I came down with what is now called EMRS (Electromagnetic Radiation Syndrome, previously called EMS/ Electromagnetic Sensitivity) in 2012. I had a range of symptoms most of which I never had had before, including heart palpitations, chronic fatigue (constantly tired), nerve damage to my hands including loss of grip strength, brain fog and leaky gut. My tongue and throat sometimes felt swollen and prickly. My scalp and body often felt prickly. I felt restless, sleepless, and anxious.
I sought medical help to no avail, whether allopathic or alternative practitioners. Finally, two friends said it sounded like I was electrosensitive. I started reading and studying, learning about the issues related to dirty electricity and RF radiation. What I learned led me to understand that the solar system I had installed in 2010 was partially responsible for my condition as were the cordless phones I was using. I got rid of the cordless phones and went to a land line. I installed a whole house electrical filter on my electric panel as well as some individual dirty electricity filters inside the house to clean the dirty electricity. I installed Ethernet throughout my house to avoid Wi-Fi. I started feeling better but since I lived in Los Angeles, there were cell towers and neighbors Wi-Fi so I ended up creating a Faraday cage around my whole house.
My health improved immensely, though it was difficult to go anywhere since the levels of RF radiation almost everywhere are too high for sensitive individuals, and unhealthy for all since the FCC limits are outdated and unsafe. Ongoing, my health has continued to be somewhat problematic including developing thyroid problems which I also attribute to EMF. I continue to have pain in my hands and occasionally other symptoms such as difficulty sleeping. It got too difficult for me in LA. I sold my home in LA and bought a home in the rural mountains, in an area that is currently safe, with no cell towers in my vicinity. My greatest fear is that this safety could easily be threatened by the telecom industry putting a cell tower or small cell up near my home. With the present laws giving too much power to the telecom industry, I would have little or no recourse to do anything about it with the current FCC rules.
I would like to see regulations changed so that cell towers would be banned from proximity to schools as well as from residential areas. The FCC exposure limits should have been changed after EHT won a law suit against the FCC: https://ehtrust.org/transcript-of-press-conference-following-eht-federal-court-victory-over-fcc-wireless-radiation-safety-limits/ but nothing has changed. There are plenty of international independent studies that prove that RF exposure is dangerous (https://www.americansforresponsibletech.org/scientific-studies) but again nothing has changed. There should be more education about the truth of the danger, including to the medical professions. The telecom industry should be publicly required to admit the danger of cell phone, Wi-Fi and other wireless technology. Additionally, children need to be protected with regulations if necessary.
I am an individual, born and living in The Netherlands. I am affected in every part of my life, for over 10 years now. I face increasing digital discrimination and exemption. At the moment I can not work, can not study, social interacting is getting more difficult without a mobile phone. My children can not live with me (not my choice) and live with their dad, I takes the time of a full time job to rebalance myself. I live secluded from society, in the middle of a busy place....no one really seems to care. No doctor wants to or can help.
Although this has all been so so difficult and hard: I am very grateful for being EHS-wired. In an unspoiled natural environment the symphony and poetry of life is singing and dancing in and through me. The down side is that in an electromagnetic polluted environment It is like being in a blender....
I hope with my whole heart EHS will be recognized soon, so all sensitive animals, trees, plants, insects and humans can be restored in the delicate balance of our planets eco-system. Thank you for reading
I am a 72 year old woman in excellent health. I eat well, exercise and get plenty of sleep, usually 8-9 hours per night. I typically get up to use the bathroom once per night. There was a time when my sleep was interrupted. I had trouble falling asleep, staying asleep and getting enough sleep. Since I had changed nothing in my routine, I looked deeper. I discovered that without informing, let alone consulting with me, a smart meter was installed about 20 feet from my head where I sleep. Even though I never authorized this installation, I had to get a doctor's note that I'm EMF sensitive to have it removed. I can't believe it's legal to come onto my property and install any device without authorization, but the power company was unyielding on a human level, which is just wrong. When they came out, they only brought another smart meter. Good thing I was at home. I made it very clear that they were to reinstall the analog version, and the tech had to call around to locate one. I'm in a rural area and many landowners have the analog version and even call in their meter readings, so it's not that the analog meters are in short supply. Since that time, my sleep returned to the original quality and quantity. It seems to me that this falls into informed consent territory. People have the right to choose that which affects their health and safety. I should have been consulted.
I no longer have a life anymore because I can't go out where there are cell towers and activity with enhaced 4G/5G frequencies. I have to wear EMF blocking clothing and shungite just to go into town for normal things like going to the store, and even then I can only be around that amount of EMFs for a few hours. If I'm in it too long I start to have nosebleeds and I also feel a flu-like sickness that goes away after a day from staying out of heavy cell tower areas. Everything I have found online with my symptoms points to microwave sickness, the exact same type that people who say they are hypersensitive to EMFs suffer from. I no longer can work a normal job. My health has been and still is negatively affected by this. The more they add to the cell towers around me, the worse it gets. I have lost friends and everyone thinks I'm crazy because I have been very out spoken about this. 6G is coming soon which means even more EMFs will be added on top of what I'm already suffering from. I have no real future and if I can't secure a reliable source of income I'm looking at being homeless sometime in the future.
I am electrohypersensitive since I had an accident at the dentist with "Paraformaldehyde" in 2008. I swallowed it and got it in the bone. My health got worse and worse over the years. At first, I got red when i was sitting in front of the PC. Didn´t know that it was electrohypersensitivity, because I had never heard about that illness. In 2017 when it was the worst, I couldn´t go to work for years and couldn´t enter my flat anymore. I was disabeld and had to live in the car in the winter although I have a good salary. I felt every smartphone and couldn´t no longer be in the wireless lan. I felt it burn on my skin and got problems with the heart when I came in the near of a wlan router, I had bad headache, insomnia and cognitive problems with foming a sentence. Couldn´t find the words easily. Finally, I became aware that it has something to do with toxins, that had damaged my cell and nerve system. I found a rare doctor who had experience with that and started to get rid of toxines and heavy metals in my body. I have had almost 100 infusions with Dimercaptopropanesulfonic acid (DMPS) up to now. My body couldn´t get rid of these toxines without that DMPS. Then, it got slowly better. After two years I could got to work again. I had to spend lots of my money for the treatment. I live in a house now, but in a flat, I would not be able to live, because of the neighbours wlan. In the case of having an accident and go to hospital, I am not sure if I will survive it. I hope, I can help you with my experience. There are more people in Germany who suffer from EHS but our government constantly ignores us people. We have any Civil Rights. Thanks very much for your intitiative. This is great of you, but the government must consider that few people can relate between the exposure of emf and their suffering. (Aggressive Intoxications like mine are seldom.) The new generations of smartphones, for example the i-pone has radiation, even if you switch it off. Because we have radiation from everywhere at any time, it is nearly impossible to find out that it is radiation, that damages your health. Most people think that the symptoms they have, for example insomia which is widespread in Germany, result from other things. They have no idea that i might be the wlan. Sincce I use an emf canopy, I have no longer problems with sleeping. I suffered from insomnia for ten years. Thank you very much, if you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
There is a cell phone tower about a block away from my house. In 2020 I was playing the piano which is in the front of the house closest to the cell phone tower. My forearms felt as if they were burning. I know that is EMF sensitivity. I had to buy a very expensive anti-EMF device and put it under the piano. Then I could play without the burning sensation.
I first noticed how I was affected by transmission lines about 35 years ago when I was fishing near a hydro-electric dam (Wells Dam) in the Columbia river in Washington State. While spending more than two days at a time fishing around the dam I started getting terrible headaches and it was affecting my ability to focus and I would actually get quite nauseous. When leaving in the evening, my headaches and nausea would disipate rather quickly. Only to return again the next day when back at the same location. In the years to come I would find that any time I would get close to a large distribution pole that had a four-footed base, I would start to feel the same affects as when I was fishing around hydro-electric dams. In fact, when I was looking for property to build our house, there was a large transmission line crossing some state land in Stevens county, WA adjacent to one of the properties we were looking at. That fact was a deciding factor in not purchasing said property because I was concerned about the long-term affects the lines might have on me if I chose to build a home there. To this day I'm still very sensitive to any place with large amounts of electricity running to it.
The roll of out 5G has nearly ruined my life and my health. I have always been sensitive to electromagnetic fields, but 5G is infinitely worse. When I am in an enclosed space (public transportation) with 5G or in close proximity to a wifi router my symptoms start this way. First, I notice a sense of pressure inside my head, followed by intense headache. Then my face and muscles start to hurt and I get ringing in my ears. The more time I spend near it the worse I feel. If the exposure is prolonged I get heart palpitations and nausea. It keeps me from sleeping at night as well. I know this is not psychosomatic because after I connected my commuter in my workstation with an ethernet cable and turned the wifi off, all these symptoms disappeared. I have been able to control to some degree what I am exposed to inside my living space, but public spaces are a different matter. 5G has significantly damaged my ability to participate in life to the point that I cannot work in a public office space and have to limit travel. I have not traveled by plane for 2 years because of this. A change in public policy would hugely impact my life for the better.
I am submitting this comment in response to HHS’s Request for Information on Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs), Radiofrequency (RF) Radiation, and Wireless Radiation Exposure.
I am responding from the perspective of a researcher, environmentalist and advocate for persons with the functional impairment known as electrosensitivity.who has experienced it herself.
My research has documented biological and environmental effects from RF sources such as smart electricity meters and 5G transmissions. I am a member of Life-Environmental Network, a Japanese NGO advocating for the rights of persons with electrosensitivity and multiplechemical sensitivity. I am a US citizen living abroad. I am attaching a summary of my observations on the introduction of smart meters and my full report on changes in flora and fauna coinciding with the introduction of 5G service in the area I currently reside in.
It is important to note that for people with electyrosensitivity, including myself, the world where we can safely conduct our activities has become increasingly narrow. We had to move out of Tokyo to a rural area, in particular for my husband's health, but I also find it hard to tolerate the environment in large cities.I've had to install RF-shielding material at home, and can no longer enjoy eating at restaurants that have introduced wireless ordering equipment.The electrosensitive have to limit their time at public meetings, and many of them cannot tolerate computer equipment enough to participate on line, so our voices are heard infrequently, and many people who know about the problem assume it has been solved because they're not hearing from these people. Over the years, many people I've known with electrosensitivity have died or gone missing. In February 2020, a group of the affected patients assembled in Tokyo to talk with the ministries involved in health and telecommunications. They described their difficulties, including the social stigma they face, and they asked for a "leper colony" where they could live with others similarly affected and recover their health.
Then COVID hit and no one could meet with anyone else, and it was all forgotten. This was Japan, but the people affected in other countries, including the US still exist and still need help. I hope their needs can be taken into consideration.
I am electro sensitive. I have to shield my home from EMFs because I react to them. When my kids turn on their mobile phones when I'm fast asleep I immediately wake up and start shaking. I feel burning on the top of my head and my heart palpitates. I then switch on a broad range microwave meter and sure enough my body is always right about detecting these unwanted microwaves. For me ES is just like any other allergic reaction. I have even fallen over in a shop when the WI Fi was too high. I can no longer shop in my groceries store because their new EMF communications system on the many self-service tills gives me a very strong feeling in my heart and my blood pressure goes sky high without me feeling stressed. It's not stress - it's the new system. It also burns my eyes and makes the skin on my face feel sore. Some people think allergies are psychosomatic but people can't stop a peanut allergy or feeling pain and ES is the same. I can't work because I couldn't sit in an EMF environment for long.
At times in the past when badly exposed I have actually experienced red burns and patches on my face.
I live in an apartment surrounded by other people's routers & wi-fi and mobile phone, blue tooth gadgets etc. My husband and I have had to completely shield all walls facing these other apartments using metal based wallpapers and carbon paint and earthing these to the mains earth to better act as a shield and drain any static build up etc. This has been a horribly painstaking process as only an unbroken surface of shielding with prevent microwave emissions entering the space (Microwaves are pretty tiny...). I have had to use special silver-coated shielding net curtains to block wi-fi from entering through windows from where the neighbors apartment wraps round to face our part of the building. In order to monitor this we have bought a small acoustic and LED monitoring wide range microwave acoustimeter (meter). Which is quite sensitive and we use for diagnosis during and after blocking treatments. At times we have 'over treated' areas and this seems counterproductive and I can't remain in the room feeling some kind of build up. We have to constantly react to neighbors who may move a router, buy a different device and specifically are fighting every new pressure technique to install smart meters for electricity in a small cupboard right the other side of the wall to our apartment - this has been a horrific and ongoing battle and has the potential to ruin our relationship with our sometimes baffled neighbors. Part way through this process our MD Doctor assessed me and diagnosed me as having Electrosensitivity what has been of some help in countering arguments from installers of the smartmeters etc. Engineers lie about the meters swearing blind that they can instal them in 'dumb mode', which is only partially true as the meters still emit a very strong microwave call-and-response signal every minute or so to try and make a connection, and this part of the device cannot be switched off - it is part of how it works.
I am also susceptible to other allergies, have a strong sensitivity to dust, moulds and other allergens.
We would love to move to a detached house in the country away from all exposure but in the UK that is prohibitively expensive. We also live in fear of mobile phone masts of 5G masts being suddenly erected near our house as these can circumnavigate all planning regulations in the UK (In fact they need not even apply in most cases). In all our right to live a peaceful life without microwaves is completely non-existant in reality - we cannot require neighbors to stop their wi-fi entering our property, we cannot require councils not to place mobile phone masts wherever they want and we cannot stop supermarkets, shops or other facilities flooding their premises with microwave emissions with it seems stronger and stronger levels built off the back of being better and better at penetrating through walls etc to give consumers a 'good signal'. This is an extraordinary strain on one's wellbeing and mental health as a single issue encountered could drive us out of our house with no safe place to go that may not be subjected to the same problems suddenly and often irreparably. It is also a strain on family life and friendships as everyone has to be told not to have their phone on in the house, including smartwatches and unfortunately the hearing aid of my mother in law who does visit but can't hear what we are saying because she has to have the hearing aid off (It is a wireless version - all that is available nowadays). When people come in and are 'swept' with the microwave meter they will often get grumpy when they have turned their phone onto airplane mode, then have to be asked to turn off bluetooth as well, then location services and then even when they have given up and powered off the whole device (So they think) we discover that even so they may have a 'Find my Phone' service still on.