Strong Odors: A Migraineur’s Kryptonite

strong odors, Asheville migraine relief

Are you among the rare few who have a severe adverse reaction to perfume, paint lacquer, or car fumes? Do you experience crippling migraine episodes after getting a whiff of these scents? Do these strong or strange odors make you feel vulnerable like how Kryptonite does for Clark Kent, the Man of Steel?

Superman’s invulnerability disappears when he gets exposed to even the smallest piece of the glowing green meteor rock, causing him to become highly susceptible to the nefarious plans of his arch-nemesis. 

In many ways, thousands of people looking for a dependable source of Asheville migraine relief share a similar fate with the ever-famous DC character. Like him, you become more vulnerable to your migraine symptoms when exposed to triggers such as strong odors. But how can certain scents cause problems for people with migraines anyway? Let’s dive deep into this.

 

Why Strong Odors are The Kryptonite of Many Migraineurs

Studies offer varying explanations why strong odors are the Kryptonite of many people with migraine. Below are the top two the most usual explanations that doctors and other healthcare professionals offer to their patients: 

Blame it on the trigeminal nerve 

A study explains that several scents stimulate the trigeminal nerve – the same nerve structure associated with the onset of painful headaches and migraine episodes.

You might have osmophobia

According to the American Headache Society, as much as 95 percent of migraineurs have osmophobia or sensitivity to certain scents. 

Unfortunately, allergy or intolerance to products or other items can set off inflammatory responses that affect various parts of the body, including the inner ears. The inflammation can affect fluid balance and pressure inside the head, contributing to worse migraine episodes.

  

Scents that Migraineurs Must Stay Away From

Now that we’ve established that strong scents can sometimes have the power to set off worse migraine episodes, we suggest learning a thing or two from our quick list below. As you read on, you will discover some of the commonly reported scents that our patients seeking Asheville migraine relief usually steer clear from the following: 

#1. Perfumes

As per 2019 statistics, about global perfume market, has reached up to 22 billion in total value. While the volume of produced perfume units has decreased significantly over the years, it remains a lucrative niche market, especially among female consumers. 

And the main reason is that perfume invokes certain emotions – and to some extent, provides its users with a brief taste of luxury. However, some fragrances might invoke a different feeling for migraineurs, which in most cases translates to pain, anxiety, and discomfort. 

#2. Paints and Thinners

Paint and thinners contain volatile chemicals that irritate the lining of your nasal passage and sinuses. That’s why you might find it helpful to avoid these products, especially when revamping your home or working on a quick DIY project. You can try asking for help from a loved one or hire a pro to handle jobs requiring exposure to these items. 

#3. Scented Candles

While scented candles are a staple for home spa sessions and Me-Time weekends, some patients seeking migraine relief note that they experience problems when lighting their go-to aromatic candles. Some of the possible reasons for this include:

#4. Gasoline

Have you ever felt a burst of repulsion at the scent of diesel or gasoline? Did your recent trip to fill your tank for a long road trip make you feel sick and nauseous? If you answer yes to both questions, you are likely sensitive to gasoline, which may trigger your episodes. Best avoid or limit exposure to these substances if you want to lead more migraine-free days.

strong odors, Asheville migraine relief

Unlock Lasting Asheville Migraine Relief with The Help of Upper Cervical Care

Avoiding exposure to your “Kryptonite” or migraine triggers is just one of the many ways you can manage your condition. Another option you can explore is Upper Cervical Chiropractic. For many years, gentle atlas bone adjustments have provided migraineurs with significant improvements to their health, so you might want to add this to your current care plan as well.

Upper Cervical Care works by addressing postural misalignments that usually follow a neck or head injury. Undetected changes in the neck alignment can cause varying issues including poor blood to the head, increased excitability of the nerves and brain cells, and heightened pain sensitivity. 

The postural imbalance can also cause the neck muscles to stiffen, adding more pressure to your blood vessels and nerves supplying the head. 

Fortunately, you can readily explore Upper Cervical Chiropractic for effective migraine relief. All you need is to book an appointment with an upper cervical doctor like Dr. Nygaard so you can determine if you are a good candidate for atlas bone adjustments.

Find out if you should consider seeking Upper Cervical Chiropractic Care by scheduling a quick consultation with Dr. David Nygaard of Atlas Brain and Body.

  

To schedule a consultation with Dr. Nygaard, call our Asheville office at 828-253-0700. You can also click the button below.

If you are outside of the local area you can find an Upper Cervical Doctor near you at www.uppercervicalawareness.com.

Migraines are a prevalent condition that affects millions of people in and out of the country. It can happen without warning, and sometimes, it can be a bit tricky to diagnose because of the absence of definitive diagnostic processes that can gauge its severity. This makes it difficult to know if you have this condition or not unless you experience an attack. 

If you’re one of them affected and suffering from recurring migraine attacks, then you know how difficult it can be. Migraine can be debilitating at times and challenging to live with. If left unresolved, it could get in the way of your activities, work, and life. To help you deal with your migraine problems more effectively, here are some essential tips that may prove useful for those affected by this condition. We will share tried and tested forms of migraine relief in Asheville that you can try on your own, even at home!

 

migraine relief in Asheville

DIY Methods of Migraine Relief in Asheville

The do-it-yourself forms of migraine relief in TOWN show immense potential in addressing the condition and reducing the severity of the symptoms as long as you use them correctly and consistently. 

Slowing Down

In many cases, one great way to deal with a migraine is to just take it easy. When you are feeling a migraine attack coming, a hot bath or shower can help relax your muscles and relieve tension in your body. Meditation and yoga are both excellent ways of calming down and focusing on what’s happening around you. Listening to music can be soothing as well—just make sure you avoid loud noises and bright lights during your episode! Taking a nap is another good option if you have time, as napping not only helps you get some rest but also resets your body strength so that it doesn’t feel so tired and stressed out during the day, which can also contribute to migraines. Finally, if none of these work for you, try taking up a hobby that requires little mental energy like painting or writing poetry. It can be anything, provided that it doesn’t trigger stress.

Reducing Stress

If you have a migraine, you must limit your stress to a minimum. That is because stress is one of the most common triggers of migraines. It can cause an attack in as little as 15 minutes—just enough time to get you worked up or worried about something, and suddenly BAM! Migraine. 

Stress can stem from work, relationship conflicts, financial problems, or other factors in your life. And while it isn’t always possible to avoid stress completely—as much as we would all like to do that sometimes—there are some things you can do to cope and channel positive energy. 

For starters, you can consciously distance yourself from toxic or triggering people and situations and have a go-to activity or place for when you have a certain feeling that your migraine is on its way. 

Eating Healthy Foods

Eating healthy is one of the best routes to preventing migraines. Eat foods that are low in sodium and high in potassium. Foods such as bananas, spinach, tomatoes, and potatoes have a lot of potassium but little sodium. 

Also, try foods rich in magnesium, vitamin B6, and vitamin C, as migraineurs who ate more such food products on a regular basis had fewer headaches than those who didn’t. Avoid saturated fat from animal products such as red meat, trans fats from processed foods like chips, and refined sugar from soda drinks like cola. 

migraine relief in Asheville

Hydrate Well

Drinking water is a straightforward way to prevent headaches and migraines, as well as soothe a headache that’s already happening. Drinking a sufficient amount of water will:

Help you avoid dehydration by keeping your body’s fluids balanced. When dehydrated, blood vessels can constrict and cause headaches or migraines. A nice trick is to drink a glass before meals and two glasses after eating; this will keep your brain hydrated during digestion, which can also lead to headaches or migraines if it does not happen properly!

Help prevent muscle cramps in athletes who sweat heavily during exercise (or for other reasons). If you work out regularly—or even just exercise occasionally—drink at least two cups before starting any kind of workout. This will help keep muscles from contracting too much due to dehydration!

Prevent dry mouth syndrome, which can happen due to vomiting or diarrhea. It would help if you also had a bottle of water or electrolyte-rich drink on hand, especially during a hot and humid day.

 

Complement Your Lifestyle Changes With Upper Cervical Care for Lasting Relief

What happens after Asheville upper cervical adjustment?

Simple migraine remedies can be effective in many cases. But you can improve its effects by complementing it with a holistic care plan known as upper cervical chiropractic. This is the most effective source of migraine relief in Asheville.

Many people experience immediate improvements after just one session of upper cervical adjustment and see long-term results after several months of regular care. Chiropractors who practice upper cervical chiropractic understand how the misalignments in the structure of your neck affect other parts of the body—including causing or contributing to headaches—and use gentle manual adjustments to correct these misalignments so that they don’t cause harm anymore!

To try this holistic form of migraine relief in Asheville, we suggest scheduling an appointment with Dr. David Nygaard. He is trained in the Atlas Orthogonal technique – a well-known upper cervical care protocol that can help unlock natural and holistic healing. Call us at 828-253-0700 to book your first upper cervical chiropractic consultation at Atlas Brain and Body. You can also reach us online for your queries.

 

To schedule a consultation with Dr. Nygaard, call our Asheville office at 828-253-0700. You can also click the button below.

If you are outside of the local area, you can find an Upper Cervical Doctor near you at www.uppercervicalawareness.com.

If you are living with constant migraines, then you know it’s more than just a bad headache. Migraines are neurological conditions that can impact all areas of our lives and our health.  

June is National Migraine and Headache Awareness Month. During this time, we must raise awareness and educate others about migraines, headaches, related diseases, and conditions. Migraines impact over 40 million people in the US, and nearly 400,000 Americans experience cluster headaches. These painful, intense headaches can be frequently known as a cluster period and could sometimes last weeks or even months. 

Migraines can affect your work environment, productivity, and earning potential. 

Migraines may cause you to disappear during work hours because of your experiencing symptoms due to migraines, like debilitating pain, blurred vision, or even nausea. The most common migraine symptoms sometimes make it impossible to work. Some may go to the workplace, which triggers migraine attacks because of the long hours on the computer screen or feelings of being in a stressful environment. 

People who experience consistent migraines cannot work normally and function as they could. Because of this, you feel less productive, get less done, reschedule meetings, call in sick, and miss out on essential details to reach your goals. 

Migraines can affect your personal life and relationships.

Because of migraine unpredictability, you never know when or where you will be when a migraine attack occurs. The encompassing nature of these attacks means sometimes, we wind up disappointing ourselves and the people close to us. You never know when and where you will feel a migraine come on. It could be when you’re out trying to support a friend or on an important date for you and your partner. Those relationships could feel threatened. After all, you can’t show up when they need you most because you’re dealing with unbearable pains and symptoms. 

Dealing with migraines can make parenting feel impossible. 

It’s hard enough being a parent, or even a single parent, and having to deal with the difficulties of migraines. Even the most minor things can feel challenging when dealing with children while you have a migraine attack. You may feel bad for your partner, who is taking more responsibility because you have to rest and feel the burden of migraine symptoms. For single parents, there is no help, and juggling parenthood while feeling pain can take a toll on our bodies and mental health. 

Don’t fear, managing migraines IS possible. 

It’s not uncommon for people who experience migraines to experience mental health problems. Because of these effects on our lives, other body parts have trouble coping with regular life tasks. 

At times there is no cure for migraines; however, there are common ways to manage them effectively with upper cervical chiropractic.

Migraines are neurovascular headaches. “Neuro” stands for the nerve component and “vascular” for blood vessels. Another primary issue that directly causes migraines is a disruption in the cerebrospinal fluid, which is crucial for proper brain function.

At Atlas Brain and Body, we can measure stress on the brain stem and the pain-sensitive surrounding tissue. Sometimes the blood supply to the brain is often compromised. Another primary issue that directly causes migraines is a disruption in Cerebro spinal fluid, which is crucial for proper brain function. 

If you want to start making significant changes in your life and live without the pains and agony of migraines, make an appointment at Atlas Orthogonal at  (828) 253-0700 to see how we can help. 

 

Migraines and other types of headaches, such as tension headache and sinus headache, are painful. Migraine symptoms include a pounding headache, nausea, vomiting, and light sensitivity and are treated with anti-nausea drugs, but there is a safe and natural way. Click the video thumbnail to learn more.

To contact our office directly call 828-253-0700

 

Migraine headaches and depression may be things that can be foreseen by examining the size of a person’s brain according to a study that was published in Neurology magazine. It turns out that bigger is better when it comes to avoiding physical and emotional pain in the mind. Those will smaller brains seem to face more cases of depression and migraine headaches.

It is interesting to note that this study, authored by Dr. Larus S. Gudmunsson, was not even the only recent study to touch on this subject. Radiology magazine also addresses this topic and even explained some of the reason behind the phenomenon. The fact is that the more brain tissue there is, the more tissue there is covering the pain processing part of the brain. As a result, pain is felt less intensely for those with a bigger brain.

Also, JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association) reported in 2012 that women might suffer from 3-4 times as many migraines as men because they are also more likely to have mini lesions on the brain.

To learn more about the connection between head and neck injuries and migraines download our complimentary e-book Natural and Drug-Free Ways to End Your Migraines by clicking the image below.

Free Migraine Relief eBook from Dr, Nygaard

Good News for Migraines Sufferers

While there may not be anything you can do to increase the physical size of your brain, there is a natural way to get help for the pain of migraines. Researchers in New York have been able to make an interesting discovery by using an upright MRI. It was revealed that when a person has an upper cervical subluxation (misalignment), cerebrospinal fluid drainage is impaired. As a result, this protective fluid can begin to pool and actually cause migraines.

When upper cervical chiropractic techniques are used to correct an upper cervical subluxation, research revealed that 28.6% of the pressure is reduced and the flow of cerebrospinal fluid returns to normal. As a result, many experience relief from migraines after just one or two adjustments. If you are experiencing migraines, getting your upper cervical spine checked by a professional may be the first step to correcting the problem for good.

 

To schedule a complimentary Atlas Orthogonal consultation call 828-253-0700 or just click the button below.

Request a Free Consultation with Dr. Nygaard

Migraines in Men—Examining the MinorityWhen it comes to migraines in the US, women suffer from the condition three times as frequently as men, but that doesn’t mean the 6% of American males dealing with this condition suffer any less.

The fact is that migraines seem to be unique to each person, let alone whether one is male or female. The reasons behind migraines are also unique to individuals. What are some reasons men suffer from migraines?

One reason men end up with migraines is the wear and tear placed on their bodies. Whether it be from physical labor or contact sports, migraines are common in the wake of head and neck injuries such as a concussion or whiplash.

Of course, aging plays a role in the wearing down of soft tissue as well. Vascular tissue, in particular, suffers as a person ages. As men age, neck tension increases. This tension can lead to a reduced flow of oxygen to the brain which has certainly been linked to the occurrence of migraines.

Medication may also play a role in migraine occurrence in males. Beta blockers, a common treatment for hypertension (high blood pressure) are also often provided as a migraine “treatment.” However, it is important to note that these medications only address symptoms and not the underlying issue that causes the migraines in the first place.

To learn more about the connection between head and neck injuries and migraines download our complimentary e-book Natural and Drug-Free Ways to End Your Migraines by clicking the image below.

 

Upper Cervical Chiropractic and Migraines

If you are looking for a different, natural way to deal with the pain of migraines, upper cervical chiropractic may be what you’ve been searching for. This is a specific and gentle method of chiropractic that targets misalignments in the top two bones of the spine. These bones play a role in protecting the brainstem, facilitating blood flow to the brain, and maintaining proper drainage of cerebrospinal fluid. Therefore, even a slight misalignment may result in migraine issues.

Once the misalignment is corrected, many find that migraines are significantly reduced in both severity and frequency. Some even find that migraines are gone for good. Call Atlas Chiropractic of Ashville to find out if this is the right option for you.

To schedule a complimentary Atlas Orthogonal consultation call 828-253-0700 or just click the button below.

 

Book an Appointment Now!

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