Anyway, on Friday Oma and I drove up to the big University to see the neurosurgeon, who said that my Chiari is so minor he wouldn't even really call it that and my problems are all food related. I felt rather deflated, really, not because he didn't suggest surgery (who wants their head shaved and their skull cut open?) but because he didn't offer many answers or actual advice. He essentially told me to go home and figure it out.
So, that's what I'm doing. I have looked up migraine triggers before, but this time I found a very comprehensive list of both environmental and dietary triggers. So now I've put myself on a very restrictive diet with the idea that if I slowly add things back in, I can find out which ones are problematic.
Here's what I'm avoiding:
- MSG (which is really only a problem when eating out at restaurants)
- Cured meats like ham, salami, sausage, pepperoni
- Chocolate
- Caffeine
- Alcohol
- Buttermilk, Cheese, more than 1/2 cup of yogurt a day
- Yeast
- NutraSweet
- Nuts and Peanut Butter
- Tyramine, niacine, nitrates, and nitrites
- Excessive amounts of citrus and more than 1/2 of a banana a day
As for Punkin, his new medication is working pretty well. It's going to take more time to see if this is the answer, but he is much happier and much easier to redirect at home.
2 comments:
stay away from diet soda!!! (also caffeine may be a trigger, but it can actually help quite a bit if you have some caffeine as quickly as possible when you feel a migraine starting)- that's why the over the counter medications have caffeine in the pills themselves. I found out the chemicals in the diet soda and florescent lighting are big triggers for me.
So basically you have to stay away from anything fun.
Post a Comment