The If it tastes good, spit it out! Migraine Diet

Transcription

1 What is a migraine? A common dictionary definition of a migraine is: a recurrent throbbing headache that typically affects one side of the head and is often accompanied by nausea and disturbed vision. Unfortunately, this definition is not truly accurate. Migraines are not always throbbing, one-sided or accompanied by nausea or vision disturbances. Typically, it requires a doctors diagnosis to distinguish a migraine from a headache. A doctor will look at many things in diagnosing migraine. Common symptoms include throbbing pain, light sensitivity, sound sensitivity, nausea, one-sided pain, blurred vision and aura. But, not all symptoms are experienced by all migraineurs Mariposa Naturals LLC Page 1 of 13

2 What can trigger a migraine? Once you know you are experiencing migraines, you may want to determine what is triggering the migraines for you. There are a number of known triggers: 1) Female hormones - Female hormones are one trigger of migraines. However, I believe that hormones are the modern day scapegoats for most migraines. It s too easy to label hormones as the cause. Quite often healing professions blame hormones for a woman s migraines. In 2001, when I started have daily migraines, no one really cared why. Yet I know of men with a similar experiences and doctors would not stop until they found an answer. 2) Foods - This document includes a list of foods that are known to trigger migraines in some people. They include natural foods as well as many man-made and highly processed foods. 3) Environmental toxins - There are many toxins in our every day environment that can trigger migraines. This will be the topic of my next ebook - When Bad Things Smell So Good. 4) Stress - There are some health professionals that strongly deny that stress can trigger a migraine. While others look at stress as a common trigger. I personally have had some very memorable migraines that were brought on by a stressful situation. For me, they weren t your day-to-day stresses. More like the stress of a job interview or delivering bad health news to a loved one. 5) Dehydration - Drinking water is essential to life. The suggestion of eight 8 ounce glasses per day, spaced throughout the day, is an important part of good health. Some people who do not get adequate hydration can develop migraines as a result. Does coffee, tea, soda or juice count towards those 8 glasses per day? Not really Mariposa Naturals LLC Page 2 of 13

3 Your body needs the water. If you give the body coffee, it has to use some of that water to process the caffeine first. Then whatever is left over is used for hydration. 6) Skipping meals - It s common for some people to develop a migraine as a result of extreme hunger. 7) Inadequate sleep - Lack of sleep and poor sleep are also known to trigger migraines in some people. 8) Certain Illnesses - There are some illnesses and conditions that can cause migraines. Some may be life-threatening, which is why you need to see a doctor to rule out such illnesses. 9) No known cause - There are still migraines for which no cause has been determined Mariposa Naturals LLC Page 3 of 13

4 My Story I ve had migraines most of my life, although it was 2002 when a doctor first told me that they were actually migraines. For me they started when I was 16 and were first triggered by a particular fragrance. Years ago, I experienced what were definitely hormone induced migraines. I was 29 or 30 and had been on birth control pills for 8-10 years. I began experiencing migraines at the start of my menstrual cycle. Once I figured out the pattern, I decided that I would first try going off the pill. Poof! The migraines vanished. Then in my late forties I started having round-the-clock headaches and migraines. I never had anyone tell me so, but I was pretty sure that most doctors attributed it to approaching menopause. They didn t care why they were happening, and so they just gave me pills. I finally resolved my migraine problems by examining diet & environment. Until about 2002, I had only ever had one food that I felt gave me a migraine or headache. After that, I went through the process described in this ebook to determine all the foods that were a problem for me Mariposa Naturals LLC Page 4 of 13

5 On the following pages is a list of known migraine triggers. In order to determine what foods, if any, are migraine triggers for you, you must first eliminate all of the foods that are known migraine triggers. My husband even called it the If it tastes good spit it out diet! I followed it for several months and in the end knew which foods triggered migraines for me and which did not. By following this diet, and also eliminating environmental toxins, I ve been able to get my migraines under good control. I ve gone from daily migraines to maybe one a month. The known foods that are migraine triggers can be found on pages 7-9. It s a long list of foods that are known to trigger migraines in some people. It s a harsh list and it can be difficult. But you have to weigh that against the migraines you re now trying to cope with. You won t be on this diet forever. If you find that your migraines improve, then you can add back one item at a time to see how your body reacts. Here are the steps: 1) Eliminate everything on the list from your diet. 2) Do this for a few weeks and notice if your migraines improve. 3) When you get to the point that you see significant improvement in your migraines, pick one food on the list and add it back. Only choose one food item at this time. If you add more than one item at a time, you won t know which is at fault if a migraine is triggered. And then wait a few days. 4) If you experience a migraine, then that food is likely a migraine trigger for you. 5) If you do not experience a migraine, then you can continue to eat that food. Hint: Start with a food you really like. I started with chocolate and am happy to report that chocolate is not a migraine trigger for me. 6) You can then go through the same process with another food Mariposa Naturals LLC Page 5 of 13

6 Aged cheeses Aged game Aged, canned, cured or processed meat, including bologna, game, ham, herring, hot dogs, pepperoni and sausage * Alcoholic beverages AminoSweet Any pickled food Any preserved foods Any vinegar other than White vinegar Artificial sweeteners Aspartame Avocados Bacon * Banana Beans or legumes - including pole, broad, lima, Italian, navy, pinto & garbanzo Beer Bleu cheese Bologna * Bouillon ** Breads w/ Aged Cheese Brie Broad beans Buttermilk Caffeine (more than 16 oz daily) - includes coffee, tea & sodas w/ caffeine Camembert cheese Carrageenan Cheddar cheese Chicken liver Chocolate Chocolate candies Chocolate in any form Chocolate milk Chocolate syrup Cinnamon Red Hots Citrus Cocoa Crackers w/ Aged Cheese Cultured dairy products - buttermilk, sour cream, & yogurt Dried fruits Equal Fava Beans Fermented foods Figs Fresh Yeast Coffee Cake Fresh Yeast Doughnuts Garbanzo beans Gouda cheese 2012 Mariposa Naturals LLC Page 6 of 13

7 Ham * Herring * Homemade yeast bread Hot dogs * Italian beans Items made with brewer s yeast (yeast) - including fresh yeast coffee cake, bread, donuts and sourdough bread, beer Legumes Lentils Lima beans Mango Meat Tenderizers w/ MSG Mozzarella cheese MSG ** Navy beans Nutrasweet Nuts of any kind - walnuts, cashews, pecans, almonds, hazelnuts, etc. Olives Onions - except small amounts for flavoring Papaya Parmesan Cheese Passion Fruit Pate Pea Pods Peanut butter Peanuts Peppermints Pepperoni * Pickled herring Pickles Pinto beans Pizza Pole beans Provolone cheese Pumpkin seeds Raisins Raw Onions Red plums Red wine Romano Cheese Roquefort cheese Saccharin Salad dressings ** Salami * Salted dried fish Sauces ** Sauerkraut Sausage * Seasoning salts ** Sesame Seeds 2012 Mariposa Naturals LLC Page 7 of 13

8 Smoked foods Yogurt Snow Peas Sodium Nitrate Sodium Nitrite Soft pretzels Soups ** * if the item contains nitrates or nitrates ** if the item contains MSG (monosodium glutamate) Sour cream Sourdough bread Soy Sauce Splenda Stilton cheeses Sunflower Seeds Sucralose Sweet N Low Swiss cheese Wine Wine vinegars Yeast Breads 2012 Mariposa Naturals LLC Page 8 of 13

9 Traps and Tips 1) My doctor says that my migraines are caused by hormones. And he could be right. But often times that is only part of the problem. And typically all a doctor can offer is some drugs that may or may not help you. I know because I took a lot of drugs before unraveling my migraine puzzle. Isn t it worth just a bit of time and trouble to see if you can get your migraines under better control? 2) (insert any food) never bothered me before, why should I stop eating it? Things change. Your body can change. Up until 2002, I ate pretty much everything on the migraine trigger list and had no problems. By 2002 I was trying to cope with daily, debilitating migraines and was willing to try almost anything. (I draw the line at Botox, but that s a story for another day.) And I found that there were foods on the list that now trigger migraines for me. 3) You re going to have to read labels. You re going to have to scrutinize the ingredient list. Not the hype on the package, but the actual list. This process really changed how I ate. Things that I had eaten in the past had far too many ingredients for me to read them all. So I quit eating them. And have decided to not eat them because they are typically processed foods. 4) Read all your labels - carefully. We changed a lot of things about how we eat while I was on this diet. And then I would catch myself checking the label of something we hadn t thought of. Like the bread we had been eating for a while. I checked it one day and saw that it had walnuts in it. Nuts of any kind are on the migraine trigger list. We did this with several food items. So check and check again Mariposa Naturals LLC Page 9 of 13

10 5) Dining out - This was the trickiest part of it for me. Read the section below about MSG because you may be surprised about what you ll learn. Question the restaurant, but you may need to get beyond the wait staff. 6) Check out Whole Foods. I really started shopping there because of this diet. That s when I learned that the have a list of Unacceptable Ingredients for Food This is a list of food additives that Whole Foods finds unacceptable. Included on the list are known migraine triggers like aspartame and MSG. But it does not include carrageenan which is a known migraine trigger and, in my opinion, should be on the list. 7) Caffeine - The migraine trigger list says that you can have up to 16 ounces of caffeine per day, including sodas, tea and coffee. You probably should taper off caffeine slowly. It s possible that any caffeine is too much for you. I stopped drinking any caffeine for a year. I now drink it. But I have a different relationship to caffeine now. I no longer have to have it first thing in the morning and don t even have to have it everyday. 8) Artificial Sweeteners - My conclusion regarding artificial sweeteners is to avoid them all. They include: acesulfame-k, AminoSweet, aspartame, Equal, neotame, Nutrasweet, saccharin, Splenda, sucralose, and Sweet N Low. My solution is to just eat less sugar. Sugar in all its forms isn t good for you and neither are the artificial sweeteners. I eliminated all artificial sweeteners and have no plans to bring them back. 9) MSG (Monosodium Glutamate) - MSG is a very well known migraine trigger. There s a common misconception that MSG is primarily found in Chinese food. While it is added to Chinese food, it is much more prevalent in American food Mariposa Naturals LLC Page 10 of 13

11 MSG is used because it is cheap, it enhances the flavor of foods, and it makes you feel fuller than the actual food you ate. (Which may explain why people say they feel hungry an hour after eating Chinese food.) There are three primary groups of foods that commonly have MSG in them: soups, salad dressings and sauces. But there are many other foods as well. It is quite common in foods that are flavored. An example is potato chips: if they re plain they usually don t contain MSG. Quite often the flavored ones (barbecue for example) have MSG in them. You just have to read the labels. This is what makes restaurant eating particularly tricky. Check out the websites and ask questions. Some restaurants list all ingredients and are helpful when you ask questions. Others do not list ingredients on their websites. Always ask, but be aware that the employees may not have the answers. Following are some reported sources of MSG. I think, in all cases, these are only possible sources of MSG: hydrolyzed protein, sodium caseinate or calcium caseinate, autolyzed yeast or yeast extract, gelatin, textured protein, carrageenan, vegetable gum seasonings, spices, flavorings, natural flavorings, flavorings of chicken, beef or pork, smoke flavorings, bouillon, broth or stock, barley malt, malt extract, malt flavoring, whey protein, whey protein isolate, soy protein isolate or concentrate, soy sauce or extract. 1) Carrageenan - Carrageenan occurs naturally in seaweed. Carrageenan is extracted from the seaweed and used in various processed foods for its gelling capabilities. Hence it is used in ice cream, buttermilk, breads, soy milk and almond milk. It is also a known migraine trigger and is potentially carcinogenic. I first encountered carrageenan when I worked in research. We were trying to induce tumors in animals and we used carrageenan for its tumor-promoting capabilities. I was shocked when I first found a known tumor-promoter in ice cream! 2) Additive Effect 2012 Mariposa Naturals LLC Page 11 of 13

12 a) Too much of some food triggers, singly or in combination, can add up to a migraine trigger. For example: I can eat some pecans, but I can also eat too many and trigger a migraine. b) Combinations of factors can trigger a migraine. Such as: stress plus dehydration or stress plus skipping meals Mariposa Naturals LLC Page 12 of 13

13 What s Next? If you re lucky, you ve identified your migraine triggers and are having fewer migraine attacks. But what if you re not? Food was only part of the problem for me. I ve been plagued for years with migraines caused by environmental toxins. They re a bit more difficult to eliminate, but it can be done. I m currently working on another ebook - When Bad Things Smell So Good - which will talk about the steps I took to eliminate toxins from my environment. If you can t wait for the ebook, or you have other questions, please feel free to contact me: Barbara McNeely Natural Health Coach Barbara@MariposaNaturals.com Mariposa Naturals LLC Page 13 of 13