Headaches

I meantioned a while back that I had to take Jacob to the doctor and that he had been diagnosed with abdominal headaches and migraines so I thought I would let you in on what our life has been like during the past couple of weeks. Jacob started having headaches a few months ago..at first he would get them every so often but as time went on they become more and more frequent and more intense. When he would get a headache he would cry and be completely out of it for the rest of the day. I'd have to put him to bed with an icepack and the only way he could get rid of it was so sleep it off. He was miserable and it was horrible to watch. After having headaches and tummyaches for a few weeks I finally took him to the doctor and she said that he had abdominal headachesand migraines. Apparently the abdominal headaches are pains that are similar to rebound headaches but instead of it always rebounding as a headaches sometimes it will rebound as a tummyache. When he gets these tummyaches he literally doubles over and has to lay down so it isn't just some minor tummyache.

We were given a list of foods that we have to avoid in order to try and stop these headaches. My plan was to avoid them all for a time period and if the headaches were eliminated to gradually try to reintroduce some of foods to see if a certain one was causing it. Now remember that Jacob is a VERY picky eater. Before this he lived on peanut butter and jelly,macaroni and cheese,hot dogs,bologa,bananas,doughnuts,pizza and yogurt. Anyhow here's the list:

aged cheese
herring
chocolate
vinegar(except white)
anything fermented,pickled or marinated
sour cream
yogurt
nuts
peanut butter
fresh bread,coffeecakes or doughnuts
peas with broad pods
msg
onions
figs
citrus
bananas
pizza
bologna
sausage
bacon
hot dogs

I left the doctors office wondering what in the world I could get him to eat. So we embarked upon this new journey. He did surprisingly well. No headaches and no tummyaches. Three days ago I let him try chocolate one night for dessert. He had no headache that night and did fine all day the next day. The next night I made tater tot casserole and it is topped with cheese..this has been the hardest to eliminate because we eat cheese on EVERYTHING! My husband says that he never knew it possible to eat so much cheese until he married into my family. I had completely eliminated the cheese though from Jacob's diet but thought I would try it that night and see what happened. He had the cheese at dinner and a small fun size pack of m & m's for dessert. He went to bed and got up with a headache. Now I'm not sure if it was the cheese or the chocolate so we're back to start again. I've eliminated both again and will see what happens from the word go again. I tell ya it's like a puzzle trying to figure out what is causing these migraines and how to stop them. He is too young to take migraine meds so we have to try and figure out what's initially triggering them to begin with.



I have felt terrible for Jacob during these last two months. This is how he has spent a good portion of his time before we visited the doctor.