I don’t want to wish horrible things, but honestly, is there no-one in your acquaintance who has an issue which has been misdiagnosed or takes some time to diagnose?

Is there no-one in your acquaintance who insists they have some sort of health problem when it seems fairly clear that, in fact, they have no such problem?  Munchausen Syndrome and hypochondria aren’t exactly rare; less rare than complaints of EM sensitivity certainly.

Have you never had something which seems inexplicable?  I hope you never do, but at the same time, have some compassion!

I don’t see how doubting this guy’s dubious self-diagnosis is mutually incompatible with compassion for the guy.  Mental illness is still illness, and hypothesizing that this guy’s illness is mental rather than physiological (as most posters have done) or that his symptoms are physiological but not due to EM sensitivity (as Antinous has been arguing) does not denigrate the man or betray lack of compassion on the part of the writer.

If I had a friend who was down on his luck and insisted that it was the result of some bizarre conspiracy bent on ruining his life would I only be “compassionate” if I took his word on it?  Of course not.  I’d feel even worse for him in that case than if he chalked it up to bad luck and got on with his life.

In this case, we have a phenomenon that is very easily testable, and yet there isn’t much in the way of established science on it.  You also seem to have a poor understanding of EM.  For example:

And, oh yeah, people evolved for sunlight and other commonplace aspects of EM exposure.

Unless you can demonstrate that there is a difference between the EM radiation emitted by the sun and EM radiation emitted by literally anything else that emits EM, this argument is completely meaningless.  The sun emits across a massive range of frequencies so:

  You simply didn’t evolve to be exposed to that frequency of EM.

Simply makes you sound even more poorly informed on this subject.  And its inevitably the anti-science “everything you know is wrong” mysterians who makes these kinds of basic mistakes with the science, not the skeptics. 

Maybe you’re right that there’s a credibility and bias problem on both sides, but that doesn’t mean those problems exist at the same level.  Let’s also not forget that along with the EM radiation issue skeptics have to deal with homeopaths, vaccine “skeptics”, and dozens of other varieties of health fraud, of which this EM sensitivity thing really looks like just another example.

larisa001 linked to a few studies above.  That’s problematic because she only linked to studies supporting her position which makes it impossible to compare those several positive results against similar studies with negative results, but it is a far more credible approach than yours.

Quite true, and if Mr. Inkley was asking “Please help me to get a diagnosis and find a treatment for this physical problem I’ve got” I’d be totally on his side.

However, he seems to have made up his mind that he’s allergic to wireless transmissions and will brook no alternate explanation whatever.  That seems to limit the potential for any intervention on his behalf.

:)

If the effect was real, but the onset was over tens of minutes or even hours, that could explain one part of victim complaints and failed testing.

A basic question for victims then is:  if a Faraday Cage really solves the problem, how long does it take for the problem to cease once you enter the cage?   How long does it take to reappear once you leave the cage or just open the door?

Without knowing this time constant, we could be ignorantly turning RF sources on and off with no possible effect on the victim, then wrongly insisting this demonstrates lack of any effect.

These were VT amateur radio transmitters, they involve no ultrasound but produced 60 & 120Hz, 300KHz, 10MHz, plus were in a separate room.

> The person isn’t detecting RF

Not “possibly” or “probably?” Why such a confident decision?  It’s based on completely wrong speculation.  To avoid fooling ourselves, we must carefully avoid biases caused by belief *or* disbelief.

After this event I later found out that human sensitivity to very strong RF fields is a known effect (though hearing radio stations far from transmitters, that’s not.)   Our signals were CW, no audio involved, FEW HUNDRED-WATT CW transmitters.

The devices were in a different room, on the other side of a normal sheetrock wall (very bad for passing high freq audio.)  Their transformers were part of amateur radio transmitters: one was actually in a distant room on a different floor of the museum, the other inside a metal enclosure inside a wooden enclosure  …in a separate room from where we were standing.

If she wanted to hoax it, she could have simply carried an AM radio with earphone: no need for hearing ultrasound (which almost certainly was lacking in the first place.)

This was an older, very non-techie woman who was at the museum trying to locate a device which in the past had apparently produced the same “head noise-pain” effect she was experiencing at home.  Probably not acoustic, since she said plugging her ears didn’t reduce it.  We tried her on several different items from our physics-show before she responded strongly to VT Tesla coils.  STRONG response, yelling when we first turned it on.  She claimed to not be able to approach a third desktop-style two-tube CW VTTC coil closer than a couple meters, saying the effect was too painful to tolerate.  When she first responded to that one, she was about 10M away.

Accidental blind testing: she responded strongly when the coil in a separate room was accidentally turned on by another worker who’d noticed the exhibit not working: she unexpectedly fled from standing 3m from the wall, saying “that thing’s back on!”

The other shoe drops:  she lives in Framingham MA, a Ratheon national R&D center for military radar development.   Good luck with that. It could be far worse than living near commercial airport radar.  We told her about Faraday Cages and aluminum-foil foam insulation panels, but never heard back again.

One was 300KHz vacuum tube tesla coil, completely silent to normal ears, but also positioned in a separate room on the other side of a wall, perhaps 10M distant.   The other was 10MHz VT Tesla Coil about 30M away on a different floor of the museum, with a cable leading up to the display which was 10M distant and behind a wall.

Was it caused by metal implants?  Perhaps not, since her daughter claimed to have the same problem.

Your fixation on a “DECT phone” doesn’t change the situation radically from this “WiFi allergy”, which has been researched theoretically and directly.

“Secondly: I find it quite arrogant to call me delusional without even leaving me the benefit of doubt.”

And your assumption of the flawlessness of human understanding, certainly yours isn’t arrogant? Just because you feel that it can’t be psychosomatic doesn’t make it somehow not psychosomatic.

Delusion is only a perspective, if you choose to distance yourself from reality you can’t possibly expect everyone to assume you’re correct because you’re sincere.

Sorry to hear you have these issues.  Have you spoken with a building biologist, who can take readings in your home with a radio frequency (RF) meter and a gauss meter to see what is affecting you and from which direction it’s coming?

There is shielding paint and window film / curtains available which may be cheaper than moving, and have provided relief for other people suffering from EM sensitivity.  There are bed canopies which are easier too, if you just want to get good sleep so you can face the day.  :-)

Incidentally, those of you who wish to know, these meters mentioned above are nice, scientific meters, with measurable, provable, scientific results… (repeatable, too)

I agree, wifi should be turned off at night, let everyone get a good night’s sleep.  The RF meter I use has the optional volume control, so you can hear the signal… horrible.  Even if the body / brain can hear that signal (because you can “hear” things below hearing level and it can be an issue) it would be very irritating and tiring… I’m not saying this IS the issue, but if it is, it’s potentially harmful, just like any noise is.

As for “proof” that this is an issue, please see these links:

http://english.pravda.ru/health/07-06-2012/121339-generation_digital-0/

http://www.news.com.au/technology/brain-surgeon-dr-charlie-teo-warns-against-mobiles-home-appliances/story-e6frfro0-1225791947213

I also agree with Antinous – just because current science doesn’t have a diagnosis for this issue doesn’t mean it isn’t real.  I will cite the old cases of people with stroke or epilepsy being treated as insane, demon possessed and “treated” with electroconvulsive shock therapy or exorcism.  Just because we don’t understand it, doesn’t mean it’s not real.  There are millions of people around the world using and enjoying the effects of gravity, without a clue how it works or what it is.  :-) 

Arbitrarily deciding, with no medical experience (and none of you have mentioned any) and without actually speaking to this guy, that you “know” that this guy is delusional or speaking rubbish, or full of it, is extremely arrogant and I might even say rude.  I don’t want to wish horrible things, but honestly, is there no-one in your acquaintance who has an issue which has been misdiagnosed or takes some time to diagnose?

Have you never had something which seems inexplicable?  I hope you never do, but at the same time, have some compassion!

I can only ask: what do you want me to take away from this?

That the people who are saying, “He’s just crazy; give him anti-depressants.” are no different than doctors giving patients cocaine to pep them up before they understood and could test for hypothyroidism. Or doctors who sedated women because they regarded their symptoms as ‘hysterics’. Just because we don’t know why he’s having his symptoms, doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have a physiological problem that could be uncovered by further diagnostic work.

I would also like you to take away better reading comprehension since I never once suggested that his problems have anything to do with EM, just that sedating people to get rid of their symptoms is bad medicine.

Here’s a fact you should acknowledge: Let’s take violent video games. I have played them a lot and I never ever felt the urge to go on a shooting spree. Also, the people who tend to attack this sort (or any sort) of video games are in my eyes for the most part puritan, paranoid conservatives. This last fact results in me dismissing any argument that wants to link some video games with tragic events as the ever recurring sermons of backward thinking nutters. But if I am really honest to myself, I have to admit that I actually don’t have any idea about anyone but myself and how I react to these games. What I want to say is that electromagnetic sensitivity is widely linked to magical thinking and paranoia or just ignorance, esoterism, hippie crap, ufologism, you name it because many of these guys, as I already said, happily jumped on the bandwagon (often to sell some crappy shielding devices or pseudo-therapeutic humdrum) and it’s quite hard to see that not all belong to this certainly widely delusional group. I certainly don’t, I can assure you and I’m also quite a fan of Penn and Teller’s Bullshit ;)

I am sorry if I insulted you or someone in some way though – and I do believe we should take his symptoms seriously. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore the research done. Blind faith doesn’t cut it for me I prefer the actuall scientific research. Sorry again

Choice is good, right?

So… you discard this guy’s logically-solid case history because it doesn’t fit with your pre-conceived paradigm about what could be happening.  Could he be lying?  Yes.  But you didn’t accuse of that.  Interesting.

I’ve also now seen “debunkers” on here now admitting that certain frequences and powers (i.e. sunlight, radar, cell phones) might indeed effect people (with effects supported by mainstream studies+evidence), but making a knee-jerk dismissal of any problematic symptoms due to anything that might be found in a consumer device. And on what grounds have you determined that there is no sensitivity out there in the wild that would actually register severely for some small percentage of the population , even if most of us have no or a small measurable reaction?
Rather, it seems to me a logical near-certainty that if there is ANY measurable adverse effect from EM in “edge case” frequencies/powers, the effects are probably more widespread in the edges of the bell curve for subject (population) distribution.

And, oh yeah, people evolved for sunlight and other commonplace aspects of EM exposure.  Duh.   You wouldn’t stick your head in a microwave oven.  Power density is not the ONLY thing that distinguishes it from sunlight.   You simply didn’t evolve to be exposed to that frequency of EM.   Its perfectly plausible that very low-power frequencies that are not common in nature could have an outsized effect in a minority of the population.I think there’s as much superstition, and “scientitianism” on this site as anything out there.

It has been tested, extensively, and has been found to be false.  If you are experiencing pain, please seek medical attention.

Yawn.

The very descriptions of your problem have nothing to do with science, I don’t think anyone’s concerned.

“there’s probably a huge psychological component. But at least part of the effect is real.”

Absolutely. That’s the very definition of psychosomatic.

It’s exactly like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MorgellonsVery real symptoms, but the problem is self-generated and not from external forces.

Well, I’m convinced.