EMF Sensitivity – Management of the Bucket Part 1

How can someone live with EMF sensitivities and manage their “bucket”? And what is “the bucket”?

Here are two of my recommended places to find out details of how to live with EMF sensitivity:

The Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity Workbook: A Guided Journey to Feeling Better (2011), written by Angela Hobbs, published in Canada. ISBN# 978-0-9868528-5-5. (Note: We do NOT sell this book. This is not an affiliate link. I don’t agree with everything in that book. In comparison it is one of the better paper resources that I have read for the practical tips. For example, she writes about good sleep routines, eating, and making a generally-better environment (although a few ideas are not needful). Remember though, good tips only help to support good health; it doesn’t keep someone from having sensitivities when they are exposed to harmful levels of stuff.)

EUROPAEM EMF Guideline 2016 for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of EMF… Europe seems to have more advanced research going on over there and it appears that what they conclude is the direction that the understanding EMF specialists are tending to follow on this side of the world. This is a long, scientific document but is quite well articulated. It also includes some good practical tips for living with these sensitivities. (In my opinion, this is the better resource of the two that I’m mention on this post. But you’d need to print it off if you want to read something on “paper”.)

Also, there are numerous links on my downloadable brochure, available here.

Now for the “funner” way of summarizing how to live with this – the “bucket”!

The “Bucket”

This following analogy is not original with me. But I did decide to draw it out and explain it like this. I think it helps children as well as adults to grasp what is going on and how to manage it:

Think of a BUCKET!

For whatever reason(s), people have various sizes of “buckets” as to how much environmental pollution one’s body can handle before showing signs of reacting against that pollution.

Some people call this a “total body burden”. It is how much your body can handle before noticing.

What determines the size of your “bucket”?

No one knows exactly “why”. (You might also want to read Part 2 about Management of the Bucket here.)

The reasons might be genetic (i.e. you might be born this way because of your family’s sizes of “buckets”).

They could be injury-related, for example, at some point your environment caused an injury which damaged you and “shrunk your bucket” for the long-term). That “injury” might not have been noticed at the time by you, for example, it could be that you had no “household grounding wire” working where you lived or another wiring error so that your body became a “human ground rod” for the flow of electricity through your house. It could be because you lived or worked very close to high voltage power situations, or moldy basements, or used harmful chemicals that you thought were safe, etc..

The “Bucket” Sizes:

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“I must be in the medium-sized or huge bucket category because I’m able to tolerate all kinds of things! I can use my cell phone, work with electricity, be near office modems/routers, live near a cell tower – those things don’t (and won’t) bother me!”

Just adding a note here to the people who think this way….

I can’t think of one EMF sensitive person in the world, of whose story I’ve heard or read about, who has not had a past of being able to use cell phones, electronic equipment, etc. without symptoms.

The point is, we used to be fine with that kind of technology. We did not have symptoms either whenever we were exposed to what causes us symptoms now. Our buckets were not “full” yet.

• Sometimes even now, we can still wonder “why” a new symptom seems to have cropped up. Haven’t we figured out all our sensitivities and are living with better choices? What is going on now? For me, almost always over the years, it ends up that something changed in my environment or has been there but isn’t as good of a choice as I could make, and is causing the unexpected symptom –
  • Maybe I changed to a new brand of shampoo/soap, perhaps a new-and-improved formula of a favourite brand of facial tissue has come out, or maybe it’s simply me who has now become sensitive to something that I was able to handle in the past and even work closely with but now can’t without symptoms.
  • Perhaps the symptoms don’t even come until weeks AFTER something different has been changed in my environment! But then, we start to notice something isn’t quite right and the investigation is on. What is it this time??? Does it correlate with something that IS in our environment, regardless of “how long ago” it got there?
  • How can one tell “what” it is if it’s an environmental thing? Two general ways that I/my family/others tend to figure this out –
    • Either remove suspected things and see if symptoms improve. (e.g. Toss it out onto the porch. Unplug it. Shut a breaker off.)
    • Or remove yourself for a while and see if symptoms improve. (e.g. Go outside for a while.)
    • If symptoms are from a disorder/disease such as a cold or flu bug or other health condition, the symptoms will remain regardless of “where” (in what environment) the sensitive person is. (That’s just common-sense logic. We might go see a doctor in that case.)
    • But if the symptoms disappear within minutes or even a couple of days, and then return again if the environment is back to what it was when symptoms were noticed – that “come” and “go” pattern – then realizing it has an environmental cause that needs to be avoided is the logical, common-sense conclusion.

To the person who thinks they are “just fine” with “no issues” with EMFs….

You’re still filling your bucket when you use these things. It fills rather silently. And YOU don’t know how close to the top you’re getting because you can’t see that or know your future. (No person can.)

The number of people who become sensitive has been growing significantly in recent years according to researchers and doctors involved with seeing environmentally-ill people. So the likelihood of more people getting close to the top of their bucket looks quite likely, especially since there is a growing increase of these products that we’re all exposed to to a certain extent – it’s part of our world, our communities, and the services we are given.

So don’t be over-confident that you “won’t” get sensitive just because you can handle those things “for now”. YOU don’t know “how much” exposures will be “too much” for your body to handle!

• You could become sensitive suddenly, feeling or even looking unwell, getting symptoms which are a puzzle to you and health care professionals (which is what was in my story).
• You could become sensitive gradually, adding symptoms little by little and thinking that those are just within the range of “normal life” when they’re not and could be prevented by taking better control of your wireless or electricity exposures (e.g. Wi-fi, Bluetooth, household grounding, etc.). EMF sensitivity doesn’t need to show up suddenly. It just might sneak up on a person.

Then the things which used to be tolerated can no longer be tolerated as well as it had been.

I used to tolerate and use various kinds of personal care products, study in science labs, work with lots of markers and art supplies (there are safer ones and toxic ones – I used both). I used to use cell phones without symptoms, enjoy the convenience of wireless in the house, including the handy cordless phone, the microwave, the baby monitor, etc.. I felt fine growing up in a house that had electrical issues and staying in rougher accommodations to work at a camp. I was fine.

But then my bucket was filled up.

Some people describe non-ionizing radiation as a jiggling of cells until they begin to break (instead of a sudden breakage that ionizing radiation can cause).

I think of it as, if I sprained my right foot and it healed, then I kept re-injuring it (and it “heals”), it will heal weaker – meaning that if I decide to climb an apple tree and jump down each day or each week (i.e. frequent exposure to harm), that right foot will likely show it’s weakness and be now more prone to re-injury and pain, even though it has “healed” from its initial injuries.

Yes, there can be “recovery” from EMF MCS but the kind of recovery we mean is a recovery where a certain amount of sensitivity remains – like a recovery one might get from the effects of smoking if one quits smoking and being around second-hand smoke. One might regain more tolerance, yes, but it doesn’t mean that a person can go back to smoking regularly again and do well.

The issue to keep remembering is that these sensitivities are to things which are like smoke, smog, alcohol – things which exist in society but are not very good for anyone’s health in large amounts to have as part of our regular lifestyle.

Pollution whether it is chemical-based or electronic “e-pollution”, should be minimized in ANYONE’S life, regardless of the “bucket size” – for the sake of others around and for the sake of oneself.

YOUR bucket could shrink with enough exposures to harmful things!

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A “Total Body Burden” Explanation

(Rather than thinking of it as a single or repeating allergy-event situation)

There is NO perfect environment in this world. But some areas have less pollution than others.

People get sick and/or injured and eventually die here for various reasons, not just environmental ones. Only God’s heaven (which is a real place as described in the Bible) is perfect, without sickness, without death, without pain of any kind, and without any wrongdoing.

But here, we people sometimes make choices which pollute the world we live in and all of us suffer to one extent or another.

When anyone is in a “cleaner” environment, their body can sigh a bit of relief and begin to heal from any damage from the polluted environment.

The longer one can live in that better environment, the more opportunity one has to recover at least some of their health. This is because that person’s bucket can begin to “empty”…. to heal by replacing with healthy cells faster than getting them damaged by pollution:

• The holes and cracks in this bucket represent the amount of TIME spent in a better environment to recover and get rid of some of the effects of pollution.
• The more a bucket (person) empties (recovers from environmental damage), there is more opportunity to be healthier.

The person who can just spend a short amount of time in a low-polluted environment (e.g. sleep in low-pollution but work in high levels of pollution) and/or a lot of time in a somewhat polluted environment (e.g. living 24/7 in low-levels of some but not all pollutants), just has a few cracks and holes at the top of the bucket.

• Therefore the bucket can’t empty a lot and remains almost full.
• This means that it won’t take very much of an exposure to a pollution trigger (for example, going out in public) to result in that person overflowing with a reaction to it.

The person who can mainly live, work, and sleep in areas of low-environmental pollution gets a lot of holes in their bucket and can empty/recover much faster.

• The tolerance also improves because there is room in that person’s bucket for pollutants (e.g. when going occasionally out in public where there are pollutants such as in stores).
• More stuff can be tolerated before overflowing to a BIG reaction (and might not even get to the point of overflowing with those symptoms if those exposures are not long or heavy).
• And then, of course, re-healing can occur easier when coming back to sleeping, etc. in the area of low-environmental pollution.

Being willing to change the living environment in greatly reducing or eliminating wireless in the main living space(s), and if necessary, to move to a better environment in a new location (e.g. away from neighbourhoods with smart meters and cell towers), is critical for the likelihood of recovery of people with very small buckets!

Alongside eliminating wireless where a person mainly lives and sleeps, being able to have a properly-installed and safe electrical system in a home (and/or to go to a non-electrical environment/shelter for at least some lengths of time) is also very important for the reduction of symptoms for people with very small buckets!

Worse with a Combination

It is harder to manage a combination of both increased RF-EMF and heavier electrical exposures. It’s manageable yes, but it means aiming for even fewer RF-exposures and less time with ‘normal’ home life. That means fewer outings for that time period of recovering plus trying to figure out how to spend as much time as possible outdoors or with power off and still be social and continue with one’s role in the family.

The juggling act – oh, the creativity and problem solving skills that come into play! It’s been said that ‘necessity is the mother of invention’! Mend some clothes while sitting in a lawn chair in the yard watching children play? Peel potatoes and carrots in a greenhouse in the rain or snow so that someone else in the family can cook them on an electrical stove for supper? Why not?! My grandparents peeled and cut their peaches on a picnic table outside so that those could be canned indoors!

In my experiences, if I have had stronger or more-frequent hits of RF (wireless signals) plus mainly recover in a high-electricity environment (e.g. in a place with stray voltages, bad cancellation affects within the wiring, being near high-voltage transmission lines, or simply working a lot with electrical items), the RF-related symptoms can be worsened and it can take longer to recover from RF-exposures. For example, the eyes under RF get swollen and very crumby (from the burning of the corneal layers) so the eyelids can stick and stay swollen all night plus rip off additional layers when the eyelid muscles twitch under high-enough electrical fields (See this post for information about measurements and standards.) But eyelids do NOT twitch, thus no ripping occurs, if I sleep outside or if there is a power outage.

And, if I have been living in a home that has electrical problems (especially if not spending significant lengths of time outside in non-electrical environments), plus go out to get average amounts of RF in the communities, my sleep is worsened for the first night or so and my muscles take longer to recover to normal functioning in comparison to sleep and muscle movement in a home that has safer amounts of electricity.

A note about “Stress”:

It is true that being under a lot of emotional stress (anxiety, fears, deep disappointments, big changes, much excitement such as big celebrations or travels), can make any existing health-related challenge, feel worse. For example, “cancer + stress that isn’t managed well” is a worse situation compared to “cancer + stress under control”. But stress isn’t the cause of the cancer. (And we understand this readily.)

To me, the “Total Body Burden” or “bucket”, which illustrates “cause” should NOT include putting “stresses” into the bucket – as if having “stress” is somehow blamed as a cause of EMF-sensitivity. (Emotional stress does not cause EMF sensitivity. It can add to it, like cancer + stress. But a person can suffer severe environmental sensitivities with well-managed emotions and thoughts!)

When people try to explain a total body burden that includes the concept of having stress in one’s life, then their idea becomes that all stress needs to be reduced (i.e. self-centered living) and that stress management techniques will “fix” the health problem related to pollution sufficiently. “Just change your mindset”, they might say.

And I disagree with that approach.

Instead, I think of…

• Stresses are like bugs around the bucket – maybe some ultimately-beneficial ones plus maybe not-helpful pesky pests.
• In the midst of problems we face, can we bloom where we are planted or are we going to nurture a root of bitterness? Can our lives be serving others in some manner, bringing a beauty to their lives, despite our difficulties? Can those stresses help to show that inner beauty, even the ones meant as harm?

And the foundation under the ‘bucket’ is very important. Does the “bucket” sit on uneven ground or is it embedded into a rock-solid foundation for how to handle what is in it and staying upright through storms, temptations, and stresses swirling around it? (My hope and security is in God – He is my “Rock”.)

Some people get too distracted at swatting the bugs, trying to ignore the downpour filling the bucket. And if the foundation isn’t sturdy, they can get tossed to and fro.

Managing the “Bucket”

Tips within this website blog section –

One of the purposes of this blog section of our website is to provide more information about good choices one can make to “manage the bucket” better.

• Many people CAN recover from this (at least to a certain point)! But that could involve some difficult decisions for lifestyle changes.

Because our modern culture often accepts a lot of pollutants in it every day, those of us with the very small buckets who aim for recovery often must change our lifestyle.

This is not always accepted as “sensible” by people they have known (e.g. co-workers, extended family, friends, community leaders) or even some professionals. (Even some people claiming to understand EMF sensitive people will try to say that there does not need to be a change in lifestyle – but this is misleading and deceptive.)

There are good ideas and not-so-good ideas.

In an attempt to reorganize this blog section to be easier to navigate, I have moved many of the general tips which were originally in the “management of the bucket” posts to be in other posts specific to their topic. Go back to the “EMF MCS Start Here” page to see the list of square buttons. The posts which are completed enough for posting are linked there. (The remaining ones are worked on when I have the time and ability to finish those.)

• My plan is also to list out the headings of the posts on the two webpages called “Short Information About…” so that people can find what they are looking for even quicker.

Managing life if sensitivities get very severe…

I think that many times, yet anyways, most people are mildly to mediumly-severely affected by emf sensitivities – not very-severe. But I wanted to add a brief note about how I have managed a few of the ‘more-severe’ periods of time in my life.

When I didn’t know what I was dealing with, what helped me manage?

• Symptoms lessened when I spent more time outdoors in fresh air and away from emfs). (I was living rural, in the country, at the time.) Although I wasn’t diagnosed properly yet, I decided I was well-enough to go back to school (post-secondary).
• I accepted practical help from my parents or others, as needed – it can be humbling to accept some kinds of help. I moved to a room-and-board situation (where nutritional needs were cared for), close to the campus (to lessen the amount of driving I needed to do), paid for close-to-class parking (to lessen the walking distance), and my doctor arranged for other help through the disability services.
• Many of the people who knew me prayed for me. This was a great encouragement, to have others help in carrying this burden to God Who understands these things and has the power to change the situation! And we saw God answer prayers – sometimes quickly and sometimes after years of waiting. But the Lord was my Shepherd and walked with me through each situation!
• I also shared “my story” with the medical director on campus; God used her to send me to a specialist who was able to begin diagnosing my environmental sensitivities so that I could learn some of what I should to avoid for good health. Both of those doctors had seen patients like myself (which illustrates the importance of sharing our journeys with people who will listen) and they could give practical ideas for managing things. Other people who had various chronic conditions also gave me some practical tips!
• And I kept a sense of humor – seriously, this is needed! I glued together a scrapbook of funnies, jokes, comics of good humor during that time. I occupied at least some of my “rest” time enjoying some simple activities. (e.g. see Proverbs 15:15, 17:22; 12:14, 31:13, 16; 1 Thessalonians 4:11, 1 Corinthians 4:12, Psalm 111:2) See also ideas at my post called Management of the Bucket: Part 3.

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When I did know what I was dealing with BUT there were things which we could not control enough or did not choose to control enough to prevent severity, what helped?

• A continued connection with others who prayed for me/us, sharing our burden to God Who understands these things, has the power to change the situation, and restore again. Gathering together with others (e.g. Hebrews 10:24-25) is also very important, even if in times of severe intolerances and because of the levels of things usually in those places, this may be less-often. In one of those periods of time, outings to go anywhere was limited to about twice a month for me. That meant prioritizing gathering with friends/family at church instead of shopping. But it also meant arranging medical appointments to be less-often (unless it was an over-the-phone appointment), allowing me to go to church some weeks instead.
• I spent more time outdoors in fresh air and away from emfs.
  • If the “bucket” has become very full, it can take MORE time and effort to recover from that bigger level of inflammation!
  • To support that recovery time to heal during that kind of severity, it seems to me a good idea
    • to greatly lessen the time spent under any emf exposures, rather than continuing to also try to battle the effects of those emfs at the same time my body is trying to recover from the more-severe inflammation. (This is an example of managing a ‘total body burden’.) I’ve read of someone who kept visiting in a hospital despite being severely-affected with sensitivities; she didn’t recover.
    • to “pay attention” and take the extra care to wait and rest from some activities a bit longer than I would if the RF exposure amount was not as big.
      • What it means is, when the body is already under inflammation (because of RF), doing some activities (which on most days are totally fine for me to do) should be done with more care or that I just take a little break from those things, until the inflammation dies down again. An emergency room doctor once concluded it was muscle inflammation going on but that I had “done too much while it was going on” and now needed ‘extra’ recovery time. A physiotherapist observed the same thing years ago. Now we just say I should be “in a bubble” for a few days after heavier RF exposures or else I risk further injury.
      • A number of years ago when I was in a more-severe period of managing known-sensitivities, I had a life-threatening reaction to a couple of chemicals at home. As I rested for several hours outdoors with symptoms (which for most people, would mean an ambulance trip), we knew that going to a hospital was not the wisest decision this time, since the kinds of emf exposures I’d also get with seeking the medical help there could overflow my ‘bucket’ even worse. (We felt a bit like some African missionary families who live too far from doctors and who simply have to rest in just asking God to answer their prayers, when they would normally also seek help from a medical system. We aren’t the only people who have faced these sorts of situations; albeit, we think of them less-commonly in our society.) So we and our friends/family prayed. And yes, God answered those prayers so that I’m still around today! He also provided the direction to move elsewhere shortly afterwards.
      • There have been at least a couple of places that I’ve lived in that had stray voltage issues. At both of those homes, there was a period of time when emf sensitivities were more-severe than just what regular management of it would mean. So the management of my ‘bucket’ during those times meant not going out to public spaces which have Wi-fi during the first few weeks of recovery and spending both days and nights outdoors except for brief times indoors.
        • For me, muscle-related symptoms could be more-noticed-than-usual when I was indoors, whether that was a hospital or a house. Symptoms lessened or were fully relieved within minutes of being outdoors.
        • I actually sat, periodically, on the grass, against the concrete wall of a hospital, as welcomed breaks from accompanying a sick person who waited with another family member for his care.
        • In one of those houses, in a wintery week, we had to shut off the main panel completely in order to reduce the severity of spasms. If it came back “on” in those initial hours after that kind of injury, spasms returned. Gradually, as my muscles healed over those days, I was able to tolerate electricity back “on” but not be close to an electrical appliance such as a stove, dryer, or dishwasher. After a while, I could tolerate those appliances better again.
      • As those days of greatly reducing my exposures to ALL manmade emfs went by, I could better tolerate being around electricity again. I could get to a point of not much spasms or tingling, etc. by spending either (instead of both) days or nights outdoors. And then it was something like every other day, etc. as time went on as my body repaired the cell damage and inflammation.
      • For at least some people, lessened inflammation can be shown with blood tests as well as simply doing better overall and regaining normal functioning.

To Sum Up –

After severe periods of time, a person can return to the regular management of EMF sensitivities! ‘Ordinary life’ as an emf-sensitive person can become not as difficult again.

Something that I’ve learned over the years is that “extra” electrical exposures (EF-EMF and/or MF-EMF, aka ELFs) can fill a person’s ‘bucket’ — resulting in that person showing more noticeable sensitivity to wireless signals (RF-EMF).

And the opposite also seems to be true: That more exposures to wireless signals (RF-EMF such as in going out more often to public spaces where it exists) can fill a person’s ‘bucket’ — resulting in that person showing more noticeable sensitivity to manmade electricity.

To manage well with general health and occasional larger exposures, BOTH the electrical situation and the wireless situation need to be at low-enough levels, most of the time.

This is the idea behind managing a ‘bucket’ – more than “just one kind of manmade EMF” to reduce in order to see overall improvement.

And this idea has been scientifically shown to be true – see my post entitled “Reading a Scientific Article – Bias, Technical Wording, etc.” when it gets posted. Or look at the links in my brochure found here.