These Life Tweaks Made My Migraines Vanish
If you're plagued by that awful, excruciating, debilitating throb behind the eyes known as the gosh darn migraine, you want solutions. Finding the right medication helps, but what if you could cure migraines for good? I'll tell you what worked for me.
There are just not enough rotten adjectives to describe the horrendous pain associated with a migraine headache. It's an intense throb that gets worse with movement, light, noise, speaking, and breathing, and when it hits we just want to curl up and not move a muscle until it goes away. The pain makes us angry and we want to hit something, but we can't because the thought of moving makes us want to throw up. The worst!
I used to get migraines once or twice a week a week, and I saw several doctors who prescribed several different medications to try to help me. I tried the Imitrex injection that required me to stab myself in the thigh each time the pain hit. I used Maxalt tabs that melted on the tongue. Both of those usually worked, but sometimes they took an hour or two to kick in, and a second dose was necessary on occasion to get the migraine pain to subside completely. But they were an improvement over the grocery store pain relievers that profess to work on migraine pain. They totally didn't work for me, and the pain would last for 8 to 24 hours with no relief using those pills.
Migraines are horrible! And in fact, women are saying that migraine pain is worse than childbirth. Both made me want to cry and stay in the fetal position for the rest of my life, and they rank in very similar place on the pain scale, according to a new report. Can we get an epidural for our heads?
After years of suffering with migraines and some trial and error, I think I stumbled up on a cure. I'm no doctor so you should so your own research, but this has totally worked for me. It's not a quick fix, but a long-term solution instead. Change the diet.
Adding some foods and subtracting others changed my body from the inside out, and the migraines completely went away. This is my formula.
Ways to Wipe Out Migraines:
1. Eliminate processed meats. No ham, bacon, packaged lunch meat, or hot dogs. The sodium nitrates were a killer, and an almost immediate migraine trigger for me.
2. No red wine. The sulfites triggered migraines for me, but not right away. A slow headache would start about three hours after drinking red wine, and it would turn into a migraine a couple of hours after that. White wines seemed to be okay, as long as I had a glass of water with it. Wine, water, wine, water. Sexy.
3. Go gluten-free or low-gluten. I'm not one hundred percent gluten-free, but since I started limiting gluten about three years ago I've felt a ton better overall and headaches of any kind now are almost non-existent, instead of being a bi-weekly event. My head always feels good now.
4. Limit sodium and sugar. Stay out of the canned food aisle! I am a label reader to the max, and if any one food has more than 15 percent of the daily sodium allowance, I don't eat it. Sodium is a bloater, and I think it contributed to my headache problems too. And too much sugar can spark a regular headache, which can morph into a migraine. I gave myself a migraine with pudding and cake once.
5. Limit dairy. I don't drink any cow's milk anymore, and I don't eat cheese. And I used to eat cheese by the pound! Cheese is the thing I miss the most, but I'd rather be migraine-free then eat a hunk of cheddar. I do eat Greek yogurt sometimes, and a little bit of Feta. But limits have helped me.
6. Add more fresh food. Protein and veggies are my friends. Lots of salmon and fresh fish, spinach and walnut salads, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower rice, sweet potatoes, and avocados. Everything you've thought about eating more of after watching the Dr. Oz show.
7. Drink lots of water. The body works better if you're hydrated, and that's especially important if you work out a lot like I do. Water keeps the cells happy and happy cells don't make headaches.
8. Exercise. Run, walk, swim, do yoga, lift weights, and get your blood pumping fast. Then your body doesn't have time to think about getting one of those migraine vessel issues. At least that's how it works in my head. I try to get in an hour of cardio per day, and resistance training too.
If you can eat bacon and cheese and chase it with a glass of red wine and never get a migraine, you are my hero! I'm not that person. Lots of us girls have issues with headaches, and if you get migraines maybe some of the things that worked for me will work for you too. It's worth a shot, right?
One more thing. Titos' Vodka with Diet Coke never gives me a migraine. Woohoo! And I've tried to give myself one with that combo many times.
Good luck. I know you'll find the right anti-migraine groove in your life too.