Hi! I am a patient of Dr. Rauch who gave me the information about this group. I was diagnosed with MAV back in 2005 and overall have managed living with it. The last two years I’ve gone through some pretty severe epsiodes and finally got back in to see Dr. Rauch (who really gets it)! In any case, I have been on the migraine diet for 6 days now and feel okay. I am looking for suggestions for good recipes to make that won’t keep me in the kitchen for hours since I have a 6 and 4 year old that keep me busy. Does anyone have a good salad dressing recipe, snack or dessert ideas? Or what do you get in a situation when you are out and about and don’t want to cheat on the diet - restaurants? Also, without my chocolate/dessert I am bit lost! I welcome any recommendations.
Thank you,
Abby
Hi Abby and welcome. 
I struggle with cooking and eating out while following the migraine diet. I usually dress my salad with distilled white vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. I miss my balsamic , red and white wine vinegar. Whole Foods sells some fresh salad dressings in the refridgerated section. No preservatives. There are two that I buy - roasted red pepper and creamy italian. They both used white vinegar and they are both yummy. I keep meaning to look up some salad dressing recipes that use only white vinegar but haven’t done so yet.
When I dine out I will often order a large salad with grilled chicken, a steak or fish. Restaurants almost never have white vinegar so I have been known to keep a bottle in my car. Dessert is a tough one. I miss chocolate so much, too. There are alot of cakes, muffins and pastries that work well with the migraine diet. I have a great blueberry scone recipe that I’ll pass along if you like. Freezes well. I have two kids, 8 and 4 and they like the scones.
I have an appointment with Dr. Rauch soon - in a week or two. I have been waiting four months to get an appointment with him. I hope it is helpful. Good luck to you. Kristen
Abby,
This may not be much help at this time, but the migraine diet is meant in part to help find food triggers. You do have to follow it pretty strictly for 1 to 3 months, but after that (this is the part that you may like) you can start adding foods in slowly and see if your body reacts to it. I have found that there are many foods such as chocolate that I can have every once in a while in small quantities as long as I have been following my diet. Too much in one sitting and I get a headache. Nuts is another example, as long as I don’t eat them all the time, I can get away with a small handful every now and again. With nuts though, I find that this takes a few day to build up, if I keep eating them regularly my dizzyness slowly starts to increase. Most of the foods on the diet don’t affect me at all, some take time, and others just simply put me on the couch. I have even found that a lot of the foods you can get at the health stores contain ingrediants that will trigger me pretty quickly.
The diet is a struggle at first, espiacially when you have a family to care for. Once you have gone through the intiatial “clean out” phase, it does get easier, but remember to start adding the foods you removed back into your diet one at a time. It may take a year or two to figure out what you can and can’t eat. My family typically has two different things cooked up
Also, once you have gone through “clean out” phase and found what you can eat regularly, what you can eat sometimes, and what you can’t eat at all, you should be able to go out with friends and just be a little finiky about what you eat, avoiding certian foods, and eating others in smaller quantities than what you are served.
I know I didn’t include any recipes, but I hope this gives you some light at the end of tunnel regarding your diet. It’s been so long since I went through eating nothing stage that I have forgotten most of the recipes. I just remember that I was trying to make everything from scratch and having a miserable time doing it. My only saving grace at that time was that we only had one newborn child. I am just glad that I didn’t have to do it after our second son was born.
I’m curious, have you been on any preventatives during this time that have been working for you, or have you been “all natural” since 2005? I’m just wondering if you have been on preventatives that were working, then somehow failed during the course of your time with MAV, or if you have been sort of not managing it the best from the start. I’m just curious. I had INTRACTABLE mav from day one, and although my time with MAV is absolutely not as long as some of the great people here, the time I had in full blown MAV was too intractable to go back to. I was practically disabled from it. But I’m on topamax now and I have my life back to about 90% on most days. Anyway, just curious what you have done for 5 years.
As far as diet goes, I actually lost a lot of weight (unneeded) on the migraine diet because it cuts out certain foods that help keep weight on such as yogurt and cheese. So, to compensate, I stick to the diet 100% in other areas and I cheat with yogurt and cheese only. I have absolutely no issues from doing this and I am finally starting to put some weight back on. Perhaps yogurt and cheese are not my triggers. This is most likely the case. At first, as others mentioned, you should do the diet 100% for about 3 months first. THEN you can test the waters and see what bothers you. You may find that some foods on the diet are not a problem for you at all. I have not even TRIED to eat chocolate or cafeine since this hit me last year. I think of it as a death sentence lol. I’m doing well and don’t want to do anything that could ruin it. Anyway, please let me know about your management over the past 5 years. Take care
Rich