Legal disclaimer: This article is not offered as medical advice. This is a blog based on anecdotal, personal experiences and thoughts.
Please Note: If you are new to this blog section, a lot of it will not likely make much sense to you unless you go to this (click here) introductory article first to get the context of this discussion. It is entitled “My EMF Story As It Began”. – J.D.
And if you have missed Part 1, which explains “the bucket”, click here.
For further reading, please see this post “Start Here”, which lists the various blogs on our website about this topic.
This page is about a few other “solutions” that you might hear of for EMF sensitivity. Since a few folks have asked me about these, I thought I’d do a blog about it.
1. An internal “fix”??? Some people ask, what about taking super-vitamins or medication of some sort? Well, this isn’t a vitamin-deficiency issue. People recover very noticeably when they are simply removed from a triggering environment, not when they swallow something. Vitamin supplements are not a cure, although good intake of vitamins does help to support any recovering body. (One other thing to remember is that supplements are typically absorbed differently or used less than vitamins found in real food and sometimes supplements lead to worse problems of toxicity.) I might take fish oil and eat antioxidants. But taking that in doesn’t protect me from radiation injury any more than swallowing those things protects me from breaking my arm if I jumped out of a tree. The main issue is damage caused by an injury, not a “lack of” something in your body. Your body wasn’t designed to be hit with this stuff.
So this is what I typically do:
- Regularly try to eat healthy – a variety of good, nutritious food. For many years, my diet is most often homemade stuff. I grew up on the corner of my grandparents’ little farm/homestead and our families had large gardens. I used to help one of my grandmas make bread (including in a wood cookstove). I do like to eat freshwater fish but given the expense of it, we eat it only occasionally and I instead take a high quality fish oil (or sea buckthorn) supplement. Given that I enjoy plain good whole foods and feel they are more beneficial in general, I get my vitamins through food instead of a pill or drink. My teeth still work fine to crunch, munch, and slurp and the rest of me is generally in good shape too! 🙂 EMF sensitive people can recover quite nicely without a special vitamin or concoction so we’re often not intrigued with the latest marketing of a product purported to cure every ill.
- When recovering from strong exposures to EMF, I recognize that my body’s cells have been damaged, including ones in my intestine which help to absorb nutrients. So in the initial recovery hours, I’m often nibbling on probiotic yogurt (because it eliminates as many trips to the bathroom after I’ve been out in wifi), blueberries, maybe something like orange cantaloupe, cranberry juice, or similar colourful one-ingredient-type foods. I do this in order to give my body what it is needing at those moments to repair the damage caused by the burning radiation. I also don’t eat heavy meals to digest during that time. (Milk also helps to build cells.) If I am in pain (e.g. muscle, including head muscle pain/headache), sometimes eating frozen red cherries helps to decrease that pain without my body having to deal with an additional unnatural substance of a typical pain-reliever. These cherries come in white pails in grocery stores mid-July and we freeze them in littler bags. I might eat about 12-20 cherries at a time. Our family has used this idea for pain relief of various causes for many years and it works for us.) A cold pack from the freezer might help or a warm shower but I can no longer just chuck a hot pack into a microwave LOL! If I’m really sick with the radiation exposure, my hubby misses work to care for me while the reaction peaks and then begins to subside. I usually have to take the rest of the day or so easy with resting more and not doing as much around electrical appliances (in order to recover faster in comparison). These are the days when I might be simply watching my children play in the yard while I sit, snack, and rest in a Muskoka chair. Or I might have a bit of energy to weed in a garden. Being outdoors (yet away from hydro wires) helps to not only pass the time with something pleasant, but also help my body to repair without as much bombardment from other forms of manmade EMF. (Sunshine is fine and natural for me to be exposed to – depending on the length of time I’m outside. We are very blessed with fresh air where we live. If I was back living in the city, I’m not sure that going outside where the chemical smells are or smog would be beneficial – my guess is that it would make a reaction possibly worse.)
- It’s been mentioned to me that “hopefully someone will figure out a medication that can shield/protect my body when I go out or to allow me to carry on with using technology like “everyone else” – sort of like the idea of taking an enyzme-based pill and then having ice cream if you are lactose-intolerant. The problems with that idea are 2-fold – first, there isn’t anything to “take” internally to protect your cells from outside forces like that and I’d be just as cautious on anything that is marketed to be that – just like you would be if I told you that there was a new pill to swallow that would prevent you from ever breaking a leg playing hockey. Secondly, the idea goes back to thinking that the problem is primarily with a dysfunction of the human body, not a problem with the environment. See here if you missed my post that dealt with that idea. Now, what about something to take which helps a body to get rid of the cells that were destroyed (i.e. toxins) and to build new cells – something that would support a stronger recovery from an overload of cell damage? Yes, I do think that certain kinds of that type of thing CAN be a supportive measure to come alongside what the body is already trying to do. But it doesn’t seem to make sense to just do that “supportive measure” and then remain in the same environment that is injuring the body. In other words, things like herbal cleanses and clay baths might help in the process of a body trying to recover from environmental injury but they aren’t a “cure” or something that can prevent injury from taking place. The environment is still the cause of the issue and until the environment changes, the body will continue to be injured over and over. These sorts of things are only “supportive”, like good nutrition; in that sense, they could potentially be beneficial to someone who is environmentally-sensitive, according to what I understand.
2. What about stickers or jewellery to “neutralize” or “harmonize”? The official advice from research scientists on EMF is to look at those with “great restraint” (e.g. EUROPAEM EMF Guideline 2016 for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of EMF – that link and others are on my brochure). Many of these thingys are placebo and although one type of harmonizer/neutralizer that I know of that goes on cell phones, lowers RF a bit for under the device (according to my acoustimeter) or it re-directs it perhaps, but the levels still remain dangerous (from a “high red” to a “medium red”, not even reducing down into the precautionary yellow zone).
I think of a smoke-filled room – does an air freshener or “neutralizer help you not breathe the smoke in or does it just hide the danger? What about stove burners – is it better to touch a high red or a medium red coil? We’d all say neither – wait until it is off. Same idea – just lowering something a wee little bit but allowing it to still be in high levels, just isn’t worth the false security that masks the ongoing damage.
So this is what I do:
- If we have a cell phone on, it is not positioned close to the body if at all possible. Using it on “speaker” mode is better. Airplane mode or “off” is best. We would use it like a phone for emergencies (such as vehicle problems on the side of a road). We keep our curious minds settled to search an internet until we’re back home on a fully wired computer system so we don’t need a data plan with apps. I almost never use a cell phone anymore. I skip the convenience and life isn’t that bad without texting. It really isn’t.
- We have had a landline telephone system (yes, the kind that is attached with a wire into a wall) for many years since I used to get a burned numbered keypad on my cheek if I talked on cordless phones back when we were young parents. And yes, these sorts of phones are still an option. While inconvenient with preschoolers in the house, life really is OK with a landline, wired phone!
- We use a real camera to take photos and videos and it has no connectivity to anything wireless. That means our pictures on it aren’t stored on a cloud.
- I reduce my time spent using electrical things and electronic things, especially right after exposures to high levels of RF. Other people in my family can whip up the egg whites or iron the clothes, etc. — I share the tasks that use electricity with others who are capable so that I can recover faster. I spend less time on a computer, even though it is wired, not wireless. I sit away from the CPU and power bar. I don’t wash the dishes in the sink if the dishwasher is running right next to it. My hair dries naturally, not with a blow dryer. The wires of my sewing machine are arranged to be further away from me. We reduce the number of things “running” in a room and unplug when things are not in use. When a non-electrical option or a lower-electrical option is available, I am more likely to choose that option now. All these sorts of choices help me to empty my bucket faster of all forms of EMF. While inconvenient at times, it is kind of a creative challenge in a sense and I’m thankful for having a background in homesteading skills because I think some of those ideas help us in our lifestyle adjustments.
- I don’t wear a lot of jewellery of any kind – I still have small kiddos who would yank at things anyways. However, I don’t need jewellery to help me “feel better” – I can truly feel better without it and definitely can relieve my symptoms without wearing such so my situation isn’t dependent on some sort jewellery but rather the type of environment I’m in.
- When I go out in public where there are cell phones or wifi, I DO often now wear some shielded clothing items. These generally reduce symptoms (less burned/peeling skin and eyes, etc.). You can see my brochure links for where I have purchased fabric or ready-made items for that. One of the things I learned (by experience) is that using a headnet with copper in it can make sensitivity to travelling near and under high voltage power lines interesting (my mouth or scalp would twitch briefly). So using shielded clothing is not a perfect solution but it does give some help in most RF situations in my opinion.
- The eye drops that I use (especially after wifi exposures when my eyes still have burned to a certain extent) have no preservatives (so it is less likely to cause an allergic reaction). I get mine through my optometrist since it isn’t available in local stores.
- It really ends up being a common sense type of approach to management. What might you put on skin that has been sunburned to soothe it as it heals? Aloe vera? That’s what I use when mine sizzles under the manmade frequencies. (Olive oil or coconut oil is also sometimes helpful to me. The skin turns itchy as it peels and heals.) Something with sea buckthorn in it might also help the skin (before and after).
Otherwise, I wait things through as my body heals and recovers. It isn’t an easy thing to be patient, especially when I have plans on stuff I’d like to do instead of resting. It does provide a lot of time for prayer and thinking and listening to the kids.
What about so-called “Energy Healing”? This is the kind that sounds “mysterious” and “powerful”, offered by a number of practitioners. Is this a good “gift” to receive?
As a Christian who believes what God the Creator of all things tells us in the Bible, there is a passage that helps to answer this question:
“Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”
James 1:13-17
I must be careful not to allow my “desire to feel well” sidetrack me into something that would deceive me into further sin. Every good gift is from the God I serve and Who doesn’t change ever. If you want to know more about my Christian perspective on the so-called “energy healing”, you may download a free pdf brochure-format article by clicking here: Opinion on Energy
The biggest change though that anyone can make for managing environmental sensitivities, including emf sensitivities, is to mainly live in areas where the burden of pollutants on one’s total body is LOW. To read about this (if you haven’t already done so) please see Management of the Bucket Part 1.