From Betty Biggs, Grove Springs, Missouri

I am highly sensitive to cologne, perfume, after shave lotion and also fabric softener, oven cleaner, Purex, scented toilet paper—any products with chemicals in them. Some colognes affect me more than others. In church, if a few women are wearing cologne, a few men are wearing after shave, and it gets warm and the fans start circulating the air, I have to get up and leave. People with cologne think I’ll be okay as long as they don’t get next to me or hug me, not realizing that just being in the same room affects me.

If I get a strong exposure to any of them, it takes me three or four days to get over it. If I get three or four exposures close together, my heart valves go into spasms and start closing down, I get a very irregular heart beat, and then I’m down for three or four weeks to recuperate. I had to go home for a few days during the Feast of Tabernacles to recuperate before I went back.

What I have to do to protect myself is run from it. The doctor says I better run when my heart rate gets down to 50 beats per minute, because my heart could stop completely. My rate has gotten down to as low as 38 beats per minutes. When that has happened, I started sweating profusely.

I knew for a long time I was allergic to colognes, but I didn’t know that is what was causing my heart problems. I was working in the County Health Center in Eminence, Missouri, in 1988 when a lady walked in wearing strong lilac perfume and I passed out. Naturally I suspected the perfume was at least part of the cause.

I went to Dr. Steven Turner, a heart specialist in Springfield, Missouri, because of my heart problems. At first, he thought I might need a pacemaker. Around 1994, he catheterized my heart in order to examine the inside of it. While my heart was catheterized, someone brought in some flowers with a perfumed card. My heart valves immediately went into spasms. That convinced Dr. Turner that scents from colognes were the main problem. He said my heart was strong, my valves worked well, and there was not a plaque buildup in my arteries. He said he previously had a patient whose pacemaker didn’t do any good because they discovered later that her problem was sensitivity to colognes.

I told the allergy specialists about a butane tank blowing up next to me around 1951 and how it burned the hairs inside my nose. He thought the exposure to butane and the loss of the protective hairs may have contributed to my inability to tolerate many scents.

We moved to Wyoming about 1989, and I started going to an allergy specialist in Casper, Wyoming. That specialist said they were seeing more and more asthma in children, and he suspected much of it was because of exposure to synthetic colognes. He wondered, "What will all these children be suffering with when they are grown?"

We were friends with a church family there, and the wife and three daughters all wore colognes. The man regularly had asthma and his wife regularly had headaches. After learning what made me sick, the females all quit wearing colognes for my sake. Right away, he quit having asthma and she quit having headaches.

We moved back to Missouri about 1993, but diesel fumes from trucks and smoke from the neighbor burning trash bothered me a lot. In 1998, we moved to this farm, where we have no diesel fumes, no smoke from factories or burning trash, or any pollution. We raise our own food now, which helps too.

I have often felt, "What’s the matter with me? Am I a freak?" People think you have a flimsy excuse when you have to stay home. People just don’t understand. If I can help anyone else understand this problem, that’s what I’d like to do.