I went to your site last night. Wow. I can't think of a superlative that wouldn't sound trite, cliché. I thought I knew something about this subject. I've told people for years that the two big triggers for my asthma were perfumes and cigarette smoke. I thought I was talking about 2 different things! I also learned why some of the "unscented" products I've tried were as bad as the ones with fragrance. Some are going to think you've overstated the problem. They couldn't be more wrong.

Please feel free to use the following (or any of my letter) in any way you think might help, if you so desire:

No one can possibly understand what it's like week after week, month after month, to attend the meetings, though you know what will happen when you get to the hall: Just greeting different friends, I used to feel the mucus start to build, the tightness and "feathers" start in my chest, before I'd even left the foyer for the seating area. 

Sisters would come up to say hello, warning, "Don't come too close. I'd hug you but I have on perfume," like that solves the problem. Why is it so hard to get through to people that in an enclosed building the heating/AC system carry these chemicals to the most distant corner? That it's not the perfume of just one person at work here, but a "witches brew" of all the various fragrances, mixing and swirling everywhere? Or that the effects of your perfume on an asthma sufferer may not be obvious to onlookers until some moments after you've moved away? 

I tried everything I knew. I'd come in late, after everyone was seated. I'd go to the library, shut the door, turn on the fan and open the window, even in cool weather. I would still end up out in the parking lot, whooping, crowing, gagging, choking up large amounts of mucus, vomiting mucus I'd swallowed, blood pressure shooting up, head hurting like it would explode, vision graying out, legs buckling, heart going crazy....there were so many times when I should have gone to the Emergency Room, but the hospital is some distance from our KH (the next town), and I figured I'd either be better, or dead, before they got me there. When it reached the point that I often was not even making it through the opening song, I reluctantly stopped attending. Perhaps I waited too long. My doctor tells me my lungs and heart have been compromised by chronic, severe asthma.

My son once said  in anger and frustration, "Why should I care about being with them when they don't care about you, when they keep wearing that stuff even after they've been told what it does to you?" That's unfair. They do care. They weren't deliberately hurting me. It was just ignorance, combined with the human tendency to make excuse: "Surely that little bit can't hurt." "She must surely be exaggerating." 

I am something of a "hermit" now. I don't want to be. But every trip to the the department store, the grocery, etc. --even the hospital or the doctor's office!! -- is a "land mine" for me. It is almost a given that I will be assaulted by someone wearing so much cologne they advertise their approach and leave a long trail behind. And even with the pills, and the spray broncho-dialators and steroid inhalant, I will still be choking and crowing before I can get out. With all the other health problems I have, this just flattens me, leaving me like a wrung out dishrag for days. 

Shelia