I didn’t look at your diet, but I presume you’ll proceed to look for non-diet factors you could manipulate to reduce your headaches if you find no promising dietary ideas.
Unlikely. I’ve been getting out of doors much more often in the last month and a half since moving to a place with supernaturally lovely weather and this hasn’t yielded any improvement.
Obvious things that can be manipulated to probably cause headaches: noise, stress, erratic sleep, physical exertion, dehydration*, allergies, altitude (obviously you’re not likely varying your altitude, and most people adjust to any reasonable <7000 ft level), reduction in caffeine, alcohol (and also sulfites in wine) - you’re probably considering the last two under ‘diet’.
[ * ] I guess I have personal experience nearly fainting from without-noticing-I’m-thirsty dehydration; never a severe headache I’d associate with dehydration without also enough exposure for a nice full body sunburn.
I don’t think it can plausibly be an environmental factor. It’s a lifelong problem and I’ve moved around a lot (also changed my sleep schedule plenty of times). My default consumption of caffeine and alcohol is zero.
I think scented cleaning products are common enough that people are likely to be exposed to them unless a deliberate effort is made to have everything unscented.
I don’t usually expose myself to cleaning products at all. When I do they’re usually just water. I spent a year and a half living in an apartment where neither my roommate nor I even owned a scented cleaning product. My laundry detergent is scent-free.
Okay, good luck then! You can try playing with subsets of environmental factors that may have been present across all those moves, but I’m not optimistic that you’ll have many interesting (and controllable) possibilities. Maybe you can find something that decreases your headaches’ frequency or severity even if they can’t be eliminated entirely.
I was trying to decide whether to supplement lipoic acid, and happened to notice convincing evidence that for migraine sufferers, LA supplementation definitely reduces both migraines and regular headaches. (600mg/day, which is not an extremely high dose)
I didn’t look at your diet, but I presume you’ll proceed to look for non-diet factors you could manipulate to reduce your headaches if you find no promising dietary ideas.
Do you have suggestions?
I use to get migraines. Now when I go out, I wear good sunglasses. The headaches went away.
I sometimes go days without leaving the house at all. Unlikely to be related.
Is it possible that this is a factor? I get a headache if I don’t leave the house for more than 16 hours or so.
Unlikely. I’ve been getting out of doors much more often in the last month and a half since moving to a place with supernaturally lovely weather and this hasn’t yielded any improvement.
None from personal experience, but I was thinking of Seth Roberts’ reports about migraine-sufferers identifying some triggers (e.g. fabric softener!)
Obvious things that can be manipulated to probably cause headaches: noise, stress, erratic sleep, physical exertion, dehydration*, allergies, altitude (obviously you’re not likely varying your altitude, and most people adjust to any reasonable <7000 ft level), reduction in caffeine, alcohol (and also sulfites in wine) - you’re probably considering the last two under ‘diet’.
[ * ] I guess I have personal experience nearly fainting from without-noticing-I’m-thirsty dehydration; never a severe headache I’d associate with dehydration without also enough exposure for a nice full body sunburn.
I don’t think it can plausibly be an environmental factor. It’s a lifelong problem and I’ve moved around a lot (also changed my sleep schedule plenty of times). My default consumption of caffeine and alcohol is zero.
I think scented cleaning products are common enough that people are likely to be exposed to them unless a deliberate effort is made to have everything unscented.
I don’t usually expose myself to cleaning products at all. When I do they’re usually just water. I spent a year and a half living in an apartment where neither my roommate nor I even owned a scented cleaning product. My laundry detergent is scent-free.
Okay, good luck then! You can try playing with subsets of environmental factors that may have been present across all those moves, but I’m not optimistic that you’ll have many interesting (and controllable) possibilities. Maybe you can find something that decreases your headaches’ frequency or severity even if they can’t be eliminated entirely.
I was trying to decide whether to supplement lipoic acid, and happened to notice convincing evidence that for migraine sufferers, LA supplementation definitely reduces both migraines and regular headaches. (600mg/day, which is not an extremely high dose)
Migraines are hemispherical, right? I only sometimes have headaches that confine themselves to one side.
http://quantifiedself.com/migraine/ http://blog.sethroberts.net/2008/10/10/a-new-way-to-prevent-migraines/ http://boingboing.net/2011/07/25/finding-the-source-of-migraines-and-fifty-useless-migraine-drugs.html
ETA: Just saw Jonathan_Graehl replied with similar info further down. Possibly no new information in these links.