I feel this post may be one of the most important posts I write. Usually I write mostly for myself without hoping too much that someone will read it but even if I could help one or two people that just happened upon this post I would be very happy. It has been seven years since I last posted and much of that time has been discovering food triggers for my migraines.
I would like to start by saying I was one of those people who kind of poo pooed the thought of food triggers. I go to a headache center and I was told my doctor's philosophy was that food triggers are too difficult to narrow down so he didn't even try to get patients to find them. I think my attitude is important because it has made it more difficult to find them because there is whole thought process involved. It had started with a lot of denial and doubting and has ended with knowing for sure that certain foods trigger migraines for me. This journey has been long and I would say arduous, with a lot of emotional ups and downs. You may wonder how it could be emotional. It is emotional because I find it sad and somewhat depressing to know that I cannot eat certain foods that I love for the rest of my life without risking a migraine. People who know me will try to be comforting and tell me that at least I know about them and can be happy that if I don't eat them I will get less migraines. Yes, I am happy about that but that doesn't make it easier to give them up. It wouldn't be so bad if it was only a couple of things but it is many things and each new food that I discover brings with it the denial, sadness and then begrudging acceptance.
I suppose the journey began even earlier when I figured out that chocolate was giving me diarrhea. This discovery was even before I began to have increased migraines. My sister in law had given me the biggest bag of M&Ms I have ever seen. It was mostly for my three kids but that summer I probably had a small handful of them every day. I am not one to binge on any one food item so there wasn't an immediate thought that it was causing me a problem. I just knew that summer I had a lot of diarrhea. Haha. At the end of the summer I had finally had the thought that there might be a connection but only after the diarrhea had miraculously subsided. So I started to experiment and figured it out. Again, this had nothing to do with migraines since I was still only getting one a year or maybe every two years. I did figure out that I couldn't necessarily eat things without consequence.
Over these years of having an increased frequency of migraines I can have entire years that are bad and entire years that are good. Bad for me is up to four migraines a month and good is going months without a migraine. I think the most I went was five months. I would like to point out, as a reminder, that I am on Dostinex (Lamictal) as well as butterburr extract every day to prevent them. I have tried unsuccessfully three times to wean myself off the Dostinex by lowering my dose. I did have one particularly bad year and my doctor added Topamax in addition to the Dostinex. It worked wonders and completely eradicated the migraines but it is nicknamed "Dopamax" for a reason. I am slow to figure things out so I was on it for a year and was napping every afternoon before figuring out the connection. I suffered from other side effects that didn't subside with time so I successfully weaned myself off. Even though I now get some migraines I will not go back to Topamax unless things get really bad. I mention the medicine because I am about to write that I have had extreme success from avoiding food triggers but it has not allowed me to go off my medication but it still has helped a lot.
I first began to realize I had food triggers in a very slow way since I had that level of denial that they could exist. First I began to have this generalized feeling that certain foods were best to be avoided. Swedish Fish was among them. Again, I seem to eat more candy in the summer and had been having a few of them most days when I realized that summer I had more migraines. This was only one food so I figured it wouldn't hurt to stop eating them without doing a lot of research. I thought a bit about how red dyes are a supposed trigger for people. Then one evening I was super thirsty and right before going to bed I had a huge glass of Hawaiian Punch. I woke up at 2:00 am with a raging migraine and the next day thought "Aha!" I began avoiding all red dye which was kind of depressing because apparently I love brightly colored candy! At this point I was only avoiding things that were red and not reading labels so it still wasn't too bad.
A weird thing had started to happen to me that I have never heard from anyone else and have never read anywhere. I started to get an unstoppable heartburn when there was a looming migraine. It was not something that I wondered about, it is a definite connection. It did make me realize that certain foods must be a trigger.
Subsequently I have learned that most dyes cause me a problem. Other foods I avoid are certain spices, soda, tea and still chocolate. I use the word avoid because some things I am not 100% sure about and somethings I can get away with occasionally. Currently I am in the process of accepting the fact that beer and probably alcohol in general is a trigger.
I learned about tea because occasionally I would drink that huge ole cup of McDonald's sweet tea and eventually I realized and accepted that it could cause me a migraine. I looked up the ingredients since sometimes things have dyes that you wouldn't expect. Tea and sugar were the only ingredients. I was 100% sure it was giving me migraines so I resorted to googling "why does McDonald's sweet tea give me migraines." That is when I found out that the tannin found in teas can trigger migraines in some people. Since then I have learned a lot about tannin and which foods have the most but that would be a separate post for a later time.
For now I want to end with the thought that even people like me can find and accept that we have food triggers. If you have a suspicion but don't want to accept it, I would encourage you to consider and investigate because it can indeed help you to lower your migraine frequency.
Saturday, January 7, 2017
STRESS
As I mentioned in the previous post I have recently been under incredible stress. I wanted to post about whether I have a migraine/stress connection because often times people think there is a connection. I do not think I have a connection. I should correct myself, most types of stress do not increase the frequency of my migraines but the fight or flight kind that causes adrenaline to flow definitely gives me a migraine. That situation has to be pretty extreme for it to cause a migraine though - I'm talking hands shaking from adrenaline level.
The other kind of long term stress where I'm having trouble dealing with life does not seem to increase the frequency of my migraines. I did indeed have increased migraines during this last stressful phase of my life but it coincided with having low iron again. Since past experience shows I have a migraine/low iron connection and not a migraine/stress connection I can only blame it on the iron.
I am not sure if this post would help anyone but I thought I would write about it because sometimes it is frustrating for others to assume there is a connection.
The other kind of long term stress where I'm having trouble dealing with life does not seem to increase the frequency of my migraines. I did indeed have increased migraines during this last stressful phase of my life but it coincided with having low iron again. Since past experience shows I have a migraine/low iron connection and not a migraine/stress connection I can only blame it on the iron.
I am not sure if this post would help anyone but I thought I would write about it because sometimes it is frustrating for others to assume there is a connection.
IT HAS BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I POSTED!
When I see how long it has been since I posted it is amazing that it has been so long. I actually have been through such a journey since then! First I will talk about the migraine/iron connection since that was my last post. Recently my iron did get low again and I was having more migraines so that just strengthens my theory (again, remember it is only a theory since I am not a doctor). This time I did not go to the doctor to have my iron level checked because I was almost 100% sure it was low and first I wanted to try to raise it and see if the symptoms went away. That's NOT an idea I advocate for anyone else but the fact is, that is what I did. I am not a doctor and not even close to an expert. I am just a person trying to feel better.
Here is how the events unfolded. At the end of April I was going through an incredibly stressful time, probably the worst of my life. I thought I was completely exhausted from it and then my heart started to skip a lot of beats. It was always worse at night and would sometimes skip every third beat. I am NOT advocating avoiding going to a doctor for something so serious but I did not go at that time. I think the stress I was under had a lot to do with that. I was also having a lot of trouble with my fingernails breaking and I even had some night sweats like before when my iron got low but incredibly I still just thought it was stress. I would say it took a good two or maybe even three months for it to occur to me that it could be that my iron was low. I had not felt out of breath but I think that was because I was not doing anything physical. I had absolutely no motivation to do anything. My life had become an endless hamster wheel of going to work, coming home and maybe making dinner or maybe not and then plopping down on the couch in front of the television. My brain function was affected and I eventually noticed but it took awhile since I was pretty distracted from dealing with the stress.
Once it occurred to me that it might be my iron I increased my iron intake and after a couple of months my heart started to beat normally and my finger nails were not perfect but they weren't breaking as much. I have not felt as exhausted but I'm also not under as much stress. I still occasionally get night sweats and my brain function is definitely taking longer to get back to normal which is kind of a bummer. I have been getting less migraines but I have some other things that I have been doing which makes me believe there are a lot of factors effecting the frequency. I will have separate posts for those things as well as one about whether I have a stress/migraine connection.
Out of this recent situation I have learned that palpitations CAN be your heart actually skipping beats. I am not sure why I thought it did not mean that since I found the true definition everywhere I read. Also, I'm sure others sometimes have doubts about whether their symptoms are really associated with something or not but this situation did confirm which of my symptoms are definitely associated with low iron. It still amazes me that low iron can have such significant effects on a person's body!
Here is how the events unfolded. At the end of April I was going through an incredibly stressful time, probably the worst of my life. I thought I was completely exhausted from it and then my heart started to skip a lot of beats. It was always worse at night and would sometimes skip every third beat. I am NOT advocating avoiding going to a doctor for something so serious but I did not go at that time. I think the stress I was under had a lot to do with that. I was also having a lot of trouble with my fingernails breaking and I even had some night sweats like before when my iron got low but incredibly I still just thought it was stress. I would say it took a good two or maybe even three months for it to occur to me that it could be that my iron was low. I had not felt out of breath but I think that was because I was not doing anything physical. I had absolutely no motivation to do anything. My life had become an endless hamster wheel of going to work, coming home and maybe making dinner or maybe not and then plopping down on the couch in front of the television. My brain function was affected and I eventually noticed but it took awhile since I was pretty distracted from dealing with the stress.
Once it occurred to me that it might be my iron I increased my iron intake and after a couple of months my heart started to beat normally and my finger nails were not perfect but they weren't breaking as much. I have not felt as exhausted but I'm also not under as much stress. I still occasionally get night sweats and my brain function is definitely taking longer to get back to normal which is kind of a bummer. I have been getting less migraines but I have some other things that I have been doing which makes me believe there are a lot of factors effecting the frequency. I will have separate posts for those things as well as one about whether I have a stress/migraine connection.
Out of this recent situation I have learned that palpitations CAN be your heart actually skipping beats. I am not sure why I thought it did not mean that since I found the true definition everywhere I read. Also, I'm sure others sometimes have doubts about whether their symptoms are really associated with something or not but this situation did confirm which of my symptoms are definitely associated with low iron. It still amazes me that low iron can have such significant effects on a person's body!
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