CleanAirMike
This is a Founding Story — built from real canary experience patterns. Read how our stories work →
I was a facilities manager for a large office building. The cleaning crew switched to a new industrial product line in 2018. Over three months I developed persistent headaches, then dizziness, then I started losing words mid-sentence. I thought it was stress. My GP thought it was stress. It wasn’t stress. When I finally connected it to the cleaning products, I asked the company to switch. They refused. I developed reactions to more and more things — colleagues’ aftershave, the printer room, the car park. I went from managing a building to not being able to enter one.
My flat is manageable because I control it completely. All-natural cleaning, no scented anything, air purifier running constantly. The problem is leaving. The Tube is impossible — perfume, body spray, cleaning products on the carriages. I’ve become a hermit with a nice postcode.
My NHS GP was sympathetic but completely lost. Referred me to ENT — nothing. Referred to neurology — nothing. Referred to psychiatry — that one stung. I found a private environmental medicine consultant who took one look at my symptom timeline and said ‘occupational chemical exposure.’ No NHS pathway for this exists in the UK.
This is a personal experience, not medical advice. ImACanary.com makes no causation claims.
Stay with the flock.
A quiet weekly note — a new story, one practical thing, no spam. Joining takes one field and gives you the rest of the site too.
One field. We send you a link, you click it, you are in — no password to remember and none to lose. If you have never been here before, this makes your account at the same time.
Private by default. Your address is never shown publicly and never sold. Prefer a password? You can set one in your profile once you are in.
Your email is never sold to marketers or pharmaceutical companies. Privacy policy →