I manage my environmental triggers as well as I can. At restaurants, I double check to see if there are nuts in a dish. I stay clear of toiletries and cleaning products at the grocery store. I switch seats at movies to get away from smelly neighbors.
Then I spill tea on my cellphone. After many attempts at resuscitation, I replaced it with a pretty pink Razr from eBay. The new phone just arrived and seems to work fine. I don’t know for sure because I can’t hold it up to my face to talk on it. It reeks of perfume.
The crazy thing is that I wanted a red phone until I found out that they aren’t manufactured in red, but painted by a third party company. Wanting to avoid the potential for paint fumes, I chose a different color.
Should I have foreseen this danger? Would I have a stink-free phone if I’d gotten it in silver? Like I have enough control over the world to keep from getting a perfumed phone.
The moral of the story: It’s impossible to avoid all potential migraine or headache triggers. No matter how hard you try. Don’t beat yourself up! (Kerrie, that means you.)
Any suggestions for removing odors from plastic? I’ve already wiped it down with hydrogen peroxide. We don’t have rubbing alcohol; maybe vodka?
I used to have severe headaches, with my head feeling fried, my ear hurt and was hot and I had tooth pain on the side I used my cell phone. If I used the cell phone for a few minutes, I couldn’t focus at all until 3-4 hours later.
When I got a BioPro cell chip and pendant, my ear and tooth pain went away, the brain ‘frying feeling’ went down to a “baked feeling’ and the headache intensity lessened.
When I started drinking BioPro’s structured water (iH20) and used their P2R supplement, the headaches left completely and my brain and I feel normal again with my ability to focus and do my accounting work returned again. I thought I was going to have to go on disability income until I learned about BioPro’s products and how dangerous the frequencies from cell phones, cell towers and wireless internet routers can be.
Oh, an unexpected benefit of using BioPro’s products has been a dramatic reduction in my allergies also. I had numerous inhalent allergies. They were so severe that if I went outside for an hour, because of the grasses, weeds, trees, molds and pollens, I would be sick for days. I had the blood allergy testing done to find out what I was allergic to.
Now I can go outside and even cut the grass and not get sick.
The structured water (iH20) machine that BioPro sells was a huge component in my getting better. I highly recommend it.
What I’ve come to accept is that there are those of us who simply get headaches from cell usage of any significant length, and those that have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
In fact, I can feel my head being magnetized, radiated, whatever you want to call it…(or something to that effect), from the moment I start on a call. But I have friends who notice no effect whatsoever from any length of cell call.
I guess some of us are just sensitive to it and some are not (please don’t feel left out if you aren’t!).
I notice that I get a migraine if I spend more than 5 minutes on my cellphone. My cell phone has a black rubbery coating on it and no smell. I am curious if there are any studies on cell phone usage and migraines.
My phone is currently in a plastic storage container with a paper towel soaked in vanilla. We’ll see. . .
Thanks for the tips. My solution so far has been to not talk on the phone. 🙂 It’s a good excuse for getting a headset.
Kelly, I’d love to try what you have.
James, I haven’t gotten your e-mail.
Kerrie
Skip the vodka and go buy some rubbing alcohol. It’s cheaper ($1.79 per bottle) and more concentrated (80 proof vodka is only 40% alcohol; the most common kind of rubbing alcohol has 70% alcohol, and if you look around a bit you might find 90%).
This won’t help you if the perfume has worked its way into the phone’s innards, but try it first because it’s cheaper than going out and buying a new phone.
Or, you could check to see if your cell phone provider has a “free phone every two years” program and just get a brand new, stink-free one at no cost. Then sell yours to someone else on eBay, but make sure you mention the perfume so some other poor migraineur or sufferer from multiple chemical sensitivity won’t get stuck with it.
Just using my phone for any lenght of time makes my daily headache worse and can even fire off a migraine. Often wondered if it was the electromagnetics or radiation given off by mobile handsets.
(Did you recieve my email?)
James x
have you contacted the cell phone company??? Maybe they will be able to replace your phone for a new “smell free” phone free of charge because of you medical condition? Worth a shot anyway.
Vodka might help, but it depends a lot upon the fixatives in the perfume. I have some ethyl alcohol that I use to clean out my aromatherapy bottles (essential oils are only solvent in alcohol). You’re welcome to borrow it and give it a try. I have no idea if it will help with commercial perfumes, but it’s worth a shot. 🙂