EHS – My story

Electro Hyper Sensitivity (EHS)

13th May 2016
By Richard Kimberley.

Becoming electro-hypersensitive (EHS) was a complete life changer and an absolute blow that was totally unexpected. In August 2013 I landed myself the business premises and home that I’d always wanted, a combined setup with the shop on a main road and the house above/behind it. When I moved there, my health was spot on, I was a gym addict, healthy eater and felt like I could take on the world… Little did I know that not too far down the line, the world it seems is what I’ve had to take on.

I was Mr. Technology

My business was computer, mobile phone and tablet repairs. Something I had done for 20 years but the move in 2013 transformed a struggling one man band into a company with several employees and going in the right direction at long last. I’d set the building up with several wifi networks, multiple cordless phones, bluetooth devices everywhere, mobile phones galore. You name the wireless device, I had it somewhere! For me, this was heaven, I was Mr. Technology. The last thing I’d do before I closed my eyes at night was check my phone, before putting it on charge next to my bed (still turned on!).

After pretty much spending 24 hours a day in and around the building for the next year and a half, I found myself developing symptoms which I couldn’t explain. I’d wake up 5 or 6 times on a good night and in the morning I felt like I hadn’t been to bed. My joints were aching and I couldn’t explain it. This became so bad that I was practically unable to walk down the stairs first thing in the morning. I’d have headaches during the day and no matter how hard I tried, I just could not concentrate or focus my mind on anything. My memory was awful and my temper was worse! I felt atrocious, and I had no idea why. Some days, the room would sway around me and other days I’d stand at the counter and completely forget what I was talking about whilst in mid conversation with a customer; leaving me looking pretty stupid and my staff looking shocked. I knew I had a problem but I didn’t know what it was.

Microwave Radiation

I started spending weekend nights at my small touring caravan, half hour away from work. I did this thinking perhaps I just needed a break from the shop, a change of scenery. Each night in the caravan, I slept perfectly. To then return home and be back to no sleep. Something at the house was causing my sleeping problems. At first I thought it might be people or cars outside so I had triple glazing fitted to the bedroom; this made almost no difference to my sleep. The room was warmer though. One afternoon, I had to make a call to the Three mobile phone network to discuss my phone contract. I was on the phone for a matter of minutes before I almost passed out and had to go and lie down. The mobile phone badly affected me! The cordless phones at work were giving me a headache almost instantly! At that point I knew wireless devices, specifically microwave radiation emitting devices, were causing me discomfort. But these devices are safe or they wouldn’t be selling them, right? Wrong.

I did a lot of research online, as did my Mother who was in her 70s at the time. We discovered various websites with information about EMF. I ordered various metering devices to try and find out what exactly was causing my problems. Was it really my mobile phone or cordless landlines? Could it be my Bluetooth mouse or the WiFi? Perhaps it could be the wireless alarm system at the shop or the numerous Bluetooth barcode scanners we use. What about my Bluetooth music streaming that I use in the car.? Before the meters arrived, all I knew was I was ok in the caravan but not at the house. My research showed me that a metal enclosure blocked radio signals and I was pretty sure that’s what I needed to get away from. Whilst waiting for the meters to arrive, I got to the point where I couldn’t cope with anymore nights in my bedroom. I had a shed at the bottom of the garden, falling down and full of spiders. This would be my retreat – project shed commenced. I lined the entire shed with thick aluminium foil – walls, ceiling, floor, the lot. Over a short period, I converted this dilapidated shed into a lovely log cabin style mini home – an EMF retreat. I was that desperate to get out of the house that I started sleeping in the shed long before it was finished. Soon though, it was finished, complete with wood burner for heating (until the neighbours moaned!). I had a place to sleep where I didn’t wake up all night long.

The meters finally arrived and I soon got the hang of their workings. The building was horrific, off the scale with microwave radiation. I literally walked around the place with a box and ripped out every last wireless device until the meter readings improved. All these removed devices were replaced that week with wired replacements. Gone were the wireless keyboards/mice, all the Bluetooth devices, Wi-Fi was removed completely, customer’s phones were turned off before putting them into their storage bays, the cordless phones were replaced by wired telephones. I was on the way to sorting the problem! My symptoms however, persisted. I still could not sleep in the house, and I was still ill and getting worse. One evening, I decided to walk outside and towards the road with my RF meter. I was astonished, as soon as I opened the front door, it was in the “bad” scale. A walk up the road saw the meter progress from bad to worse, then to severe. My friend, Kurt, and I looked straight ahead and spotted two enormous mobile phone masts! As we reached the base of these masts, the meter was off the scale and I wasn’t far off keeling over. Two huge masts serving three separate mobile phone networks.

Had I found the final culprits? It seems so, combined with several other masts around the same distance away in the opposite direction to the house. By now, my EHS symptoms were getting worse almost day by day. I’d even had spiritual mediums visit the house in case it was something paranormal causing the problems, and all they could say is “can’t you hear the EMF buzzing away?” No, but I sure could feel it, it seems. Inside the shed was as good as it got, but as soon as I stepped outside, I felt the effects. I also tried many other things to combat the problem, such as dirty electricity meters and filters, creating a shielded office, etc. I just wasn’t getting any better though.

I decided to stay at the caravan every night. The shed was good for me, but only while I was inside it and let’s be honest, being imprisoned in a 12×8 shed isn’t exactly living life! I got used to commuting to work each day pretty easily, especially as once I got to the caravan I started to feel human again. But not for long. The caravan was parked up in a field and the meters suggested the field was reasonable. My sleeping started off being brilliant but gradually I went back to waking in the night. I had no mobile phone in there, I had ditched mine. The meters said inside the caravan was fairly good, but my body didn’t agree. What I needed was a caravan that’s shielded like the shed! Even better, I needed to be able to work from there too so I didn’t have to spend as much time in that horrible building; the same building two years previously which was my lifelong dream come true.

Enter… Beyond.

I started converting my old Luton van, which had been sitting redundant as a giant advertising board in a near by car park. I parked it up next to the caravan and the aluminium foil lining commenced! The more time I spent at work, the more sensitive I was becoming.  I now had a very limited life – gone were the days of being able to go to a friend’s house or to the local pub for tea. A supermarket full of people with smartphones in their pockets or on their ears was living hell. Shops where staff use Bluetooth headsets were the worst. My temper was beyond my control when surrounded by RF. The best I could do was go to a pub with outdoor tables, where my partner at the time would go in and order while I waited at the table. We did this right through the winter until the food was going cold between plate and mouth. The staff at various places got to know us as the ones who sit outside. I found it hugely embarrassing.

I made the decision to walk away from working full time at the business and made my head technician into the manager. I was going to work on the Luton van full time, not only to get it finished, but to be away from the bad EMF at work. I moved into the van in October 2015 as soon as the bed was finished. The meter says it’s perfect inside and my head agrees. The caravan became my tool and timber store for a while, then it was sold. So it seems the van is an EMF haven for me. The more time I spend away from EMF, the better I feel – until I go back into it.

Becoming sensitive has turned my life upside down. There are so many places I can no longer go to. I see people on their phones walking around and instantly loathe them – but it’s not their fault, they don’t know, they don’t understand. Sometimes I get confused when I’m driving and it always seems to be when there’s a mast near by. My business that I’ve worked for 20 years to build up, I’m almost no longer able to be a proper part of it. But I was fortunate for a short while that it was running without me being there. Would it continue to do so? Hell no. When you read about this condition, one major thing most people seem to develop is severe depression. I avoided that and did everything I could to make the best of my situation – it set me free of the rat race, it prevented me pickling myself with dangerous technology, it allowed me to live a life of freedom, able to travel, etc. Sort of.

No longer “connected” 24/7

People started to get the hang of the fact I had no mobile phone pretty quickly. I couldn’t text and I couldn’t be reached on WhatsApp 24/7. I had satellite broadband and a satellite landline in the van. For when these weren’t on (night time) I fitted an old school 1990’s Nokia car phone to the van, which my landline diverted to. Just the handset beside my desk, with the workings and aerial on the roof. The meter was still all good. My computer was wired and people could email me or phone my landline if they wanted me. I still had technology, but I used it safely. The car phone stopped me being cut off from the world, if there was an emergency in the night, I could be contacted. The meter wasn’t too happy when the phone was “in call” but when it was just in standby, it read nil. So for emergency use, it was perfect. I found a Samsung tablet which could be plugged into a wired network via an adapter, so I bought one for when I’m away and want to save power rather than using the laptop.

I also discovered that certain mains appliances made me feel ill when they were running and I was around them. Examples of these were electric heaters, fridges, freezers, hairdryers, etc.

Although the van does have an inverter to provide mains power, I rarely used it. The electronic devices in the van such as laptop, monitor, DVD, etc. were powered directly from the battery bank – no mains electricity involved, just pure DC current. The fridge is run off LPG.

To be continued…

 

 

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