Customer Reviews

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: A Survival Guide

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My wife suffers from MCS. As such, I have read most of the books available concerning MCS. Most books are from a medical professional covering a particular medical theory or treatment plan for MCS. What makes this book different is that it really explains the impact of MCS on people's lives. It dispells the myths surrounding the various treatments. The book is based upon surveys and interviews with hundreds of MCS patients. As such, the advice is based upon their experiences. When discussing treatments, statistics are provided on how many people were helped, how many harmed, how many uncertain.

This books is great for those new to MCS, those who have been around a long time, those who are patients, those who know someone with MCS.

I would recommend this book be added to anyone's library. This is not the only excellent book on MCS ... it is now simply the first book I recommend that people read.

As someone who has been learning about MCS since 1994, I found this book to be an excellent overview of this frustrating, frightening and confusing malady. It is very easy to just open it and start reading at any point in the book, without losing context of the overall message. The author is very thorough in her scope, and presents her message in very easy to understand terms.

Of particular interest is the time the author spends on the emotional aspect of this illness. Unlike other psychologists, Dr. Gibson does NOT try to imply that MCS is not a physical but rather a psychological illness. Instead she includes an entire chapter for patients to share with their therapist, where she explains how MCS does NOT fit the somatization model that mainstream psychology claims as the cause of MCS symptoms. This is a refreshing approach from the psychology profession, as one of the biggest roadblocks that MCS patients must fight is the claim that "its all in your head."

I highly recommend this book to anybody who has just recently been diagnosed with MCS, or suspects they may have an environmentally related illness. I also feel that it is an excellent book for MCS patients to share with their families and friends who are struggling to understand what is going on with their loved one.

This is an excellent book. I highly recommend it. It is great for people who are new to the MCS/Chemical Sensitivity world. It also takes you allot further. There are so many things in this book that others do not cover. There is also a nice resource listing of where to buy special products just for the Chemically Sensitive individual, I found that very useful as well. I would say if your new to MCS then this is the book for you. It is the most comprehensive, straight forward easy to read version. I would start here and then move on to others by Bonnye L. Matthews Or William Rea.

I am please with this product. It arrived promptly. I suffer from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and Ink & Ink products affect me tremendously. One important point about this book is that it was printed in such a way that the Ink on the pages did not make me sick. That is important because some of the other books that I ordered were printed in such a way that the Ink was too strong for me to be able to read the book without flaring up.

This book is absolutely essential for anyone with MCS, and especially those new to having MCS.

What it does best is explores the emotional and social issues surrounding having a 'non-legitimised' disease, and a disease that one cannot keep private or keep from affecting others around you. It does this especially well.

I would also recommend it to my fellow M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) patients, as they face many of the same emotional, legal and social issues, as well as having symptoms of chemical sensitivity to a mild-severe extent (along with equally bad or most often far worse - compared to our level of chemical sensitivities, which is most often far less than someone with severe primary MCS - neurological, cognitive and cardiac problems exacerbated by exercise or even mild activity, being upright, thinking, noise and light and so on).

Nowhere have I read such an excellent explanation of the issues that come up when you are forced through your illness to have to ask those around you to modify their behaviour in some way, how to survive one has to both accept the disease and also never stop actively looking for improvements and treatment - and many other issues.

I applaud the author wholeheartedly for putting together such an amazing book, of such a high quality.

Jodi Bassett, The Hummingbirds' Foundation for M.E.