Environment - Why It Matters to a Chiari

My environment, both at home and at work, has had an enormous impact on Chiari symptoms.

In 2014-2015 pre-diagnosis, these were my daily symptoms in no particular order:

Head pain with strain

Cough/trouble breathing

Difficulty swallowing

Dizziness

Poor coordination

Tingling in hands/fingers

Hands and arms falling asleep at night

These were my environmental factors in 2014-2015:

Home:

Heavy candle / plug-in scent use

Toxic chemical cleaning supplies

Perfumes, perfumes, PERFUMES!

Work:

Huge company; shared workspace with hundreds of others

Poorly ventilated

High stress

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of cleaning up our environments. Small, simple changes have made a monumental difference in the frequency and intensity of my symptoms.

Home Changes:

• Candle use is rare.

• Plug-ins have been replaced by essential oil diffusers

• Most cleaning supplies have been replaced by their less-toxic, more natural counterparts.

• Perfumes have been (mostly) replaced by essential oils

• Traded Swiffer WetJet for a Bona cleaning system that allows us to choose what chemicals do—and do not—get sprayed on our floors

Work Changes have been more drastic and not necessarily possible or desirable for everyone. The stress of the job I had in transportation when my symptoms emerged became too much. I got sick often (poor ventilation + lots of people = viral paradise) which only exacerbated the head pain (sick = coughing = worst head pain of my life). I battled with quitting for years. The money was too good and home life was too unstable to give up a steady paycheck. But the longer I stayed, the more my health deteriorated. I couldn’t work when I was literally sick all the time. My team, who were as supportive as any coworkers could be, watched me spiral into a pain that they didn’t understand and I couldn’t change. I received the Chiari diagnosis in 2016. In 2017 I started working from home. This helped remove the environmental factors of the large corporation, but didn’t relieve the stress.

I finally left that job in 2018 and began working part time for a natural health practitioner, where the environment was completely different than the large corporate offices I came from, and far more forgiving. There were only three people on our team, the office was small but open, and it was much less stressful. My symptoms declined rapidly, and I only caught one respiratory virus in the two years I worked there.

In 2020 my son was born and I’ve been a stay-at-home-mom / author ever since.

Why do these environmental changes matter with a Chiari? Where you work and live form the basis of your life. The head pain I experienced was triggered (mostly) by coughs. Coughing is one of those pesky Chiari symptoms that is hard to nail down but can be addressed with these kinds of environmental changes. Most of the physical things I did to reduce chemicals in my home and on my body were to stop triggering the cough that triggered the head pain.

STRESS affects all systems of the body (much like a Chiari). Changing my work environment was as much about getting to a physically healthier place as a less stressful one. I’m not suggesting you quit your job…but I’m saying you could look into it if you think it would help. Not every household can necessarily support a change of that magnitude. If you’re thinking I can’t afford to quit/change jobs, I hear you. But if the conditions and stress of your job is contributing to your symptoms or an overall low quality of life, I’d counter with: can you afford not to?

Your symptoms probably look different than mine, and that’s OK. If you get serious about your environment and trust that it could be contributing to your symptoms, you’ll find changes you can make that work for you too.

Since they’ve been an integral part of cleaning up my own physical environment, here is a deep dive into ESSENTIAL OILS.