Yesterday we filled the fridge and the pantry with healthy, non-headache-inducing (hopefully) food. We also filled a trash bag with any potential MSG, nitrite, sulfite, and tyramine bombs (*sniff* farewell lunchmeat. goodbye cheese).

I roasted a chicken for dinner last night which we ate with spinach a yeast bread I baked a while back and had stored in the freezer (I can eat yeast-risen breads as long as they are more than 24 hours out of the oven). I’m going to be using the leftover chicken in my sandwiches this week.

I’m coming off of a three day migraine right now. I have just a little sharpness behind my eyes, but I think I’ll be able to be productive today. Gotta get that thesis written so that I can graduate and rid myself of my greatest stressor (and likely greatest headache inducer).

Breakfast: sprouted grain toast and applesauce

Lunch: roast chicken sandwhich, cottage cheese with blueberry jam

Snack: triscuts with American cheese (no tyramine)

Dinner: Ginger soba noodles with spinach and chicken Green salad with shrimp and migraine-friendly vinaigrette (we had to have something Gabe could make since I got home too late to cook)

Today I am starting a new diet which will hopefully help me control my migraines. This blog exists only for me, to help me chronicle what works and what doesn’t, to keep a record of good days, bad days, recipes, and anything else that seems pertinent.

I spent 3 hours this morning making a list of foods I can and cannot eat, looking up recipes, and creating a grocery list for this week. I did not have time to do this. I should have been completing chapter 3 of my thesis (which has not actually been started yet). But as I’ve been battling a migraine for the past 2 days, this seems so much more important right now.

I’m taking the advice of Dr. Buchholz in his book Heal Your Headache: The 1, 2, 3 Program. I’m starting with this because I’d rather not start taking Triptans and other meds that cause a never ending cycle of migraine rebound. Dr. Buchholz’s main idea is that everyone has the migraine mechanism in their bodies and that migraines are caused by triggers—foods, weather, hormones, exercise, even sex. Every person has a migraine threshold and every person has different triggers that can cause them to exceed this threshold. Some people have very high thresholds or very few triggers. These people do not get headaches very often. Lucky them.

Other people, like me, either have a low threshold or are susceptible to many triggers (or both). The diet eliminates all of the most common food triggers to help you stay below the threshold, thus reducing or eliminating headaches. I really hope it works.

Many of the foods on the list are highly processed foods: anything with MSG (which apparently is anything that comes in a box or a bag in the grocery store aisles), snack foods, cheese, processed meats. But there are plenty of things that I would consider “good for you” that are also on the list like citrus, onions, beans, and nuts. Gabe (my husband) and I don’t eat a ton of junk (aside from those all-too-frequent Chick-fil-A runs because Chick-fil-A is freaking delicious), but I am really going to miss cheese, chocolate, bacon, peanut butter, lemon, lime, onions, bananas, and freshly baked yeast-risen breads.

Hopefully once I’ve established control over my headaches (this should take about 4 months) I can gradually add back some of these favorite trigger foods, especially lemon and onions, because, really, how do you even cook without lemon and onions?? The one thing Dr. Buchholz suggests never consuming again is caffeine. This isn’t too terrible since I don’t drink soda and I prefer decaf tea. The problem is, decaf tea and coffee have some caffeine in them. And I LOVE my decaf tea. So for now, I guess I’m going to stick with naturally non-caffeinated herbal teas and hope that I can safely add back my decaf tea in a few months.

Fingers crossed!