Edgar Allan

Edgar Allan

Is This Common Poison Carbon Monoxide Causing Chronic Illness?

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.

Donnay says muses cases commonly develop a facial asymmetry, with a drooping eye and mouth. This marks what he calls “The Tell Tale Face of CO Poisoning.” You can see this vividly in a photograph of Edgar Allan Poe at Donnay’s website (www.mcsrr.org). If your case isn’t this severe, but you have other symptoms, there’s an incredibly easy way to treat the problem.

In fact, Edgar Allan Poe told us how to treat it: “I took vigorous exercise. I breathed the free air of heaven.” Free air of heaven? Why that’s none other than oxygen, the gas of heavenly healing.

Donnay recommends breathing oxygen through an oxygen concentrator (which you can order with a prescription on his website) at five liters per minute for two hours per day. Most MUSES patients begin to notice an improvement within a few days.

But they will likely need three-to-four months of daily oxygen before they can quit without their symptoms regressing. Poe took vigorous exercise and suggested air of heaven. Generations before our time, Poe was unknowingly suggesting multi-step therapy or exercise with oxygen (EWOT).

Had he had access to oxygen in his day, and avoided the gas lighting indoors, he might have cured himself of the disease. And today, while we don’t have gas lights to contend with, we do have fireplaces, furnaces, and gas ovens and ranges.

These can easily release CO. So if you have any abnormal sensory symptoms, don’t waste your money on the tests. Just start doing multi-step therapy — it can do wonders for you. But this isn’t all you should do. Try meditation or prayer or any means to lower your stress.

Less stress means lower activity of the CO generating enzyme heme oxygenase, and a healthier, “less wired,” you! One final note: Whether you have CO poisoning or not, you should monitor the CO levels in your home.

This is extremely easy to do. Simply buy a $5 passive CO test kit from your local hardware store. The kit is actually just a detector badge that will change color if it detects any CO. I suggest you buy several of these and place them in different parts of your home.

Put them near your fireplace, the garage, your furnace, and in your bedrooms. Make sure you place them away from direct sunlight, ammonia, and other solvents or cleaners. These will give a false reading.

Most CO experts don’t recommend these spot detectors because they’re not very accurate. And they won’t tell you if the CO has been present for a long time or if it’s new. However, they will tell you if CO is present, even in small amounts.

So I think they serve a purpose. If the badge darkens or changes color at all, there is a problem. Immediately call a repairman to fix the problem. If they don’t change color, you can leave these badges in place for 60-90 days.

Write the date on each of them when you put them in place. Check them regularly. And replace them after the allotted time. I also suggest you buy an electronic CO detector with a digital display and place it where you spend the most time in your home.

Keep in mind that the Consumer Product Safety Commission prohibits these from displaying CO levels below 30 ppm and from alarming below 70 ppm. So they won’t protect your health from chronic low-level exposure.

But they may save your life in the event of a very high exposure. You don’t have to end up with the Vapours, chronic illness, or like Edgar Allan Poe. It just takes a little vigilance and some miraculous oxygen.

About the Author

Robert Rowen, MD
http://www.robert-rowen-md.com
http://www.healthydoctors.com
http://www.insearchofheroes.com
Learn Important Health Information By Watching Free Alternative Health Videos

Dr. Robert Jay Rowen, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Johns Hopkins University and graduate of the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine is internationally known for his work in the field of complementary/alternative/integrative medicine. He is affectionately known as the Father of Medical Freedom for pioneering the nation’s first statutory protection for alternative medicine in 1990 in Alaska, against a concerted opposition from the organized medical community and an imported quackbuster.

A few years later, the Alaska governor appointed him to a term on the state medical board against overwhelming opposition from the medical establishment. His appointment was ultimately confirmed by the legislature with overwhelming public support. The rare medical freedom he enjoyed in Alaska enabled him to greatly expand knowledge and experience in a multitude of disciplines and therapies not normally found in medicine.

Jumping into alternative medicine in 1983 through a practice in acupuncture, he quickly expanded to nutritional medicine, chelation therapy, oxidation therapy, homeopathy and herbal medicine, and took intensive training in neural therapy and prolotherapy to help treat and eliminate acute and chronic pain. Alaska’s laws enabled him to work extensively with innovative cancer therapies, ozone, and ultraviolet blood irradiation therapy. He is internationally known and respected for training hundreds of open-minded physicians in these techniques from around the world.

In 2001, he became editor in chief of Second Opinion, one of the nation’s leading monthly publications revealing the frontiers of medicine. Thus, he reduced his practice load considerably to write and teach, and relocated from Alaska to California where he works part time with his like minded talented wife, Terri Su, MD at her Santa Rosa office, Radiant Health Medical Center, in the north Bay area.

You are cordially invited to journey with him into the frontiers of medicine with a free past issue of Second Opinion. Dr. Rowen has authored numerous articles and some of which may be read online.

What is the most exciting Edgar Allan Poe story?

I am doing a report on Edgar Allan Poe and need the info LOL.

I've always loved "The Tell-Tale Heart". Here's a good analysis of it from Shmoop.

Edgar Allan Poe