sudden migraines, is this normal, never had them before, please someone talk to me

While I am not a seasoned expert on migraines, I recently have discovered that 90% of migraines can be attributed to chemicals, and some to artificial sweeteners - aspartame, phenylalanine, sorbitol, manitol, etc. Do you drink diet drinks or Crystal Light? Eat light yogurt? Chew gum or mints such as Dentyne/Trident, Juicyfruit, Breath Savers? These artificial sweeteners are in these product, in addition to 6000+ food items now. If you want to determine if these sweeteners are either causing your symptoms or making them worse, cut back and then eliminate them from your diet, completely. While you're at it, reduce and then eliminate caffeine. I used to have headaches since I was 16 and I'm 58 now, recently I was strongly suggested to eliminate caffeine and aspartame/phenylalanine from my diet completely (for another dx, meniere's disease). Once I went off all these chemicals, my headaches went away completely. I simply no longer have them. I only drink water now, 3 quarts. Used to be I'd wake up with a headache each morning and until I had 1 to 2 cups of strong coffee, it wouldn't go away. I had to consume 4 more servings of caffeine thru out my day, regular Pepsi, hot or iced tea. My doctor convinced me I was trapped in an endless cycle - my head thought I needed more caffeine to keep the headaches at bay when in reality, caffeine was perpetuating headaches. It was just a vicious cycle.

I was quite skeptical about eliminating caffeine but turns out my doctor was correct. I feel much better now.

As a side note, he said no one should ever consume artificial sweeteners, they are lethal toxins and to be avoided at all costs. Forever. It's scary how many food products aspartame is in now.

Post Edited (Marsky) : 10/3/2013 6:00:13 PM (GMT-6)

I read online it takes 60 days to eliminate traces of aspartame and the like.

Here's the tricky part though - this artificial sweetener is in so many different types of food now, it's frightening how widespread this is, so you need to do research and read every single label to be sure you are not ingesting aspartame in your diet. I used to chew Dentynne gum and chew Breath Savers mints, no more, I buy my gum from health food stores now. I use Tom's toothpaste too, Sorbitol is in Colgate, Crest, etc. And it's not as harmful for us as aspartame (basically you pickling your insides, one component to create aspartame is phenylalanine and this chemical is used to make embalming fluid) but I don't want Sorbitol in my system either.

Just google aspartame and the many, many names it goes by (they're always changing the names so the unsuspecting public thinks a product is safe to consume).

Also foodeducate.com is a great resource, you can enter any food name and the list of ingredients come up.

If you go organic, you may feel incredibly much better than you do right now.

I need to add that when I was strongly advised to give up caffeine, aspartame and alcohol because I now have Meniere's Disease, I thought - great, what's left to drink. I wanted a real Pepsi and regular coffee in the worst way. Caffeine free just wasn't cutting it.

So I declared I would only drink water, and 3 quarts a day at that.

You have no idea how nice it is to wake up w/o a headache! I've always awakened with a headache until I had my first cup of coffee each morning. And took Vanquish to head off a really bad migraine. Now I drink a tall glass of water and then eat breakfast. Used to on family trips I'd pack the small cans of Pepsi and even if we didn't have a fridge, I'd drink one warm in the morning before my family was up and ready for breakfast. That is how addicted to caffeine I was!

If you want to read up on organic diets, head on over the ulcerative colitis forum here, it's very active with people on similar diets. The diet that comes to mind is PALEO. A very nice group of members post on that forum too.

My best to you!

Post Edited (Marsky) : 10/3/2013 6:01:14 PM (GMT-6)