cricket

So how do you prevent the kids from getting rashes?

Once in a while I come in contact with people wearing a particularly nasty cologne -- i don't know what its called or what the chemical is that offends me, but I get a headache. No secondary gain, just a terrible headache.

IF IF IF this is "all in my head" or even partially "in my head", can someone please tell me how to avoid this? And how it is anyone knows it's psychosomatic rather than the effect of vasodilation?

Mr. Skinny

Hi cricket.

I try very hard to refrain from having preconceived notions regarding these "sick building" issues (for lack of a better term).

In the case I mentioned above, the survey the IH people took indicated that, of those who experienced "problems" while at work, a great majority of them also felt their symptoms went away within 45 minutes of leaving work. It's just one of many test results that need to be considered. It's very difficult to diagnose what might be making people feel ill.

We have about 25,000 different chemicals where I work. It sometimes becomes a real guessing game trying to find the actor when someone has a reaction to something. On the positive side, we use the best technology available to ventilate areas where chemicals are handled, give employees regular physicals, etc.

But I'm rambling......... I suppose I'm saying that it is often just a guess as to what smells, etc. might make a person "sick". I am very often frustrated trying to figure out what is making an employee sick or uncomfortable. Lacking any obvious cause, I'm logically required to consider that it might be psychosomatic.

thebeave

It's not a given that its always in your head, Cricket. When I work around cleaning solvents in my garage when I'm working on my car, I get headaches, etc. Perfumes are made from alcohol and in sufficient quantity, can make you feel ill, too. However, if you complain about feeling ill (which may very well be real, not psychosomatic) to someone, and then they say, "Hey... yeah... come to think of it, me too!" their "illness" is likely psychosomatic if they weren't exposed to the perfume. Then it travels by "line-of-sight" from there. That is, the first person is really sick (from some ordinary cause) and every one else is sick from watching (or hearing about) others getting sick.

cricket

It's been a long time since a cleaning solution gave me any trouble because it's so easy to avoid them! I simply never clean anymore. An elegant solution, eh? If forced to clean for some reason, I don't use scary chemical solvents; I just use water mixed w/ a bit of soap. Maybe less effective but I don't care; nobody drinking from my toilet these days.

I'm sure alcohol isn't the problem; must be something else, as I have no aversion even to drinking alcohol.

Nor do I have any secondary gain, as (perhaps?) some of Mr Skinny's employees may. Are there accomodations for the sickness-prone? Are there reasons to complain, to be 'part of the gang' of complainers? Is it a passive-agressive manuever against the management? I can sympathize w/ you Mr Skinny, trying to figure it out. Maybe each complainer is sensitive to different things; wtf can you do about that?

What I DO recognize is that for me, there is none of this but there is the memory of past headaches. I wonder if there's any chance this plays a part for me. ("Oh damn; the guy who just got in the grocery line behind me is wearing THAT chemical! Here I go again dammit.) I mean, I definitely feel the pain, but I wonder if the memory contributes to its intensity; the memory of cause-and-effect of past olfactory headache experience. IF SO, I wonder if there are ways to circumvent the process, and prevent the episode altogether. I also wonder how to create a placebo effect at will. Rather than taking ibuprofen, I would like to learn to make a placebo effect happen.

thebeave

The memory aspect of it may very well cause you headaches. This is the nocebo effect in action. You are reminded of the headache, and believe that it will result in another headache, and it does. The key to it, much like the placebo effect, is believing that it will have an effect. If you lack the belief, the effect goes away. When you tell someone you are purposely giving them a placebo to make them feel better, you have just made it useless. So, no I don't think you can make the placebo effect work for you at will the way you want it to.

Mad Kally

Another thing I find fascinating is <a href="http://www.psyweb.com/Mdisord/somatd.html" target="_blank"> Somatoform Disorder. </a>


When I lived with my mother I had excruciating back pain. I was addicted to Vicodin (hydrocodone). Then I started noticing that when I was away from her, the pain seemed to fade away. It took a very long time before I realized what was going on. I'm not terribly fond of my mother.

I had learned about Somatoform disorder in college, but didn't remember a whole lot about it. When I started reading about it on the internet, I KNEW.

Somatoform disorders usually have a poor prognosis because people don't believe that their minds can be responsible. The pain is very real.
I made a conscious effort and kept telling myself, "It is not real!" and guess what? No more back pain! Sometimes it starts up when I see her but I think it away.

thebeave

It's funny you mention that. Within the last month or so there was a health news report that stated that having a spouse around "tending" to to while you were experiencing back pain actually made you worse off than if they weren't around at all. Presumably, the same would apply to a mother as well (particularly one you are not fond of). I briefly tried to find the report in Yahoo! news, but so didn't have much luck. You might take a look yourself.

Boro Nut

Rubbish Kally. That's not the placebo effect. That's Sod's Law in action.

Boro Nut