Dizziness, vertigo, a false feeling of movement, and derealization or depersonalization are the most prominent symptoms of chronic vestibular migraine, which may occur with or without a headache. Even if you're taking preventative medicine, following your neurologist's supplement recommendations, and engaging in cognitive behavioral therapy, you may still be plagued with migraines regularly.
Getting Started With A Migraine Elimination Diet
A migraine elimination diet is the most common way for people to identify their own unique dietary triggers for migraines. A physician with ties to a prestigious university medical facility created the migraine diet.
The rules of an elimination diet for migraines are straightforward. For a period of time, to feel better or noticeably reduce the number of migraine days, you avoid eating items known to be typical migraine triggers. The next step is to try reintroducing foods one at a time, waiting a few days between tests to determine whether any trigger an attack.
Keeping a migraine diary or utilizing an app may help you identify if your migraines were brought on by weather, diet, stress, or a combination of these factors.
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The Challenge Of Incorporating A Migraine Elimination Diet Into Everyday Life
This diet is notoriously hard to implement into regular living. However, the benefits may be well worth the effort. Planning meals was not a luxury for those with well-ordered workweeks. You might spend a lot of time in the supermarket looking for MSG and other chemicals.
Spending so much time in a grocery shop is difficult when fluorescent lighting and crowds are both major migraine triggers for you. Preparation, such as wearing a large hat, earplugs, and migraine glasses, is one option for making it through.
However, things will improve if you put in the time and effort and stick with it.
Settling Into A Groove
After a rocky first month, you'll find your rhythm as you identify your go-to groceries and dinners.
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When your symptoms are at their worst, being able to depend on frozen meals may be a lifesaver. Foods that can be tossed into the slow cooker or reheated in the microwave are prepared in advance and frozen. Stocks and broths may be made fast and without the additives found in store-bought types by using a pressure cooker.
You will soon get comfortable with and even enthusiastic about using unusual ingredients like lemongrass and sumac for enhancing citrus notes, among many others.
Trusting The Process
Two months into an elimination diet, it might be quite discouraging if you still don't feel better. You might have given this your all and spent a lot of time on it, yet you could still feel that your daily bouts of vertigo haven't diminished much.
But keep trying. Most of the foods you want might trigger a severe vertigo episode when you eat them again. You'll realize that the diet was helping but that you couldn't identify your genuine triggers until you took them all away.
After around four months, you should start to feel less lightheaded daily. At six months, daily, you should be without experiencing any symptoms. At this point, you may safely begin reintroducing foods to see which ones, if any, are your individual triggers.
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Walking On Solid Ground Again
Without faith and trust, it is very easy to give up throughout this process. There are a lot of folks who are relieved they didn't. You'll discover along the road just how powerful you are for maintaining this commitment.
Finding a sense of purpose and passion in the kitchen may be a welcome relief when life is overwhelming. You may also notice something interesting: your triggers aren't the typical foods like chocolate or deli meats.
Your mind will finally have a chance to relax on this diet. If your migraine symptoms flare, you may always revert to the elimination method. However, you should be on a firm footing the vast majority of the time.
