I start this chapter with a episode when I visited a brand-new condominium.
It had just been constructed nearby and anyone could enter its demonstration rooms in a sales campaign.

Since about late half of 1980s, such high-rise condominiums had been built rapidly one by one in districts around big cities like Tokyo in Japan.
(My residence was in Chiba prefecture; next to the metropolis of Tokyo.
Many people commuted to Tokyo by trains or cars which took about 1~2 hours.)

They were full of chemicals unlike traditional Japanese houses of woods and natural plasters.

The new condominium resembled the one I had lived in while I had been married and it's chemicals had had certain relations with my burst of AD.
I felt nostalgic and at the same time quite interested whether the measures against sick house syndrome had progressed or not.

The moment I opened the door of the demonstration rooms, strong chemical smell hit my nose, the same smell like varnish as I had felt when I had entered the previous condominium first with my ex-husband.

Every room was filled with the uncomfortable smell in spite of their refined appearances, though both my mother and aunt were not bothered about it.
Only I seemed to be sensitive to it.

Although I asked several questions to the salesman about his understanding of chemicals constructional materials contained, his responces were quite poor.

There were few windows because most walls lined against neighbors' rooms.
Even bathroom, the moistest place in a house, had no window, only a small fan assumed the role of ventilation .

Since the climate of Japan was very hot and humid in summer, fungus would easily come into closed moist bathrooms.
Mites would also increase in such condition.
Mininal ventilation due to lack of openings would save up volatized chemicals within the rooms.

Nevertheless, the construction methods had hardly changed.

Chemicals, mites, fungus.

Some people sensitively respond to them.
They express their risks to human by their own bodies.
Their perils may come to anyone in any chance, but presently they are thought to be rare exceptional cases.
Moreover, such perspective restrain of chemical use often oppose to efficiency and benefit of companies.

So, betterment will take a long time.

Most of the rooms of the condominium were sold soon.

Everytime I see the lights of the condominium under which the residents live, I worry over them.
Does someone there newly start to suffer from the bad room environment?

By the way, it seemed I could plan to go out of my town now.
I hoped it was the time I could be liberated from the mortifying sense to be incapable of going anywhere.

The first commemorative trip was to Tokyo.
I drove my car about 1.5 hour to the destination.

It was an academic meeting of dermatology.
Since then, I had been able to brush up my dermatologic knowledge only by means of books and magazines.
Now at last I could go to listen to dermatologic lectures and discussions to prepare for the day I would come back to work as an dermatologist.

It was a cold winter day of February.
During the meeting, though my dry and stiff skin caused certain pain, I did not get so tired because it was not so long, I could sit still and I felt rather excited to come back to my old familiar place.

However, in the middle of hundreds of dermatologists, I was in some disappointment and nihilism I had never felt as well .

"-Nevertheless there are so many dermatologists here, no one is reliable for me to entrust my AD body...!-."

It was no use to say that, but it was a desperate feeling which had surely resided deep in my mind.

I wondered what we "doctors" were.
If we have enough methods to cure patients' disease, we were avaiable. However, there're so many diseases which overwhelmed our ability.
What could we do, or should we do then?
I was afraid we might not deserve to exist in front of the patients as a doctor then.

On my way home, it was snowing.
I enjoyed the scenery.

It had been five years while I had not be able to work and live by myself and survived under the total care of my parents'.
Now I finally caught a foothold to live myself independently as an adult.

Beautiful snowy woods along the roads celebrated me.

On the next month, I was granted another longtime urge.

It was to meet a wonderful friend of mine for the first time.
She was also a severe AD patint (not a dermatologist) who had chosen not to use steroids.
We had known each other in internet while we had been very sick. We had encouraged each other through internet BBS, email or phone.
It was a very impressive day.

Although I had a piece of social life now, my body was still unmanageable.
Stinging sensation of my dry skin in winter plagued me all day.
In occasional warm days of early spiring, itch prevended me from sleeping all night, thus I couldn't help taking antihistamine in a few times.

Whereas I felt released with my improved ability, I was occluded in the anxiety over my future disease course as well.

There was another option I was interested in.
It was chiropractic.

Originally I had run into a personal site of an AD patient who had told that Chiropractic had cured her AD.
Then as I had searched and studied about alternative medicines in books and internets, I had felt chiropractic might have been a hopeful therapy for AD.

I came into contact with a chiropractor in Japan who had a site to explain about chiropractic.
He introduced a veteran chiropractor to me.
His office was about 1.5 hours from my house by car, within reaching distance for me now.
I went to see him.

on my way home after I received the first chiropractic treatment, when I went in a restaurant and had a seat, I noticed a mysterious thing.
My arm skin was in natural skin tone while it should be always red because of AD.
The usual painful sensation had also vanished.
I felt my body could be moved easier.
What is this phenomenon?

After I came back home, I talked to my mother about it.
I thought she wouldn't believe, because chiropractic was not legal and thought to be unscientific in Japan, but she encouraged me to continue.
She said, "You haven't succeeded by means you have done. You should try another hopeful means."
I thanked that she was an unprejudiced person.

Since then, I started to go to see him regularly.
My symptoms slowly improved as I went there.
I took my daughter, too, and she also felt her AD symptoms decrease when she went there.

In addition to treating my body, he pointed the harm of taking sugars.
He put a candy on me and demonstrated it weakened the power of my muscles.

I sure prefered sweet foods so much.
In my childfood, I ate little meals but much confectionery.

Recently dissatisfactory dull life of recuperation made me to take even more sweet foods.

I was feeling like purified white sugar had tendency to be taken more and more.
As we get used to them, we wanted more deep taste of sweetness to satisfy the greed.

Sugars are said not only to aggravete suppurative diseases but also to increase fungus like candida in our intestines and disturb the normal flora.
Dr. Toru Abo, an innovative immunologist in Japan, says too much intake of sweet foods increases lymphocytes compared to leukocytes which leads one's body to easiness of having allergy.
Thus, sugars promote allergy.

I was ashamed of my intemperateness to sugars despite my profession as a doctor to care of people's health.
But changing one's taste from childhood was rather difficult.
As my mother liked sweet foods very much, too, there had always been sweet confectionery in my house.
Moreover, since I was not tolerable to alcoholic beverages and had no tabacco or coffee then, sweet foods were the only eating pleasure for me.

I carried out a plan with determination to quit cofectionary of purified white sugar.
We changed aftenoon snacks to baked sweet potates or rice crackers.

To tell the truth, I didn't succeeded. But since then my sugar intake doses reduced much less than ever.
As I continued to reducing sugar intake, a new sensation came to me, that was, "I want no more sugar, because now I feel too sweet!".
It was interesting. I admired the way human body worked.

Once I intended to avoid white sugar, I couldn't help being astonished how our foods were full of sweetness.

There were a flood of sweet foods in our department stores and restaurants in Japan. Though I decided not to buy them, I couldn't avoid being presented.
I got them as seasonal gifts. My child got them from her friends or everywhere she went where adults gave her something.
Even if I declared not to eat them, they gave us them saying, "You may eat a little."

It's not good to throw away food.
It's unreasonable to present somebody things which we don't use because of their bad influence to our body.
Then we have to eat them.

If my daughter or I had a fatal food allergy like anaphylaxis, I could refuse by no means. However, we were not. Then we could not be so stubborn because we had to associate with other people well.


Now Japanese are in troubles due to afflluent civilization.
Intake of fats, meets, dairy products are also increasing remarkably.
Of course, diabates melitus patients are rapidly increasing.

I want to add one point about this theme.
It's about the meaning of "purified".

To purify is to process and remove all other components but one genuine chemical compound.
Purified sugar are absorbed more rapidly to our bodies which means rapid increase of blood sugar(BS) level.
Rapid increase is followed with rapid decrease by the function of human body to control it; homeostasis.
So purified sugar make BS level fluctuated.
As the brain works by the energy of glucose(sugar), it can make brain' s function unstable.

Originally as glucose can be made from starch of grains, human bodies do not need sugar intake.
Grains are absorbed and processed gradually and will not cause severe fluctuation of BS.

Natural foods are sometimes called as perfect foods and purified ones are imperfect ones.
In modern times, we have much more chances to have processed food, i.e. imperfect foods, according to the development of technology and the growth of commerce.

Other foods, like salt, grains, have similar problems.
Purification of those foods remove much minerals and vitamins which are very useful for our bodies.

I'll go back to my disease and life progress.
Our new house was completed after one year of construction.
The constructors measured formaldehyde levels of the inner air of its rooms, which was low enough. I felt no unpleasant smell of chemicals when I entered in it.


The moving was very hard because we are all sick.
I made a plan to move and live in only with furnitures and least daily goods, I carry the rest goods one by one later and break down the old house after all goods were transported.

Still, the workers were only I and a few moving stuffs I hired. I could work only after noon.
We started at 1 o'clock in the afternoon.
And I was worn-out an night.
Couldn't help being concerned, my mother prepared the evening meal in spite of her painful condition.

The new house was comfortable.
Our family, my mother and my daughter and I, spent calm days there.
Living in the new house seemed to be the last big hope for my mother.

Two months later, she passed away.

Her funeral was likewise hard for me, though it was better than the last time of my father's.
I pushed the opening in the afternoon though undertakers insisted they should start in the morning.
My aunt stayed with me all the time, which was great help.

In Japan we had a custum to keep a candle burned for the dead.
The undertaker brought one big candle shaped as a pink lotus flower and burned it.
But the smell of smoke from the candle was quite unpleasant for me.
I felt and responded adversely to some chemical like perfume in it.

Sticks of incenses were also colored and smelled unusually.
The package said they are added a fragrance of lavender, but I could feel the smell was not natural, but artificial chemical one.

Chemicals, artificial fakes prevailed everywhere.