Just as chemicals are everywhere so are electric fields.  In a physical sense our bodies are just incredibly complex chemical and electrical machines.  So the problem for those of us with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) is not the chemicals and electric fields themselves but rather the versions of them that are out of sync with the natural world. 

 

A few years back I had a job where I was required to keep the company cell phone on me at all time.  This was an ancient Nokia phone that had been discontinued well before the company I worked for got a deal on about two dozen of them. Thankfully, from a chemical point of view it caused me no discomfort.  From an electric field perspective I could barely tolerate it.  If I clipped it to my belt I would feel a ‘buzzing’ in my hip.  After a short while that buzzing would travel up my torso and finish off in my head. Within only a few minutes the ‘buzzing’ would get worse and I would become somewhat disoriented and confused.  This effect would go away immediately upon taking the phone back off my belt.  In the end I just wound up clipping it to outside of a container that I always had with me and avoided using it as much as possible.  Thankfully more modern phones seem to not have the same effect on me. 

 

I am quite grateful that as a general rule electric fields don’t seem to be a primary MCS trigger for me; although I have met those who are greatly effected by them.  I have spent time with one person who has no specific indication of MCS but still could not tolerate strong electrical fields.  Close proximity to cell phones, CRT TV’s, CRT computer monitors, and high voltage power lines all create a hefty level of discomfort in her.  I once heard her jokingly refer to herself as ‘The Canary of Electricity’.

 

Here again avoidance seems to be the best short term solution for us.  Electrical fields that are of different intensities and frequencies then are encountered in nature are almost unavoidable in our modern world.  If electrical fields are a MCS trigger for you then, a little attention and testing can go a long way in minimizing exposure.  Do you live near high voltage wires?  Is there a cell phone tower on your building?  Do you feel differently when around a CRT TV vs. being around a newer flat panel TV?  Have you tried a different cell phone?  One of the true challenges with MCS is that there are few hard and fast rules.  What may almost destroy one of us will not always effect the next.  The fields created by modern electronics is no different, we all need to discover what we can tolerate and what we must avoid to fit our own personal experience of MCS