Diet analysis

I have kept a headache log for many years, but I have never treied keeping a log of what I ate. It just seemed like too much trouble and I had not ever noticed any consistent problems.

However for the past 5 months I've been tracking everything I eat or drink on Loseit, a program that helps you lose weight (I've lost 25 pounds so far--yea!). So it occurred to me I could go back and correlate my headache log with my diet log to see what turned up. This is what I found out.

I had a total of 45 headache days ot of 151 for a rate of 30% overall.

On days of my cycle or just before I had a headache 15 out of 32 days (46.8%). This is statistically significant at p =.02. (meaning there is less than a 2% chance that it is higher just by chance). So I can say with confidence that my cycle is a trigger.

On days I traveled, I had a headache 7 of 23 days (30%), which is not different than normal.

On days I ate sausage or bacon, I had a headache 10 of 22 days (45%), which is statistically significant at p=.06

On days I ate pepperoni pizza, I had a headache 4 of 6 days (66%), which is statistically significant at p<.05.

On days I had orange juice, lemonade or limeaid, I had a headache 15 of 41 days (36.5%), which is not a statistically significant difference from normal.

On days I just had lemonade, I had a headache 4 of 4 days (100%), which is statistically significant at less than 1%.

So, in addition to my cycle, which I was pretty sure of, I found that the chemicals in prepared meats (bacon, sausage, pepperoni) are a significant trigger. I never suspected this. I think because I can eat it half the time without a problem. But the analysis shows I am more likely to have a headache on the days I eat it, compared to the days I don't.

I had become suspicious of lemonade, which is what prompted me to do the analysis. And indeed it's a problem, so no more of that. Limeaids and orange juice don't seem to be such a problem though. At least not from this analysis, although both had a slightly higher incidence rate.

As for travel, although this analysis doesn't show a significant correlation, I'm going to leave it as a trigger. Mainly because in the 30% of cases where I do get a headache, it comes on immediately, like 30 minutes to an hour after getting off the plane. It's just too clearly linked in those cases to ignore.

Taken all together 85% of my headache days are related to one or more of the factors listed above. I don't know what causes the other 15%, but that's a pretty good majority. I can't do much about the travel or periods, but I can certainly cut out the offending foods. So it was a worthwhile exercise.

Did you also try looking at the foods you ate the day before? With my red #40 food dye issues, I have found that it can be anywhere from 2 hours to 24 hours later that my extremely painful migraine occurrs. With my last instance, I did not know that Subway used red #40 to dye their cheddar cheese (how dumb!). I ate it for lunch, and my next migraine occurred the NEXT evening after that, not that same evening. In addition, I have issues with severe headaches for up to 3 days after eating red #40. Just a suggestion, since you can't find all the triggers for sure, try looking at the day before as well.

Thats great! I haven't had any luck trying to correlate triggers as my pain is daily. However, I've started getting migraines now (previously only the New Daily Persistent Headache), so if I'm getting more than a couple treatable ones a month, I may try this. I like how scientific you were about it with the statistically significant data observations. Best wishes.

That worries me. There is so much concern from doctors and a lot of data about rebound headaches from ALL headache pain medication that I worry every time I pop a pain reliever. We cannot function and go through our daily lives without some pain relief, as small as it might be, from those pills. We need them as a crutch to help us perform in our daily routine. We can try to stay away from trigger food but never our pain medication. Am I right? Repl to; flo_02472@yahoo.com[i]

Seaine - I will take a look at the day before thing. Its certainly possible.

Flo - my personal opinion is the rebound thing is too overblown. It is certainly a problem for some people, but for others going cold turkey with out any pain meds just results in alot more pain and no fewer headaches. That was certainly my experience anyway. I think if they mean to take away the pain meds they should come up with something better first!

Migraine Girl,
Thank you so much, for correlating and posting such an interesting and statistically significant information for us.

I wish I could comment even further, but I am in a hurry to pack before going away for a week (yes, yes flying and travel triggers most likely awaiting) and my head is foggy from the lack of sleep already.

But in meantime I want to say that sadly most of your list is not a surprise for me, since I have "paid" for this information dearly some time ago, by dozens of unnecessary Ms before I began to pay attention to the fact that some foods etc, were obviously a trigger.

The process was slow, and it took me years becasue I noticed the pattern of cause and effect when I ate certain foods. It is also worth mentioning that sometimes food will trigger M even a day, or 48 hours later. This might be easy to miss.
I think another explanation why we are not always affectd by the same trigger, is that at certain times we are more vulnerable to a trrigger for exmaple, when we are already tired, or stressed, or if it is combined with another food.

In the end, I have been able to trasformd my old M pattern, by being completely ruthless about what I eat, cooking all my meals by myself from the basic products, as well as avoiding any made up sauces, drinks etc, and eating in certain restaurants (Chinese, but not only). This made big difference.

I have also found that my list of triggers is much, much longer that I originally suspected as over the years I have become more sensitive, not less, and therefore need to be even more ruthless.

I know sometimes we prefer not to look uncomfortable facts in the face, but I found that it is not worth it in the end.

I hope you are having a good day
Mini

Great analysis! I had a continuous migraine aura affecting my vision for 3 years and I noticed over time that my diet was the best way to manage it. I tried an elimination diet. I cut out 7 common allergens from my diet (Milk, Egg, Wheat, Tomato, Beef, Corn, Soy) and got much better. I now eat mainly rice, vegetables, and fish and have almost no migraines and the aura is manageable.

A study on chronic migraines in children showed that 93% of patients could stop their frequent severe migraines on an oligoantigenic diet (see first reference). In the study, the patients ate only 4 foods (ex: rice, lamb, apples, and brassica) for a week. If that helped reduce their migraines, they added foods back once a week until their diet was nutritious and socially acceptable. There is growing evidence that migraines are an allergic disease. I have included references below. PM me if you would like more.


Best,
Steven

References:

Egger, J., et al. "Is migraine food allergy?: a double-blind controlled trial of oligoantigenic diet treatment." The Lancet (1983): 865-869.

Mansfield, Lyndon E., et al. "Food allergy and adult migraine: double-blind and mediator confirmation of an allergic etiology." Annals of allergy (1985): 126.

Monro, Jean, Claudio Carini, and Jonathan Brostoff. "Migraine is a food-allergic disease." The Lancet (1984): 719-721.