Symptom? Migraines

Anyone who has ever had a migraine knows they are ugly. My daughter was once periodically incapacitated by extreme, disabling migraine headaches, flat in the bed in a dark bedroom, unable to move or converse.  At other times she was nauseated, dizzy, and lost balance. “Just leave me alone,” she said in a whisper. Females, it seems, are prone to more frequent and severe migraines. Now is that fair?

I know several migraine sufferers who have a long, long list of migraine medications, some meds to “prevent” and some to kill the pain when the prevention fails. Extraordinarily expensive drugs with significant, sometimes dangerous, side effects like stroke. If you happen to be diabetic, those side effects include high blood sugar.

Of course my daughter didn’t have to worry about medication side effects because she didn’t have the money to buy medications. So instead she swallowed mountains of non-prescription pain killers (to no avail) and just suffered through to the miraculous day that the migraine went away, missing several days of work along the way. Where did it come from? Where did it go?

Doctors are pretty good at diagnosing symptoms. You have migraine headaches or You have high blood pressure.They are also pretty good at prescribing medications. Take this drug and see what happens. Ok, let’s add this drug and see what happens. Trial and error. If you have read my book or any of my blogs you know that you usually can’t fix any problem until you know what is causing it.

Through research and testing we figured out the cause of my daughter’s migraines – her favorite red wine and MSG – and confirmed it. I suggested she could change to white wine. She said, “Mother, I would give up wine forever if I never have to endure another migraine.” MSG was easy to eliminate at home but proved to be a bit harder when eating out in restaurants. Some form of MSG is frequently used as a flavor enhancer in restaurant and processed foods. I have a friend who doesn’t get migraines but even a tiny dose of MSG sends her blood sugar spiraling for literally days. See Chapter 12, Read the Label in my book for a long laundry list of ingredients that contain MSG.

There are mountains of sometimes confusing information about migraines on the internet. That means my research was very time consuming. But yesterday I uncovered an excellent article that should help you find and fix your migraines in much less time. Written by Dr. Mark Hyman, the article gives easy to understand direction. He breaks migraines down into five categories, three of which include some element of diet as a part of cause/correction. Give it a look. 

So maybe it is All About the Food and maybe there is more to it. Wouldn’t it be fine if your migraines went away! My daughter assures me that it is a blessing.