FAQ Episode 68: Wildfires as an example of toxicity threshhold overflow
Frequently Asked Questions about Natural Migraine Relief
“You don’t know how much is too much, until its too much, and then it becomes clearly obvious that its too much.”
I grew up in Southern California, and was ~25 yards from losing our home to a Santa Ana’s wind driven wildfire back in the 90s. I remember well how the thick, greasy smoke full of charred petrochemicals was hard to avoid anywhere in my hometown. And while it was irritating for a week or so, most of us tolerated it well enough. But not all of us. I was in medical practice at the time, and saw many cases of health problem flare ups in the weeks that followed. Asthma, COPD, chronic fatigue, autoimmune disorders, migraines, fibromyalgia, eye problems, worsening of chest pain with heart disease and even a worsening of mental health problems like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
The wildfires this week in Los Angeles bring to mind the aftermath of the Lahaina fires ~16 months ago in August 2023. An interesting infograph from the Maui Wildfire Exposure Study through the University of Hawaii1 demonstrates that even now, many local citizens have an excess residual of related symptoms that lingered long after the wildfires:
This demonstrates how many of our health problems can be simmering along until something ‘pushes them over the edge.’ This can also explain why migraines can be fine one day and intolerable the next. And why popular articles about migraines focus on ‘trigger factors.’ What pushed us over our migraine edge today? Or last time? Or next time?
Most of us will not have excess smoke inhalation as a common source of excess oxidative stress, but it is an useful reminder that most people with migraines have some degree of combined inflammatory contribution to their migraine threshold. Let’s consider what some of those might be, and how we could reduce their cumulative contribution to our “migraine threshold.”
Your toxic threshold is your body’s attempt to warn you
Its important to remember that its not only the extra “clean up”workload of toxins that we pay for, its also the attrition of our baseline clean up capacity that leaves us short on resources for the next time we become vulnerable to symptom breakthrough. Migraines are a great example of this, because each of us falls somewhere along a spectrum of resilience to the provocative factors that result in disease. Some people seem almost bulletproof to the trigger factors that readily provoke a migraine in others. Strange as it may seem, a migraine is part of our body’s early warning system that “something is wrong here…please pay attention!”
Potential contributors to toxic threshold overflow
Xenoestrogens: these chemicals are often plastic or petrochemical based and can mimic the effect of estrogens. Since estrogen dominance is a significant contributor to migraine for so many, strive to avoid plastics for food storage, especially for fatty foods, and never microwave them.
Volatile organic molecules: think of pesticides, herbicides, chemical cleaners and the fragrance ingredients in personal care products. First off, minimize your total daily exposure. Then, clearing fat bound organics can take time, but sweat producing exercise and infrared sauna can help to shed them. Make sure to rinse off in chlorine free water afterward (look for an in-line shower filter.)
Electromagnetic energy: most of us live in a sea of EMFs from phones, computers, lights, WiFi, etc. See my post FAQ Episode 36: Electrosensitivity and Headaches for information on this pro-inflammatory toxic contributor and how to manage it more effectively.
Toxic people and relationships: where to begin on this one… The emotional energy needed to manage “other people’s drama” is just as real as that needed to do your taxes, show up for a workout, or prevent a migraine. It can be a psychologist’s life work to address this, but let’s use one word: boundaries. Remember, the word “no” can be a complete sentence. And sometimes there are people in our lives who need to become slightly more distant acquaintances. You only have so much energy to give, so use it wisely.
Information overload: its been said that each Sunday’s edition of the New York Times contains more printed information than the average person in 1900 encountered in a lifetime. When you add in screen time scrolling, TV news and ads and the computer work that’s hard to avoid in most jobs, there’s a lot of data to process each day. And most of it is “intellectual junk food.” I’ll bet you find like I do that of the ~300 emails in my AM Inbox, only about 20 deserve my time and effort or a response. The bioenergetic drawdown to manage this info-load has to come from somewhere. I’ve found that learning “what to leave alone” is a difficult, but rewarding process. Practice it everyday.
Pro-inflammatory fats: seed oils are getting a bad name these days. They do have some negatives, including:
while being processed they lose most of the naturally protective Vitamin E and phenols that would be otherwise protective in their natural form.
they are omega-6 fatty acids, which we do need, but as we don’t often get enough counterbalancing omega-3s in the diet, these oils can cause a pro-inflammatory shift in this balance
a major seed oil negative is the setting for their typical use. You’re most likely to consume seed oils when you’re eating something processed that’s already pretty bad for your health — something that’s also full of fat, sugar and sodium. Its best to limit these fats wherever you can.
Low grade but chronic alcohol ingestion: processing alcohol draws down key B vitamins that are required for both clean up and energy production. It can take months or years for damage like cirrhosis to build up, but you could be paying the price in migraines right now. For paid subscribers, see Lesson 9 Cellular Energy deficits as a Migraine Root cause: Part I Basic Concepts for details on managing this, especially the portion on thiamine.
Food sensitivities: If you have sensitivities to foods, you can be adding a layer of extra inflammation of which you could be fully unaware. These are not the obvious “he ate a peanut and had an anaphylactic reaction” foods. Find out more about how this works in everyday life with my post at FAQ Episode 20: How do food sensitivities promote migraine headaches?
Don’t overfill your cup’s migraine threshold!
Filling your cup with more toxins than you can handle is an insidious process. Shrinking your exposure on each of these areas may allow you to “empty your cup” of enough pro-inflammatory elements to build in reserve against that next migraine event, without going to live in a yurt on an ashram. One of my patients did that, BTW, and her migraines, OCD and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome got a lot better, but it was a radical change, and not for everybody! Start with a little bit of clean up for each of the elements mentioned above, and you will be on your way.
The Maui Wildfire Exposure Study https://analytics.uhero.hawaii.edu/maui-wes Click on the View Survey Results tab