Managing Migraine Headaches - How-To Tips to Help You Cope

Migraine headaches are an agonizingly painful daily reality for millions of people. Despite this, they are still in many ways a medical mystery. A quick search on any major search engine will turn up numerous web sites, news articles, journals, and blog entries touting the latest theories of Migraine Cause and Prevention, ranging from the plausible to the downright ludicrous and even possibly dangerous.

Personally, I have suffered from chronic and acute Migraine headaches for nearly 30 years. I have tried just about every prescription Migraine medicine, most of the herbal preventatives, the diets, and even some quack cures. I have found nothing that completely eliminates my headaches, but over the years I have learned some basic things that help me to manage them.

Here are five tips for preventing and managing migraines:

1. Watch what you eat.

No, this doesn't mean count calories and avoid fats. I mean this literally. Many people find that eating certain foods will always trigger or worsen a migraine. Keep a journal of everything that goes in your mouth for at least a month. Also, assess your headache level and note it in your journal. I recommend doing this about an hour after each meal, before going to bed, and when you get up. I use a scale from 1 (no headache) to 10 (kill me). If you find your headache level increases after eating certain foods, eliminate those foods from your diet.

This can be a long process. It has taken me years to find all my food triggers, partly because some foods such as aged cheeses actually cause delayed migraines up to 12 hours after I eat them. My known food triggers are chocolate, the flavoring ingredient monosodium glutamate (msg), citrus (fruits and juice), soy in all forms, wheat, barley, corn (including corn syrup), refined sugar, citric acid, aged cheeses, aspartame artificial sweetener, cashews, pecans, peanuts, pork, and red wine.

Overall, I do better when I make everything I eat from scratch. No mixes, frozen meal kits, TV dinners, or prepared seasonings. It's a pain, but I also have lost more than 30 pounds since I started cooking from scratch a year ago.

2. Have a little caffeine.