5 ms·

This is something my mother does on a grand scale, and we all probably do on smaller scales. (Obviously plenty of allergies are real, I'm not claiming it's all

This is something my mother does on a grand scale, and we all probably do on smaller scales. (Obviously plenty of allergies are real, I'm not claiming it's all made up.) For 20 years she's attributed various health problems to allergies. There tend to be 2-3 allergies that she believes she has at any one time, each one lasting for about 5 years. Last I checked, she was "gluten sensitive", that was the main one. Another person I know claims to be allergic to "about 20 to 30 things, but all on a very mild level that combines and accumulates over time". Just the sort of thing that you couldn't, you know, test for. A more determined person would probably hit on one thing and stick with it for a long time. I think "rationality" is not any kind of preventative against getting caught up in this. It's a matter of being in a community, and everyone in the community saying "yeah I discovered I had this problem, it's actually way more common than doctors realize and it had these symptoms, and fixing it improved my life so much." So then you start to think about whether you have had anything that resembles those symptoms, and your brain wheels start to go on the possibility that all your life issues could be solved if you just eliminated whatever it is. Pretty soon you do have the symptoms, you see them every time you encounter this thing. Why didn't you notice it before? You must have been desensitized... and so on. To be clear, I'm not making light of the issue, and I'm definitely not willing to say that this is what is happening to anyone in this thread in particular, but by my observation it's an extremely common problem, one I've fallen into myself before. I literally do not let myself listen to anecdata about allergies, because I know I'll fall for it again. This is all sort of reminiscent of England's famous "catching" psychological issues, or the betwitched children of Salem.

mleonhard 6y ago
> Pretty soon you do have the symptoms, you see them every time you encounter this thing. Your comment seems to imply that psycho-somatic symptoms are not real symptoms and people who suffer from them are behaving irrationally. If so, you are incorrect. Psycho-somatic symptoms are real measurable physical problems in the body that are triggered by the brain. They are not imagined problems. For example, my perfume sensitivity triggered real nasal congestion. You could hook up a nasal flow meter and record data showing that my nostrils were blocked. For people with chronic lower back pain, you could connect a sensor to the pain nerves and measure the pain signals going from the lower back muscles into the spinal column. Suffering from a psycho-somatic disorder does not imply that the person is rational or irrational. Psycho-somatic problems arise from everyday life situations. For example, my own perfume sensitivity developed over a year of high pressure at the office. My desk was near the women's restroom. Several times an hour, people wearing perfume would walk by my desk to use the restroom, and then walk by again a few minutes later. I became distracted when I smelled their perfume. I would respond to the distraction by desperately forcing myself to concentrate. When concentrating was difficult, I felt more stress. Gradually, my brain developed an automatic response: smell perfume -> feel anxiety and stress. Unfortunately, this was a self-reinforcing habit. After I recognized the root cause, I was able to un-learn the emotional habit and cure the psycho-somatic disorder. Your tone implies that people develop psycho-somatic disorders after "falling for" some false idea. That is incorrect. Some would consider it extremely condescending and would take offense. When a person suffers from excruciating lower back pain, they are not "falling for" the idea that they have a back injury. They are just suffering. They try to understand why they are suffering. "I have a bad back" is a reasonable explanation. The knowledge of the most common cause of lower back pain is not yet widespread: that lower back pain is usually caused by subconscious tensing of muscles. Please re-examine your bias about psycho-somatic disorders. They are real symptoms suffered by rational people. I assure you that your mother is suffering real symptoms. They are very likely not psycho-somatic. I commend her relentless search for root cause and cure. You could help her: Take her to consult with experts, help her objectively record her symptoms, help her systematically test different hypotheses and interventions, find a fun fitness class and attend it with her, research healthy recipes and cook them together, and make sure she takes enough vitamin D3. My own mother developed cancer and there was little I could do to help her.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  I'll just leave this here for anyone who wants to consider the idea that reactions to perfume may not always be psycho-somatic: https://davidsuzuki.org/queen-of-green/dirty-dozen-parfum-fragrance/ https://davidsuzuki.org/queen-of-green/dirty-dozen-parfum-fr... https://www.ewg.org/research/not-so-sexy https://www.ewg.org/research/not-so-sexy https://www.mamavation.com/featured/toxic-perfume-chemicals.html https://www.mamavation.com/featured/toxic-perfume-chemicals.... https://alituranaturals.com/the-top-10-toxic-chemicals-in-perfumes-and-cologne/ https://alituranaturals.com/the-top-10-toxic-chemicals-in-pe... https://www.forceofnatureclean.com/truth-about-toxic-fragrances/ https://www.forceofnatureclean.com/truth-about-toxic-fragran...
  - bscphil 6y ago
    Just upthread you complained about someone's links to journal papers because > The studies you cite do not list who funded them, but one of the links is ... a website which sells sneakers! One of the worst VOC offenders! I'd ask you to consider that perhaps your sources of information, all apparently non-scientific (and many also having financial interests in "all natural" products) may not be the best counter-point to mainstream scientific research.
    - ficklepickle 6y ago
      To be fair, I think the David Suzuki foundation is pretty well respected. Here are some quotes: Synthetic musks used in fragrances are of particular concern from an ecological perspective. Several of musk compounds are persistent in the environment and build up (bioaccumulate) in the fatty tissue of aquatic organisms. diethyl phthalate, or DEP, is widely used in cosmetic fragrances to make the scent linger. Phthalates are choice ingredients in cosmetics because they are cheap and versatile. However, the European Commission on Endocrine Disruption has listed DEP as a Category 1 priority substance, based on evidence that it interferes with hormone function. Phthalates have been linked to early puberty in girls, reduced sperm count in men, and reproductive defects in the developing male fetus (when the mother is exposed during pregnancy). That sounds pretty science-y to me, admittedly a layperson.

mleonhard 6y ago

> Pretty soon you do have the symptoms, you see them every time you encounter this thing. Your comment seems to imply that psycho-somatic symptoms are not real symptoms and people who suffer from them are behaving irrationally. If so, you are incorrect. Psycho-somatic symptoms are real measurable physical problems in the body that are triggered by the brain. They are not imagined problems. For example, my perfume sensitivity triggered real nasal congestion. You could hook up a nasal flow meter and record data showing that my nostrils were blocked. For people with chronic lower back pain, you could connect a sensor to the pain nerves and measure the pain signals going from the lower back muscles into the spinal column. Suffering from a psycho-somatic disorder does not imply that the person is rational or irrational. Psycho-somatic problems arise from everyday life situations. For example, my own perfume sensitivity developed over a year of high pressure at the office. My desk was near the women's restroom. Several times an hour, people wearing perfume would walk by my desk to use the restroom, and then walk by again a few minutes later. I became distracted when I smelled their perfume. I would respond to the distraction by desperately forcing myself to concentrate. When concentrating was difficult, I felt more stress. Gradually, my brain developed an automatic response: smell perfume -> feel anxiety and stress. Unfortunately, this was a self-reinforcing habit. After I recognized the root cause, I was able to un-learn the emotional habit and cure the psycho-somatic disorder. Your tone implies that people develop psycho-somatic disorders after "falling for" some false idea. That is incorrect. Some would consider it extremely condescending and would take offense. When a person suffers from excruciating lower back pain, they are not "falling for" the idea that they have a back injury. They are just suffering. They try to understand why they are suffering. "I have a bad back" is a reasonable explanation. The knowledge of the most common cause of lower back pain is not yet widespread: that lower back pain is usually caused by subconscious tensing of muscles. Please re-examine your bias about psycho-somatic disorders. They are real symptoms suffered by rational people. I assure you that your mother is suffering real symptoms. They are very likely not psycho-somatic. I commend her relentless search for root cause and cure. You could help her: Take her to consult with experts, help her objectively record her symptoms, help her systematically test different hypotheses and interventions, find a fun fitness class and attend it with her, research healthy recipes and cook them together, and make sure she takes enough vitamin D3. My own mother developed cancer and there was little I could do to help her.

forgotmypw17 6y ago
I'll just leave this here for anyone who wants to consider the idea that reactions to perfume may not always be psycho-somatic: https://davidsuzuki.org/queen-of-green/dirty-dozen-parfum-fragrance/ https://davidsuzuki.org/queen-of-green/dirty-dozen-parfum-fr... https://www.ewg.org/research/not-so-sexy https://www.ewg.org/research/not-so-sexy https://www.mamavation.com/featured/toxic-perfume-chemicals.html https://www.mamavation.com/featured/toxic-perfume-chemicals.... https://alituranaturals.com/the-top-10-toxic-chemicals-in-perfumes-and-cologne/ https://alituranaturals.com/the-top-10-toxic-chemicals-in-pe... https://www.forceofnatureclean.com/truth-about-toxic-fragrances/ https://www.forceofnatureclean.com/truth-about-toxic-fragran...
- bscphil 6y ago
  Just upthread you complained about someone's links to journal papers because > The studies you cite do not list who funded them, but one of the links is ... a website which sells sneakers! One of the worst VOC offenders! I'd ask you to consider that perhaps your sources of information, all apparently non-scientific (and many also having financial interests in "all natural" products) may not be the best counter-point to mainstream scientific research.
  - ficklepickle 6y ago
    To be fair, I think the David Suzuki foundation is pretty well respected. Here are some quotes: Synthetic musks used in fragrances are of particular concern from an ecological perspective. Several of musk compounds are persistent in the environment and build up (bioaccumulate) in the fatty tissue of aquatic organisms. diethyl phthalate, or DEP, is widely used in cosmetic fragrances to make the scent linger. Phthalates are choice ingredients in cosmetics because they are cheap and versatile. However, the European Commission on Endocrine Disruption has listed DEP as a Category 1 priority substance, based on evidence that it interferes with hormone function. Phthalates have been linked to early puberty in girls, reduced sperm count in men, and reproductive defects in the developing male fetus (when the mother is exposed during pregnancy). That sounds pretty science-y to me, admittedly a layperson.