I went to an allergist to have the full spectrum of allergies tested by pin-pricks on my back because I was hoping to identify what foods to avoid for a migraine free diet. Unfortunately, the nurse informed me that despite every single prick being red and swollen, she didn't think I had any allergies. She claimed I simply had sensitive skin and sent me on my way.
In reality, I believe I had so many histamines in my body from things I had eaten, which my body was reacting to, that it overwhelmed the allergy tests and made it useless.
Later I went to a dermatologist to try to figure out why I was growing small bumps on my chest. One in particular was larger than a pea. She took a biopsy and couldn't identify what was going on. I was told the tissue wasn't cancerous but looked like it was just scar tissue forming for no reason. I also had developed a painful rash in my private area and my ob/gyn couldn't figure out what was wrong there either. He thought it was a yeast infection, but it certainly didn't respond to any treatments for yeast. So I turned to "Dr. Google" and fed my questions to its search engine. I came across 800+ comments about similar rashes which no doctor was able to help. Then a few comments started popping up about how people had the same problem and found out it was caused by a food allergy. I had suspected a dairy allergy, so I tried eliminating all dairy from my diet. I found immediate relief from both the rash as well as all but the largest of the scar tissue spots.
Everyone who struggles with migraines has different triggers. That is part of what makes it so hard to treat. In reality it's not like an allergy where every single time you eat one of your triggers, you get a headache. Instead it is more like you pass a certain threshold of triggers your body can handle and then it sends you over the edge. It makes it very hard to identify what foods to avoid when you can eat them regularly without any trouble, but when coupled with something else, such as hormone changes, it is detrimental.
I learned that a gentleman at my church was a fellow migraine suffer and he shared with me that his were managed quite well as long as he didn't eat wheat, dairy, chocolate or eggs. I had experimented with eliminating all but eggs from that list, so I thought I would try that next.
I could not believe how much better I felt after eliminating eggs from my diet. I had been feeling really low on energy for several months at this point. My heart would race just from climbing a flight of stairs and I had to plan out my day so that I didn't do laundry and grocery shopping in the same day because it was just too much for me to carry laundry baskets and push a grocery cart in one day.
While eliminating dairy did help my skin problems, the progress was a little slower than eliminating eggs, which gave an immediate boost to my energy levels. It was much easier to adhere to this strict diet knowing that it was helping me so much. My body was so much healthier that I was able to get pregnant that month, after years of thinking I wasn't healthy enough to carry another pregnancy full term.
It was years later after, lots of study and having reintroduced eggs into my diet, that I learned why eggs affected me so much. I spent about a year visiting a chiropractor who used Nambudrapad's Allergy Elimination Technique (NAET) to overcome my food sensitivities. The headaches actually got worse during the year I was being treated for them, because my body was detoxing. But after that year, I went back down to 1 migraine a month (hormone related) and was able to eat dairy and eggs again. However, I do try to eat better now so that I don't develop those symptoms again. Eggs block insulin, according to Dr. Joel Fuhrman. Eggs are fine to eat on their own because they don't have a glycemic index. However, if you pair them with sugar in pastries or breakfast foods like crepes, they will block insulin right when your body needs it most and then you won't feel well.
There is a time and a place for most foods, but it's important to learn how they interact with other foods and your body's needs. Dairy is really important for growth in children because it increases insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1). However, in adults, we are done growing and don't need to increase our IGF-1. In fact, there is a correlation in Scandinavian countries who consume a lot of dairy and higher breast cancer cases. Too much calcium and vitamin D, both found in milk, can deplete magnesium levels too. So if you're drinking a lot of milk, make sure to take a magnesium supplement. Magnesium is responsible for at least 600 enzymatic processes in the body and is required for six out of eight steps in the Krebs cycle for your body to make energy.
