Air fresheners are evil
I have a coworker who sometimes likes to spray air freshener in the office. It really bothers me. I'm sensitive to chemicals and it always gives me a headache and causes eye irritation. Today, after another 'spraying', I had a headache, so i took some advil and went home.
When I got home I noticed there was something odd with my vision. Couldn't quite put my finger on it, but it was definitely not right. In about fives minutes, it deteriorated to serious blurriness, then it got weird. Jaggedy, colourful images dancing in front of my eyes with surrounded blurriness. I was practically blind for about 5-10 minutes and had serious spatial disorientation when I could see my surroundings. Closing eyes did not help, could still see the same hallucinations and no blackness. The feeling was very much like after a small dose of hallucinogenic drugs.
The whole episode ended in about 15 minutes and via the magic of google, I found the symptoms were very consistent with a migraine aura. I have had migraines before, but the precursor was usually blurry vision and nausea. I didn't even know migraines could cause hallucinations.
More google magic and turns out that air fresheners are pretty nasty stuff and one of the known triggers of migraines. Tomorrow, i'll have a conversation with my co-workers, but in the meantime, if you get migraines, something to think about.
Comments
Reminds me of this guy’s story about chemical sensitivity.
Posted by: Aristotle Pagaltzis | June 6, 2006 05:34 AM
Migraines are great, aren't they? The first one I had that I can remember was back in high school chemistry class-I was reading along in the textbook but I was having trouble reading the left side of the page. Turned out my migraine was causing blind spots (more like dancing lights), but my brain was "filling in the blanks" because it knew something was there. Didn't put 2 and 2 together until I looked up and the left side of the teacher's face was gone, no features, hair, etc.
I've since learned that in my family migraines are brought on by disruptions in our regular schedule, particularly sleep. The only way to avoid them is to stick to the same schedule of eating and sleeping, no matter how much of a pain it is to get up that early on the weekend. :)
Posted by: ChrisC | June 6, 2006 07:47 AM
Now I am curious as to the reference to hallucinogenic drugs....
(grin)
Hope your migraine passed quickly!
Posted by: packetstrangler | June 10, 2006 10:55 PM