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Headaches!

CGally81

By CGally81
in Coping with Celiac Disease

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CGally81 Enthusiast
CGally81
Posted

For the past week, I've had an on-and-off headache. On some days, it would get worse while or after eating, regardless of WHAT I ate.

Now, the first time I noticed a nasty headache was when I first went truly gluten-free, by removing Fudgsicles, the last gluten-containing food I was still eating, from my diet. During that time, there were a few days in which eating food - ANY food - would make me super fatigued and give me a headache as well. When I stopped eating Fudgsicles, the effect was considerably decreased and started going away after the next few days.

Well, now I'm not eating anything with gluten in it. And yet the headache and some of the fatigue began to noticably show up Monday. The problem slowly got better, but now, today, I have a headache that's lasted pretty much all day so far, since I woke up around noon.

Bear in mind I'm still in the "hungry all the time" phase of recovery from gluten. This might be some kind of hunger headache, but I don't know. Occasionally a BM will cause it to decrease slightly, but not much. I once had it get worse after eating 2 bananas, then start to go away after later eating 1 more.

Any ideas what's causing this? I have a good multi-vitamin with magnesium (75% if I take the highest recommended dose). I get a lot of potassium from bananas. Do you think I wasn't drinking enough water? I drink more now.

One possibility might be high calcium. When I got my blood work done a few months ago, my calcium was somewhat on the high end of the normal range. I am not casein-intolerant, and I had been drinking a lot of milk and eating yogurt, thinking it was full of nutrients I might need. Plus, my multivitamin contains calcium (60% if I take the full recommended daily dosage). High calcium, low magnesium balance? (Plus, I did the math and discovered that I'd been taking roughtly 2.4x the recommended daily amount of calcium for months now! I guess I'll have to reduce it!)

I'd really like this problem to go away. As most of my withdrawal symptoms from gluten are 90% gone, it seems as if the "hungry all the time" feeling and sometimes headaches are the only problems left. I'd really like to address the root cause of this problem, whatever it is.

I am going to see an immunologist Monday and I might learn something there, I hope.

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txplowgirl Enthusiast
txplowgirl
Posted

Sounds like you need to give up the dairy for a couple of weeks to see if you have a problem there. I get headaches and some fatigue when I drink milk or eat yogurt.

CGally81 Enthusiast
CGally81
Posted
  • Author
Sounds like you need to give up the dairy for a couple of weeks to see if you have a problem there. I get headaches and some fatigue when I drink milk or eat yogurt.

I was getting headaches and fatigue with EVERY food I ate. Literally, every food.

So it can't be just that.

Anyway, I am cutting back on the calcium. I avoided calcium with dinner, and started to feel my headache start to recede later. I'm thinking that the 2.4x (and more on many days!) normal amount of calcium, when my blood calcium was already on the high end of the normal range over 2 months ago, could very well be the cause. I'll try avoiding calcium first and see if things get better.

ravenwoodglass Mentor
ravenwoodglass
Posted
Sounds like you need to give up the dairy for a couple of weeks to see if you have a problem there. I get headaches and some fatigue when I drink milk or eat yogurt.

I agree strongly with this. How did you decide you don't have a casien issue? A casien issue will cause your body to produce antibodies but won't always give someone gas and D. Lactose intolerance will cause gas and D to those senstive but casien intolerance would cause an antibody reaction which could produce things like your headaches and fatigue.

taweavmo3 Enthusiast
taweavmo3
Posted

Giving up dairy is what finally got rid of my headaches for good.....gluten free helped, but I would still get migraines now and then. Now I hardly ever get headaches at all. Dairy is a common cause of frequent headaches, it's hard to give up, but living with constant headaches is harder!

CGally81 Enthusiast
CGally81
Posted
  • Author
Giving up dairy is what finally got rid of my headaches for good.....gluten free helped, but I would still get migraines now and then. Now I hardly ever get headaches at all. Dairy is a common cause of frequent headaches, it's hard to give up, but living with constant headaches is harder!

If dairy is a frequent cause of headaches for many, not just Celiac sufferers, I may go "casein lite" instead of free.

I'm going to an immunologist tomorrow, so I'll see if I have a problem with milk. A coworker of mine who has both lupus and Celiac was told by an immunologist to avoid gluten, milk and chicken. So we'll see if I'm also told to avoid milk or not.

I am currently avoiding milk... for an entirely different reason. I'm trying to reduce my calcium (since I was having a LOT of it over the past few months), and so far, it seems to be helping. I'll continue to avoid calcium until my headaches go away entirely, then try reintroducing calicum... then casein (if my immunologist does not say it is a problem).

nmlove Contributor
nmlove
Posted

To add my two cents, dairy really bothers me. Just recently I "challenged" it by having a pizza with light (very) cheese. It took me a week to get over it and ended with a migraine. So sometimes it's hard to notice if a food is bothering you. If I hadn't known dairy bothered me I would never have traced my migraine back from that one dairy incident. Just saying... Hope the immunologist clears up your issues. Headaches are no fun!

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srthomas21 Explorer
srthomas21
Posted

I've been having headaches almost every day as well. Started about a month ago. I've never had dairy issues in the past and I don't get D or gas when I eat it.

Is there any test you can do to see if you are casein intolerant(besides going off of it)? If I have an issue with Casein it will really really suck because I love dairy. In my former life Bread was king and Dairy was Queen and since I can't eat bread anymore it would REALLY suck to have to give up Dairy too.

What else could cause headaches daily?

nmlove Contributor
nmlove
Posted
I've been having headaches almost every day as well. Started about a month ago. I've never had dairy issues in the past and I don't get D or gas when I eat it.

Is there any test you can do to see if you are casein intolerant(besides going off of it)? If I have an issue with Casein it will really really suck because I love dairy. In my former life Bread was king and Dairy was Queen and since I can't eat bread anymore it would REALLY suck to have to give up Dairy too.

What else could cause headaches daily?

Other triggers for me are: weather fronts (these cause the worst sudden headache for me), stress, lack of sleep, dehydration, exercise (but I still do it, the headache doesn't last long), lack of sunlight (I get more daily headaches late fall into winter that start easing up toward the end of winter. And I still don't know all the triggers and sure I won't.

Ahorsesoul Enthusiast
Ahorsesoul
Posted

I get migraines a few times a month. I've never thought to track them with my dairy intake. Will do so over the next few months.

Interesting becaue when I first when gluten free the mirgraines were gone. For the first 6 months I was also dairy free. Hmmmmm....hauling out the food journal.

tarnalberry Community Regular
tarnalberry
Posted

it might not be a particular food at all.

it might be a general digestive issue that is causing problems.

depending on how you eat, it could be a blood sugar thing. (you say any food, but that's not sufficient to rule out blood sugar issues. if you've got a headache, eating a chicken breast probably won't help a whole lot (and depending on your body) could make it worse. you may need fat, and probably a small amount of carbs, to regulate blood sugar better as well.)

it could be the act of eating, using your jaw muscles, is contributing to a tension headache.

I would honestly try to discuss this with a doctor you trust - headaches every day are NOT normal.

CGally81 Enthusiast
CGally81
Posted
  • Author
it might not be a particular food at all.

it might be a general digestive issue that is causing problems.

depending on how you eat, it could be a blood sugar thing. (you say any food, but that's not sufficient to rule out blood sugar issues. if you've got a headache, eating a chicken breast probably won't help a whole lot (and depending on your body) could make it worse. you may need fat, and probably a small amount of carbs, to regulate blood sugar better as well.)

it could be the act of eating, using your jaw muscles, is contributing to a tension headache.

I would honestly try to discuss this with a doctor you trust - headaches every day are NOT normal.

The headache issue is clearing up. I'm avoiding all calcium. That includes my multivitamin (which is nutrient and mineral filled!) as well as yogurt, milk, cheese and gluten-free Chex. Yes, I realize 3 of those 4 foods contain casein, so if my headaches are going away because of casein, well, I'll find out when I reintroduce those foods once I feel I've lowered my calcium enough.

CGally81 Enthusiast
CGally81
Posted
  • Author
The headache issue is clearing up. I'm avoiding all calcium. That includes my multivitamin (which is nutrient and mineral filled!) as well as yogurt, milk, cheese and gluten-free Chex. Yes, I realize 3 of those 4 foods contain casein, so if my headaches are going away because of casein, well, I'll find out when I reintroduce those foods once I feel I've lowered my calcium enough.

Headache came back slightly (but not hugely) after eating dinner tonight. It was hamburger patty with no cheese, and brown rice. I think, therefore, that this is a "come and go" symptom. It is after all the symptom I had a powerful, nasty version of around the time I cut Fudgsicles out of my diet, that immediately began to decrease the next day, so therefore, it looks like this is not caused by casein (which I stopped eating a few days ago) or necessarily calcium. Instead, it may be an indirectly gluten-caused symptom in remission, or something.

I'll continue to cut back on both for a while and see how I feel. I may reintroduce calcium in the form of my multivitamin, and then reintroduce a small amount of dairy (so I don't end up having too much calcium) later.

nmlove Contributor
nmlove
Posted

If it is casein, it could take more than just a few days to go away. When I first went off it took nearly a month to start feeling the effects and even more so as I went on. Just an FYI.

But I do second the doctor visit. Headaches every day are typically not normal. Unless you know your body really well (as in, what's causing them), I would opt to go. They'll get the biggies out of the way.

Hope you figure it out!

CGally81 Enthusiast
CGally81
Posted
  • Author
If it is casein, it could take more than just a few days to go away. When I first went off it took nearly a month to start feeling the effects and even more so as I went on. Just an FYI.

But I do second the doctor visit. Headaches every day are typically not normal. Unless you know your body really well (as in, what's causing them), I would opt to go. They'll get the biggies out of the way.

Hope you figure it out!

I had been drinking a lot of milk and eating a lot of yogurt before the headaches came, and so if it is casein, then I'm hoping that maybe I can handle some of it, just not a ton.

Considering I'm in the "hungry all the time" phase of recovery, and the phase started when I first tried to go gluten-free (but continued to eat Fudgsicles as I didn't know that malt powder contained gluten), and then went back up again when I removed the Fudgsicles, I'm very very afraid that my hunger will spike up again when I remove casein.

The hunger is dropping more slowly than it did the first time I went gluten-free. I was starting to get powerful headaches a few days before I realized that Fudgsicles were a problem, but my hunger had dropped significantly otherwise. Removing the Fudgsicles made my hunger improve a lot in the next few days, only to spike through the roof a few days later. Dairy products were among the stuff I ran to to deal with the spike in hunger.

If casein is similar to gluten for my body, I'm very afraid the same will happen again. I do not want my hunger to spike AGAIN, when it's starting to get better! I'd heard of people who take over a year for the hunger to really go away, and I'm afraid that might be my story as well if casein is the problem. I sure hope not, as I don't feel an "addiction" to casein (i.e. a burning need to eat such foods) the way I did with wheat products before I first went gluten-free, or to Fudgsicles (I relied on them too much as a snack, and kept wanting them specifically) before I realized they also contained gluten.

I'll wait a few days to see if the headaches recede. One thing though: I had a very large BM last night, and afterwards, the mild headache went away. I think there may be a relationship.

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