25 day long migraine

[apenn]

Hi all! I completed my first whole30, took a day off, then started my second one shortly after. I got a really bad migraine about 10 days into which has gotten better but has not gone away. In terms of symptoms, I have head pain and slight sensitivity to light and sound. 

In terms of what I've been eating, I'm the type of person that is happy eating the same thing day after day. My breakfasts usually are a frittata (egg, ground beef, spinach, onion, red pepper) or scrambled eggs with a kiwi, apple, or avocado. Lunch is a salad with white wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, romain lettuce, tomato, onion, avocado, macadamia nuts (sometimes). Dinner is either a steak or chicken thighs with brussels sprouts and sweet potato. Also, I'm a big fan of franks red hot hot sauce on most of my food. I drink 2-3 cups of coffee, 1-2 cups of tea, and 2-3 Bublys each day.

 

Any suggestions for how what is causing my headaches?

Thanks!

[laura_juggles]

Can't say it's definitely a cause of your headaches, but it looks like you may not be eating enough. You haven't listed portions, so it's just a guess, but there's also no protein in your lunch. 

Are you drinking any actual water? 

[apenn]

Thank you for your response! For breakfast, I typically do ~3 eggs with a pepper and half an onion, lunch is a a bowl with salad, and then dinner is about 8 chicken wings or 2 chicken thighs plus the rest of a large dinner plate filled with sweet potato / brussels sprouts. Are those portions too small?

I typically drink at least two liters of water a day in addition to what I listed above

[SugarcubeOD]

You may want to take another look at the meal template (linked in my signature below).  

It looks like you're missing a plated fat with your breakfast (and potentially not enough veggies), protein with your lunch and then a fat with dinner and depending, you might be wise to add some more protein to your dinner - one chicken thigh (in your first post) is not enough for most people.

Do you feel hungry between meals?  It might be hard to tell if you have a headache... I am plagued with headaches and I definitely don't feel hungry a lot of the time - try increasing what you're eating with the suggestions above to round out your plate to match the meal template.  

[Yreyes]

About 15 days into my Whole30 I was getting headaches on and off for a few days. Then I recalled that a friend on keto had told me that when we reduce our carbohydrate intake, we might go into a keto headache. The headache can come from 1) sugar withdrawals, and 2) dehydration due to less sugars. My friend has to stay on top of hydration since carbs help retain fluids. I was not intentionally going into keto on my Whole30, but my carb intake did go down comparatively to pre-Whole30.  So her recommendation was to drink water with squeezed lemon with a pinch of himalayan salt. I thought I wasn't eating enough, so I would eat more but the headache continued. Then one day the headache persisted really bad, I remembered her advice and drank a pitcher of water with the lemon and himalayan salt. It helped. After a couple of hours my headache went away.

To say the least, I was definitely dehydrated.

Also, remember tea and coffee act as diuretics. So if you do decide to drink coffee and/or tea, perhaps drink an equal amount or more of water to match it. 

So I'm not sure how much carbs you are taking in now compared to pre-Whole30, but if you have reduced your intake of carbs, and primarily get your hydration from coffee and tea - there might be a chance you need more fluids in your diet. 

Hope this helps!