Hi there, are you electrically sensitive? It’s also known as electrically hypersensitive?

Would you know? Well check it out, it’s the latest thing and it’s not only new but it’s coming to you. Well it could be, or someone just as mystified close to you.

Seriously, a minority of people for reasons unknown, are less able to cope with the mass of electromagnetic fields, the ‘electrosmog’ we are now creating with all manner of electrical and transmitting devices, than others are, it may be in your genes.

After hours at your computer do you find?

• Your head aches.
• You redden in the face with flushes.
• Your eyes feel sore.
• Or maybe you forget these things because your short-term memory is playing up…again…it did that yesterday…was it yesterday?…um…

When I use my mobile a lot too I feel my head is warmer on that side, I don’t suppose it matters, does it?

So.. oh.. worried a bit, not feeling too good you try checking it out with your GP, mumble on and what will you get? Usually not much, general advice to take it easy and even some tranquilisers or anti-depressants. Why?

SIMPLE. Because that will get you out of the busy surgery and he/she has no idea what the heck you are talking about. You sound like a head case. Generally electrical sensitivity is not medically taught, talked about, diagnosed or recognised. If you want to know what THAT feels like refer to our personal stories page, and by the way there is plenty more detail about symptoms there too, it would not do to have you unnecessarily worried now, we want to warn you, not scare you, precautionary we are.

WHO ARE WE?

We are the people, maybe I always wanted to say that,ha. Well we are the people, the people who have become so electrically soaked with man-made emissions we can no longer function in an electrical environment. Some call us the Vermeers, after a lovely painting by him of a lady in glorious isolation, others call us Essers, which could be some kind of acronym thing for Electrically Super Sensitive. Simply put we are the ZAPPED. Straight out of the old comic books and science fiction films, we are the ones the rays got, ZZZING. Occasionally we can carry a charge large enough to knock out the equipment in front of you now, switch machines on or off by just entering a room.

Only this ain’t fiction, it ain’t funny and it surely isn’t glorious.
We are more often called ES sufferers because we certainly do, suffer that is.

• Many of us cannot watch TV or use a computer.
• Some of us cannot use telephones, certainly not mobiles or base station types.
• All of us get very uncomfortable or downright painful feelings around electrical fields, maybe headaches, flu-type symptoms or fatigue, with much more serious and life threatening possibilities looming ugh.
• Sometimes we even get locked up as loonies, sectioned in the correct parlance, section 28 for our protection, shot up with tranquilisers. Fancy that?

Even our families are sometimes convinced we are making it up, not quite right, funny in the head, touched or whatever darn euphemism you fancy when in fact we are bloody ill, yes, and often angry about it as no-one takes us seriously in the UK, outside of a few specialists.

Read on and find out what life is like for us, the guinea pigs, the canaries in the cage of the electrical age.

This is the website of ES-UK and provides a place to find out in the UK about electrical sensitivity, also known as electrical hypersensitivity, EHS, or just ES. You can find out in more detail how to recognise ES under common symptoms . It is an idiopathic (allergic) condition increasingly recognised as a disabling illness which affects a minority of sensitive individuals.It is well known and recognised abroad, especially in Sweden, where their association for the ElectroSensitive ‘FEB’ has been established since 1987.There are similarities to Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) to which it is sometimes linked.

Electrosensitivity is caused by exposure to electromagnetic fields, waves of energy which are generated by all electrical sources. EMFs are also produced by the earth and natural weather conditions. Common electrical sources of EMFs are all manner of ordinary domestic and office equipment such as microwave ovens and computers and VDU screens, as well as electrical transmission systems (power lines on pylons), mobile phones and masts and even household electrical wiring. All these sources create non-ionising radiation. Currently low frequency EMFs are being associated not only with electrical sensitivity but also immune system disorders, cancer, depression, suicide, miscarriage, Alzheimers disease and birth defects.

Some of us differ from the general population and find it affects us more quickly than others or at lower power or frequencies. Symptoms vary between individuals but have similarities, this is dealt with in more detail in ‘Science and References’ Low power electrical systems are an essential and natural part of our own normal functioning,our brains and nervous system especially. The basis of the body’s’hard-wired’ telecommunications network is the excitable nerve cell. This is stimulated to give its action potential by depolarising the cell membrane with a destabilising pulse. Communications between certain of our systems as well as between cells and inside cells rely on electrical discharges and these can become destabilised through chronic over-exposure to other external fields creating a hyper-sensitive reaction making us ill. Our capacity for self-repair can be damaged reducing our ability to withstand stressors..

“Melatonin production is decreased by exposure to EMF. Though most known as the hormone necessary for good sleep, melatonin has such numerous functions that health is not possible when it is insufficient.Besides regulating our internal clock, it affects gonadal hormones, moods and behavior and the immune system and exerts direct effects on the growth of cancers in the breast, prostate and colon.”