Introduction
It is with great pleasure that I write to introduce the world to the dedication of Paula Vetter, FNP-C, Laurie Rossi, RN, and Cindy Edwards, C.B.A. They have been working as a team for several years to distill thousands of pages of academic material on all aspects of diagnosis and treatment of chronic inflammatory response syndromes (CIRS) into a short, concise, reader-accessible manual. This publication belongs on the desk of every physician who sees patients with CIRS, every patient who has concerns about a multi-system, multi-symptom illness, and anyone who lives, works or goes to school in the interior environment of a water-damaged building (WDB).
The blunt facts are that CIRS is incredibly common in today’s American society. Back in 2011, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health published their opinions that suggested that as many as 50% of US buildings were water-damaged. 50% seems low based on surveys taken by thousands of patients.
Well, so what? Who needs a manual about treatment? WDB never hurt a flea, much less a person, right? Nope. CIRS is one of the most compelling reasons for the explosion of CFS, fibromyalgia and “depression” seen in the US.
So many people ill from WDB? How can that be? The answer is simple: It is all based on inflammation that is rooted in innate immune responses to “foreign invaders,” called antigens. The inside of a WDB is always a soup of antigens, with sources coming from microbes like fungi, actinomycetes and bacteria. Mycotoxins make up about 1% of the risk (not a typo. Mycotoxins are trivial in importance compared to actinomycetes and bacteria). Antigen detection leads to inflammation, with harmful gene activation just a moment away from innate immune inflammation.
If we assume that only half of the people in the US might have exposure to WDB that means that maybe 160 million people are at risk for development of CIRS. Since we know that only 25% of all patients have the genetic makeup (HLA haplotype) that can create increased relative risk (susceptibility) to the innate immune illness that is CIRS that means that 40 million people in the US could possibly have problems related to untreated innate immune inflammation.
What that number means is that we add up the number of patients with symptoms-only diagnoses like fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Post Lyme syndrome, reflex sympathetic dystrophy, even depression, as well as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and many others we get about 40 million. There are real possibilities that the 40 million number of patients with untreated chronic inflammatory illness is right on the button.
If WDB adds to the problems of those with Post-Lyme, and that occurrence surely is true, the good news is that we have peer-reviewed published documentation of efficiency of a treatment protocol, which step by step will arbitrarily take about one month (each) to correct one abnormality followed by another of innate immune inflammation. Following this protocol gives physicians the ability to measure objective parameters each step along the way, verifying the time for the next step has arrived. We also have the capability to correct differential genomic activation (transcriptomics). Finally, we can show that use of this sequential protocol corrects multinuclear atrophy of grey matter structures in the brain.
These are stunning results.
A barrier to understanding CIRS and its application to treatment of complex illnesses requires learning a new jargon; requires learning a new language; and demands rigorous approaches to science where assumptions are not tolerated and only one step at a time is undertaken with monitoring of each step along the way. We don’t permit guesses; we don’t permit assumptions, we don’t permit speculation. Follow the data!
How is a person supposed to understand this jargon, this new language? The answer is right in front of you. Paula Vetter working together with her colleagues, Laurie Rossi and Cindy Edwards, makes the complexity of language and the complexity of science come alive. Imagine making transcriptomics and antigen presentation easy to read!
I recommend anyone with an interest in never-ending, multi-symptom, multisystem illnesses, especially those acquired following exposure to the interior environment of WDB, to read and learn what these three authors have given to us.
This manual is a prize. This manual is indeed the living legacy of Paula, Laurie and Cindy.
Ritchie C. Shoemaker, MD
Pocomoke, Md
The blunt facts are that CIRS is incredibly common in today’s American society. Back in 2011, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health published their opinions that suggested that as many as 50% of US buildings were water-damaged. 50% seems low based on surveys taken by thousands of patients.
Well, so what? Who needs a manual about treatment? WDB never hurt a flea, much less a person, right? Nope. CIRS is one of the most compelling reasons for the explosion of CFS, fibromyalgia and “depression” seen in the US.
So many people ill from WDB? How can that be? The answer is simple: It is all based on inflammation that is rooted in innate immune responses to “foreign invaders,” called antigens. The inside of a WDB is always a soup of antigens, with sources coming from microbes like fungi, actinomycetes and bacteria. Mycotoxins make up about 1% of the risk (not a typo. Mycotoxins are trivial in importance compared to actinomycetes and bacteria). Antigen detection leads to inflammation, with harmful gene activation just a moment away from innate immune inflammation.
If we assume that only half of the people in the US might have exposure to WDB that means that maybe 160 million people are at risk for development of CIRS. Since we know that only 25% of all patients have the genetic makeup (HLA haplotype) that can create increased relative risk (susceptibility) to the innate immune illness that is CIRS that means that 40 million people in the US could possibly have problems related to untreated innate immune inflammation.
What that number means is that we add up the number of patients with symptoms-only diagnoses like fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Post Lyme syndrome, reflex sympathetic dystrophy, even depression, as well as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and many others we get about 40 million. There are real possibilities that the 40 million number of patients with untreated chronic inflammatory illness is right on the button.
If WDB adds to the problems of those with Post-Lyme, and that occurrence surely is true, the good news is that we have peer-reviewed published documentation of efficiency of a treatment protocol, which step by step will arbitrarily take about one month (each) to correct one abnormality followed by another of innate immune inflammation. Following this protocol gives physicians the ability to measure objective parameters each step along the way, verifying the time for the next step has arrived. We also have the capability to correct differential genomic activation (transcriptomics). Finally, we can show that use of this sequential protocol corrects multinuclear atrophy of grey matter structures in the brain.
These are stunning results.
A barrier to understanding CIRS and its application to treatment of complex illnesses requires learning a new jargon; requires learning a new language; and demands rigorous approaches to science where assumptions are not tolerated and only one step at a time is undertaken with monitoring of each step along the way. We don’t permit guesses; we don’t permit assumptions, we don’t permit speculation. Follow the data!
How is a person supposed to understand this jargon, this new language? The answer is right in front of you. Paula Vetter working together with her colleagues, Laurie Rossi and Cindy Edwards, makes the complexity of language and the complexity of science come alive. Imagine making transcriptomics and antigen presentation easy to read!
I recommend anyone with an interest in never-ending, multi-symptom, multisystem illnesses, especially those acquired following exposure to the interior environment of WDB, to read and learn what these three authors have given to us.
This manual is a prize. This manual is indeed the living legacy of Paula, Laurie and Cindy.
Ritchie C. Shoemaker, MD
Pocomoke, Md