Who knew that only six days into Ashok Gupta’s Multiple Chemical Sensitivity recovery program, I’d be putting the treatment to the test, up close and personal with a brush fire!

 

Just six days into Ashok Gupta's MCS recovery program, there was a brush fire less than a mile from my home. Had I not already learned the main amygdala retraining technique, there is no doubt that the smoke exposure would have initiated MCS symptoms. Instead, I was Gupta Girl in action! This photo was a blast to catch.

This post is part of a series about my experience doing Ashok Gupta’s “Advanced Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Recovery Programme,” which I started on September 30 and will last for at least six months.

On Oct. 6, I was ready to start Session 6 of Ashok Gupta’s Multiple Chemical Sensitivity recovery program, but first I wanted to review a concept already covered in a previous session: identifying patterns associated with my chemical sensitivity symptoms. This had proved challenging; I found it difficult to identify patterns that were so hard wired into me that I saw them as natural mechanisms rather than conditioning from the illness. The examples on the worksheet Gupta provides were all geared toward symptoms associated with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and I couldn’t relate to any of it. So before starting Session 6, I sat down and focused on this task, determined to find my patterns before moving on to the next lesson.

The smoke got very thick very fast, sweeping through our gardens and house.

Suddenly, out of the blue, as I was sitting there trying to figure out my patterns, I got a whiff of smoke on the air—and in that instant of one breath, my whole body went into a state of alarm: ALERT! SMOKE! DANGER! My mind lurched, my heart raced, and I suddenly felt unsafe. In that moment, I learned firsthand about a main pattern: breathing something threatening causes an instant alarm in every part of my body; even before I have time to think or analyze the source of the problem, I feel unsafe. Bingo! A pattern.

I immediately started doing the main amygdala retraining technique using my brain, body and voice, just as Gupta taught me only two days prior. The smoke was getting really bad and I heard sirens in the distance, which played into my own internal alarm. My husband dashed off to find the source of the smoke, but in that moment, I chose to focus on the retraining technique rather than the fire. I did the technique three times in a row and the alarm inside me subsided. I experienced no MCS symptoms!

Meanwhile, my husband had discovered the smoke was coming from a brush fire less than a mile from our home. We then decided it was best to get out of the smoke so we grabbed some food and water and jumped in the car. I grabbed my camera on the way out the door.

What happened over the next hour was astonishing in regard to my chemical sensitivity. Had I not already learned the main amygdala retraining technique, there is no doubt that the smoke exposure would have initiated MCS symptoms. For years I’ve had problems breathing particulate matter. Exposure to yard waste fires, emissions from the island’s active volcano (called vog), or even heavy dust on the air can cause eye irritation, coughing and wheezing. Also, an exposure like that can make my chemical sensitivities to go into hyper drive. But none of that happened. No eye irritation, no coughing, no wheezing (and later, no ultra sensitivity to chemical exposures). In fact, I felt so good after doing the technique, that I wanted to get in the car and go get a closer look at the fire to see what was happening!

This is the view we had from up the slope looking down at all the excitement. A few minutes after we got to this vantage point, I realized we were standing in a just-planted corn field, probably recently sprayed with pesticides. I did a quick retraining technique just in case and then turned my attention back to taking photos. Our home is about a half mile to the left, right in the path of all that smoke.

We took a road going straight up the mountain behind our village to get out of the smoke and had a good vantage point to watch the fire. I had fun taking a lot of photos. Later, we drove down closer to where they were fighting the fire, and I had a super opportunity to photograph the helicopter as it brought water up from the ocean and dumped it on the flames! It was so exciting! (That’s the large photo at top of post.)

But even more exciting was that even though I was exposed to the smoke and several chemicals that previously would have gotten me very sick, I flew through that hour feeling on top of the world because I’d used Gupta’s amygdala retraining technique at the first sign of a pattern, which short circuited any MCS symptoms before they even started! (Remember that even though this retraining is happening in the brain, Gupta’s hypothesis does NOT hold that MCS is a psychological disorder. Gupta states emphatically that “MCS is a real physical disorder with real physical symptoms, and is not psychological in nature.”)

Here’s a list of a few things to which I was exposed during my fire adventure:

• Heavy smoke from the brush fire.
• Diesel exhaust.
• Air freshener from a cop’s car that parked right next to me when I was photographing the helicopter.
• Laundry products on a neighbor’s clothing. I actually hugged him without any problem at all.
• The mail, which we picked up at the post office on the way home and included one package with new books and one package with new clothing, all of which I opened up and handled right away in the car before we got home.
• Creosote on a wooden bridge when we took a back road home.

Previously, any one of those exposures would have made me feel ill. But I didn’t have a single MCS symptom!

I need to say here that not everyone with MCS will achieve these same quick results from the amygdala retraining technique. I’ve talked to people who say results from Gupta’s program happened very fast for them, too, but I’ve seen testimonials where people say it took six months or a year or more to see symptoms abate. Some people aren’t helped at all, although it’s been difficult for me to tell if they did everything as instructed for a full six months. But even with that possible variable, since no two cases of MCS are alike, it only makes sense that each person will have a different experience with the program.

If you decide to try this treatment, I think you should take Gupta’s advice and do it at your own pace, no rushing! Don’t worry about how fast it will work for you, just do everything Gupta teaches you at your own pace and keep at it for the full six months as he advises. Even though I am already seeing improvement in my chemical sensitivity, I still have tons of work to do and have fully committed to giving it my all for at least six months.

By the way, I slept soundly that night after the fire, no insomnia and none of the “buzzing” in my body that usually happens after a day of chemical exposures. I woke the next morning refreshed with no MCS “hangover,” which meant no time spent in a recovery phase of hours or days or weeks. Now that I had a full experiential understanding of a main pattern, I was now ready to do Session 6!

Gupta Girl

Disclaimer