Mav treatment question... need your input

Specific Illnesses & Conditions VM/MAV
1

Hello all,

I started Verapamil 120sr Oct 1st. I made it the whole month of with one headache and it only last half the day.
I even made it thru the time of month that I relapse. This was only 10 days after starting the verapamil and only taking 1/2
tab and then 3/4 tab.

So my question is this. I would say I’m 80% at this point. Not 100% because I’m still dizzy. The movement is mild. And mostly when
I lay down. know its not Bppv related because when I wake up tired in the middle of the night its not there. So maybe anxiety related as I dont lay
down during the day, due to fear of dizziness. So onto the question:

Can food triggers make you feel 20% worse on a daily basis, OR do they usually come on hours to a day after eating something. I dont notice ever
feeling any worse after eating anything. I can even go out to restaurants. So is it possible to have food triggers that just give you a constant SAME
amount of daily dizziness?

Thank you!
Kayera

2

Hi Kayera,

Your post is a little hard to understand.

I think these are your main questions. I’ll try to answer…

— Begin quote from ____

Can food triggers make you feel 20% worse on a daily basis, OR do they usually come on hours to a day after eating something.

— End quote

If you’re continually eating the same trigger food, then yes, I would say that they could make you feel that much worse on a daily basis. However, to answer the 2nd half of your question, the food trigger can also come into effect any time- sometimes a person will notice an effect instantly (like me, if I eat cheese, I spin instantly), sometimes it takes a few hours, and sometimes it might be a few days until you get the effect. (For me that happens if I eat cream).

— Begin quote from ____

I dont notice ever
feeling any worse after eating anything. I can even go out to restaurants.

— End quote

Thats great for you. I read that actually, food triggers are quite rare. So it seems you are lucky.

— Begin quote from ____

So is it possible to have food triggers that just give you a constant SAME
amount of daily dizziness?

— End quote

I guess so- for instance, if you’re eating scrambled eggs on toast every morning of your life. You might not be aware that eggs are a trigger for you. If you quit the eggs, you might find that after 2 months you start to notice a clearer head. After 2 months off eggs, you then start eating the eggs again, and you notice you feel bad again- well then you got your culprit. Egg!

If you are curious about dietary triggers, I would recommend you cut out all the widely known ones- i.e follow either Dr S’s diet or follow Bulchoz’s diet in Heal your Headache, or just follow a combination of the 2. Follow it for a good 8-12 weeks. Don’t cheat of you’re not starting on a clean slate. See how you feel in that time. You might not actually feel any better. If you do feel better- great. Stick to that diet. Its not a lot to pay for feeling so much better. If you miss the foods you cut out, then bring each one back slowly one at a time to see what effect they have.

This is how I did it. Although to be fair, I didnt really miss much food except chocolate, cake and biscuits so they are the only foods I’ve bought back in. I tried to bring cheese and cream back in and found i instantly reacted so I stick to leaving those bad boys out and know they are trigger foods for me.

I hope that helps some what.

MMx

3

Thanks for your input. It seems that when people have triggers, its very obvious, like they eat chocolate or drink wine and bam… they feel Way worse.
That is why I second guess food triggers for myself, as I never feel way worse after any given food (restaurants) just the same 20% (estimate of course).
I can understand your example of eating eggs everyday and possible eggs being a trigger, but if that were the case, I couldn’t be 75-80%, I would be much worse on a daily basis, correct.? I guess the triggers confuse me. Even the sleep thing, I slept so bad the other night, Ithought oh no, I’m going to have a headache the next day. Nope. Just trying to figure out my triggers and the only thing I can relate to is when I’m moving my head/neck around to much and doing neck excercise, I get a little headachy, like its going to come on. But since Verapamil, my only trigger was “monthly” and the verapamil so far has nixed that. One month counting, so I will feel really happy if it nixes it two times in a row. :wink:

4

I wouldn’t get bogged down too much with triggers. For some it’s obvious, for others it’s not. Don’t forget that this thing is NOT linear. Some days something will affect you. The next it won’t. It’s all over the place and not predictable half the time unfortunately. Some days I’ll have a crap nights sleep and wake up feeling much better than the night I had 9 hours sleep. It’s bloody frustrating but it seems to be the way with this thing.

— Begin quote from ____

I can understand your example of eating eggs everyday and possible eggs being a trigger, but if that were the case, I couldn’t be 75-80%, I would be much worse on a daily basis, correct.?

— End quote

I have to disagree with you here… How do you know that it’s not (for arguments sake) the eggs, stopping you from reaching 100%? Or at least 95%?

If you haven’t given the diet ago, I strongly suggest you do. If it wasn’t successful for so many people patients, Dr S and the other highly esteemed docs, wouldn’t use it as their first line treatment for MAV. Sure, its a pain in the arse, but it’s worth a shot.

Good to hear Verap sorted out your monthly trigger- that is a massive trigger for me too and I wondered what could help me there. How long were you on it for it to work? Did it work on your first cycle?

5

This is really interesting as I just picked up Verapamil and Paxil today. Glad to hear Verap has worked so fast!

Food for me? Some triggers are immediate, like bananas, and some take several days of eating them every day, like avocados. So I can probably count on eating a trigger every other day once this is under control. At least that is what I am hoping for!

6

I think sometimes it’s virtually impossible to find food triggers because they are not our only triggers thrown in to the mix, what i mean is that on one day an amount of cheese may not affect you so you assume it’s not a trigger, but on that day you may have also had no period, no stress and the weather was the same, whereas on another day when you eat cheese just before your period for example, it may be the trigger to tip the balance.
Hope that makes sense!
I think you need to stick to the diet permanent to get any benefits but you can still have bad days from other triggers so the diet is never going to ‘cure’ you. Sorry to sound pessimistic.