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Is This Common Poison Causing Your Chronic Illness?

In 1733, English physician George Cheyne first described the “English Malady” also known as “the Vapours.” A mysterious illness was striking many people. Dr. Cheyne wrote of highly intelligent people suffering from rapidly changing sensory symptoms.

These included extremity coldness, flushing, and burning. It also caused headaches, either behind or over the eyes, noises in the ears, lethargy, and sometimes abdominal swelling. He found it worse in winter and in the cities.

In the U.S., strangely enough, it was first described not by physicians, but in the tales of Edgar Allan Poe. In reporting psychiatric misdiagnoses, Poe wrote: “Have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of the senses?”

(The Tell-Tale Heart, 1843). Widely accused of being insane, Poe died, as he predicted, of “Congestion of the Brain” in 1849. Through the years, the name of Poe’s illness has changed. Names have included: neurasthenia (1869), autointoxication (1894), allergic toxemia (1930), allergic fatigue and weakness (1945), nervous system allergy (1952), minimal brain dysfunction (1965), and others.

In modern times, the disorder has taken on a new title, one you’re likely familiar with, and one that might have great relevance to you or a loved one: Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). Frenchman Charles Baudelaire said that Poe’s problem was “nothing more than a perpetual effort to escape the influence of this unfriendly atmosphere.”

He was more accurate than he knew, as our atmosphere is filled with toxic chemicals, especially our modern atmosphere. And more and more people are growing sensitive to it. Several U.S. studies have found a rather high prevalence of this problem. Five U.S. studies find 28-37% claim that they are especially sensitive to common chemicals.

Four studies say 15-17% claim that they are unusually sensitive. Over 6% in California claim that they have been diagnosed by a medical professional with MCS or environmental illness. But I suspect the number is much, much higher than that. That’s because MCS is difficult to diagnose.

There are so many symptoms. Researchers have described at least 203. Symptoms most commonly strike the nervous system, followed by the digestive, musculoskeletal, and reproductive systems.

It also hits the senses, greatly increasing your sensitivity to odors, lights, sounds, tastes, and touch. Some in medicine consider MCS a psychiatric disorder. But it has discovered many objective findings that prove it is indeed a physical disorder.

There is impaired circulation and toxicity, nutritional deficiencies, measurable sensory alterations, GI disturbances, neurocognitive deficiencies, skin tone abnormalities, ear and balance problems, and many others.

Interestingly, Poe wasn’t the only famous person who may have succumbed to the malady. We suspect George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde did. And more than likely, so did Vincent Van Gogh.

He even left us a clue as to what caused it in one of his paintings. In the background of his painting of Gaughin’s Chair, finished one month before he cut off his ear, there is a gas light. Before electricity, indoor lights burned coal gas to produce light. Coal gas is 5% carbon monoxide (among other toxins).

Carbon monoxide (CO) is among the deadliest of poisons. Exposure limits today are from 0.0009% indoors to 0.005% occupational. There’s just no way that those using these gas lights indoors would not be at terrible risk.

You’re probably very familiar with carbon monoxide poisoning. Every now and then we hear about people dying from over exposure from a faulty furnace or other gas appliance. The reason these people die is because the carbon monoxide displaces oxygen from the hemoglobin in their blood cells.

Hemoglobin binds CO far more tightly than oxygen, and turns it a bright red, even more so than oxygen. Too much CO suffocates the person even though their blood looks like it’s full of oxygen.

However you can get severe CO poisoning even from exposure to low levels, especially if the exposure is chronic or repeated (e.g., from an unvented gas oven or space heater). Even when CO poisoning is not severe enough to lower the oxygen level in your blood, it can still alter the function of your brain and nervous system.

In fact, it can severely compromise your brain function. What most people don’t realize is that CO poisoning can cause or worsen a whole host of illnesses. These include anemia, angina, asthma, deranged sense of smell, blindness and deafness, depression, diabetes, hallucinations, psychoses, Parkinson’s, mental retardation, and more. Since it is an odorless, colorless, and tasteless gas, we don’t think of it as a possible cause of illness.

But it is. My mentor on the subject, Al Donnay, MHS, a consulting toxicologist, was the first to connect CO with multiple chemical sensitivity — and with the illnesses of some of these great historical people. He shocked me with a huge revelation that most doctors have never heard. Your body actually produces CO! In your body, there’s an enzyme called Heme Oxygenase (HO). This enzyme also goes by the name Universal Stress Enzyme.

Whenever your body becomes stressed, this enzyme starts a process that increases CO production. This stress can come from just about anything: heat, bright light, noise, odors, drugs, alcohol and chemicals, trauma, infection, electro-magnetic fields, etc. But here’s the real shocker in all of this: Not only is CO a poison, but it’s also a neurotransmitter.

As you may know, neurotransmitters are essential for normal brain function. I asked Donnay why God would place such a deadly poison in the role of an essential neurotransmitter.

His answer was simple. CO is a sensory neurotransmitter. It controls how you perceive the world around you. It’s like a volume control.

It controls how “loud” or “soft” a stimulus is to your perception. What could be a better sensory neurotransmitter than one that’s impervious to your senses? This is where Donnay believes CO connects to MCS and similar diseases.

Here’s how: You just learned that stress of any kind increases the HO enzyme, which makes more CO. You’re not aware of this increase. If the stress is short term, the CO sensitizes you for a short period of time.

But if your exposure is chronic, like in smoking, it can permanently affect you. You get habituated to higher levels. Then, when you quit smoking, your CO levels fall and it messes up your sensory gain control. You need stress to perk up the CO. Donnay believes that if your body is sensitized to CO by any means, you will be subject to increased sensory awareness provoked by any stressor.

The results might be hypersensitivity to odors, lights, sounds, foods. This is a clear distinction from MCS, which is a hypersensitivity only to chemicals. For this reason, Donnay proposed the name Multi-Sensory Sensitivity (aka MUSES Syndrome) to distinguish between CO poisoning and pure MCS. So how can you tell if you’re afflicted with MUSES Syndrome?

Unfortunately, you can’t have a lab do a simple CO test of your blood or breath. These will find only acute CO poisoning in the last 24 hours. But there is another easy and readily available way to test for it. If you have any of the symptoms I’ve mentioned, ask your doctor to order a test of your tissue oxygen consumption such as arterial and venous blood gas tests (taken from the same arm without a tourniquet).

These two tests will tell you how well your tissues are absorbing oxygen. Your doctor also can order blood gas tests of your arterial and venous oxygen pressure. But you may have to go to a hospital pulmonary lab for this test.

If the difference in dissolved oxygen (PO2) between your artery and vein is less than 55 mmHg, this suggests that your tissues are not absorbing enough oxygen. We call this “tissue hypoxia.” Pulmonary labs can also measure tissue oxygen consumption non-invasively (without drawing blood) using a test called VO2 max.

With this test, you breathe into a mask while exercising on a stationary bike or treadmill. However, I’m not sure you need to spend the money on these tests. If you have a serious case of CO poisoning, your face will give it away.

Is This Common Poison Causing Your Chronic Illness?

In 1733, English physician George Cheyne first described the “English Malady” also known as “the Vapours.” A mysterious illness was striking many people. Dr. Cheyne wrote of highly intelligent people suffering from rapidly changing sensory symptoms.

These included extremity coldness, flushing, and burning. It also caused headaches, either behind or over the eyes, noises in the ears, lethargy, and sometimes abdominal swelling. He found it worse in winter and in the cities.

In the U.S., strangely enough, it was first described not by physicians, but in the tales of Edgar Allan Poe. In reporting psychiatric misdiagnoses, Poe wrote: “Have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of the senses?”

(The Tell-Tale Heart, 1843). Widely accused of being insane, Poe died, as he predicted, of “Congestion of the Brain” in 1849. Through the years, the name of Poe’s illness has changed. Names have included: neurasthenia (1869), autointoxication (1894), allergic toxemia (1930), allergic fatigue and weakness (1945), nervous system allergy (1952), minimal brain dysfunction (1965), and others.

In modern times, the disorder has taken on a new title, one you’re likely familiar with, and one that might have great relevance to you or a loved one: Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). Frenchman Charles Baudelaire said that Poe’s problem was “nothing more than a perpetual effort to escape the influence of this unfriendly atmosphere.”

He was more accurate than he knew, as our atmosphere is filled with toxic chemicals, especially our modern atmosphere. And more and more people are growing sensitive to it. Several U.S. studies have found a rather high prevalence of this problem. Five U.S. studies find 28-37% claim that they are especially sensitive to common chemicals.

Four studies say 15-17% claim that they are unusually sensitive. Over 6% in California claim that they have been diagnosed by a medical professional with MCS or environmental illness. But I suspect the number is much, much higher than that. That’s because MCS is difficult to diagnose.

There are so many symptoms. Researchers have described at least 203. Symptoms most commonly strike the nervous system, followed by the digestive, musculoskeletal, and reproductive systems.

It also hits the senses, greatly increasing your sensitivity to odors, lights, sounds, tastes, and touch. Some in medicine consider MCS a psychiatric disorder. But it has discovered many objective findings that prove it is indeed a physical disorder.

There is impaired circulation and toxicity, nutritional deficiencies, measurable sensory alterations, GI disturbances, neurocognitive deficiencies, skin tone abnormalities, ear and balance problems, and many others.

Interestingly, Poe wasn’t the only famous person who may have succumbed to the malady. We suspect George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde did. And more than likely, so did Vincent Van Gogh.

He even left us a clue as to what caused it in one of his paintings. In the background of his painting of Gaughin’s Chair, finished one month before he cut off his ear, there is a gas light. Before electricity, indoor lights burned coal gas to produce light. Coal gas is 5% carbon monoxide (among other toxins).

Carbon monoxide (CO) is among the deadliest of poisons. Exposure limits today are from 0.0009% indoors to 0.005% occupational. There’s just no way that those using these gas lights indoors would not be at terrible risk.

You’re probably very familiar with carbon monoxide poisoning. Every now and then we hear about people dying from over exposure from a faulty furnace or other gas appliance. The reason these people die is because the carbon monoxide displaces oxygen from the hemoglobin in their blood cells.

Hemoglobin binds CO far more tightly than oxygen, and turns it a bright red, even more so than oxygen. Too much CO suffocates the person even though their blood looks like it’s full of oxygen.

However you can get severe CO poisoning even from exposure to low levels, especially if the exposure is chronic or repeated (e.g., from an unvented gas oven or space heater). Even when CO poisoning is not severe enough to lower the oxygen level in your blood, it can still alter the function of your brain and nervous system.

In fact, it can severely compromise your brain function. What most people don’t realize is that CO poisoning can cause or worsen a whole host of illnesses. These include anemia, angina, asthma, deranged sense of smell, blindness and deafness, depression, diabetes, hallucinations, psychoses, Parkinson’s, mental retardation, and more. Since it is an odorless, colorless, and tasteless gas, we don’t think of it as a possible cause of illness.

But it is. My mentor on the subject, Al Donnay, MHS, a consulting toxicologist, was the first to connect CO with multiple chemical sensitivity — and with the illnesses of some of these great historical people. He shocked me with a huge revelation that most doctors have never heard. Your body actually produces CO! In your body, there’s an enzyme called Heme Oxygenase (HO). This enzyme also goes by the name Universal Stress Enzyme.

Whenever your body becomes stressed, this enzyme starts a process that increases CO production. This stress can come from just about anything: heat, bright light, noise, odors, drugs, alcohol and chemicals, trauma, infection, electro-magnetic fields, etc. But here’s the real shocker in all of this: Not only is CO a poison, but it’s also a neurotransmitter.

As you may know, neurotransmitters are essential for normal brain function. I asked Donnay why God would place such a deadly poison in the role of an essential neurotransmitter.

His answer was simple. CO is a sensory neurotransmitter. It controls how you perceive the world around you. It’s like a volume control.

It controls how “loud” or “soft” a stimulus is to your perception. What could be a better sensory neurotransmitter than one that’s impervious to your senses? This is where Donnay believes CO connects to MCS and similar diseases.

Here’s how: You just learned that stress of any kind increases the HO enzyme, which makes more CO. You’re not aware of this increase. If the stress is short term, the CO sensitizes you for a short period of time.

But if your exposure is chronic, like in smoking, it can permanently affect you. You get habituated to higher levels. Then, when you quit smoking, your CO levels fall and it messes up your sensory gain control. You need stress to perk up the CO. Donnay believes that if your body is sensitized to CO by any means, you will be subject to increased sensory awareness provoked by any stressor.

The results might be hypersensitivity to odors, lights, sounds, foods. This is a clear distinction from MCS, which is a hypersensitivity only to chemicals. For this reason, Donnay proposed the name Multi-Sensory Sensitivity (aka MUSES Syndrome) to distinguish between CO poisoning and pure MCS. So how can you tell if you’re afflicted with MUSES Syndrome?

Unfortunately, you can’t have a lab do a simple CO test of your blood or breath. These will find only acute CO poisoning in the last 24 hours. But there is another easy and readily available way to test for it. If you have any of the symptoms I’ve mentioned, ask your doctor to order a test of your tissue oxygen consumption such as arterial and venous blood gas tests (taken from the same arm without a tourniquet).

These two tests will tell you how well your tissues are absorbing oxygen. Your doctor also can order blood gas tests of your arterial and venous oxygen pressure. But you may have to go to a hospital pulmonary lab for this test.

If the difference in dissolved oxygen (PO2) between your artery and vein is less than 55 mmHg, this suggests that your tissues are not absorbing enough oxygen. We call this “tissue hypoxia.” Pulmonary labs can also measure tissue oxygen consumption non-invasively (without drawing blood) using a test called VO2 max.

With this test, you breathe into a mask while exercising on a stationary bike or treadmill. However, I’m not sure you need to spend the money on these tests. If you have a serious case of CO poisoning, your face will give it away.