Fifth Month in the Low-Tox House

It’s been a rough month!   Accidental chemicals, sore throat and cough twice, and see below….

Specific improvement:

Fewer irregular heartbeats.  I’d estimate my heart is now working normally around 70% of the time (whereas it used to work normally about 10% of the time).  This is HUGE.

Update:  since I wrote that around the middle of the month, my heart has gotten worse again, maybe only 40% normal?  I think probably from a number of factors—wildfire smoke (sometimes heavy, most of the time mild), unavoidable chemicals (new parts on daughter’s wheelchair, etc.), and detoxing with the summer heat.

But I am kind of running out of symptoms to get better!!!  LOL  There are a number of stubborn ones; hopefully they’ll improve someday.

Mostly I just need energy to continue increasing to stop being so disabled.

Air conditioning—we did not want to deal with the mold risks of central air.  Plus we didn’t want the hassle and expense of installing duct work because our radiant heat in the slab doesn’t need ducts/vents.

Nights always cool off up here.  Even on the hottest days, it becomes rather nice by 9 pm.

We do have a free-standing air conditioner unit (off-gassing in the shed) for emergencies. Right now, closing up against the smoke with the unit in here would make me sicker than the smoke itself.  Especially because we do not have the money to make our furnishings etc. perfect, so they off-gas some, too, and I get sick if windows are closed too long.

However, a good friend is buying new filters for our air purifier, so that will help with everything!!!  Smoke, wheelchair parts and other things off-gassing, and the air conditioner unit should the smoke get really bad and cause breathing problems.

Numerous MCS friends have said that the heat (sometimes up to 100!) and sweating is great (detoxing) but hard on the body to sweat that many hours (7-9 hours some days).  Hard while sweating and need extra rest after and on the less-hot days in between.

Therefore, it does seem my body is spending a lot of time dealing with the detox and rebuilding.

Putting a squirt of lemon in my all-day-drinking water (in the heat) seems to help.  Apparently it helps the small intestine absorb the water better.  And praise God my stomach is strong enough now to handle the lemon.

One MCS friend said, after a summer like this of no air conditioning and sweating a lot, she could tolerate paper and ink better!!!!  I am very hopeful.

In addition, when I am bedridden with the heat, I am finding I have MUCH more stamina for hand sewing, writing, and editing than I did last winter.

I also learned that passive sweating (sauna, or heat in the summer) AND active sweating (exercise) are both needed and do different things in the body!

Christa Upton      Black Hills Picture Books     Edgemont, SD  57735