I Think I Found The Cause Of My Frequent Headaches!

[CGally81]

I would have headaches and fatigue after eating food, and at one point, it was really powerful. That was in mid-October, and I removed Fudgsicles from my diet (they contain gluten in the form of malt powder, and I didn't know malt came from barley - thank you, labeling laws). The problems began to subside after that, albeit slowly.

Well, in the past few weeks the problems came back, along with a general dull headache in my head that was sometimes worse. And what's more, the "headache after eating" thing would sometimes occur in the MIDDLE of eating tuna fish! I didn't understand why that particular food should trigger the headache so quickly, whereas with other foods, it wouldn't occur until after I was done eating.

Well, thanks to people on here pointing out the problems of eating too much fish, I did my own research and found that, for adults, one serving of fish a week is recommended, as even storebought fish can still contain mercury. My boss (I think, or was it one of my doctors?) told me that storebought fish had the mercury removed. But the government recommends not eating too much of it anyway, and I found stories of people who had problems from things like... eating too much tuna.

I was eating 2 containers of tuna fish every morning, for the protein and health benefits. It looks like I'll have to find other protein sources. I'll cut out tuna and see if things improve.

From Yahoo Answers, in response to someone asking about the problems of daily tuna:

it is recommended to only eat canned tuna up to 3 times per week. if you start having trouble concentrating, have headaches, become weak or dizzy, (look up the rest) stop eating tuna entirely for about a month and then start back at only 1 can per week after all symptoms are gone. mercury build up can do serious damage.

Oh boy. Looks like I have some detox to do. Anyone know a fast way to detox from fish mercury? Or should I just wait this out and let it go away over time?

[Jean'sBrainonGluten]

You can see a doctor, get tested and receive chelation therapy. That may go faster than just stopping the tuna consumption.

Depending on what kind of tuna it was you may also have been getting MSG in broth or flavoring and apparently some msg is made from wheat or just causes reactions in celiacs.

If you had the headaches before you might look into migraine trigger foods - like onions or tyramine (cheddar cheese, preserved meats, check the web for lists).

About the hunger you might try increasing your intake of water, veggies, and maybe a healthy oil like olive oil or a purified fish oil (so you don't get more mercury).

Hope this helps.

[lovegrov]

There ARE fudgesicles that don't have malt. Sorry you didn't realize that malt is usually from barley.

richard

[CGally81]

  Jean said:

You can see a doctor, get tested and receive chelation therapy. That may go faster than just stopping the tuna consumption.

Depending on what kind of tuna it was you may also have been getting MSG in broth or flavoring and apparently some msg is made from wheat or just causes reactions in celiacs.

If you had the headaches before you might look into migraine trigger foods - like onions or tyramine (cheddar cheese, preserved meats, check the web for lists).

About the hunger you might try increasing your intake of water, veggies, and maybe a healthy oil like olive oil or a purified fish oil (so you don't get more mercury).

Hope this helps.

I just saw the doctor today, but didn't think to mention tuna to him. It didn't occur to me until tonight, after reading about it, that it could be the cause of headaches. Blah. I don't want to make another appointment right away. What is chelation therapy? Who does it? Maybe I can get a referral over the phone.

He's referred me to an endocrinologist to see what's up with the hunger and headaches. I'm going to make an appointment with him when I can.

And btw, I don't think I got MSG. I read labels and look for that stuff. I stay away from MSG and aspartame and artificial sweeteners overall.

[tarnalberry]

The vegetable broth in BumbleBee tuna contains some soy protein, which can be a hidden source of MSG.

This is quite common for most broths (which are sometimes labeled "in water"), so be sure to check the can.

[Fiddle-Faddle]

If you are at all sensitive to monosodium glutamate (a common headache trigger), you might want to check out this page: Open Original Shared Link, which explains how foods can contain MSG, but not officially list MSG on the label.

They explain a lot about MSG here: Open Original Shared Link

It can be very frustrating to see how, in so many instances where our health is at stake, things are not as they seem. One would expect food labeling to be cut-and-dried, clear-cut, with no possible confusion. Not so.

[Jean'sBrainonGluten]

Here's a link to an article about chelation therapy to remove heavy metal poisons.

Open Original Shared Link

[CGally81]

  Jean said:

Here's a link to an article about chelation therapy to remove heavy metal poisons.

Open Original Shared Link

Thanks. I might not need it. I was feeling noticably better today, though I had flounder for dinner (figured that it has less mercury than tuna, and I have flounder rarely, so what the heck? Plus, it wasn't my choice). I'll just let this get better on its own, since it seems to.