Electrical Sensitivity

[handy10]

Has anyone heard of a person being sensitive to the presence of electricity? A lady called me to take a look at the receptacles in her son's (age 18) bedroom because he did not sleep well at night when his bed was against the wall with a receptacle. She moved the bed to the middle of the room and now he sleeps better. Her chiropractor suggested that he might be sensitive to the electromagnetic field. Having never heard of such low voltage sensitivity, I suggested the wall paint as a more likely cause. I showed her a non-contact voltage detector and how close it need to be to a wire to register. I also shortened the non-insulated ends of the wire to the minimum to make a suitable connection to the receptacle. Any other suggestions?

 

[Jraef]

In my experience, this kind of discussion generally ends up looking a lot like religion: people have views on the subject that are for the most part intractable.

I for one think this is a whole bunch of nonsense drummed up by people who are looking for all kinds of excuses for things that fall under the "sh-t happens" category but can't accept that level of randomness in life. In this case, the fact that the woman talked to a chiropractor is all the proof I need from the outset.

<launch flame war over the value of chiropractors too>

Yes, "Electrosensitivity" or "Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity" is a "thing" now for the tin-foil hat crowd. It's getting so bad that I've seen adds for "hospitals" that "treat" it by sending their patients to specially designed shielded facilities with zero electrical installations to be "cured" in a week, or more depending on how much money they think they can squeeze out of them. One of these places was near me in the Santa Cruz mountains. They eventually got shut down for health code violations... no electricity meant no clean water, wood fire heating, poor sanitation etc.

Read this article, it covers a lot of how I feel about it. But don't expect that what you say is going to change her mind either. I have a niece who truly believes all this crap because she has Ulcerative Colitis and it is seriously affecting her life. Traditional medicine has a limited response to this unfortunately, so she embarked down the quackery path and landed on Electrosensitivity. She wanted me to help her "shield" all of her electrical systems in her house for her at the behest of her "practitioner" (also a Chiropractor). I don't even know what that would entail and told her it was bunk, the practitioner suggested she try a "chelation therapy" route to remove all of the heavy metals from her system, because it is all these metals in us that make us sensitive to the magnetic fields (mentioned in the article above). Chelation involves ingesting a lot of activated carbon to absorb toxins. I insisted to her Mom (my sister) that she bring this up to her MD, who said that had she done it, it likely would have killed her. Despite all of this, my niece still believes in it...

 

[winnie]

One can go back and forth about the 'reality' of EM sensitivity. IMHO there are people who are EM sensitive, but our understanding of how this works is nil, and most of the practitioners in this field are selling bunk and pseudoscience. There clearly is a _huge_ psychosomatic component to EM sensitivity; IMHO 'true' EM sensitivity is perception of EM fields with no direct harm, combined with a stress response to this perception. 'Fake' EM sensitivity is perception of something associated with EM fields (say seeing wires), combined with a stress response to this perception. The common point: the stress response to the perception. But that is simply my _guess_ as to what is going on.

A past participant on this forum made some very good points that _real_ code violations often greatly increase the level of magnetic fields associated with circuit use, and that it is totally reasonable to locate and fix these code violations. Search for the name 'Karl Riley' both to find past threads on this topic and to find a reasonably balanced approach to reducing EM stresses in the home without going off the deep end of ignoring physics.

My take from what Karl wrote: it is reasonable to look for unbalanced current flow in cables because of mis-wiring. If the hot is not in the same cable as the neutral (with the exception of switch loops and the like where the current in the 'hot' is balanced by current going the other way from the 'switched hot'), or if the neutral from one circuit is tied to the neutral from another circuit, or if a neutral was 'stolen' to make a circuit work.... Any situation where current in one wire is not balanced by current in an immediately adjacent will cause magnetic fields that extend away from the cables and into living space. Such a situation is very likely a code violation which should be fixed.

-Jon

 

[__dan]

I met a woman who could see energy fields in color, yellow and green. I thought it was fascinating. Worked in the home of a woman with chemical sensitivity, everything in the basement was wrapped in plastic. Talking to her, mentally she was put together far better than most.

The post above about the EM field occupying the space between the circuit conductors, a tight bundle of all the circuit conductors nets the EM sum to zero, while widely spacing the circuit conductors causes the EM field to occupy the space between the conductors, every electrician should come to an understanding of this. This would happen with any neutral current flow on the ground paths.

Don't have a link handy but recall reading the military had sought out and discovered a particular microwave frequency that could put words directly into someone's consciousness. Not only in their brains which all EM penetrates, into the brain's awareness.

If I had to make one recommendation, it would be to buy and use the Vitamix. Certainly there could be some problem, but a truly EM sensitive person would find hundreds of places off limits due to high power high and/or high frequency radiation, shopping malls, hospitals, government buildings ...

 

[drcampbell]

The World Health Organization says there's no correlation between electromagnetic hypersensitivty and electromagnetic field exposure.

[h=3]"Studies on EHS individuals[/h] A number of studies have been conducted where EHS individuals were exposed to EMF similar to those that they attributed to the cause of their symptoms. The aim was to elicit symptoms under controlled laboratory conditions.
The majority of studies indicate that EHS individuals cannot detect EMF exposure any more accurately than non-EHS individuals. Well-controlled and conducted double-blind studies have shown that symptoms were not correlated with EMF exposure.
It has been suggested that symptoms experienced by some EHS individuals might arise from environmental factors unrelated to EMF. Examples may include “flicker” from fluorescent lights, glare and other visual problems with VDUs, and poor ergonomic design of computer workstations. Other factors that may play a role include poor indoor air quality or stress in the workplace or living environment.
There are also some indications that these symptoms may be due to pre-existing psychiatric conditions as well as stress reactions as a result of worrying about EMF health effects, rather than the EMF exposure itself.
[h=3]Conclusions[/h] EHS is characterized by a variety of non-specific symptoms that differ from individual to individual. The symptoms are certainly real and can vary widely in their severity. Whatever its cause, EHS can be a disabling problem for the affected individual. EHS has no clear diagnostic criteria and there is no scientific basis to link EHS symptoms to EMF exposure. Further, EHS is not a medical diagnosis, nor is it clear that it represents a single medical problem. ... "

http://www.who.int/peh-emf/publications/facts/fs296/en/

​

 

[charlie b]

She moved the bed to the middle of the room and now he sleeps better.

He sleeps better because he believes it changed his environment, not because it actually did change his environment. My suggestion: walk away. There is nothing our profession can offer that can alter their situation.

 

[Jraef]

Or possibly, because he is a teenager, having the bed in the middle of the room means his charger cord for the phone/tablet no longer reaches, so his Facebook/gaming time under the covers at night is now limited by his battery life... When my son went out on his own, this became a big problem for him, he often went for days with no sleep.

 

[user 100]

In my experience, this kind of discussion generally ends up looking a lot like religion: people have views on the subject that are for the most part intractable.

I for one think this is a whole bunch of nonsense drummed up by people who are looking for all kinds of excuses for things that fall under the "sh-t happens" category but can't accept that level of randomness in life.....

Yes, "Electrosensitivity" or "Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity" is a "thing" now for the tin-foil hat crowd.....

:thumbsup:

Or possibly, because he is a teenager, having the bed in the middle of the room means his charger cord for the phone/tablet no longer reaches, so his Facebook/gaming time under the covers at night is now limited by his battery life...

That is until he figures out that the poisonous fields emanating from his wall receptacle will be trapped by the face plate and cannot be transmitted by a small brown ext cord.......

Lets just see how long the emf crowd would last being deprived of the laptop, the single cup keurig (which of course only ever brews "natural" decaf, which, along with the tofu, came from a "special store"), or any of the other countless modern conveniences they use every day.