The Quest For An Answer Begins

For about as long as I can remember I've gotten headaches. Up until my late-30s I thought of them only as headaches.  But about 15+ years ago I was talking with my doctor and he put the "migraine" label on them. He handed me a prescription for Zomig and said "This should probably help." It did...most of the time. But as time has passed they've gotten worse. I figured this was genetic "luck". My sisters got headaches. (One sister has fortunately seen them virtually go away. But my other sister and I continue to deal with them.) My dad got headaches. And from what I have been told my grandmother got them as well. In my family it seemed that headaches were inevitable and one needed to just deal with it.

But...I've had it. I'm fed up. I'm sick and tired of 1/ what the headaches do to totally interrupt standard life (work, vacations, activities, etc.) and 2/ not knowing what my migraine "triggers" are. So, after doing some research, I've decided to launch a very deliberate effort to get to the root of what causes my migraines. My hope is not only that I'll be able to improve my own situation, but also that others might benefit from my experiences.

The Project
I want to create an environment that is as controlled and monitored as is practical to see if I can isolate foods and/or behaviors that result in pain. This quest is being launched with two primary activities:

• Diet. I'll be following an elimination diet. My sister found a book about this process and I thought it was a great idea. I found this interesting article that includes two food lists. One is a list of very safe (non-migraine-triggering) foods.  The other is a list of commonly known migraine triggers.  That article's recommendation is to eat only the foods from the migraine-safe list for two weeks. Then, every few days, add a food not on that list into your diet to see what happens. If you didn't click the link the migraine-safe list is pretty.....uh....restricting: Rice (brown or white); cooked green, orange or yellow vegetables; and cooked or dried non-citrus fruits. Yum! ;-)
• Data Logging. My very-organized wife has put together a spreadsheet that enables me to track all sorts of daily facts: bed time, wake-up time, foods eaten at which times of the day, exercise completed, headache pain level through the day, etc.  Hopefully patterns can be picked up by tracking data at this level.

Due to some upcoming social commitments (weekends away with friends, etc.) I'm not able to go full-on with only migraine-safe foods for two consecutive weeks. It'll likely be early March before I can do that. But for the time being I have drastically restricted my diet. Right now eating consists primarily of brown rice, ground beef, steamed broccoli, dates, prunes, blueberries, and yogurt. (Meat and dairy are on the "dangerous" list. But with how things are going it seems I can tolerate them well.) I've also significantly reduced my caffeine consumption - from roughly 3-4 cups/day to 1 cup/day. I hope to be eliminating that completely in the next 10-14 days.

I also may have realized (thanks to my data logging) that a change of pillows may have had a positive impact. About two weeks ago we got new pillows - much thicker than our previous ones. It seems that was the starting point of a bad string of headaches I've had. I thought of the correlation and switched back to a thinner pillow. The next morning I felt the best I've felt in weeks. Was it the pillow....or did I happen to be at the end of a caffeine withdrawal? I'm not sure. Maybe it was just a coincidence. But in any event, it's something to consider.

I'll keep reporting back on how it's going, as well as providing other info I find.  

Please share your experiences (in the comments below) dealing with and avoiding migraine pain. What worked? What didn't work?  

Jim