migraines and food

I have battled migraines almost as long as I can remember. It has become that I live in fear of getting one almost daily. My family suffers right along with me every time I get one. Sydney will have something planned to do for the day and she will look worriedly at me, study my face, and ask if my head hurts. She is pretty much right on 95% of the time. I feel terrible when I have to bail on things that have been planned or activities that my kids want to do because my head is pounding and light & sound are my worst enemy.

I have plenty of medications for when my head starts pounding. 3 Advil or similar are like candy and do nothing to touch them. Excedrin Migraine is the worst because it has caffeine in it which just makes jittery, doesn't take away the headache, and again - it is like candy. I take a pretty strong 100 milligram medication when I have a full-blown migraine, and I have some backups in case that doesn't work. The problem is I'm only allowed 18 of them a year, which makes them like gold and don't want to waste them on a smaller headache.

I have tried quite a few preventative ones during the last few years and none have worked out all that great. One that I specifically think of was a med used for epilepsy patients since it seemed to help reduce migraines. I believe it helped a bit, but it had some pretty strong and possibly severe side effects...so I stopped taking it.

The reason for the whole background is because I have been doing a lot of reading and research on migraines and food tends to be a trigger for them. It may not be the total cause but it sure can get one going. The list of foods that can trigger one is putting my self control to the test. Peanuts are on the list which of course includes peanut butter - ugh!

My reading on this has brought about many other food findings and scary ones. Pretty much, if it doesn't grow from the earth or doesn't have a mother...don't eat it. Did you ever wonder why cookies that you make home made only last a short time, but the ones in the store last for years? They are pumped with all sorts of stuff to supposedly "preserve" them. Yuck. The extra ingredients in boxed, canned, and processed food can really mess with your body and make problems with thyroids and can lead to heart problems, and diabetes in adults. Not to mention all the cancer causing ingredients that have been said to be "generally recognized as safe." What would you think of getting into a vehicle with some warnings that read the same thing or would you get into a "safe" one?

One of the worst things to eat is high fructose corn syrup. It is in tons of stuff - look at your labels. Glucose is from real sugar and is metabolized by all your cells. Fructose must be metabolized by your liver and it tricks your body into not releasing insulin and leptin - the two hormones your body releases when you are full and done eating. It can actually cause you to be more hungry. Soda is terrible for this and diet soda is worse because of the artificial sweeteners, you actually think you are drinking less calories but your body doesn't know that. It registers sweet taste must mean calories and starts to look for calories in other ways, hence you eat more. People can actually gain more weight drinking diet soda for these reasons. If you must have sugar, make it real sugar. This is very hard to accomplish because HFCS is in lots and lots of stuff including cereal, granola bars, etc. Couldn't figure out why I was eating all these low cal cereal bars and health bars for breakfast and not loosing weight. hmmmm. Sugar equals calories and too many equal weight gain, but HFCS and artificial sweeteners are worse. We used to use splenda thinking it was better, but have cut that out of our diet now.

I'm having a difficult time with the whole thing since I have many items on my list that may trigger migraines, but would be just fine to eat because they are natural foods......citrus fruits, tomatoes, corn, grapes, etc. I'm keeping this wonderful log of absolutely everything that I eat and drink. Foods can trigger migraines 2-3 hours after eaten. I have already found out that I cannot eat hot dogs, deli meats, and anything with peanuts - which is probably not such a bad thing since hot dogs and deli meats are full of nitrates. I do miss peanut butter cups......sigh.

I could go on and on but you'd probably rather I didn't. Until the next time I feel like being a reformed hypocrite and telling anyone about it that wants to listen.........