By foggy.brain 
How to discover your trigger foods and eliminating them from your diet can significantly reduce the frequency and severity of migraines. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you discover your trigger foods and manage your migraines more effectively.
1. Understand Common Trigger Foods
While triggers can vary from person to person, some foods are more commonly associated with migraines, for more details please ready this article.
Most common trigger foods are:
- Caffeine: Found in coffee, black tea, chocolate, and some sodas.
- Alcohol: Particularly red wine and beer.
- Aged Cheeses: Such as blue cheese, cheddar, and Parmesan.
- Processed Meats: Like sausages, hot dogs, and deli meats.
- Monosodium Glutamate (MSG): Often found in Asian food, processed snacks, and soups.
- Artificial Sweeteners: Especially aspartame.
- Nitrates and Nitrites: Used as preservatives in processed meats.
- Tyramine-rich Foods: Like aged cheeses, smoked fish, and certain beans.
2. Keep a Migraine Diary
One of the most effective ways to identify your trigger foods is to keep a detailed migraine diary. Record the following information daily:
- Foods and Beverages Consumed: Note everything you eat and drink, including portion sizes and times.
- Migraine Symptoms: Document any migraine symptoms, including onset time, duration, and intensity.
- Other Potential Triggers: Include stress levels, sleep patterns, weather changes, and menstrual cycle phases.
By keeping this diary for several weeks or months, you can start to identify patterns and potential triggers.
3. Elimination Diet
An elimination diet involves removing all suspected trigger foods from your diet for a period, I did it for 3 months to get back to a baseline. Here’s how to do it:
- Prepare: Consult a nutritionist to ensure you’re planning a balanced diet.
- Eliminate: Remove all common trigger foods from your diet simultaneously.
- Monitor: Keep tracking your migraine symptoms in your diary.
- Reintroduce: After the elimination period, reintroduce one food at a time. I did it every 2 weeks , and observe any changes in migraine frequency or severity.
4. Listen to Your Body
Pay close attention to how your body reacts to certain foods. Sometimes, the connection between a food and your migraines might not be immediately obvious. Trust your instincts and the patterns you observe. Make sure you manage all other triggers such as sleep or stress. Sometimes you can go over your threshold during high level of stress periods or if you are having trouble sleeping or staying sleep.
Discovering your trigger foods as a migraine sufferer requires patience, diligence, and a bit of detective work. Be patient with yourself and also try your best to be kind when you make mistakes or have set backs. Those are normal and should be expected. The most important thing is that you keep focused and stay disciplined to get the benefits of fewer and/or less severe attacks.
By following these steps, you can take control of your diet and potentially reduce the burden of migraines. Here’s to fewer migraines and a healthier, happier you!