Where did it all start?

Food. It's the one thing that we all need, and many would say that "you are what you eat". How many of you out there know what you are then? *smile*

Ancient History

I started suffering from debilitating headaches in 2002 after the birth of my third child. These headaches were nothing like a tension headache, these hurt so bad every tooth in my head throbbed. It was the first time in my life that I didn't want to get up. Quite frankly, standing up hurt; it seemed to put more pressure in my head and eyes.

I did exactly as the doctors said, taking the pain medication as prescribed. This helped to take the edge off so that I could at least open my eyes while laying down and get in some much needed sleep. However, the medication wasn't anything more than a Dutch boys finger that was too small to plug the hole. After three long grueling weeks of pain, I stopped taking everything, even the post-natal vitamins, and guess what... THE PAIN SUBSIDED!

In early 2006, I began to suffer another horrific headache. I became extremely light and sound sensitive, my head and teeth throbbed, my neck hurt. I went to the doctor after two weeks of suffering and was diagnosed with "tension" headaches and told to take some ibuprofen, relax, remove some stress from my life, and basically... to just get over it. A few days later, with no medication at all, this bout of headaches went away as well. However, I was still very light sensitive.

At this time, the only real relief that I could find for these headaches was heat. I know it's dangerous, so I don't recommend it, but I was wrapping my head in an electric heat pad so that I could find enough relief to sleep.

Armed with just this information, I took to the Internet and started looking up the symptoms. I found that not too many headaches have light and sound sensitivity as a secondary symptom (the first being pain). A little more digging around and I found that the "little stars" that I would see just hours before the onset of an excruciating headache might be "auras".

At this point, I believed that I may have migraine, but there is no test that can be done to conclusively determine "yes" or "no". Knowing that, I did some research into remedies and living with migraine. I soon found that there isn't a "fix" for migraine since it is not fully understood. I did find that the following helped me:

• Applying heat to my head and neck
• Running warm water (as hot as I could stand it) over my wrists
• Moving into a quiet and dark room
• Using a light-blocking eye mask when any light is too much
• Wearing sunglasses when rest isn't possible
• Keeping my body horizontal to keep the pressure off of my head

At this point, I accepted that I periodically had miserable headaches and that all I could do was "live" with them.

Recent History

Summer of 2009, I began having these headaches again, but more intense than before. So this time, "living with it" was no longer an option. I began taking Excedrin migraine formula. This, as well as rest and sunglasses (even when at my computer), made life almost bearable. I began researching migraine to see if there was more information out there on the Internet now, and there was. In mid-fall when I couldn't take any more, I realized that what I was doing was no longer enough and it was time to try professional help again.

I called in sick to work and went to the local walk-in clinic. The young doctor there told me that it was a tension headache and sent me home with a prescription for codeine. I called my husband... crying, upset, and angry. I knew it wasn't a tension headache and I felt utterly helpless and like the medical community just didn't get it. He encouraged me to try another doctor that was a DO (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine). When I got back home, I called in and got an appointment for the following morning.

That next morning, I went to the DO's office and gave them the unfilled codeine prescription that I had been given the day before. The doctor asked me a series of questions while doing his checks. He said that it sounds like "classic migraine" and gave me a sample Relpax. He said that if it was indeed migraine, I would have relief in just a few hours, but not to take it until I got home. He further explained that migraine has a trigger and it's important to determine what that trigger is. He said that it could be food, stress, a smell... just about anything. I went home, took the sample Relpax, and quickly fell asleep. Less than two hours later, the pain had subsided once more, but my eyes were sensitive and my head was tender for another few days. I called the doctors office back to let them know that it worked so the doctor could get me a prescription. I was thrilled! It was the most pain-free I had been in months!

Now all I needed to do was determine the culprit trigger...

Read Tracking the Culprit