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Barry Carter was a terror. At eight years of age, he had been a difficult child for as long as his parents could remember. For years he had thrown temper tantrums whenever he could not get his way, but when the family moved into a new house he became increasingly tired, listless, and irritable. When Barry started school that September, all his problems came to the fore. After three miserable months in school, at home, and in the neighborhood, Barry was brought to me.

That winter, Barry had gotten into the habit of kicking his mother in the shins and placing all responsibility for his problems on the poor woman. He terrorized and beat up his younger “playmates” both at school and on the street. The principal and other school officials declared that he not only was unreachable, but that his irritability, hyperactivity, and uncontrolled behavior disturbed the entire class. The school urged the parents to remove Barry from school and take him to a psychiatrist. Their theory was that Mrs. Carter had “rejected and dejected” her son. He was put on Ritalin, a drug often used to treat hyperactivity. The parents had tried this psychiatric route; they also had tried spanking him repeatedly. Nothing seemed to work.

Several interesting facts emerged from his history. One tell-tale clue was that Barry’s symptoms were always accentuated in winter. In particular, he had become increasingly disrespectful, hostile, and sassy since the beginning of the heating season. This suggested a chemical cause—particularly, something connected to the home heating system. Upon learning that an auxiliary gas-fired space heater had been installed in his bedroom the previous summer, it was recommended that he exchange rooms with his older sister. Although his behavior improved, he still remained too hyperactive and distraught to read with any comprehension.

By this point, the child and his mother were not even talking to each other. An experiment was tried, to see how the child would react to a new environment. He went with his grandmother, to stay in a hotel room, which was free of those environmental chemicals which frequently cause or perpetuate chronic symptoms.

Within the first three days of fasting, drinking only spring water, and taking no drugs, Barry’s pulse decreased from 90 to 70 (an increased pulse is often a sign of allergic reactions). Barry now read incessantly, the first time he had been able to do so in months. After completing a battery of food allergy tests, he returned to his home city, on good terms with his mother. Upon returning to school directly from the hotel, he apologized for his past behavior and asked for makeup work. However, that afternoon upon returning home for the first time, he developed a headache. By the following morning he was tired, listless, pale, and puffy around the eyes, and within three days had returned to his previous level. For example, upon arising he ripped his favorite Boy. Scout uniform to shreds, kicked the baby, and attacked his mother.

His parents removed the gas space-heater from his room but did not change the gas-fired hot-air system which heated the entire house. Thus, although his symptoms improved greatly that summer, they were back in full force when the heat was turned on again in the fall.

Changing the gas-fired system for an all-electric heating and cooking system brought about a complete change in Barry’s behavior. His hyperactive, irritable, and destructive traits disappeared. He remained quite well, only suffering relapses when exposed to other sources of gas outside the home, or to heavy smog or pollution.

He was suffering from the chemical-susceptibility problem, which was mainly exhibited as a plus-two hyperactive reaction to environmental chemicals, particularly gas.

*57\110\2*

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Tags: Allergies . This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 at 6:15 am and is filed under Allergies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.