A self-described nurse describes sensitivity after mold-related illness and repeatable symptoms around so…

I am a registered nurse with more than a decade of experience in healthcare, and my experience with electromagnetic sensitivity developed in the context of a significant environmental illness. My health initially declined after living in a water-damaged, mold-contaminated home. I developed severe neurological and systemic symptoms, including vertigo, tinnitus, cognitive changes, headaches, sleep disruption, and other symptoms that dramatically affected my ability to function. After leaving that environment, my health improved significantly. I eventually moved into a different home and initially felt well there. That is when I began recognizing something I had not previously understood: electromagnetic exposures appeared to trigger some of my neurological symptoms even when I was no longer living in the mold-contaminated environment. I began noticing repeatable patterns with certain exposures. Turning on Wi-Fi could bring on unusual neurological sensations in my head. Certain electronics could trigger sharp headaches and uncomfortable sensations in my chest or heartbeat. Increasing my distance from these sources, turning wireless devices off, and hard-wiring equipment often reduced the symptoms. What made this particularly interesting to me as a nurse was that I did not react equally to every electronic environment. For example, I could work around hard-wired hospital computers without experiencing the same degree of symptoms. That made me begin paying closer attention to the type and characteristics of the exposure rather than assuming that all electronics affected me equally. I am not claiming that my experience proves that electromagnetic exposure caused these symptoms. I am reporting a pattern that became sufficiently reproducible that I could no longer dismiss it. My experience also raises a question that I believe deserves serious research: Could environmental illness or other biological stressors make some individuals more susceptible to electromagnetic exposures? In my case, the sensitivity became apparent following a period of significant illness associated with a water-damaged building. I encourage HHS to investigate people who report electromagnetic sensitivity rather than studying only healthy populations. Research should examine whether previous environmental exposures, chronic inflammation, neurological injury, or other biological factors may identify susceptible subgroups. Controlled and blinded exposure studies could help determine whether reported symptoms correspond with measurable physiological or neurological changes. There is still much we do not understand. As both a nurse and someone who has personally experienced this phenomenon, I believe patient experiences like mine should be treated as observations worthy of investigation—not as proof of causation, but as signals that can help us ask better scientific questions. I hope HHS will pursue rigorous, independent research into electromagnetic exposure, individual susceptibility, cumulative exposure, and the experiences of people reporting electromagnetic sensitivity.