Food allergy, special diets

How many of you have tried special diets? I know they have the usual migraine diet. But what about the specific carbohydrate diet? The paleo diet? The gluten free diet? Dairy free? etc.

I have been Gluten free for about 9 months. I feel a bit better physically and my knees hurt less, but the headaches are not any different.

What have you tried? What works for you?

Mary Anne

Years ago, my mom tried an elimination diet, where she cut out all but limited veggies and added things back gradually, in the hopes of trying to figure out what foods were causing her migraines (they thought they were allergies then, before migraines were as understood). But nothing made a difference.

I also did a special diet when I was on nardil, an MAOI. I had to avoid all preservatives, cheese, yeast extract, MSG, soy sauce, terrikaki sauce, and a host of other things. Neither the medicine nor the diet did anything to help my migraines.

From what I've read, special diets are overrated. People like to talk about them because they are easy to advocate, but I've even had migraines specialists tell me that they are not as exciting as the others like to make seem. I have found that it is the less-informed doctors who are most eager to push these diets on me. The specialists haven't messed with it.

DH is a celiac (auto immune disease that causes gluten to attack the body-very short explanation), so the house is gluten light and his diet is gluten free. I will still cook regular pasta, toast, frozen meals, and when he's out of town, pizza. For us it's a life necessity, but I do know that when he has a slip up (a coworker grabbed him take out, and didn't know about soy sauce having wheat), his migraines get worse for about a week. Feel free to ask me any gluten free questions if you've got them.