Why, oh why?

 Before I started out on this food exploration, I already knew a few things that would cause me a migraine without a doubt.  They are as follows:

-Sun:  If I end up out in the sun for too long, it is inevitable that I will end up with a migraine.  No amount of water seems to work.

-Stress:  Following a period of stress, I will most likely get a headache at the end of it.  I'm not sure if that's from the stress itself, or because I tend to eat a lot of comfort foods when I'm stressed and most of them are triggers.

-Menstruation:  When I first got migraines, it was always one week before my period.  Now, it seems to be on the day I start my period.  Either way, not fun.

-Alcohol:  I've never been a drinker, and maybe it's because alcohol gives me migraines.  It's also probably because I have control issues, but that's another story.

-Caffeine:  Never been a coffee drinker, but I used to drink tea and Coke.  A little bit of caffeine goes a long way for me, I get really jittery if I drink more than one cup of tea in a day, and forget about sleeping.

-Low blood sugar:  If my blood sugars drop, more than likely a headache will follow.  This is exacerbated by the fact that I'm hypoglycemic which means that my body overproduces insulin in response to simple sugars.

-Drops in atmospheric pressure:  When there is a very quick shift from a high pressure weather system to a low pressure system, my head explodes.  It's like having my own barometer that I carry around

-Mushrooms and MSG

Those are the things that will give me a migraine regardless of what else is going on.  In Heal your Headache, Buchholz compares the causes of migraines to filling up a vase with water.  There are some triggers that overflow the vase directly, which would be those things listed above, while there are other triggers that just add a little water to the vase.  If you have enough of those little triggers, you'll overflow the vase and get a migraine.  There are also things that take water out of the vase and reduce the risk of migraine.  The problem is that you never know where the waterline is at any given moment.

Micro-triggers that I know of are bananas, coconut, almonds, avocado, chocolate, cheese, soy and pea powder (like is found in almost all shake powders).  I also know that I do better if I eat gluten-free.  I'm not sure how that relates to my migraines, but I definitely have more energy and fewer digestive problems without gluten.  The only one of these foods that causes my any grief is cheese.  I really like cheese-especially cheese curds!   Poutine may be one of my favourite foods.

Even knowing all that I do about my migraine triggers, for most of the migraines I have, I can't figure out where they came from.  Maybe there's an underlying hormonal issue.  Maybe they are an upper limit behaviour.  Maybe I just need to accept that I'm hyper-sensitive and get on with my life.