Reacting to airborne allergen? Work trigger?

Specific Illnesses & Conditions VM/MAV
#1

Hey everyone,

Throughout the last year I have really got my MAV under control. I started taking Nortriptyline at 25mgs and changed my diet as I found I was allergic to lemon, wheat and corn. This controlled the dizziness but I still got frequent migraines. In the summer I went away to Europe for two and a half months and did not get a single migraine the entire time I was gone. I ate chocolate, drank coffee and my sleep patterns were way off.

As soon as I retuned home to work I started getting migraines again. I was working in a hair salon in an old hotel as I had been for the past three years. When I started getting dizziness again I concluded it was the chemicals in the hair products causing my episodes. The ventilation was terrible! The day I went in to quit my job I had rotational vertigo as soon as someone started hair spraying.

Fast forward a few months and I was working in a pharmacy as a cashier. It was in a new, well ventilated building and again, I did not get a single migraine for a few months.

I have recently quit this job and started working in another old hotel, but not in a salon just front desk. I am beginning to get migraines again along with constant sneezing, runny nose, red eyes, thought impairment and fatigue. Basically exactly what was happening at the hair salon but I haven’t been dizzy yet.

Do you think that because this is an old hotel with a crappy ventilation system that I might be reacting to mold or other allergens in the air? I just started this job and was so happy to get out of the pharmacy after the heartbreak of quitting my job at the hair salon, and now this is starting all over!!!

I have noticed a few of my coworkers constantly sneezing and wonder if it is something in the hotel. Is it a coincidence that all of my symptoms have come back now working in another old building? Maybe the hair products were not my only problem and it is that of air quality? It makes me wonder how many of us are constantly dizzy and maybe reacting to mold or other allergens in our own homes or offices?

I am concerned I am going to have to go out yet again to find another job. It is getting exhausting going from one place to the next and I wish I would have stayed at the pharmacy if only the pay was better. Let me know your opinions on this and similar instances. Thanks for your help everyone!

Edit: Also wanted to add that when working at the salon in the old building I would cough mucus every morning. That stopped until I started this new job in another old building. Yet another coincidence?

#2

Hi

I posted recently about the link between migraine and histamine. Apparently histamine is a potent migraine trigger and is frequently found in higher levels in a migraineur’s brain. I have hayfever and often have found myself feeling worse and more dizzy during the pollen season. I only just found out recently the link between migraine and histamine, which is what your body produces when you are allergic to something. It is quite likely that if you have allergies eg to pollen, dust, animal hair or anything really, then you will be releasing much more histamine and therefore triggering the migraine mechanism. I know many people treat dizziness and sometimes MAV with antihistamine based drugs however I have read that you shouldn’t rely on antihistamines for migraine as they just weaken your immune system and make you more vulnerable in the longrun. Here is the link anyway if you want to have a read x

http://mvertigo.cloudapp.net/t/migraine-histamine-link/6201

#3

I too get random attacks of excactly what you describe. I have done my utmost to try to pinpoint any possible offenders but without success. It’s very frustrating. I’ve thought of food, perfumes, chemicals, stress, tiredness, mould, dust mite, hay fever, you name it, I’ve considered all these as possible triggers but I’ve drawn a complete blank. Sometimes I’m dizzyish with them but not all the time. I’m still not sure whether they are MAV linked or not but if I had to make a call I’d say they probably are.

It was because of them that I was so interested in Jem’s thread about the histamine link. When I get them really badly I take a dose of children’s Benadryl, all I can tolerate. Sometimes it helps, sometimes not. All a bit of a mystery really.

Brenda