Foods Causing Migraines

Video Transcript

"I'm Alexander Mauskop director of the New York headache center. Foods causing migraines it's a very, very common thing for people to come and tell me that whenever I have a glass of wine or eat a piece of chocolate, I will get a migraine. So most people with migraines know to avoid certain foods. The most common triggers are chocolate as I mentioned, red wine other alcoholic beverages, even healthy foods such as yogurt, bananas, citrus fruit, onions. And for each individual person it's a different set of foods. You can't tell everyone with migraines you have to stop eating all of these foods. The way to find out what triggers your headaches is to keep a diary. Now that's every time you get a headache you write down foods you ate in the previous eight to twelve hours. Sol if you see a pattern every time you have a headache you had bananas then maybe that's your trigger. For many people food does not play a role at all. They can eat anything, they can drink anything they will not get a headache from food. For some people it's dramatic, that is if they stick to a very strict diet they will not get a single headache. For most people it's in between. Now there's foods that contribute to the migraines but it's not the only other major trigger for the headache. So the list is long but the common ones again in addition to the ones I mentioned there's also raisins, also a healthy food but anything smoked, cured, pickled. Anything that has preservatives, sulfite's and nitrides all that can trigger headache. In some people it's MSG, in some people it's other preservatives, artificial sweeteners can do that. And again it's very individual you can not generalize, you can not tell everyone you shouldn't drink any diet drinks. Of course you should avoid caffeine. One food item that is a very common trigger is caffeine and people don't realize it because it's not when you drink the coffee, it's when you withdrawing from caffeine when you don't have your soda that you are used to drinking on time. So caffeine withdrawal is a big trigger for many people."