unexpected guest

How do you handle this situation? I woke up at 3:00 a.m. with M. To make matters worse guest showup wearing perfume & stay for 3 hours. Somehow I made it thru the visit without mentioning I was sick or excusing myself. If I had been home alone I would not have gone to the door but DH was here & it was his relatives so I made nice. Thanks.

Options

(1) press on, do your best and suffer quietly, but as you are probably not that chipper, they leave thinking you are angry at them or something.

(2) tell them you are sorry but you have a terrible migraine and go to bed, leaving hubby to entertain them. They will feel sorry for you and probably think twice about dropping in without warning next time.

Unfortunately we usually try the first option.

Tell the truth!

thanks for reply.

I had a migraine during Thanksgiving dinner at my home........I explained to my guests (both family and friends) what was going on and I had to go lay down. Everybody was very kind and they were lots of extra hands to help my husband with clean up later! Tell the truth and go lay down - take care of yourself first.

it is a huge dilemma, and has happened to me too many times to count. that dratted stinky perfume!!

in my twenties, before i became a migraineur at age 29, i was one of those perfumed offenders. nothing was ever said to me about wearing it. in those days (the 60's) there was no awareness that it could cause asthma attacks or anything else.

personally i would like to outlaw all artificial fragrances in products of all types. ha! that's not gonna happen but i can dream.........they are not made of flowers anymore, of course, but manufactured with thousands upon thousands of killer chemicals. as in killing brain cells.

this is not something i made up, it's science. yet, the average person uses fragranced-everything: cleaning products, deodorant, hair products, and with my ultra-sensitive nose, i have no idea how they stand themselves or their laundry full of smelly crap.

there is no other way to get your message across but to tell the truth. IMPOSSIBLE, when it's your family. you don't want to hurt feelings. but hey, they are hurting YOU and since it's a delayed reaction (with me, it's 8 to 12 hours) they don't see you in the throes of this hideous pain.

i guess you just have to back away when you come upon sometime loaded with perfume, and explain that it makes you sick later. even a tiny exposure will do that to me. as for letting perfumed people come into your house or your car, it's a ticklish scenario, but often i've just said "something you are wearing is making me feel sick, so let's visit outside". if they take offense, it's THEIR problem, not yours.

"i'll have to go with with you in the car another time because i'm feeling suddenly terrible". a kind person will care, and be sensitive to your needs. i have no idea how to deal diplomatically with the ones who are not kind........good luck with this. dianne

I may have offended someone with perfume back in the 60's also. My mom also had migraines & I don't remember any of our family wearing strong fragrances.

When someone comes to my home that isn't aware of my situation I try to tolerate it until they leave, then I carry out the furniture cushions they sat on. Isn't that terrible? LOL! I try not to make not make it all about me which is hard to do when I have a M. thanks for your comments.

mattie, it IS all about you in this case. you are vulnerable to smelly stuff, and many people are unaware of how it affects you.

i have done the exact same thing in my house; if someone visits who is even a little perfumey, i try to not have any close contact with them, and after they leave, i also air out the pillows/cushions/anything they had their body on.

this very morning, at church, i was at the "welcome table". the lady who was greeting with me put on perfumed hand lotion, so i had to tell her 2 seconds after meeting her for the first time. she was VERY apologetic and said she rarely wears it, but for some reason decided to at the last minute. eeeeeek.

she offered to wash it off, and did so, but of course, if one is ultra-sensitive like you and i, it doesn't all come off, and she still stunk. still, i stood away from her, and i hope i got away with it. i'll find out later!

whatta way to live, eh? dianne

Me too guilty about wearing perfumes even in the seventies/eighties. I adore good quality scents and the way my clothes were "personalised" by "my" scent. I had M since childhood, but perfumes did not affect me until one day, suddenly, I could not bear to smell any scents at all.
I was left with a fortune in unused perfumes, since I was often given perfumes as presents, some really expensive French ones as well.
I tried to give them away, but most people have "their own favoirite" so in the end most were wasted and eventually thrown away.

BTW, I do not think it makes much difference in terms of triggering M if the scents are natural, or not, since I can get a terrible M just by having some scented flowers in the house (lilies are the worst offenders).

As to unexpected guest and M?
I would politely excuse myself if there was someone else to entertain them, if not, I would probably offer them "a quick" cup of coffe at the same time that I am not at my best, because I am not feeling well, and musto lie down becasue I feel sick and my head hurts a lot.
Only a very rude, or insensitive person, would stay after that.
But some might...If they do, I will say after some 10 min or so, that I really need to go to lie down NOW, and I hope to see them some other time.

About people's perfume; it might be a good idea if it was your partner who mentions it to the visitor (or others), as it is easier to talk on behalf of another person. They can explain how even a small ammount of perfum can trigger a very bad M, which can make you sick for days.

Most people have no idea, but once they know, I would make sure that they never use it in your presence. If they still do, I would just excuse myself and say: I am sorry I am allergic to scents so you must excuse me, and leave the room.

I know this sounds horrible, and people can get upset about such things, but nothing is worth the pain. True friends would know and undertsand.
It is more difficult if it is a case of an uncooperative family member during family gatherings. This is hard to deal with.

But we must protest not only in our own name, but also to educate people about reality of living with M.

The older I get and the more I live with my daily migraines the more vocal I have become about what I need. I forgot to mention earlier that I do have real trouble with stripes and busy patterns on clothes and when I am at a gathering where someone is wearing a shirt etc...that is a migraine trigger for me I either ask them to cover it up somehow or ask them to make sure that they stay a safe distance away from me. I am president of a local organization and have already told all my board members that stripes and busy patterns will not be allowed at our monthly meetings. I used to be very shy about speaking up about my migraine needs but the more I speak up the more I find that other people also have sensitivities and they are very respectful of my issues.

I worked with a woman who had a heightened sense of smell after a car accident (she had to give up being a nurse as a result), and asked us not wear perfume to work. It wasn't a problem for anyone - we all wanted to know more about how that happens in the first place.

I'd say let them know.

I would just let them know, they are over at your house after all and then next time they will know.

I kept having run ins today with a woman at the grocery store who wore a STRONG perfume and no matter where I went I could smell it. It was afful. She ended up in my checkout line as well! I forgot half of my items and in the time it took to grab a basket of groceries my face felt saggy and numb and I had to go home and take imitrex.