How My Smelly Neighbor Triggered My Migraine Episodes

For 8 lovely years, I thrived in the walking culture lifestyle of my favorite home, a condo in the heart of the city. I enjoyed my fairytale dream world until Michelle purchased the condo below ours and turned my dream into a nightmare. It was late 2019, and falling outdoor temperatures marked autumn’s approach to winter. Turning on the heating system, I smelled a familiar, and unwanted, fragrance in every room of the condo. The fragrance seeping out of Michelle’s unit into the halls of the floor below us was suddenly filling every space of my home.

Michelle was an extreme user of home fragrance products who ran multiple scented oil diffusers and burned scented candles and incense. She had abused the products to the point that the only way she and her family could register the smell was to add more fragrance on top of what was already there. The odor had no choice but to move outside of the saturated air space of Michelle’s unit.

I had a migraine episode 5 days in a row and headed to the doctor for relief. He gave me a gabapentin prescription for preventative measures and stocked me up on abortive triptan medicine. I wore an N95 mask while inside my home and took it off when I left home. The exact opposite of what COVID would require me to do a few months later.

An air purifier ran next to my side of the bed and another near my spot on the couch. For that entire winter, we heated our condo with space heaters to avoid turning on the furnace and sucking more of Michelle’s migraine-triggering stench into our home. What was already traveling through the HVAC system on its own accord was harmful enough. I pleaded my case to Michelle, and she told me she quit using the fragrance products, but the odor wasn’t dissipating.

The property management company hired an HVAC company who determined the property developers had taken a shortcut and connected our heating outtake vent to the pipe from Michelle’s unit instead of venting it directly through the roof. Once an outside party proved the problem was real, the smell did begin to diminish. In addition to being an inconsiderate, uncaring violator of building rules, Michelle, our resident fragrance addict, was also a liar. She hadn’t stopped using the fragrances until building management insisted that she do so.

The HVAC company made repairs to prevent the air from Michelle’s unit from entering ours. Too little, too late. As difficult as it was to be a migraine warrior living near a fragrance abuser, the worst part was how most of our neighbors were unsupportive of my health issue that had been caused by a clear violation of building conduct rules. We sold our beautiful dream life right before the COVID-19 shutdown.

Financially, we came out ahead, and it is lovely to wake up in clean, non-triggering air again. I stopped taking the preventative medicine and returned to my regular migraine frequency. Who would’ve guessed I’d be happy about a regular migraine frequency? 

I still miss my old fairytale life once in a while, but my migraine episodes are under control again and our new next-door neighbors are some of the most genuinely kind people I’ve met in years. A caring support system surrounded by fragrance-free air is a dream come true for this migraine warrior. A dream that makes living with migraine less of a nightmare. 

Originally published at WebMD.com on 8/2/23.

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