The following is a *partial* list of the physical maladies that I have
experienced from time-to-time over the last NINE years of being
exposed to illicit drug lab fumes. These symptoms were not experienced
all at the same time nor all of the time. Things depended on the given
location (remember, there were five of them) and the exact chemical
content/concentration of the air.
Super severe headaches (very uncharacteristic of me);
Severe eye irritation with the eye white turning solidly red;
Incredible eyeball pain with the fear of losing the eyeball to eye
cancer;
Welts of the white of the eye;
Perforated eardrum from highly acidic (or alkaline) fumes in the air;
Sensation in my gums as if all of my teeth were about to fall out;
Oral lesions, lots of them of varying nature in all places in the oral
cavity including the tongue;
Chemical burns of the palate of the mouth;
Discoloration of the face and lips;
Horrific rosacea of the face which persisted for months;
Raised skin welts over the cheekbones, at the corners of the lips, and
below the lower lip;
Chronic fatigue;
Oddball sensations and pains in the soft tissue within the lower jaw
under the tongue and in the groin area and in the genitals;
Yellow feces with the need to defecate 4 times per day;
Passing of food in as little as 2 hours, well below the normal 24 to
48 hours;
Extreme pain in the gut particularly in the area of the pancreas,
liver and tranverse colon;
Exteme anal muscular pain that radiated into the buttocks and thighs
and sometimes farther down the left leg. I'd want to pull my hair out
and scream out at the top of my lungs when this occurred;
Severe testicular pain making it almost impossible to walk;
A lingering, awful chemical taste in the mouth even when off premises;
Super severe buring of the tongue like it was on fire in the middle of
the night;
Thinning of the hair, not just thinning of the population of the hair
shafts, but also thinning of the diameter of each hair shaft making my
hair fur-like;
Accelerated greying of the hair;
Severe pain in the feet particularly after inactivity like sitting for
extended periods on a bus or in front of a computer screen;
Development of a sizable conical bump on the head where all of the
hair broke off into stubble and where there was excruciating pain
every five minutes like clockwork. This pain would radiate down to the
sinus cavity or oral cavity and sometimes to the ear;
Very oddball nausea and other odd distress of the intestinal tract;
Oddball joint pain in the wrists, knees, and ankles with occasional
knee failure, in other words: "giving way of the knees;"
Extreme irritation of the throat with the development of a growth in
the throat, probably cancerous or pre-cancerous that severely impaired
the ability to swallow correctly while, at times, causing a gagging or
vomitting reflex;
Enlargement of the uvula (the thing that hangs at the back of the
mouth) so much so that it was being swallowed with food and fluids;
Lung pain with hyper sensitivity to cold winter air;
Suspect tooth decay believed to be caused by highly acidic fumes in
the air plus attendant tooth aches... really bad ones depending on the
current nature of the air quality;
Incredible anal burning well beyond anything considered normal with
occasional rectal bleeding (once very significant bleeding);
Super severe bladder pains which seemed to signal imminent death with
lesser occurances of such pains;
Heart pains as if a stake were being pounded into it;
Extremely stiff neck, shoulder, and shoulder blade with extreme pain
at the slightest attempt to move. This condition could really be
described as debilitating;
Super severe constriction of the esophagus as if it were being
strangled while simultaneously being pulled in opposite directions.
This was far more tortorous than you can possibly imagine;
Neurological problems like electrical shocks/tingling throughout the
extremities;
Sometimes deep internal "quaking" of the extremities or spine;
Muscle spasms/twitches everywhere with some muscles being especially
and persistently active;
Jerking extremities in bed with some full-body jerks;
Super severe pains of fibromyalgia in the legs and feet, so much so
that it was thought that amputations were in order;
Super severe, almost unrelenting leg cramps in bed. In one instance,
the entire left calf muscle tightened into an agonizing ball about as
big and hard as a baseball, and it would not relent for what seemed to
be forever;
A minor cough set off a back pain near the right shoulder blade that
was as bad as being stabbed by a huge jagged knife. This had me trying
to run away from the pain. I got only two steps away; I yelled out in
pain at the top of my lungs, then I hit the floor where I rolled up
into a ball in an attempt to find a position to minimize the pain
which seemed to last forever;
Symptoms of Guillain-Barre and/or multiple sclerosis in my arms to the
point where it seemed that I was about to totally lose the use of both
arms;
Numbness/paralysis of both hands in the middle of the night;
Inability to recover from very minor injuries, the sites of which
experienced great pain way out of proportion to the seriousness of the
injuries for many, many months;
Discoloration of the hands and fingers on the palm side. Why, it
looked like I had pressed my hands on the shocking pink/orange wet
paint of a wall;
Malordor of my feces. For one extended period last year, my feces
smelled like a combination of sour dairy and latex paint. More
recently, the malodor is of some indescribable chemical nature. This
same malodor has been detected on my breath, on my socks, under my
toenails, and under the foreskin;
Occasional feelings of generally being deathly ill in very odd ways.
In summary, the last NINE years of my life have been fun... real fun.
My original message follows...
lbsleuth@yahoo.com (L.B. Sleuth) wrote in message news:<e79f4cc6.0308090547.2e5384d5@posting.google. com>...
