Talk:Multiple chemical sensitivity

This section relies almost entirely upon a single book and written is in a style as to suggest factitious disorder. Diagnoses indeed does NOT depend entirely upon self-reporting "claims" by patients. Rather the literature seems to support it's diagnosis after ruling out other conditions, so that a great deal of testing is involved.

• NIH
• Mast cell activation disease and the modern epidemic of chronic inflammatory disease, Afrin, Lawrence B., Translational Research, Volume 174, 33 - 59

While there seems to be a pattern of anxiety disorders being strongly associated with MCS/IE/MCAS, it's woefully irresponsible and intellectually lazy to conclude it to therefore simply be imagined. We're aware of a great deal of other conditions that are also related to chronic stress, yet are clearly somatic. Examples include heart disease, high blood pressure, ischemic attack, weakened immune system, etc. While some of the literature indeed examines the possibility of the condition being a direct result of psychological problems -- essentially a manifestation of the patient's fear that a trigger will make them sick -- other authors point out (rightfully in the view of this editor) that the former is just an exercise in mental health stigma, wrongfully casting unnecessary doubt on patient veracity. Daniel Santos (talk) 07:58, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

@Daniel Santos, I don't think we can use either of these sources.

The first source is from 1992, which is a serious WP:MEDDATE failure. There is no way we can even pretend that a 32-year-old source represents the current approach in this rapidly updating area; it doesn't pass the Straight face test.

The second source is from 2016, which is a WP:MEDDATE issue, though less severely. However, it doesn't appear to mention multiple chemical sensitivity at all. The main subject is Mast cell activation syndrome. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:13, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

@Daniel Santos, your profanity-laced edit summary indicates that you think "a disturbingly acute sense of smell" is unencyclopedic language. This isn't yellow journalism: it's a straight-up description of the facts. Some MCSers have – or are dismissed as "only" having by healthcare providers – a sense of smell that goes beyond the ordinary level of acute (e.g., "mother can smell cigarette smoke on her teenager at 20 paces"), but is so acute that it disturbs their everyday lives, hence "disturbingly acute". How would you prefer to indicate that this is not "merely" an acute sense of smell, but an extreme version of that? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:34, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Chemicals that have no smell can also cause MCS reactions. For example masking fragrance has given me hives, headaches, and dizziness.

Fortunately, my MCS has been significantly helped since I started taking N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC).

NAC: "NAC supports the liver in detoxifying harmful substances. It restores glutathione levels."

Glutathione:

• "Antioxidant Function: Glutathione neutralizes free radicals and reactive oxygen species, preventing oxidative stress that can damage cells, DNA, and tissues.
• Detoxification: It helps the liver detoxify harmful substances, including drugs, pollutants, and heavy metals, by binding to toxins and aiding their excretion.
• Immune Support: Glutathione supports immune function by maintaining the activity of immune cells and reducing inflammation."

108.18.208.58 (talk) 06:15, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Masking fragrance has a smell; that's how it works. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:47, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Moved from User talk:Karmashines

Hi there - feeling my way around and taking it slow as I have much to learn about how this site works.

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I am presently working on cleaning up parts of the page for Multiple Chemical Sensitivity as it has many issues. I do not see a way to edit the following, but I believe these things should be addressed: 1.) in the app, this page has a subheading referring to controversy. Although this factor is a part of the whole and should be included in the article, its placement directly under the main title is misleading and possibly biased. 2.) When viewing on a laptop browser, there is a box near the top that states it is "part of a series on Alternative Medicine", however, I am unable to find that connection.

I believe both of these items should be removed. Can you do this or advise how I may do it myself? Thank you. Karmashines (talk) 15:20, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

I have moved your request to the article's talk page so that your propose changes can be discussed. Primefac (talk) 15:27, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you. Karmashines (talk) 21:49, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

@Karmashines: Hi, and welcome. 1.) I don't see such a subheading in the wikitext. 2.) The subject of this article is a diagnosis not accepted by the medical establishment; thus ScienceFlyer added the {{alternative medicine sidebar|diagnoses}}, producing that named sidebar, in this edit 02:49, 14 December 2019. If you have evidence that it IS accepted by the medical establishment, please present that here, with reference(s).   — Jeff G. ツ 15:44, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't think that MCS should be considered AltMed. It is accepted by the medical establishment to the extent of appearing in textbooks used by ordinary medical schools (which we already cite in this article). The controversy is about the old proposals for etiology – rather like declaring Cancer to be an alternative diagnosis because once upon a time, people thought it was caused by an imbalance of the four humours. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:07, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Good point: "like declaring Cancer to be an alternative diagnosis because once upon a time, people thought it was caused by an imbalance of the four humours" Karmashines (talk) 03:09, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

That standard should also apply to the characterization that it is alt:medicine. As such, where is that evidence? Karmashines (talk) 21:35, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Are you talking about the Template:Alternative medical systems box? From this discussion last year, there are no high-quality sources that WP:Directly support a claim that MCS is an altmed diagnosis. IMO it does not belong in that box, and that box does not belong on this page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:08, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Also, what is the non-alt:medicine page equivalent within the Wikipedia framework? Perhaps that needs an update as well. Thank you. Karmashines (talk) 21:43, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Conventional medicine is the opposite of alternative medicine. The explanation in Wikipedia:Alternative medicine may be helpful. Note that a lot of editors assume that conventional = scientific and wrong = alternative, so you should expect people to be imprecise in their comments. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:10, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Hi Jeff, regarding item 1, are you able to view it in the Wikipedia app? That is where it appears. I took a screen snap but don't see a way to share that with you. Karmashines (talk) 21:53, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Disregard my immediately previous reply. I found where that info resides and edited it. Karmashines (talk) 21:58, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

The article say (correctly) that5 this is unrecognized, but the bulk of the article has a rather different tone. jae (talk) 09:56, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your note, @Jae. I'm sure the article needs work. It has been difficult to get outdated sources and mindsets out of the article – it's like we all read up on MCS two or three decades ago, and we haven't updated our understanding since then. Maybe I'll be able to make some time to work on it this summer.

The general difficulty with this subject is that the answer depends on what you mean when you say "MCS". If you mean, e.g., that the guy in the 1950s was right and it's a true immune-mediated allergy, then that was proven completely wrong decades ago.

If you say that your neighbor seems to get sick when she smells certain things, then conventional Western medicine accepts that. However, if this same neighbor says that the symptoms were originally caused by "chemicals", then that's uncertain. It's more likely that MCS is actually caused by your neighbor's unlucky brain [e.g., a type of post-concussion syndrome] but the symptoms are exacerbated or triggered by smells.

For an analogy, migraine is caused by the brain but may be triggered in different people by stress, hormonal changes, bright/blinking lights, etc. If you don't have a migraine-susceptible brain, then blinking lights may be annoying (or you might love, e.g., a laser show at a concert or a strobe light in a club), but the blinking lights won't trigger a migraine. If you do have a migraine brain, then the blinking light doesn't really cause you to have a migraine brain; it just makes your pre-existing migraine brain produce migraine symptoms. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:31, 13 June 2025 (UTC)