Jackie *

Thanks for your concern and your email. Ever since I was in high school I have had low resistance to bacteria. I helped paint the house and got a rash from using too much terpentine on my skin. I do not suppose that is the chemical under consideration. I was under a lot of stress from divorce and such when I was found with nonHodgkin's lymphoma at age 32. The fatigue started as I recovered from the Chemo. I remember the moment I realized that I was in a lot of physical pain..all those fibromylasia spots that hurt (I now understand)..and the cure for the pain was a codeine pain pill, a muscle relaxant pill, or an antibiotic. My body made no distinction. Kill a bacteria or kill a muscle tension or kill a pain directly...any one stopped the pain and let me sleep. And sleep was all I wanted 12-16 hours a day for at least a year. I was told I was depressed and given tophranil. The book says this drug takes a week or two to begin to change one's mood...but I was up at the crack of dawn!!!!!!!!!!Wonderful!!!!!!! I was no longer a prisoner of my body's pain. I cleaned, I washed, I made plans to do all the things I could not do before. I was peeling potatoes and noticed that I was flicking off tiny slivers of my fingertips and mixing blood with the potatoes, yet I felt nothing. My pulse was 125 while almost asleep and I didn't notice for a week that I had stopped having bowel movements. These were all the side effects of the drug. But I had proven I was not depressed because my mood was great and the mood altering benefits of the drug had not had time to begin. I had to stop the tofranil. One doctor gave me fielding (can't spell it). It was a nsid and I took it daily for about two years until I had a duodental ucler bleed. At the ICU they gave me two units of blood, but the ulcer healed up when I stopped the nsid. Now I am forbidden all nsids. I tried all the antidepressants and gabapentin at one time or another because of their possible pain relieving properties, but the side effects of the drugs were worse than the pain I wanted to relieve. Now I take cyclobenzaprine 10 mg. or elavil with trazodone 25 mg. to promote sleep. But now that my kidneys are failing, this med takes 12 hours to let me wake up and feel alert. So I am going to have to do something different. The kidney failure is news to me. It has been bad for years but only 2 weeks ago did I begin to not filter out enough potassium and must change diet drastically. There is a chemical that produces sterility in surgical instruments just by mixing the two chemicals and soaking things for hours in the resulting liquid, but I do not know if it contains 2 butoxyethanol. It has a lot of warnings on it to not breathe deeply around it. But I was exposed to it after I had NHL. Do not know if this is the sort of information you had in mind. My fibromylasia is a lot better than when I was 32. I am 63 now. Jackie Dewolfe
I helped paint the house
 
Did your eyes burn and hurt?  Or did you have any flu-like symptoms during that project?  http://home.gci.net/~blessing/pages/gwvsymptoms.htm#daughter
 
 
 
The 2-butoxyethanol or ethylene glycol monobutyl ether is in paint.  They didn't used to give much of any warnings about it; but last time we bought a 5 gallon container of Fuller O'brien Interior Exterior Latex paint it was in a bright red plastic container and said WARNING:  Contains ethylene glycol, causes kidney damage.  I e-mailed the co. and asked WHICH ethylene glycol (there aree 740 varieties) and the co refused to tell me.
 
Worst exposure, tho the industry as a whole doesn't know it, is vapors in one's eyes.  People can get it 2nd hand from someone else even (the vapors in someone's breath into your eyes)
 
Also the cuticle areas of one's hands are a strong route of exposure.
 
and kidney damage and liver damage are part of it.  Also there were 4 workers on the same job during the Exxon Valdez oil spill cleanup (where this WAS the chemical of harm) and after a beach was sprayed (they weren't expecting it to be) they all 4 came down with NHL.  I'm not sure how soon after or how severe, but one died a year ago from this 1989 exposure, most likely.  I also have heard of a couple different people (on the sidelines, not direct workers with the chemical) that came down with CLL
 
Some things I learned on this chemical & some research www.valdezlink.com/generic.htm#research
 
 
http://home.gci.net/~blessing/pages/cnsidentified.htm  Dr. Haley has studied the Central Nervous System damage & wants to hang all the ill on this.  Too bad.  I'm sure he has the CNS type of damage covered, but even the nervous system can be attacked by the immune system, such as MS and who knows if the other ailments aren't from an autoimmune immune system as well.?
 
 
I believe it is almost entirely an autoimmune problem, which the info doesn't tell you (Starting with the red blood cell premature destruction) http://home.gci.net/~blessing/pages/canine.htm
 
 
Yesterday when I looked at the thread you posted in, all of my posts were gone.  Then they reappeared & I grabbed a copy to save the information.  Is it OK to include what you shared?
 
62 is not that old by the way.  I am 59 and  my husband is 65
This is why I learned about this chemical
I noticed it was a match for the gulf war syndrome symptoms before I learned that it was on the list of their exposures (still has not been studied in relation to them) www.valdezlink.com/same.htm
 
http://home.gci.net/~blessing/pages/arthriitis.htm  Also, I am seeing autoimmune hepatitis and rheumatoid arthritis (also an autoimmune thing) with this chemical AND kidney failures
 
People must STOP exposure to this chemical which will make any current ailments WORSE
 
Do you have comments on this?
 
http://home.gci.net/~blessing/pages/canine.htm The info only says 2-butoxyethanol causes hemolytic anemia.  I suspect it is autoimmune
 
It evades detection because red blood cells become mostly immature & thus other tests are off
 
www.valdezlink.com/gwv/why_fatigue.htm  Gulf war vets did leave this post,
however, I am not allowed to post any more info on that site
 
I may have been redundant, but I hope not.
 
This may be some help for sleep. http://home.gci.net/~blessing/pages/mirtazapine.htm Shared with me last month by an EMT during the Oil spill cleanup.  He doesn't recognize the not sleeping at night and the horrible depression as being from exposure to the cleanup chemical in 1989.  I've heard of a couple of volunteers with the horrible headaches and short term memory loss.  One is being 'bled' because she has too many immature red blood cells and they don't know what is going on.
 
www.valdezlink.com/check_blood.htm#retic  When retic rate falls below the normal rate, I think the blood in urine may be too minuscule to calibrate, otherwise it should show up.
 
Medications for those harmed by a chemical can cause you more harm - So less is better in this situation.  Allergies and other side effects of too much of some kind of chemical is possible. 
 
You may find something here of interest
 
 
"There is a chemical that produces sterility in surgical instruments just by mixing the two chemicals and soaking things for hours in the resulting liquid"
I suspect that is ethylene oxide - it can cause cancer
Be careful what you spray in your house, even PAM
I helped paint the house and got a rash
from using too much terpentine on my skin.
Rash is another way our body complains of too much of some kind of chemical
 
turpentine?  Don't know what's in it
 
PO Box 233
Valdez, AK 99686
 
Thank you for sharing.
You may help solve this mystery
 
Dr Reg is wanting to do a study to see if glyconutrients will help the immune system,
providing product free. I know a doctor interested (?)

So what can we do to help find a cure?  *

2-11-05

Where to Find MSDS Info on the internet

 "I was found with nonHodgkin's lymphoma at age 32"
 
It is one of the cancers that 2-butoxyethanol causes ...
 
& some people could get as a 'birth defect' ... late appearing from a parent overexposed
 
Many in WWII exposed ...
 
so may dad ... and type 2 diabetes and Syndrome X could be from it
 
http://forums.about.com/n/mb /message.asp?webtag=ab-chronicf atig&msg=8598.15
 

June 12, 2005

Another comment to forum by Jackie
I'm sorry your life has been so complicated.  So has mine.  Ask you doctor to test for immune globulins.  They never seem to do that test.  Regarding the pain in neck and shoulder you might try what I have found helps me a great deal.  I learned it from a physical therapist who had just had a bunch of classes on this technique.  I do not remember what she called it but I call it accupressure.  It is a treatment for "trigger points" in the muscles which to me are the pain points or places were it hurts most to touch.   Find a pain point.  If you have a helper it is better but you can do any point you can reach.  Having found the point to treat, lie down in such a way that the muscle under your finger touching the point could press deeply without the muscle resisting.   You hope to press almost to the bone underneath.  Look at a clock with a second hand moving and you or your helper begin to press.  Wow! It really huts, so hold the pressure until the pain is less and tell the helper to increase the pressure a bit more.  Continue until you have as much pressure as you can exert or can tolerant and hold that pressure for 90 seconds. Watch the clock, since it must be 90 seconds.   Back off the spot as slow or as fast as you can tolerate.  What you did is press out all possible toxins or congestion products and the spot got a good breath of fresh blood which seems to be healing over time as you continue to treat the spot.  This treatment has really saved me from much pain after I had residual shingle pain and fibromylagia pain.  Best Wishes Jackie

 2-11-05