Olga's story
by Julian Moss
My wife Olga lived for 50 years in Ukraine until we were married in 2002 and
she came to live in Cockermouth. Soon after arrival here she began to experience
health problems she had never had before, but the local GPs could not identify a
reason for them.
The problems disappeared during a long visit to Ukraine, but restarted after her return to Cumbria. Olga then did some research on the Internet, during which she discovered that she was living in an area in which the water was fluoridated (which I already knew, but never thought to associate with her symptoms) and that fluoride was believed by many to be the cause of the problems she was experiencing.
Olga began drinking bottled water, after which the symptoms stopped again, providing unarguable cause-and-effect evidence (to us, anyway) that fluoride - or at least the poisonous version that United Utilities is adding to our tap water - was the cause of these problems.
The symptoms
The symptoms that Olga started to experience after arriving in West Cumbria included:
- Numbness in the legs and hands
- Feeling dizzy or faint, especially in the morning or when we flew in an aeroplane
- Swollen and itching finger joints
- Waking in the night with "pins and needles" in the hands and arms
- Feeling heavy and lethargic
Olga's researches revealed that these symptoms are those of hypothyroidism, or low thyroid gland activity. She also discovered that fluoride had been used for many years as a medicine to suppress hyperactive thyroids. It seemed very clear to Olga that the unwanted medication being received via our water tap was adversely affecting her thyroid.
Further proof
At the end of 2006, Olga introduced herself to a couple she heard speaking Russian in Cockermouth Main Street. It turned out that they had recently moved to Cockermouth from Ukraine after Tonya, the wife, had obtained employment here.
Tonya had started to experience many of the same symptoms as Olga. She had put on about 10Kg in weight which she could not shake off, and was feeling "fat, fuzzy and frazzled" (a good description that has been used as the name of a website about hormonal balance and thyroid problems.) Water retention is one of the symptoms associated with depressed thyroid activity, according to Olga's Internet research.
Valery, her husband, is a fitness enthusiast and had never experienced a day's illness in his life. He felt ill almost from the moment he arrived here, including stiff and itching joints. He was seriously considering getting on the next plane back to Ukraine, as he felt that there must be something wrong with the West Cumbria environment.
Olga told them of her discoveries, and recommended that they switched to drinking bottled water. Their health problems immediately cleared up. If that does not demonstrate a clear cause and effect link between the water supplied by United Utilities and ill-health, I don't know what does.
How does this affect you?
Sceptics will have noticed the Ukrainian connection in this story, and may claim that something associated with having lived in Ukraine is the real cause of the ill-health. The radioactive fallout from Chernobyl is known to cause thyroid problems.
Olga, Tonya and Valery come from parts of the Ukraine that were not badly affected by Chernobyl. The wind blew the radioactive clouds north-west, to Belarus. Tonya is originally from Kazakhstan, and not a native of Ukraine. Both Tonya and Valery had previously worked in Argentina, where they did not suffer the problems they experienced after arriving here in West Cumbria.
But whether or not the three subjects of this story have weaker thyroids as a result of Chernobyl fallout, or for other reasons, the effects they suffered as a result of drinking our water should still be a concern to all of us. Many of us in West Cumbria, wherever we are from, may have depressed thyroids that are not being helped by this unwanted medication in our drinking water. Many of us may be experiencing symptoms similar to those experienced by Olga, Tonya and Valery and simply dismiss them as one of the consequences of getting older, or blame them on something else. Because we have always lived here, and have always drunk the tap water, we don't know what it is like to feel any different.
Although I had been quite happy drinking the tap water, I had experienced occasional bouts of swollen and itchy joints (which at the time I put down to a possible onset of arthritis suffered by both my parents) and my teeth, which were restored in 2002, have severe brown staining. I too have now stopped drinking tap water. We don't use it for cooking, either.
If this water was harming my wife, and our two friends, how can you be sure it isn't harming your own health, or that of your family?
Contact if you would like to help campaign to remove fluoride from our drinking water.
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