Allergies to Environmental Toxins

React to Chemical Additives: Hypnosis to Treat Allergies to Environmental Toxins
By David Quigley

Allergies and Immune System Disorders: Part 2

The first article of this four part series describes the vast array of immune system diseases which are a growing pandemic in our society today. It also outlines three potential causes for this pandemic within our civilization. Within these next articles each cause will be explored in depth, and strategies of treatment using modern hypnotherapy techniques will be described. This article will describe the way our bodies often over-react to chemicals in our environment and in our food, and how hypnosis can be used to change these reactions.

There can be little doubt that our bodies are assaulted every day with a wide variety of chemicals that have not existed at all for the last million years of our evolution as a species. Chemical pesticides, fertilizers, genetically engineered DNA, antibiotics and hormones fed to industrially raised animals are present in nearly all the foods we eat. In addition, processed foods contain such toxic additives as refined sugar, artificial flavors, colors, and preservatives.

Try as we may to eat organic it is very difficult to protect ourselves completely against these additives. Even the way we process and store food introduces toxic chemicals and alters the vitamins and proteins in food. Frying in hot oils and the use of transfatty acids in processed foods like margarine are just a couple of examples of this. Likewise, the air we breathe and the water we drink are contaminated with innumerable chemical agents. Quite apart from human activity, the natural world is filled with molds, mildews, bacteria, and other substances which have toxic properties. I certainly recommend that we do our best to eliminate these elements from our lives. But often our body's reaction to these chemicals is far out of proportion to the real dangers they represent. When this happens doctors would say that we are "allergic" to these substances. These allergic reactions may incapacitate us with far greater efficiency than these chemicals on their own could ever do in the tiny doses to which we are exposed.

An obvious example is the bee sting. While a bee sting's venom is a serious toxin, fatal to anyone in large enough doses, most of us experience a sting as a brief, if painful, nuisance. But to some individuals, this sting is a death sentence without radical medical intervention. The immune system goes into full Battle mode against this perceived threat, which can cause death by asphyxiation in a few minutes in a response called "anaphylactic shock". To a much lesser extent our immune system can cause ugly symptoms in response to such mild toxins as the smell of gasoline, dust, molds, animal dander, and the proteins in such foods as corn and wheat. I myself once reacted very strongly to all of the above mentioned toxins in a debilitating condition called "environmental sensitivity", a condition which led to frequent bouts of chronic fatigue, as well as sinus congestion, headaches and asthma.