Home Detox: Phthalates An Anxiety Inducer?- My Story
Phthalates and Anxiety - My Experience
My Experience
About two years after creating a chemical-free home I was in my kitchen taking advantage of my daughter's nap time to do something enjoyable and painting a little tin box with some nail polish. A half-a-minute into the project I started to feel light-headed and extremely anxious. Focusing became difficult and I began having trouble breathing. I sunk down to my knees and did my best to focus on taking deep breaths and telling myself that everything was okay, eventually coaching myself through a panic attack. Wait... a panic attack...? A minute before I was completely happy, relaxed and about to do a cute little project. I was enjoying an easy, stay-at-home life with absolutely NO reason to feel stressed out. So what gives?
I thought It was just a weird coincidence so later that night I tried to re-attempt my task but as I opened the nail polish bottle again the same thing began happening. I quickly shut it tight and ran out of the room so it wouldn't overcome me as it did earlier. I threw away the bottle but continued to notice that any time I smelled certain nail polishes or fragrances I would start to feel anxious or light-headed. Sometimes it would take a few minutes to recover. So I tried to avoid these as much as possible while out, but not entirely understanding what was happening.
I've always thought it was strange that whatever was bothering me so much was in fragrance as well as nail polish, two very different things. Recently, however I was learning more about pthalates, a known endocrine (hormone) disrupter, and I discovered that it is most commonly used in nail polish and fragrances, what a super interesting find that was for me! It is a small link and it may be a different chemical altogether that is causing my symptoms but definitely a big correlation for me. Our bodies are amazing at building up tolerances. I feel that because of the many years I was exposed to these chemicals I was able to tolerate them, but now that I've detoxed my system of them, I am now very sensitive to the way they effect me. Synthetic chemicals effect everyone to a certain degree but not all of us feel it as strongly, especially since our bodies can adjust to compensate for exposure.
Phthalates
I've always thought it was strange that whatever was bothering me so much was in fragrance as well as nail polish, two very different things. Recently, however I was learning more about pthalates, a known endocrine (hormone) disrupter, and I discovered that it is most commonly used in nail polish and fragrances, what a super interesting find that was for me! It is a small link and it may be a different chemical altogether that is causing my symptoms but definitely a big correlation for me. Our bodies are amazing at building up tolerances. I feel that because of the many years I was exposed to these chemicals I was able to tolerate them, but now that I've detoxed my system of them, I am now very sensitive to the way they effect me. Synthetic chemicals effect everyone to a certain degree but not all of us feel it as strongly, especially since our bodies can adjust to compensate for exposure.
Want to learn a bit more about Phthalates?
Here is a great place: https://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2008/05/cheatsheet-phthalates#.WhDublWnHIU
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