Sensitivity to Medications/Chemicals

Thank you for your reply.

Suffocation ... struggling to get air into my lungs, like trying to breathe through a mattress. Getting air but not enough and having to fight for it.


What is the feeling of being stuck in a small space?

What is the feeling of being in a car that you cannot stop?

What is the feeling of undressing in public?

If you mean emotionally, I suppose they're all situations where I feel helpless and out of control. Panic. In a confined space I'm trapped and I can't get free--I'm usually physically very uncomfortable and have no control over it because I can't move. In the car I can't stop no matter what I do--I'm trapped in a vehicle I can't control. If I dream of taking my clothes off in public, I'm either not paying attention to what I'm doing until it's too late or if I do realize I can't stop myself. I've done something to humiliate myself and everyone around me is horrified. I don't have these dreams often but they're upsetting, particularly the first one--I wake up from it with my heart pounding and I'm afraid to go back to sleep.

The freezing sensation during a reaction is variable, sometimes like patches of cold air on my skin, sometimes more like icewater. Burning, like having hot peppers rubbed on my skin, sometimes like having ground pepper in my mouth.

The electrical shock varies from a sensation like a steady current, tingling and crawling, to a shock like a sharp jolt.

Wrung out--the feeling in my intestines during a reaction, it's like a very strong involuntary muscle contraction, to the point of a painful ache. I should mention the rest of my body tends to become tense, and I sometimes have to force my muscles to relax. And I think I forgot to mention I sometimes get shaking when I have the reactions. It's made worse by cold, although I can be otherwise insensitive to cold when the reactions are bad.

No energy to draw breath--like I need more air, but it just takes too much effort to breathe more deeply. Like the energy is draining from my body.

The stiffness ... sometimes there's an ache and a pull when I try to move a certain way, like I want to crack or pop a joint. This sometimes helps.

Loose--I don't have as much control over the movement of a joint as I should, and the movement is wobbly or floppy.

Wedged--in the nightmare, it's really being jammed into a space, usually with my arms pinned immobile to my sides. I can't move freely enough to do anything to get myself out.

Thinking it over, I also have sensations around my joints of an ache, as if from overuse. But sometimes I get this sensation without activities that I would normally associate with that kind of ache.

The tingling/crawling electrical sensation on my skin during a reaction is often accompanied by a desire to scratch at the area, but without a sense of it itching.

And I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but my sensitivity to medications etc. tends to fluctuate over extended periods of time (months and years). I know that having a reaction to one thing will often make me more likely to have a reaction to anything else I'm exposed to for the next few weeks at least, but other than that I don't see a cause for the long-term fluctuations.

If there's anything else I can tell you, please ask. I don't want to waste anybody's time writing a novel about my life, but I worry about accidentally leaving out something relevant.

Another thing that slipped my mind--during particularly bad reactions to medications, I sometimes get thirsty. But if I drink water, it seems to go right through me--I need to pee sometimes within minutes. And if anything, the thirst is worse than before. Salty things like chicken broth seem to help.

One thing I felt I should add: I realized I mentioned my problems in school, but I've also had trouble coping with stress and anxiety as an adult. I was unable to work even before I developed so many physical problems. I had a normal job for about a week and a half (most of which was orientation) and I was able to get through a few days with Ritalin, but then I started crying and couldn't stop. I still start crying sometimes when I think about it (this was 8 or 10 years ago). This was a particularly bad job (no breaks for lunch, for example) but I'm just not able to cope with being out around people for a full workday on a daily basis.

Describe more on being a perfectionist, what is a perfectionist, what is perfect? 
I want things to be the best that they possibly can. For example, if I write a story, I always wonder if there was a better way to write it. I hesitate to submit it for publication because I worry that I haven't achieved this yet, and if it's accepted by a magazine and published I can't improve it. Or if it's rejected it's because I haven't tried hard enough, didn't do the one last rewrite, wasn't good enough, etc, and I've blown my chance. Because of this anxiety I often put off submitting things. In school there were a few occasions when I pretended I hadn't done an assignment rather than hand in something I felt was substandard. (On the other hand, sometimes I'm anxious about getting something perfect and I sort of panic and just send it off without revising or checking it as much as I should—just trying to get it over with.) Sometimes I have the feeling that a small mistake could cause me to miss an opportunity and will therefore cause a disproportionately large effect.

What is the feeling of saying something wrong? What is the wrong thing to say? How could you offend people? 
I don't have very good social instincts and I'm aware of it. I worry about saying something awkward. I worry about saying things that make me sound as neurotic as I sometimes feel, and putting people off. Some of it's natural and I think a bit of it is having a few people in my life growing up who had mood swings and tended to blow up unpredictably over little things. But some of it's that I've always had a sense of having done something wrong, even when I've done nothing. As a very small child in church I had an irrational fear that the priest would spot me, recoil in horror, and have me thrown out. I still have anxieties about being arrested for something I didn't do—I start to imagine how such a scenario would play out. I know it's irrational but sometimes I can't stop thinking about it. As to offending people, I worry that people will get mad at me when I do something incorrect, or that I'll accidentally say something offensive if I let my guard down. I also have trouble picking up hints (which is a ludicrous way to communicate and deeply annoys me) and I sometimes get anxious about things like people clearing their throats etc in case it means I'm doing something they don't like without realizing it. I'm also the sort of person who reviews conversations in my mind later, wondering if there was anything I should have done differently.

Describe the experience of eating in public. 
I worry about not handling utensils correctly, dropping things, spilling food on myself, chewing too loudly, etc. (It doesn't help that I actually am very clumsy and have a tendency to drop and spill things. I'm the sort of person who walks into furniture and I'm always dropping things.)

Describe your shyness. 
I don't know how to start conversations. I worry about annoying or boring people by going on too long about something once I start talking (which I've been told I sometimes do.) I'm not good at body language. I worry that people won't like me. I worry about trusting people too much or too little, I worry about contacting people too often and annoying them or letting a friendship fizzle by not keeping in touch.

Describe the experience of being socially isolated. 
It's the feeling that everyone else is developing friends and relationships, and I'm not. I'm staying around the house a lot because of being sick and not having much energy to go out, which makes things worse. I want a life that includes social relationships but most days I don't feel up to dealing with people. I feel like what little social skills I have are withering away when they should be getting stronger—like I'm at sea and drifting further and further away from other people.

What is the experience of not fitting in? 
I think it's partly a combination of the above problems, and worrying that people will notice I'm having problems—notice that I'm not like them. I suppose it's often the experience of talking to people, saying something and having everyone suddenly look very awkward, exchange looks, and make excuses to leave. Not necessarily offended but realizing I'm socially awkward.

With most of my anxieties, anxiety medication doesn't work, probably because the grogginess makes me less able to cope with situations and more worried about making mistakes. Some antidepressants help a little, but not enough and they have too many side effects. Stimulants make me feel more alert, more clearheaded, better able to make decisions, although on occasion they make me jittery. Eating high-carb foods make me more prone to anxiety and depression.


I want to thank you for taking the time to consider my case. I can include a few more symptoms, hopefully something will help instead of further confusing the issue. I've read a bit about homeopathy and I hope it's given me a vague idea of what information is useful, but there's a lot of things I'm not sure about and I'm sometimes not good at expressing myself clearly.

I have a lot of trouble with chapped lips—I have used chapstick multiple times per day, EVERY day, for the past few years. It's a year-round problem.

I have some trouble with mucus in my throat generally—occasionally coughing or gurgling when I try to speak, and having to cough vigorously before I can speak clearly. Even when I have very bad dry mouth (which I seem to be prone to and is a common side effect for me with medications, even when I'm not having a reaction to them) I feel like there's sticky mucus in the back of my throat.

I sometimes have dizzy spells with my fatigue. It's something I get off and on for a few months sometimes and then not at all for another few months—not having it currently. I think at least some of it was triggered by Cascade dishwasher detergent, which made it particularly bad and which we're no longer using. With the fatigue I do sometimes have periods of higher energy. Right now I'm feeling a bit jittery. I still feel tired, and I can't seem to focus my attention on any one thing I want to do. It's like nervous energy. Occasionally when I get like this I have trouble getting my mind to stop racing at night. With both the fatigue and the jitters, I feel better moving around. I have a tendency to pace a lot.

I had some problems with cutting myself during high school, and a brief relapse during a stressful period several years ago, but I'm not doing it currently.

I've looked over some of what I've been telling you and I see I've written about situations where I feel a sense of guilt, but I've gotten angry about things, too, and I sometimes have trouble letting go of it.

If I spend too much time on my feet or use my hands too much I sometimes get pins and needles, like they've fallen asleep. I had some trouble with numbness in my hands over the summer. Sometimes it felt like I was wearing a glove. Sometimes I had difficulty telling the difference between heat and cold, which was a bit of a hazard in the kitchen.

I'm not entirely happy with the way I described my joint and back pain—I have a variety of different pains. In addition to what I've already described I sometimes have cramping pains where muscles seem to tighten or seize up, and occasional sharp pulling pains.

With the reactions I've had to medications—I'm not sure that this is relevant since I haven't had a reaction this bad recently, but years ago I would sometimes have mild hallucinations during them. I was able to distinguish them from reality. Sometimes the muscle twitches would persist for several weeks or months after an especially bad reaction. I have also had reactions where I noticed at the beginning I lost sensation of minor aches and pains I'd had before it started.

I hope this is useful rather than clouding the issue further. Again, if there's anything you want me to clarify or try to expand on, let me know.

How are you with punishment, or reprimand? 

Terrible. I tend to take a reprimand personally—not just that I've done something wrong, but that I'm a terrible person. With punishment I have trouble with degrees of punishment—I don't think I distinguish between a small punishment for a minor misdeed and a heavier punishment for a more serious offense. As an adult I have a vague grasp of this intellectually, but I'm still not very good with it emotionally. Especially as a child, I felt that if I deserved to be punished, I was an evil person who deserved to be punished as strongly as possible and indefinitely. I would alternate between rage at the person punishing me and self-hatred, and I would often continue to make myself miserable after the punishment stopped. I'm not good at forgiving myself. I think I'm better at forgiving other people, but sometimes I'm not very good at that either.

Is your perfectionism only about your work or your writing? Does it appear anywhere else in your life?

I think it appears in a lot of things to varying degrees—I used work and writing as two of the more obvious examples. I think some of my social anxieties could be a form of perfectionism, that I'm always worried about getting something wrong. In conversation if I'm not sure of the right thing to say I'll keep quiet, or if it's a subject I have incomplete knowledge of. A lot of times I have difficulty making any kind of decision because I want to get everything “right.” There are a lot of situations in my life where I have to remind myself that it's not that important, and stop myself spending too much time and effort on something. Things like the writing are much worse because that IS important to me.

Okay, thank you! I'm looking into where to buy that--is that a particular kind or brand, or any carcinosinum?

Also, I've read a few conflicting things about antidotes, particularly mint. Do I need to avoid mint, and is there anything else I need to avoid with this remedy?

Well, I'm on day four after taking the remedy, and I don't feel anything yet—positive or negative. I did measure and count everything as you described. Could I have antidoted it somehow? Could a vitamin or mineral supplement or some other over the counter treatment interfere with it? Are there any foods I need to avoid? I've been avoiding mint, and I don't drink coffee, is there anything else? I also had a very stressful confrontation with a new therapist the day after taking it. Also, the bottle I used previously contained stevia extract. Could I have possibly not cleaned it out thoroughly enough? Is it best to use a completely new bottle? I've heard that electric blankets can be a problem, are there any other electronic devices, like hairdryers?

What should I do if I still feel nothing on day five?

I did look up carcinosin, and it did sound like me, especially given my family history. (Though apparently describing that part of my family history breaks site rules.)

Oh, and if I wanted to use a topical homeopathic cream like arnica or Topricin, would that interfere with anything or should I just avoid that altogether to be on the safe side?