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Pesticides and Panic
Attacks
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From: "cynthiadunn" <cynthiadunn@angelislington.fsnet.co.uk>
Thank you so much for your article. I have known for over a year that something on or around farm produce has been producing dizziness and twice a full attack which has
lead to hospitalization. I have no objection to the idea of being prone to panic attacks, but I just do not feel that in the case of these terrifying episodes that panic is at the
base.
'Panic' is a pejorative term which I think should not be used in any case. I did experience a 'panic attack' recently in a hospital corridor on the way for a diagnosis which I
new would result in a mastectomy. It was a different experience - though I agree that outwardly it would 'look' the same.
The dizziness and other symptoms which I experience in - wait for it..... farm shops, some supermarkets - all French supermarkets close to the greengroceries, and when
eating salad in some restaurants; have an onset which appears to be totally random in terms of my emotional state i.e. happy and contented one moment and feeling as if
I am fighting for my life the next. On holiday in the Languedoc I was below par most of the time and looking back the house was
surrounded by and below vineyards where the local people sprayed copiously for moulds and pesticides.
I live next to a field which suddenly was planted last year after an eight year break. I was treated for 'panic attacks' ten years ago and for eight years have been free of
them.. I was at the same time having terrible trouble with my trees dying in the garden. the prevailing wind/breeze comes across this field and into my garden. It had
crossed my mind, at the time the tree surgeon diagnosed damage from pesticides in the
neighboring field, that it couldn't be doing us much good either.
On the strength of your article I will do further research and go back to my physician, who is extremely good - as good as you can get - but who after running extensive
tests for allergy, heart condition etc was left with no alternative but to suggest that my emotional condition could be a
contributory factor. In this I am sure he is right - I seem to be susceptible to everything when
stressed. However I do not think that this detracts from the very strong possibility
that pesticides are at the base of these attacks - particularly since raw vegetable material
has been present at every instance, and since I have been certain that two attacks
in our local farm shop were triggered by sampling unwashed grapes.
Thank you again, I would be really grateful to see any further advice concerning this on this part of the website.
I read with interest, your article.
I did not know what was happening the first time I had a panic attack.
I was out in my yard and there had been spraying of weeds in the ditch with pesticides and we had recently had house termited, far as I
remember. I thought I was dying with a heart attack but later I found out about panic attacks. From then on, my health gradually deteriorated and now in my senior
years I am disabled with MCS, FM, and Chronic Fatigue. Had I only
known all these years about pesticides.
My family was poisoned in 1989 by an exterminator, memory loss, panic
attacks, etc.....we went through detox, etc., which seem to only make symptoms worse, all of this info seems so applicable.....so
familar......I too have court in my dreams that come out for once in the victim's favor,
only to wake up & realize it was only a dream, but, what the heck, we can never give up the fight. I remember being in detox in Boca Raton in 1989 & a
child psychologist at the time was doing research on children with chemical exposures and their behavior....how smart she was, bet she never was able to
get anything published. I work in a physician's office, & really watch updates that come through, the newest being a relation between Parkinson's
disease & pesticides in one of the Neurology publications....this is very promising...
Carol4125@aol.com
Steve--thanks for the panic attack/cholinesterase
summary.
In the early nineties I sought out a psychologist and did
perform desensitization, using benzene markers. Yes. I am that stupid.
I had become generally unwell, all the time and had
severe MCS. When I was originally exposed by ChemLawn in 1986 I had
cholinesterase inhibition after being sprayed over a hedge in Connecticut and
flew out to Rea's. I have a number of symptoms and now a neurologist tells me
I have a problem in the top of my legs. I told him it was pesticide exposure.
He said, "You've been around chemicals all your life." He also said
I look like--a breast implant patient. I wondered why everyone in his office
was staring at my chest. NO--I am still like God made me and I have a
"normal" figure and am slightly built.
Doctors will do anything except admit that pesticides and
solvents cause injury. Apparently I'd run across a neurologist who thinks
breast implants do cause problems in women, and even though I do not have them
and never did and never will, he considers me in that category. Bizarre,
right?
One day I will detail my experience with
"Desensitization." I told Clement Furlong that I participated in
desensitization and he raised a normally very quiet voice and said
"Benzene is a neurotoxin, Susan!" Duh. I know that now... I only
wanted to do anything I could to get back to being healthy. I believe that I
probably did more brain damage. Hence, in the lawsuit of our choice involving
chemically injured folks, we have the category -- Iatrogenic Disease-- that
caused by physicians.
I always tell everyone that desensitization was
profitable. The psychologist was divorced, had a kid in college and my part of
the procedure cost about $1,000.00 that her kid probably really needed. Hence,
desensitization was profitable for the psychologist.
I believe that my psychological function is better than
the psychologist's who ended our sessions with her theory that I "might
consider if I could be a reincarnated Jew." (She is Jewish and practices
in a fashionable Connecticut area.) She sorta worked her way up to this
ridiculous statement by having me rent the video "Europa, Europa," a
subtitled video about a blue-eyed, blonde-haired Jew who escapes the holocaust
by his appearance. I am not Jewish, and I don't feel persecuted or
reincarnated. I think she might have been getting into reincarnation involving
a "gassed" Jew, because I told her that I had become ill following
pesticide exposures.
I think the psychologist ought to have to appear in court
and explain what she studied about exposing me to benzene (for hours on end),
without knowing a thing about benzene as neurotoxic, or that benzene was
probably an inert in the pesticides that bother me. I sought out the therapy
because I had read some of Iris Bell's work. I earnestly asked my doctor to
find someone for me to do desensitization. Neither my doctor nor the therapist
ever thought I needed psychotherapy. Even the nutty benzene psychologist told
me not to bother to continue with therapy aimed at psychologic origins of my
illness. The referring doctor ought to be in court too, because three people
helped me sniff benzene markers. Of course no courtroom appearances will
really happen, only in my dreams, right? So you see, our call to Dr.
Wagner explores, just more of the same old thing.
Industry fishes around for people like Iris Bell. They
fished for Dr. Abou-Donia at Duke and when he did not take the bait (described
in one of my transcripts), they moved on to researchers who would take bait.
Also, we have the category of "researchers who said
something negative about pesticides" and lost their funding. I hope to
get a good Janette Sherman transcript one of these days, but I only do that
without the person's knowledge. I know that Janette Sherman lost her funding
and was accused of practicing "junk science" because she tried to
look into MCS.
Susan Jannarone