Chemical and Food Sensitivities

Chemical and food sensitivities can make life incredibly difficult. All of a sudden you may find yourself reacting to one thing and then another, and another still—maybe the air freshener at the dentist’s office, or the cologne being sprayed at the department store or an ingredient in a meal you’ve always eaten without problems. 

The irritation and symptoms can start to build: headaches and migraines, fatigue, dizziness, lightheadedness, insomnia, tingling and numbness, anxiety and depression, a runny nose, a tight chest, the feeling that you can’t breathe deeply or breathe properly, a funny taste in your mouth or a tingling tongue. 

Chemical and food sensitivities are an extremely frustrating and difficult challenge to navigate. Science and research don’t yet know much about these sensitivities. Chronic illnesses and symptoms of almost all kinds are still a mystery. But chemical and food sensitivities can be especially frustrating. The lack of understanding from medical communities, combined with the fact that people’s reactions are often unseen to the outside world can leave sufferers feeling invalidated within an unsympathetic world.

The good news is, I can tell you where these sensitivities begin and how to heal them. It all stems from your liver. If you suffer from sensitivities you’ll learn how to heal in Liver Rescue: Answers to Eczema, Psoriasis, Diabetes, Strep, Acne, Gout, Bloating, Gallstones, Adrenal Stress, Fatigue, Fatty Liver, Weight Issues, SIBO & Autoimmune Disease. Even if you don’t have chemical or food sensitivities at this point, you’re still being affected by toxins. We all are. You’ll still benefit from learning more about the incredible organ that is your liver and how its health, or lack thereof, contributes to hundreds of chronic illnesses and symptoms.

I have a lot of compassion for people who have sensitivities. Living with this issue means that an invisible, unpredictable threat and trigger can be around any corner or sitting in any meal. 

Out in the world they never know when they’ll inhale some pesticides being sprayed at the park or find themselves driving behind a truck that’s shooting out exhaust. But it becomes a catch-22 because they also wonder if materials in their homes are causing problems: mold, off-gassing from furniture, carpet cleaning chemicals or the flame retardants in their mattress–to list just a few. On top of that, the triggers seem to move and shift, and all of a sudden that natural shampoo you’ve been using for years and the breakfast you’ve always eaten seems to be a problem too. 

People’s fear starts to rise. They wonder, “What could trigger it next?” “What’s going to happen next,” “Am I going to die?” “What’s safe?” “What is happening to me?” “Do I have to live in a bubble?” It’s easy to become anxious and obsessive trying to figure out how to deal with it all. I can completely understand why.

Your Liver the Hero

Your liver is basically a big sponge with the job to collect, catalog and filter everything that comes into your body. Your body takes in what I call liver troublemakers (I explain these in detail in Liver Rescue), including toxins, in a variety of ways.

You can inhale toxins, like the chemicals in conventional perfumes or the fungicide your neighbor is spraying next door. You can eat or drink toxins, through the additives in your food, the ingredients in your medication or the chemicals in your tap water. You can also absorb toxins through your skin, like the chemicals used in conventional deodorant or the chemicals sprayed on wrinkle-free clothing. And then your body can also create toxins. For example, when you’re under stress, your adrenal glands pump out adrenaline as a protective measure, but adrenaline is abrasive and especially toxic to your brain. 

Pathogens are another category of troublemakers for your liver and body. Viruses and bacteria, including many undiscovered mutated strains, are everywhere. Those viruses can make their way into your liver and find a home there. Then the pathogens feed on other toxins and in doing so they release waste byproducts that I call neurotoxins and dermatoxins, which cause problems for your nervous system and for your skin respectively. (By the way, one common virus is Epstein-Barr (EBV), which is responsible for many of the symptoms that lead people to a mistaken Lyme disease diagnosis. Learn the truth about Lyme disease in my book Medical Medium). 

Your liver wants to capture as many troublemakers as possible to keep them from damaging the rest of your body, especially your heart and brain. Your liver is a selfless hero. It grabs the most dangerous toxins and locks them deep inside itself with the hope it will be able to release them safely later. The liver also works to neutralize certain troublemakers, or in other words to make them less harmful so that they can be safely eliminated and detoxified without hurting the body. 

The Liver’s Working Too Much Overtime

The problem is your liver can only do so much. Since the time of the Industrial Revolution with the use of toxic heavy metals and the advent of harmful chemicals, the liver has too much on its plate. We’re born with troublemakers we’ve inherited from our past generations, and then the burden continues to grow.

To make matters worse, modern diets are full of unhealthy foods, many of which contain harmful additives, preservatives and pesticides. On top of that, people are eating too much fat—which is an extra burden to the already-overworked liver, because fat takes more effort to process. It doesn’t matter whether your fat is from the best organic, pasture-raised animal products or whether it’s from the cleanest plant-based vegan diet. The bottom line is, people are eating too much fat. 

Even someone eating a low-fat diet often needs to do more to support the liver, such as drinking 16 ounces of pure celery juice every morning and eating more leafy greens, because we live in such a toxic world. I talk more about what to do to support your very-busy liver in Liver Rescue. 

As the liver continues to become more and more burdened, eventually the reactions come out. People who suffer from chemical and food sensitivities often have guesses about when and why it started. They remember the day when their house was painted. Or the day they walked through their condo development while it was getting treated with pesticides. The time they ate a gluten-filled cupcake. But that’s not the whole story. These triggers were simply the last straw. They’re an indication that something has been wrong for a long time, and problems have been mounting. The sensitivity was on its way, and the final trigger got noticed when your liver couldn’t handle the burdens any longer. 

Toxins are the Reality

The deeper truth is that the cause of sensitivities is chemicals! We do live in a toxic world, unfortunately. Our conventional laundry detergents, makeup, air fresheners, and perfumes—they’re all full of poisons. Even Christmas trees are sprayed with something. Even all the food on a cruise ship gets topped with chemicals to protect and preserve the meals. 

People who react to the poisons we’re inundated with are living demonstrations of the truth that these chemicals are harmful. We need to minimize using them wherever possible or our health problems will only continue to mount. 

Outsiders sometimes view people who have sensitivities as “crazy” or as “hypochondriacs.” That is, unless the reactions are obvious, like an anaphylactic response to eating peanuts. Ironically, research and science doesn’t have a cure to the problem they created—all they have is another “remedy,” for example you can use an EpiPen after eating that peanut. 

The other unsympathetic and extremely damaging response to chemical or food sensitivities is that someone has “attracted” the problem or has “manifested” it through their thoughts, emotions or other issues. Of course it’s true that we all want to work on positive thinking and good energy and spiritual development and generating the best of what we want in life. But the idea that you have created your own illness is not only completely wrong; it’s also disrespectful and dismissive of all you’re going through. It’s especially disastrous when young people believe this theory—not only are they struggling with their physical health but now they themselves are to blame. This can totally shake a young person’s foundation and ability to cope emotionally, mentally and physically. It creates shame, isolation and dangerous pressure. 

This is what happens when science and research and providers don’t have the answers for chronic illness, including for chemical and food sensitivities. But there are real causes, and real solutions. We need to find compassion for ourselves and for others who are suffering. Lives can be saved when we do. 

Healing Happens

Freedom from sensitivities takes time, and it is a more difficult detoxification process. But it is absolutely possible. I’ve helped thousands of people heal from chemical and food sensitivities over the decades. Even if you’ve become so sensitive that you can’t handle most supplements, you aren’t stuck. Note that this can often be because you’re using the wrong kind of quality of supplements. You may tolerate high quality supplements, like those on my preferred supplements page, at low doses just fine. But there are answers with food. You can heal by drinking pure celery juice on an empty stomach every morning. And by eating lots and lots of fresh fruit and leafy greens. 

You can heal by following the advice in Liver Rescue. Immerse yourself in all the Medical Medium information from my books, website, Facebook and Instagram. I put out all kinds of free information because I want you to heal. I want you to become experts on your own health and know how to move forward with healing.

If your nervous system is really sensitive, you may still react to certain exposures after you even heal. You’ll still need to work carefully with foods and try not to get too much exposure to triggers and toxins as you heal. Remember too that you aren’t the problem and you never were. It’s valuable to be a sensitive person. Your heightened awareness about the perils of our world makes you gifted and can help you protect yourself, others and our planet. You know the truth because your body is showing you. 

Take it one day at a time. I support you. 

Learn more about how to restore your liver in the New York Times Best-Selling book Liver Rescue

This item posted: 01-Feb-2019

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