Chronic Chemical Injury (CCI) is a health condition that is also known by other names, by different affected individuals and their doctors. It is also called Chemical Injury, Chemical Intolerance (CI), Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), Chemical Sensitivity (CS), Environmental Sensitivity (ES), Environmental Illness (EI), and Toxin Induced Loss Of Tolerance (TILT). On this web site, we prefer to use the terms Chronic Chemical Injury and Chemical Intolerance for this health condition because we believe that they more accurately describe it.

 

Chronic Chemical Injury is an acquired health condition, and its key treatment is avoidance of further exposures to toxic chemicals. It is the key treatment because other treatments will not be effective, or will not be as effective as they could be, if this initial requirement is not met. Yet avoidance of further exposures to toxic chemicals is very difficult to achieve as we live in a very polluted world, with much of society viewing toxic chemical exposures as just a normal part of daily life.

 

Avoidance of further exposures to toxic chemicals is best achieved by living in a low-toxicity home. Being able to live in a low-toxicity home, where there is excellent indoor and outdoor air quality, is crucial to achieving any degree of recovery of health. However, these kinds of homes are rare and not currently available for the majority of Chronic Chemically Injured individuals. Sadly, this puts recovery of health out of their reach.

 

Yet something amazing happened in Canada during the Covid 19 pandemic restrictions. There was more than a 50% drop in the prevalence numbers of the Chronic Chemically Injured individuals, who had been diagnosed by a health care professional. This was due to the huge reduction in outdoor air pollution when the restrictions for the Covid 19 pandemic were put in place and strictly enforced. These restrictions shut done many of the pollution-generating industries and forced people to work from home, reducing the pollution from vehicle exhaust.

 

This huge reduction in outdoor air pollution gave some Chronic Chemical Injured people the opportunity to recover their health. These were probably ones who had also modified their home to have good indoor air quality as well, and who were only mildly or moderately affected
 
However, we need to remember that these were ones who were diagnosed by a health care professional, and therefore did not capture the whole prevalence picture of people with Chronic Chemical Injury. In Canada it is very difficult to even get a diagnosis, and receiving appropriate treatment is even rarer. Currently there are only three main clinics in Canada that do the diagnosing, meaning that people with CCI often have to travel long distances to be diagnosed, and many are far too ill to travel. These clinics have two and three year waiting lists. Since one needs to be referred to these clinics by a medical doctor, and since many medical doctors in Canada don’t accept this health condition as legitimate many people can’t even get on the wait list.

 

Consequently, in Canada, as in the global community, many Chronic Chemically Injured individuals are self diagnosed using the Quick Environmental Exposure and Sensitivity Inventory (QEESI) method or some other similar method. Here is the link to QEESI: https://tiltresearch.org/self-assessment/ Therefore many, probably the vast majority of them, never receive an actual medical diagnosis, and are never included in the prevalence data.