Food intollerance

Hi everyone

I was told that as a baby I cried a lot.  As a child I had a migraine once every 3 years or so, the worst part was the blurred vision, then a week in bed.  At about 14 years old I remember an aura for months with my eyes, I also remember an out of body feeling.  At 16 yers old I ate a cream cake and a mars bar and had an attack, which made me believe that dairy foods triggered my migraines.  From then on I avoided milk etc. At 30 years old I started to have migraines every week but the doctor seemed to think it was all in my head (YESS it was!!!!-a migraine head!!!)Any way I lived on paracetamol for years until they made me ill, and also I convinced myself that most foods triggered them so I ended up eating just plain rice and green beans for 9 years in fear of an attack.  At 39years old I went for a scan and the specialist said that I had migraine and he gave me some Sanomigran, which the doctor changed to pizotifen.  I take 3mg each day.  At around 47 years old I started to eat better but still avoided dairy and animal fat; until christmas 2009 after eating too many mince pies -which contained lard-I had a bad attack which started weekly attacks for seven months, afraid to eat anything again, at the moment I eat rice carrot sweetcorn and chicken breast.

Has anyone else had a similar experience.

 

scentedshower, i can't believe that you restricted your diet so much! but i understand so well what you are trying to do!

could you try adding more things to your diet and see how they will affect you? you could add zucchini and wait for a week, add celery, wait a little more, mushrooms, apples, . minced pies are hard on anyone's body, they would kill me! but there are lots of other things you could still try adding. if i were you, i would be happy to found the triggers!

yes, i have a similar experience and i don't understand what is going on. i am not happy to have found my triggers because they are essential in one's diet and i can't avoid them.

i had migraines since i was a teenager, once a week, now more and more. lately i went on a very restrictive macrobiotic diet. i started with boiled rice and wheat. it worked like a charm, no more headaches. i added more and more things and i discovered that my triggers are high protein foods. legumes (beans, soy, lentils), seeds(pupkin, nuts), DAIRY, egg white, and meat.

buckwheat would be an alternative because it contains essential amino acids, but it gives me a lot of gas, but i will keep researching into this. one can't live without essential amino acids provided by the things that are triggers for me.

i went to a GI doctor. she said it is not the stomach , it is not food intolerance but these proteins are triggers, they just mess up with my neurological disease, the migraine. they trigger certain hormones, neurotransmitters, blood vessels.

i keep thinking, maybe i miss a certain enzyme that deals with a certain amino-acid? first i thought it is the lack of hypochlorhydric acid in the stomach, this acid is something to do with the protein's digestion. indeed, if i take this acid with meat, i don't get the migraines. it probably triggers a certain enzyme. the doctor says that this is not true, it is just the placebo effect in my head, because my blood tests don't show a lack of acid activity in my stomach. (that would mean anemia, too).

i have researched into this since 1st of January 2010 (because of the effect of christmas food, of course). since then, i was on elimination diets, trying acid, getting stomach gas from it. i am now 90 pounds and i am still eating badly, because of too little proteins. i don't quite know what do do next.
the only medicine i take is diazepam on for the pain. the only other conditions i have is advanced hypothyroidism, i take thyroid hormone (and i became more and more hypothyroid from not eating enough proteins) and mild gerd.

this is a message in a bottle, maybe someone can help :)

Post Edited (alinab) : 9/9/2010 8:27:46 AM (GMT-6)

Hi scentedshower,

I had migraines for many years, and they increased in intensity and frequency until I had almost daily episodes. I had many other symptoms, including vertigo, double vision, gastric problems, extreme fatigue, pain in muscles and joints, etc. I did find that eating things like pasta or pizza or bread seemed to make some of my symptoms worse so I tried to avoid these foods, but wasn't always strict about it.

In 2008 I was diagnosed with several autoimmune diseases plus fibromyalgia. One of the AI diseases was celiac disease.

A miraculous thing happened when I got completely off gluten, cleaned my kitchen, replaced my cutting boards, pots and pans with scratches, toaster, wooden spoons, etc etc (getting rid of any possible gluten contamination because it's a sticky protein molecule that hides). My migraines have improved dramatically. In fact, I rarely get them anymore unless I accidentally ingest something with gluten in it. In fact, the first sign that I've been "glutened" is usually a migraine headache.

Just so you know, most celiacs have problems with dairy foods too, because the disease damages the villi in your small intestine, and this is where the enzyme is produced that allows you to digest milk products.

Anyway, I later found out that I have Lyme disease, which is probably what triggered many of the AI diseases and fibro, so I'm currently being treated for that. Lots of Lymies have to be gluten free, and many people have found that even if they are not celiac, gluten causes or exacerbates inflammation in the body, so it's good to avoid in any case.

If anyone is interested, here is a great tutorial on going gluten free (how to read labels, etc.):

glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2006/01/morning-after-diagnosis-that-is.html

I'm not a doctor, so this is just a suggestion that I'm throwing out there based on my own experiences.

Take care,
JoAnn