<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
My son was having not only severe migraines, but a nasty kind the
neurologists call "migraine with episodic dyscontrol", which includes a
personality change complete with a 30-40 minute episode of aggression and
destruction. None of his drug cocktails did anything but make matters worse.
The gluten free diet is the only thing that has helped, and indeed we have
experienced only a few episodes since, and those ONLY when there was an
accidental ingestion of a cross contaminated food item. I can understand
your brother's reluctance, since gluten is not one of the many many migraine
triggers mentioned in the literature, but in our case it was THE principle
cause. I say principle rather than only because my son still has
malabsorption issues and in the last four years that he has been on
prescription pancreatic enzymes (and gluten free), we have also learned that
forgetting the enzymes (or using ones past their expiration date) also leads
up to a migraine. All of our doctors were horribly misinformed and botched
about everything that they could have, but, we did get the enzymes based on
steatorrhea, both from random collections and from a 72 hour stool
collection (the random ones have a pretty huge false negative rate, but his
were positive, so the family dr knew he needed help even though the
gastroenterologists were obsessing on the matter of migraines which they
believe cannot be related to diet, go figure! even the neurologist who had
the nerve to say "you worry about his gut, I'll worry about his head"!). So,
all that you can do is to let your brother know that indeed some people have
found relief from severe migraine issues with the gluten free diet (and that
a variety of drug cocktails did not help at all). Hope this helps. Hmm
another thing to investigate, which we are at the very beginning of, is
Ayurvedic treatments. I have just been told that my son's malabsorption and
migraines are because his Pitta Fire is out of balance. I am looking into
the meaning of this and what is actually in the tablets and herbs that will
be recommended to correct the imbalance. I have no idea but am hopeful that
we may at least be able to reintroduce other food items (not gluten, but
yeast, blackberries, maybe milk - he can eat cheese and yogurt and kefir,
but ordinary American pasteurized, homogenized milk definitely gives him
headaches (not migraines but severe tension headaches which are also
disabling, just not the aura stuff and the personality change, other than
cranky because he is in pain and tired. Well, I say not gluten, but since
the biopsies never confirmed Celiac (gf too long before anyone would do
that, and attempted challenge was disastrous - caused severe GERD and home
destruction), I am seriously considering the Kenneth Fine mouth swab gene
test for $149 - if that is positive, then he has Celiac, if not, then, maybe
not - maybe the malabsorption (also documented by the D-Xylose test in which
you drink a special sugar that does not require digestion, and then they
check the blood levels of it- his was low) is from this Pitta Fire
imbalance, whatever the heck that may be! I know something is out of
balance, so I am happy to get informed on this one.
Take Care, and good for you for trying to help your siblings (mine have
rejected suggestions with surprising hostility, but then that is probably
just one more sign that they too need.
THAT'S ALL FOR INSOMNIA & MIGRAINES> Thanks again,
* Visit the Celiac Web Page at www.enabling.org/ia/celiac/index.html *
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