Searching for treatment, the symptoms rage on

Gulf coast residents who claim their illnesses are a result of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent oil spill last April have raised unprecedented questions that no one can properly answer nearly a year after the fatal incident.

While the majority of health care professionals remain in the shadows, either unclear or afraid of the next step to take, a few Louisiana individuals, an environmental action organization and, more recently, a New York City-based detoxification group have attempted to navigate the murky path and provide answers to those who ask.

Marylee Orr and the Louisiana Environmental Action Network have been on the forefront of trying to treat the health issues that have been linked to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. In its efforts, LEAN has commissioned a Raceland physician, an environmental chemist, an analytical laboratory in Georgia and others as it tries to prove the improvable.

LEAN has paid for many blood samples to be drawn and analyzed since a variety of people, ranging from divers, cleanup workers and coastal residents, have begun to claim their symptoms are caused by the oil spill.

The results, even though they show volatile compounds that are linked to the oil that once covered the surface of the Gulf of Mexico and washed onto its shores, are debatable. Experts with the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals have argued people could have been exposed to the solvents from other sources.

As the debate rages on, the illnesses do not cease. The sick, as they crave for answers, call Orr on a daily basis. The voicemail box on her cell phone is constantly full, and there isn’t a finite end in sight to the epidemic she hesitantly describes as “daunting.”

“We’re really bombarded, on pretty much a daily basis, with people who have these health problems and are begging us to help, and we’ve so far have been providing this testing for free,” Orr said. “One person has made a $1,500 donation, which we greatly appreciate, but, by-and-large, we’re trying to find money within our budget to continue to be able to offer it. These people are sick. Often, they are unemployed. They’re not going to have $245.”

Consolation is one aspect of the job, which is made harder by what Orr described as a lack of accurate consultation from medical experts.

“Sometimes [the doctors] are prescribing things that just relieve their symptoms if they’re not really looking at what’s going on with their patients,” Orr said. “The point is there are very few physicians who are trained or aware to be able to diagnose or know what to do with some of these folks, and that’s a tremendous problem. These people feel that they’re not getting better and they’re concerned about what to do.”

One person who turned to LEAN, a cleanup worker and vessel captain who asked to be referred to as Captain Louie, told the Tri-Parish Times that his emerging symptoms went untreated at the triage tent stationed in Venice, where he first worked to clean the spill.

His dizziness, nausea, rashes and nostril blisters were classified as seasickness, and the workers were not allowed to visit outside doctors at the time, Louie said.

In addition to the dizziness and headaches, he’s also plagued with severe memory loss and nightly cold sweats, and Louie said his blood tested positive for the volatile solvents that have been linked to crude oil.

After his stint in Venice, Louie said he was directed to join the efforts on Grand Isle. In doing so, he brought his family with him – a wife and two daughters, 2 and 3 years old, and they stayed on a campground.

Louie criticized himself during the interview for bringing his family to Grand Isle. “I can’t believe I allowed myself to bring my kids out there, but I thought it was safe, man. I really did.”

Now, his daughters are sick with stomachaches and skin rashes, he said. They, too, had their blood drawn and the results showed the presence volatile solvents, Louie said.

“I want to be able to live to see 60 years old, 70 years old and retire,” Louie said. “I want to watch my girls grow up and be married one day, and now with them being sick, I don’t know. They’re telling us that they don’t know if they can even remove the toxins from our blood. That’s scary, man.

“For the whole month of December, we didn’t leave our house. We didn’t go nowhere for Christmas or New Year’s because we didn’t know if we were contagious because they kept telling us we had the flu. For a month? The flu, for a month?”

Like everyone else who charges that his or her illnesses are linked to the oil spill, Capt. Louie has struggled to find answers. Saddled with misdiagnoses and underwhelming prescription drug results, he turned to LEAN and Dr. Michael Robichaux, a Raceland physician.

“I’m the guinea pig,” Louie said. “I didn’t want my little girls going through the testing I’m going through. I’m getting stuck with needles and this-and-that. If it’s not working on me, I don’t want them going through that.”

Robichaux is one of the few doctors in the nation who have stepped forward and tried to cure the illnesses. Although he does not have experience in treating toxic patients, Robichaux has embraced the challenge and continues to see new patients each week.

Aside from the questions on how to approach it, many have trouble affording any prescribed treatment.

Cathy Blanchard’s husband was one of the seven clean-up workers who were hospitalized at West Jefferson Memorial Hospital in Marrero last May. She said her husband was on a vessel that mixed the Corexit dispersant with the oil through a wheel wash.

Blanchard said her husband received a one-time personal injury claim of $2,800 but still has $5,000 in unpaid medical bills, and the debt owed to the ambulance company was transferred to a collection agency, which will impact their credit score.

Blanchard said she doesn’t know if he will be healthy enough to return to work as a commercial fisherman.

“He’s not himself for sure,” Blanchard said. “He’ll have a day where he feels great and he’ll do a little something, and the next day he’s wiped out. His quality of life has definitely changed.

“Last week, he just laid on the sofa because if he opened his eyes, everything was just like dizzy, blurred, like he couldn’t focus. So he just laid out on the sofa all afternoon.”

The family received one-fourth of the amount of the claim it filed with the Gulf Coast Claims Facility after being consistently told that 30 years of tax returns weren’t enough information, Blanchard said.

Capt. Louie said he refused Robichaux’s offer to pay for his blood work, so LEAN picked up the tab and had it analyzed at Metametrix Clinical Laboratory in Duluth, Ga.

Louie has since been administered steroid injections, which he said gave him energy but have not had an impact on other physical symptoms.

“Dr. Mike is trying everything he can think of,” Louie said. “He tried natural detox and blood detoxifiers. We’re the frontrunners. Nobody else in the nation or the world has ever dealt with this. A lot of people are scared to step up because they don’t know what is really going on with it.”

Robichaux requested the Lafourche Parish Council BP Oil Spill Committee to appeal to the state Office of Public Health for relief funds.

“As a parish, I think it behooves us to contact the state and request some relief from them because these people, they are going to die,” Robichaux said. “I’m telling you, we are going to lose patients.”

Republican Sen. David Vitter said his office is continuing to monitor and research the long-term impacts from the oil spill, including the deteriorating health of the coastal residents, and welcomed individuals who are sick to call his office.

“In terms of getting people immediate medical help, I think probably the best thing I could do is work on a case-by-case basis with those,” Vitter said. “I’d invite anybody in that position, who isn’t getting what they think they need, to call my office and we’ll look into it to and figure out what the next, best step is.”

Rep. Jeff Landry, R-New Iberia, said he would work with the state delegation in trying to find a solution to the sprouting health issues. “I think that is primarily a state issue at this time,” he said. “I certainly feel for those who are having ails and certainly we will work with state legislators and officials in helping to bring some relief to them.”

Louisiana State Health Officer Jimmy Guidry said the state is still conducting research in order to pinpoint the cause of the illnesses before they can be properly treated.

“I don’t think we know all the answers right now,” Guidry said. “Certainly as a physician, I don’t measure people’s blood for levels of hydrocarbons. When we go looking at this, it is going to take research to answer the questions.

“What I do know is there is hydrocarbons in our blood from pumping gas and there are hydrocarbons from being exposed and working in the industry. Was there a level of hydrocarbons in our blood as a result of the spill? That’s the question that researchers are going to have to try and answer.”

Ann Rolfes, the founding director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade (LABB), a nonprofit organization that focuses on pollution and, more recently, the adverse health affects of the oil spill, made a plea for urgency last week when LABB released the results of a survey it conducted.

LABB surveyed 954 coastal Louisiana residents and reported that 48 percent of its respondents said they have had an increase in at least one unusual symptom since the spill. Rolfes said the number was troubling and indicative of a larger problem that needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

“We’re pretty concerned, because if you look at the 9/11 example, that was a big terrorist attack in a major city and Hillary Clinton was their senator,” Rolfes said. “It still took them nine years to get some sort of solution. What chance does Louisiana really have if it took New York that long?”

Serving Those Who Serve (STWS) is a non-profit organization that began treating cleanup workers in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centers on Sept. 11, 2001.

STWS uses a holistic approach aimed at flushing the toxins out of the system, and is now treating coastal residents who have high levels of volatile solvents in their bloodstream.

One of the original founders and STWS communications director Rosemary Nulty said the organization reached out to LEAN’s Marylee Orr after she saw her on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

“I called the guys and said, ‘You’ve got to get a hold of this woman. She’s down there. She’s got a nonprofit. She’s been doing this for a long time. She’s obviously connected to the media, and she’s someone, if we want to get the herbal program down there, it looks like she might be our contact to people down there,'” Nulty said.

Orr embraced the alternative medication idea, and so far, most of the people LEAN helps has been quick to accept it as well. “I’m very surprised,” Orr said. “I haven’t had anybody say no. They’re like, ‘I’m so sick. I’m willing to try it. I’ve been to physicians. I’ve been to emergency rooms. I’ve been treated and I’m not getting better, and I’m going to let you try this if it’s going to help me.'”

Nulty said the coastal residents’ symptoms are consistent with workers and others in close proximity to Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks, who she said were ill from the toxins in the dust they inhaled.

STWS employs a four-pronged detoxification program – herbal detoxification, pulmonary, mental and immunity – that was crafted over a six-month span after the terrorist attacks.

Paul Doomm has suffered multiple symptoms, including daily seizures, a numbness and lack of mobility in the left side of his body, perpetual headaches and dizziness, and brain scarring that began to peak around Thanksgiving after he swam at Navarre Beach, Fla., where he lives.

Doomm has embraced alternative methods, including the STWS Ayurvda approach.

“I was referred to [STWS] by LEAN,” Doomm said. “They’ve been helping me out, extremely cheap. They’re helping most everyone in the Gulf region, but all they ask for is reimbursement for the shipping – $9.89.”

Although its greater purpose is to cleanse the system of toxins, the use of ayurvedic medicine does cause some discomfort in the meantime. “Massive diarrhea,” Doomm said. “They said that would pass and vomiting would pass. It’s just because your body is not immune to these herbs yet.”

Doomm said he is also taking medication prescribed and mailed to him by doctors in Brazil, France and Iceland. Included amongst the alternative drugs Doomm is using are shark oil, cod oil, magnesium oil and a host of pills.

But not everyone has agreed to work with STWS. Capt. Louie said his religion prohibits him from appealing to the Scientology-based organization. “I’m a Christian man,” Louie said. “I’m sorry, I just don’t buy into that kind of stuff.”

STWS is familiar with having to overcome initial resistance to an unknown method.

“Over time, a lot of these people were folks who had never done anything alternative, or natural,” Nulty said. “They weren’t your typical alternative-lifestyle kind of people, but I think after a year or so of feeling really, really bad, a lot of them became much more open to trying other stuff.”