Electronic devices are a nightmare for people who are hypersensitive to them. The World Health Organization organized a workshop in Prague in 2004 to find a solution for people suffering from this problem. In this workshop, it was discussed what kind of problems people who experience symptoms such as stress, sleep disturbance, fatigue, tingling in the hand and foot regions may experience in the future due to electromagnetic devices.
It is even among the debates that this situation may evolve into an important public health problem. However, a clear conclusion on this issue has not been reached yet. Maybe you will hear the name of this ailment for the first time, and there will even be some of you who say “I have it” when they hear it. So how exactly is this disease experienced?
In fact, the cause of this ailment is sometimes exposure to electromagnetic fields and sometimes people’s wrong beliefs.
Electronic devices are a part of our daily life. After all, we are now in the age of technology and we use electricity for even cooking. Some people think that the radiation emitted by electronic devices causes an allergic reaction in them. This way of detecting actually causes them to be extremely sensitive to these devices.
People who have this problem are often overly sensitive to Wi-Fi, computers, microwave ovens and electrical appliances.
A person who is exposed to one of these examples may suddenly feel dizzy or have tingling feet. When this situation is more severe, some people also experience symptoms such as musculoskeletal pain, psychological problems, inability to focus, and suddenly feeling hot on the face.
In fact, this issue dates back to 1991, when the concept of electromagnetic hypersensitivity was first used, so it is quite old. It is known that in the Soviet Union, technicians working on radios experienced this problem for the first time. It was even called microwave syndrome back then. However, it is interesting that the objective criteria for measuring this problem as a medical illness are lacking. In other words, if there are people who suspect that they have this problem, they need to diagnose themselves.
In fact, such a disease may not even exist.
In a study conducted in 2019, 28 previous studies on this subject were examined and it was concluded that they were problematic. Because the studies examining the connection between the symptoms of this disorder neglected the following: We could say that it was trying to take these answers and analyze them statistically, without taking into account that the answers given by the participants might be wrong.
For this reason, researchers think that people cannot fully express the sensitivity they experience. For this reason, tangible data cannot be obtained from scientific researches. Again, in a study conducted in 2018, an experiment is conducted on people who self-diagnose this condition. In this experiment, people are given fake signals as well as signals from devices such as phones and radios.
Participants say that each signal creates symptoms for them, but cannot tell which signals these symptoms started first. In another study conducted in 2017, the researchers think that this disease is caused by people believing in a reality they created, because participants in other studies gave the same reactions as participants in other studies.
In fact, in a study conducted in 2020, it is thought that believing that electronic devices are harmful causes the nocebo effect (when a person thinks that he or she will experience side effects when he takes a drug, he continues to think that it is harmful even if a harmless drug is given). In short, it is important to determine whether people suffering from this condition have any other diseases that will cause symptoms. In addition, it is among the recommendations of the experts that these people meet with a psychologist.
Sources: WHO, Healthline, Environmental Health Journal, Gigahertz Solutions, Technik Journal, Welt
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