phenomenon, probably over the last hundred years or so. And the numbers of chemicals that we're exposed to, they certainly do increase our toxic load. They increase the number of toxins in the body. And the body has to remove these toxins. And in a normal healthy person, the body is removing these toxins continually. Now, as far as the brain is concerned, it keeps a monitor on these things, but essentially the brain thinks that, okay, I am able to remove these things from my system, so everything's working well and everything's fine. Now what happens is when we go through emotional disorder, or we go through a period of stress or anxiety, or we have a genetic vulnerability to feeling stressed. And for the amygdala to be on high alert in those particular situations, the brain starts generalizing threats and it starts thinking, okay, well I now as the body and the brain feel under threat by these emotional situations in my life, and those things which I thought were okay, now I'm a bit concerned about them. So for instance, generally everybody has a very, very, very, very mild vulnerability to wheat. For instance, wheat is a relatively recent introduction into the human diet. And therefore the moment that there's a lot of stress in the system, the body then starts becoming a bit more sensitive to wheat and to dairy, because once again, they are very, very mildly threat inducing to the body. And it is the same with the chemicals. When the body and the brain feels like it's vulnerable or under attack, it will err on the side of caution and it will start over, protecting against other threats which it perceives could be a danger to the body. The amygdala and the emotional mind don't. What they care about is your survival and your protection from things that could kill you. They don't necessarily care about the reaction that that might cause in your body. And so what happens is in mcs, I believe that there is exposure to a particular chemical, and for whatever reason, the brain feels very vulnerable at that particular time to that chemical. Now, it could be, for instance, that there's a lot of emotional stress going on at the time. So the amygdala is on high alert and more prone to learning and conditioning new behaviors and new responses. Or it could be that at that particular time, just that one time, there was an overexposure suddenly to a particular chemical or a particular food. And in that moment, the brain made a decision to condition itself, to be reactive to that substance in the future. Now, my gut feel is that generally Happens when there is some kind of emotional vulnerability, when someone is experiencing stress, anxiety, fear, guilt, anger. Any kind of intense period of emotion which might be chronic or acute can bring on this conditioning effect in the amygdala. When I say amygdala, I'm referring to a whole host of different brain structures. So the hypothalamus and the insula, which is actually within the cortex part of the brain, which interprets signals from the body and passes those messages on to the amygdala. But the reason I focus on the amygdala is because I believe that the amygdala is the part of the limbic system that actually sends out, sends out tentacles to other parts of the brain and creates that resistance response or that reactive response. Now, some of you may have seen this diagram which is on the website, which is basically saying that, well, let me explain it first of all. So at the top we have the predisposing factors to getting the order. So there might be some genetic factors, and those genetic factors may well be related to what I call the factory setting of the amygdala. How reactive is the amygdala? How emotional is that particular person? Although genetic factors may be other types of factors. Secondly, as I mentioned, it could be some kind of acute or chronic psychological stress or some ongoing emotion or whatever it may be. And finally, at number three, viral, bacterial or other trigger. So in chronic fatigue syndrome, it tends to be a viral, bacterial trigger. In fibromyalgia, it tends to be some kind of chronic pain syndrome. And in mcs it will be an exposure to some kind of chemical or food. And a combination of those three things then causes this trauma in the amygdala. Now, once that trauma in the amygdala has occurred, every time, the amygdala then senses just a very tiny mild bit of that particular chemical, it then unleashes a massive response in the brain and in the body. So there's something, what we call chronic sympathetic arousal, which means that the body is suddenly hyper stimulated in terms of the sympathetic nervous system. This then causes immune problems, causes problems in the adrenal glands, and lots of oxidative stress in the body, which relates to Martin Powell's work on nitrous oxide levels. Those then feedback and create symptoms at number six and number seven. And at number seven, there can be secondary illness cycles which are created. So adrenal exhaustion, the mitochondria may not be functioning correctly, the nitric oxide levels may increase, There could be latent virus reactivation, and there could be allergies and sensitivities which may then increase in the body. Those symptoms are created and those symptoms are detected by the insula, which passes these messages on to the amygdala to tell the amygdala that there is something wrong. There is something wrong in the body. And the amygdala at number nine then thinks, oh, my God. It will then relate its reaction to whatever situation or circumstance started that reaction. And that can be the smell of a particular or the odor of a particular toxin, or it can be the perceived presence of that toxin. The amygdala in the limbic system will react when it perceives any kind of danger to the body. Now, what is neurological conditioning? Well, it is an experience which is repeated and emotional. I'm not going to spend too much time on this particular slide, so don't worry if you don't understand what this is about. But basically, the more times you have an exposure and it's repeated, the more that and that reaction is not interrupted, the more that is neurologically learned in the system, the deeper the groove in the brain when you have a repeated experience. And the more emotional experiences, the deeper the groove in the brain. Now, I'm going to explain this in terms of Pavlov's dogs about conditioning. Now, Pavlov was a scientist who first discovered this idea of neurological conditioning or wiring in the brain. Now, what he would do, and let me explain it in this diagram, so in the top left hand corner, he would give a dog some food. The response would be that the dog would salivate, okay, perfectly normal. Then at number two, he would ring a bell, and obviously the dog wouldn't salivate, because why would the dog salivate just to the sound of a bell? Then at number three, repeatedly, what Pavlov would do is he would ring a bell and serve food to the dog at the same time. Now, this is where the repetition and the emotion comes in. Every time you ring the bell, the food is presented to the dog. And so what happens is the neuron which is firing, saying, I can hear a bell, is firing at the same time as the neuron that says, I'm eating the food, or food is being presented to me. And when you're on spire at the same time repeatedly, then they become linked together. And that is neurological conditioning. Just like when you learn to drive a car, you consciously think, right, let me press the accelerator, let me press the brake, let me turn the steering wheel. And the more times you do all those things together, the more times all of those Things bind together and the brain learns how to do these things automatically. So that's number one, it's repeated. Secondly, it's emotional. Now you might say to me, well, food. Is food emotional? Well, of course it is. The limbic system of a dog. When food is presented, there is a reward system that kicks in in the brain. And that reward system says it creates a positive emotion from the amygdala. And they've detected that this reward emotion that is experienced is the same as what is experienced during addictions. So when someone has an addiction and their addiction is quenched, then the amygdala fires up and sends out signals to say, okay, everything's feeling good now. So it is an emotional response that the dog has when the food is presented. Then after the conditioning events have occurred, you can ring the bell and the dog will salivate because now the dog has associated the bell with a particular response, with a particular outcome. Now let's go back to the conditioning in the top left hand corner and relate this to multiple chemical sensitivities. This is where it becomes very exciting. We know that essentially a lot of our neurological conditioning follows this particular process. There's two types of conditioning, classical and the other one, but I'm not going to talk about those right now because that will confuse us. In the top left hand corner, the food is represented by the emotion or stress or whatever we are experiencing where the nervous system is hyper aroused. So the food represents stress in our lives and so the dog salivating is us feeling stressed. Now, before the conditioning, the bell represents the chemical. When the chemical was presented to you before you contracted MCS in your body, there would essentially have been no reaction in the vast majority of the population. When you present them with the various chemicals, whatever paints, dust, odors, perfumes, etc. There's no response in that person in the bottom left hand corner. What happens is if the nervous system is hyper aroused for whatever reason for a period of time, and a person has a lot of exposure to the bell, and the bell represents that particular chemical, conditioning effects occur in the unconscious brain, in the limbic system, specifically in the amygdala. And then after conditioning, you may not have the stress in your life anymore. The stress may have gone. So that food, that bowl of food there, has been taken away. But now, anytime the bell is rung, that is, anytime you very, very mild exposure to that particular chemical, then that same sympathetic nervous system response, that hyperarousal occurs. And not only that, the body will learn a specific reaction. Because remember, the amygdala wants to protect you from threats, so it will learn specific reactions, so it will give you nausea, you may find it difficult to breathe, etc. Because now the amygdala wants to create specific response to that particular threat of the chemical. And the reason that I believe it's this process is because if we found that a mild exposure to a chemical created a chemical reaction in 10 out of 10 people in the average population, then we know that it's the chemical that is creating that response. And if a person was born with that particular reaction all the time, then we would say it's a purely genetic response. But the fact that we know that there is a period of time in most people's lives where they never had reactions that chemical, but suddenly something changes and now they do react to that chemical, that means that it is the software in the brain where some learning has occurred. And to me that is the most logical explanation for this. Now I'm sure there are some situations where for whatever reason, that particular chemical may have caused some specific physiological reaction in the body which might then be causing the ongoing symptoms. But in the vast majority of cases in mcs, I believe that it is this conditioning that is occurring. Now some people talk about toxic brain injury where they feel that the brain itself is may have become damaged, where the blood brain barrier has been interfered with, et cetera, et cetera. Now all of these things are theoretical and also they can be explained by this hypothesis. So certainly we know that when the brain is hyper aroused, extra inflammation can occur in the brain and in the spinal cord. But I believe that inflammation which is detected can be reversed. That ongoing inflammation is simply because the brain is being constantly hyper aroused. And that's what can cause you to have headaches, foggy head, difficulty thinking, that's all the tightness and tension that's in the muscles there, as well as any inflammation that's occurred. And we also know that the brain volume in certain parts of the brain decreases and in certain parts of the brain it increases. Because what's happening is with that hyperarousal, there are some temporary organic changes that can occur into the brain. Now is it that these chemicals are directly causing this inflammation or these observations in the brain? Personally, I don't think so. I'm open to being wrong, I could be wrong about that. But I believe it is simply this conditioning response which is creating a hyperarousal, which is then causing these problems in the brain. So the amygdala is the interpreter. The stimuli that may come in are Chemicals, odors. So the smell of the chemical itself may trigger the amygdala's response. It could be just simply the physical sight of the chemical. So just seeing that the chemical is in your presence can be enough to trigger the MCS response. Or it can be the odor, or it can be a certain taste, or it can be some internal sensations. So if the body thinks it's on the verge of having a reaction for whatever reason, then it can create that reaction. And there might be other stimuli, such as other visual, auditory or smell triggers, which then may trigger the response. Now, the amygdala creates a meaning or has created a meaning. And that meaning is this chemical is dangerous for the body. It is life threatening, and it will create a feeling or emotion related to that. And I've spoken to quite a few people with mcs and some people are acutely aware that when that chemical is detected, there is this feeling of vulnerability, of fear. Fear is a strong word. It can be a worry or a mild feeling of fear, but it's definitely there. And remember I said the brain does not differentiate between emotional and physiological disorders. They're exactly the same. There are things to be protected from. And that creates the MCS response, which is unique to each patient. So for some people, there'll be incredibly powerful responses which can cause even brain seizures and things like that. For some people, it will be a mild response. So they have maybe a stimulation of the nervous system, they'll have tightness in the head, they'll feel a bit nauseous, they'll feel a bit vulnerable. That can be a mild response right through to a chronic, can be absolutely chronic response that is occurring. And the amount of that response will depend on the depth of the conditioning. How deep is the neurological groove in the brain. Now, once again, all of these processes have essentially been proven using the anxiety model. All I've done is say it is wrong for us to think that protective responses are emotional or are purely emotional. Protective responses occur in exactly the same way using exactly the same brain processes as they do for emotional psychological conditions. And that is why it is so hard to, to differentiate the two aspects of this condition. And that's why you can have two camps of people who are observing patients with exactly the same disorder and having completely different interpretations of what's actually going on here. Now, of course, I will say that MCS is definitely a physiological disorder. It is a proper physical illness in the sense that symptoms in the body are real. However, in the vast majority of cases, those symptoms are being caused by the body's own reaction. Those symptoms are not being caused by the chemical itself. It's not that the chemical is getting into the system and causing those symptoms. It is the body and the brain's response which is causing those symptoms. Just like if you have a flu, the symptoms of flu are not being caused, or the vast majority of the symptoms are not being caused by the flu virus itself. The symptoms are the immune system's response to the flu virus. That's very, very important for us to recognize. Now, what does happen is there can be extra toxicity in the body that builds up, because when the sympathetic nervous system is hyperaroused, then the detox system and the elimination system is compromised. So we can get a buildup of toxins in the system. But the way to deal with that is to calm the nervous system down. Because the best detoxification system is the body itself. If you get the body in the right frame of mind, the body itself can heal itself very, very easily. Now, this also relates to attention. So the brain is being bombarded by millions of bits of sensory data all the time. And what gets through to your conscious brain is what you are presently focused on emotionally and what you believe to be true. So I believe, and this might be controversial, but stick with me here. You are more likely to have an MCS reaction if there is a definite focus on what is going on. But that doesn't preclude the fact that it could be an MCS reaction even when you're not focused on it. So it can happen in both situations if you're emotionally focused and on having an MCS reaction, or you perceive that there might be one, and you anticipate that it's more likely to happen at the same time. Depending on the conditioning, you may have no thoughts about having that reaction, but suddenly be put in that environment where the amygdala picks up the stimuli, the triggers, and then you can trigger one of those MCS reactions. Here we can see that the thalamus sensitizes and magnifies all the incoming signals. So you may find yourself very, very sensitive to even mild odors. For instance, the amygdala is on high alert, primed and ready to react. So then it reacts continually to the presence of that particular chemical. And once it's reacted, those signals can get sent back to the amygdala, so it creates symptoms in the body. Those signals get fed back to the amygdala, and the amygdala can then start hyper arousing itself again and again and again. So that Vicious cycle can keep occurring around and around and around. Okay, so this is what we're just focusing on now, so that there is that sympathetic response. Now, once again, just this point here. The symptoms in the body are caused by the body's reaction to the chemical. In the vast majority of cases, there are certainly going to be some symptoms that may be created directly by the chemical. But I believe that it's not useful to necessarily think in that way. Now, those subtle feelings, those subtle feelings that we want to retrain, that can help us with this neurological reconditioning is that when you have one of those reactions, become acutely aware of what emotions or feelings are connected to that, and there often will be a feeling of vulnerability or a feeling of being attacked in that fourth bullet point there. There can be some fear or anxiety connected to that or some irritation, a feeling of irritation in the body and a feeling that you have no power or no control over this particular, particular reaction. And it can also give you a feeling of feeling overwhelmed by what is happening, a feeling of weakness. Now, just some further things that I want to cover here. The brain generalizes the stimuli that indicate the presence of a dangerous chemical. And this is what is very unusual. When you start reacting to one particular chemical, then suddenly patients will say to me, yeah, and then three months later, I started reacting to another chemical or I started reacting to another food that I didn't react to before. Now, to me, this is evidence of the generalization of the brain. If the brain becomes reactive and hypersensitive to one particular chemical, it will then become very hypersensitive to another. And this also relates to CFS and fibromyalgia in the sense that a lot of people with CFS and fibromyalgia also have mcs. And that's no coincidence. That in my mind is evidence of what I'm talking about here, that when the nervous system is over stimulated, the system can be very prone to learning new reactions, new sensitivities to things that it otherwise would have not had an issue with in terms of reacting to them. I've mentioned here that detoxification systems do shut down during severe sympathetic responses. And that might be contributing to this idea of toxic load. But in my mind, the best way of detoxifying is to get the nervous system calmed down so the system can detoxify itself. And that in our bodies we have two systems, the sympathetic nervous system, which is a stress reaction, and then the parasympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system Is the part of the system that engages to repair and heal and detoxify the body. But imagine if that part of the body or the system is not functioning because sympathetic nervous system is dominating. That is what can then cause that feeling of feeling what I call dirty. A dirty feeling in the body where you feel toxic. Sometimes we can say I'm feeling toxic because of these chemicals, but in my mind, it's simply a build up of those toxins from all different sources. Now, this is the controversial area, peripheral sensitization and Martin Powell theory. Is the sensitization localized in the body or is it centralized in terms of the brain? Now, I've thought about this a lot, and I still do believe that the central cause in terms of where the software is going wrong is in the brain. Now, that may well cause peripheral sensitization around the body, but the CEO, as it were, the part of the brain that is giving all these signals and causing that peripheral sensitization in my mind is still in the limbic system. And there will be different reactions to different chemicals. So the brain is generalizing in terms of reacting to the stimuli. But each reaction to each stimuli may well be unique within each person, which is what can make this quite confusing. All right, so what I want to do now is I'm going to briefly ask for some questions and then I'm going to go into how do we apply the techniques to this particular system? Okay, so specifically, if you have any questions about the hypothesis that I've just been through, You can ask them in the Q and A box. Does this explain hypersensitivity to the spell of flowers, plants, foods, etc. Yes, as I've mentioned, and funnily enough, in fibromyalgia, there is this theory called the central sensitivity syndrome as cfx Central sensitivity syndrome as an explanation for fibromyalgia. And what it's saying is there is central sensitization in the system which is causing the fibromyalgia symptoms, and that is sensitivity to pain signals. Can we see when you become hypersensitive to whatever source of signal there is in the body, that will make you sensitive to lots of other things, which is why some people are very sensitive to sounds. Okay. Some are very sensitive to light. Some people are sensitive to things that they smell. So MCS is not to be seen in its locality as something individual. It is to be seen as part of a whole parade of sensitivity syndromes which can occur in the brain. And each person will have its own set of sensitivities based on Genetic vulnerability and what it is that they've been exposed to or conditioned to respond to in the outside world. You said chemicals do not get into the body, but food does. So this seems different to me. Well, I said that chemicals certainly do get into the body through our skin, through our breathing. We are constantly breathing in and out chemicals. So that's not the case. Sorry if I said it that way. Any chemicals are absorbed into the body, any foods are absorbed in the body. What I'm saying here is if it was purely the chemical which was the problem, then in a healthy group of people, we would find that they would also react in the same way. But when they've taken a group of MCS patients and a group of healthy controls and they've done experiments on this, where they've exposed them to chemicals, they have found a different pattern of reaction. Guess where in the brain they found that. The limbic system and the amygdala. There's a different pattern of reaction in the MCS people versus the other people. There is still a reaction in the other people, but it's a very different reaction in the brain and they don't get the symptoms. So this is where we can directly show that it is the brain where the reaction to these particular chemicals is different. And therefore that's where the conditioning effects of the occurred. That particular paper is on the MCS page of the website. Someone asking what is peripheral sensitization and what is power theory? I don't have time to go into that right now, but Google it and you'll see lots of information. Someone asking about endometriosis and these conditions. This is something further that I'm going to look into. I'm not going to answer that right now. Is it possible for the deep pathways to be reversible even when you've had this for many years? In my view, yes. Yes, those grooves in the brain may well be deep, but as a lot of people on the Planet Thrive website, for instance, talk about a book called the Brain that Changes Itself. The brain is rewirable. You are not a victim of what conditioning has already occurred in your mind. So the brain can always be rewired. The brain can always be retrained. The difference is that just as there has been repetition and emotion which has caused the original conditioning, you need repetition and emotion to break out of the old conditioning and break into a new way of thinking it for the subconscious mind. And the issue here is that it requires a lot of repetition and a lot of emotive positivity to believe that the brain can be rewired. Someone's saying, if your MCS gets better, does your smell get normal again? I can now almost smell everything. Yes. So for some people, their sense of smell normalizes once these systems have become down. Someone saying, when I get exposed to perfume, I no longer get badly affected with severe symptoms. But I do have. So this is after starting imagery training as far as I can see. But I have had ear problems because I no longer use a mask to prot technique from the chemicals. What do I have to do to solve this problem? Okay, I'm going to come on to the actual techniques in a little while.