elimination dieting for health problems- worth it? experiences? - I started getting migraines

[sperginity]

I have been tempted to try this for digestive problems but didn't, but now I started getting migraines often and am thinking it is an option. I'm seeing a doctor soon, but have been thinking about trying an elimination diet to isolate food related triggers for migraines as well. Has anyone tried this or had any success? If it is a total waste of time I will prepare myself for a ride on the pharmaceutical carousel to find the right drugs.

My migraines get worsened by exercise, and I really need to exercise every day. It is starting to be a most days of the week type of thing. Any advice on this would be appreciated.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

WTF is an elimination diet?
I've never heard of it unless it goes by another name.

 

[break these cuffs]

My mother has an autoimmune disorder and has used dieting to keep her symptoms to a minimum and retard the disorder's progress. Her diet is very strict and her doctor has told her he could never keep her diet and would just take the pain meds. There are no treatments for it other than doping yourself to numb the pain once the disorder has progressed far enough.

She also believes in some weird hippie shit when it comes to medicine, so some of this might psychosomatic/placebo effect. I am not sure. She has found success with an elimination diet for her condition.

 

[Clop]

WTF is an elimination diet?
I've never heard of it unless it goes by another name.

Eating very select foods, so that you're eating basically just one thing. These days the fad is eating only red meat, and as with all diet fads, the claims are pretty much akin to turning into a demigod, so likely complete bullshit.

Of course it's helpful when trying to find out what food item is bad for you, but you can usually get that shit tested at an allergy clinic too.

 

[sperginity]

WTF is an elimination diet?
I've never heard of it unless it goes by another name.

Eating very select foods, so that you're eating basically just one thing. These days the fad is eating only red meat, and as with all diet fads, the claims are pretty much akin to turning into a demigod, so likely complete bullshit.

Of course it's helpful when trying to find out what food item is bad for you, but you can usually get that shit tested at an allergy clinic too.

It is actually restricting your diet down to a few foods for a few weeks and then slowly reintroducing other foods and noting symptoms in a journal or something to find correlations. Allergy testing identifies how some of your antibodies respond to specific antigens, but it can't detect anything else (like if a food makes you have horrible heartburn, it might just be the pH of the food and have nothing to do with allergens). The reactivity of the antibodies is not a positive/negative test, it is a number based on the possible range of reactivity, and sometimes the results can be unhelpful because there isn't any specific food that is an outlier in the panel. I don't think I am allergic to anything, and maybe there aren't any foods causing me to have migraines. It would be cool if that was part of the cause and I could skip headaches by giving up a few things. If it is too many foods then I'm not going to bother avoiding them, people who eat only one food permanently are insane.

I know hippies do this a lot but it has been studied as a methodology to identify food intolerance for a very long time.

 

[Spl00gies]

Unless you're afflicted with the horrid disease of obesity (or its aptly named morbid counterpart) then a diet of elimination is useless.

Real men ignore 'intolerance'

EAT THE CHEESE

 

[Baklava]

Yes, I have done this and it does work, but you have to stick to it religiously for however long you intend to do it. I highly recommend this book, which has food lists, talks about inflammatory conditions and nutrition, etc. for a low-histamine, gluten-free elimination diet.

Lowering histamine levels is also beneficial in reducing the severity of inflammation and allergic reactions. There are also foods that facilitate the release of histamine to look out for, like citrus fruits. I'll link a couple of lists for you to look at so you can draft up some meals (if this piques your interest). Your mileage may vary and adjust as needed based on what you know you can tolerate, but if inflammatory conditions or allergic reactions are an issue, you'll benefit as long as you stick to it.

Food list 1
Food list 2

There are a bazillion articles and lists on this topic, especially on paleo diet sites, but you don't have to do paleo to do this type of elimination diet, and most people don't need it unless they suffer from severe allergies or inflammatory/autoimmune conditions. There's a decent amount of variety, so you're not stuck eating oatmeal or something 3 meals a day.

If you do it, try for 30 days and see how you feel. Record meals so if you do have a reaction, you can narrow down the cause. Supplement with a daily multivitamin if you're not sure you can meet your nutritional needs or have malabsorption issues/small intestine damage. Reintroduce foods one at a time and space things out 2-4 days at a time so if you do have a reaction, you know it was whatever you reintroduced.

 

[XYZpdq]

It is actually restricting your diet down to a few foods for a few weeks and then slowly reintroducing other foods and noting symptoms in a journal or something to find correlations. Allergy testing identifies how some of your antibodies respond to specific antigens, but it can't detect anything else (like if a food makes you have horrible heartburn, it might just be the pH of the food and have nothing to do with allergens). The reactivity of the antibodies is not a positive/negative test, it is a number based on the possible range of reactivity, and sometimes the results can be unhelpful because there isn't any specific food that is an outlier in the panel. I don't think I am allergic to anything, and maybe there aren't any foods causing me to have migraines. It would be cool if that was part of the cause and I could skip headaches by giving up a few things. If it is too many foods then I'm not going to bother avoiding them, people who eat only one food permanently are insane.

I know hippies do this a lot but it has been studied as a methodology to identify food intolerance for a very long time.

Yeah, it's not crazy. My parents did that with me when I started sneezing after breakfast every day, turned out I sprouted a milk allergy, buddy had a different allergy he picked up on that way.

There's a more half-assed way to do it where if you have hunch what the issue is then you just pull a likely suspect out and do those one at a time, like with me since it was clockwork right after breakfast there was pretty good odds it was something in breakfast, sure enough it was downing a glass of milk.