By Kiri Christina Hyatt
It started around 1987. It started out slowly, but the chronic unrelenting fatigue, the yeast infections, then monthly bouts of the flu and colds finally caught my attention. Someone suggested I read a book on how to improve your immune system. That book gave me the knowledge to figure out what was causing my health problems; I had developed sensitivities to wheat and milk. Removing those foods from my diet helped my immune system. I stopped getting colds and the flu every month. I soon realized though, that something more was wrong. The fatigue didn’t go away, the yeast infections continued, and new puzzling symptoms started to creep into my life. Then in 1988 I injured my back on the job and the trips to the chiropractor and massive doses of pain medication began. After three months on workman’s compensation, I was forced to find a new job. I had been working with the disabled, but with back problems that refused to heal, I had no choice but to change jobs. In only a couple of days of going off workman’s compensation I found an entry level secretary job.
Dr. Michael Kwicker, a nutritionally oriented doctor, recommended a book to me. I read Coping With Your Allergies by Natalie Golos and Frances Golos Golbitz with much interest. Every chapter seemed to be talking about me; the multiple food sensitivities, the hypersensitivity to smells (cacosmia)-- esp. to chemical odors, the chronic fatigue which by now was becoming debilitating, the chronic yeast infections (Chronic Candidiasis), PMS (which I first developed in late 1987), the headaches, the food cravings, and on and on. With the help of the book I was able to start taking steps to gain control of my health. I had started taking lots of supplements to boost my immune system. I soon began to realize I was reacting to the binders and fillers, so I stopped taking supplements. For a short time I seemed to improve, but then my health once again seemed to nose dive. In desperation I went on a one food per meal diet. I soon began to realize I had developed sensitivities to all grains; wheat, barley, rye, buckwheat, and oats. I was also sensitive to corn, soy, milk, and a few other foods, and to some of the medications I was on. With my diet cleaned up I felt much better. I still was tired all the time, but at least I was able to function at work. My back was also doing a bit better as I had discovered that every time I ate corn, my back would go out of alignment. My improvement would be short lived though. I soon began to uncontrollably cough every morning when I entered the office where I worked.
By March of 1989 it became obvious I had developed Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS). Many of the tasks I was required to do at work were now making me ill. Tasks such as photocopying, which only a few months earlier was no trouble, now made me ill and the odor from the photocopier was so overwhelming I could barely breathe in the photocopy room. Anything printed on a laser printer, whether I knew it was laser or not, would give me a headache. If someone walked by me wearing perfume, I would immediately get ill. More and more chemicals were making me ill. My life was becoming unbearable.
My entire life started to revolve around just surviving. I didn’t have the energy to do anything but what was absolutely necessary. Saturday morning I would wash my clothes, get groceries for the week, and then sleep the rest of the day. All extras got cut out of my life. If it wasn’t absolutely necessary, I didn’t do it. I was just too tired. Even reading my Bible every morning stopped. I needed that extra half-hour for sleeping. Finally I was laid off from work.
Dr. Kwicker diagnosed and treated several of my problems and for awhile my health seemed to improve. So I took a major step and relocated. I hoped to start a new life, attend graduate school, but only a few months after classes begun, my health was worse then ever. I managed to complete that one semester but was forced to drop out and apply for Social Security Disability. My life seemed hopeless. I no longer had the energy to even get out of bed but with no one to help me, I was forced to. Just going to the grocery store would send me to bed for several days. Life again was reduced to just surviving.
I first began noticing strange symptoms in 1987, but it wasn’t until 1992 that the government awarded me Social Security Disability and SSI benefits. By that time I was for all practical purposes bed ridden. I was now what doctors label a Universal Reactor. You name it, I was probably allergic/sensitive to it. By 1996 over 40 foods made me ill, all drugs made me ill, and most chemicals and the products made from them (such as polyester and acrylic) made me ill My body reacted to everything leaving me very ill, isolated, often unable to concentrate even on the written word, and hopeless. I would remain like this until the fall of 1996.
Sometime around 1996 I started asking Jesus why He wasn’t healing me. Before then I had just prayed to be healed. That prayer had never been answered and I wanted to know why. So gradually my prayers changed to why wasn’t I being healed? Praise the Lord, for the Lord of the universe answered that question. That fall I went to a seminar that opened my eyes to the Spiritual Roots of Disease. That weekend I heard messages on the spiritual cause of diseases, on the blocks to healing, stress, fear and physiology, curses, how to take a spiritual inventory, and more. My eyes were opened as they had never been before. I left that seminar knowing that MCS and everything else wrong with me had spiritual roots and were NOT incurable.
That weekend was just the beginning of my education. Following that seminar I read Blessing or Curse; You Can Choose, by Derek Prince and received some spiritual counseling. For most people, the process towards healing a complex disease such as MCS takes time. I was fortunate, I was healed before Thanksgiving, practically overnight. Not only was I healed of Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, I was also healed of Dysautonomia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and Fibromyalgia. Even my chronic back problems from the on-the-job injury were healed. I would still have a lot to learn about the spiritual roots of disease and even today have to return to what I learned that fall and continue to learn as I grow in the Lord, whenever my body tells me something isn’t right spiritually. But I am totally free of Multiple Chemical Sensitivities and the other disabling health problems I suffered from for 8 long years of my life.