[korij]

I didn't see anywhere to put this, so I hope this is the right place.

I've been exercising and eating better since I started 5 days ago. Since then, I have cut out most artificial sugar, including soda, of which I used to have a heavy dependence.

For four days I have had the same headache/migraine on the right side of my head, behind my eyeball and around my temple. A day ago, I consumed a can of caffeinated soda (much to my disgust) to see if it was a caffeine headache from soda deprivation. While it seemed to help a little bit, it didn't make it go away.

So, overall, I cut out a lot of junk out of my diet, and started eating better and less. At meals (3 times a day), I eat until I'm not hungry anymore, not until I'm full like I used to. I also have two snacks between meals which are healthy and usually around 200-400 calories, consisting of nuts, plain yogurt, fresh fruit, or other healthy tidbits I can come up with. If I start to feel hungry after supper, I will have a light snack for dessert, my favorite being almonds and grapes with a tablespoon of yogurt.

I have cut out both soda and kool-aide for the most part, as well as most sweets, like cake (I had one small piece for dessert on my hubby's birthday yesterday), candy, and other high-sugar foods that I used to consume in high quantities.

My husband said the headache may be caused by a change in diet that is too sudden after the body has been used to consuming the same stuff for long.

All I know is that this headache is starting to cause me sleeping problems. It's there when I go to sleep, and is often what wakes me up. I'm trying to not take anymore pain killer, since I've taken a pretty decent amount of ibuprofen and aspirin over the last few days, and I don't want to ruin my liver.

If anyone has had the same thing and/or can offer some insight, I would really appreciate it.

[Arctic Mama]

Whenever I get off sugar (of varying types - grains can cause this issue for me, too) I often get detox headaches for a week or so. Then it goes away and I feel fine. It's fairly common, though uncomfortable!

[korij]

Phew, okay, so it's pretty commonplace. That's relieving. It's good to know that they will probably go away soon then.

For the most part, while I'm exercising at home or at the gym, I don't really have the headache, I guess because of the endorphins from exercising. A big relief for me, because it would suck to have these horrible pains while trying to focus on resistance training.

[LiannaKole]

Yep, I get the same thing when I back off of sugar/carb combos. My headaches were on and off for 1-2 weeks. But I'm also prone to migraines. If it gets bad, try taking Excedrin or something. It's really awesome stuff and you don't need much.

[Riddy]

Yup, blame the carb withdrawal. FWIW, yoga seems to help my migraines. If I take a Relpax and can get through a 22 minute gentle yoga workout, I'm almost better by the time I finish the yoga. I discovered this on accident just a few weeks ago. I KNOW the Relpax doesn't work that fast.

Hang in there and drink some more water. It will subside soon!

[Demosthenes]

The headache lasted about ten days for me when I gave up refined sugars. Hang in there, it gets better! What was really bizarre is that instead of a normal migraine/tension headache pain the pain seemed like it was in my sinuses. Very disturbing, but it goes away and it is totally worth it!

[korij]

Yea, mine feels like a pressure headache around my ears and under my right eye. It's keeping me up at night, but I am so thankful that when I exercise, it doesn't hurt.

[korij]

Day 5 of it today, and it woke me up after barely 5 hours of sleep. Garrr. It's like a test of willpower, trying to get me to binge so that the pain will go away. Welp, that's not happening.

[lm3898]

Are you sure it's the weight loss?

Early last month I went to the doctor b/c for DAYS I had a headache only on the LEFT side of my head - similar to yours. It wasn't extremely painful but hardly ever went away which would be agonizing. It even annoyed my teeth on the left side. I didn't have other symptoms so I also tried the dentist.

She said my teeth were fine but the one sided headaches were actually caused my a sinus infection [though I didn't have any other symptoms - she could tell my the x-ray]. I took an antiobiotic that didn't help and finally a stronger anti-biotic that I just finished and the headaches are completely gone. With all these seasonal changes, weather changes, high pollen counts you might just want to check to see if it's something non-sugar related - esp. if it's causing sleep loss.

[Larry H]

Originally Posted by korij

I didn't see anywhere to put this, so I hope this is the right place.

I've been exercising and eating better since I started 5 days ago. Since then, I have cut out most artificial sugar, including soda, of which I used to have a heavy dependence.

For four days I have had the same headache/migraine on the right side of my head, behind my eyeball and around my temple. A day ago, I consumed a can of caffeinated soda (much to my disgust) to see if it was a caffeine headache from soda deprivation. While it seemed to help a little bit, it didn't make it go away.

So, overall, I cut out a lot of junk out of my diet, and started eating better and less. At meals (3 times a day), I eat until I'm not hungry anymore, not until I'm full like I used to. I also have two snacks between meals which are healthy and usually around 200-400 calories, consisting of nuts, plain yogurt, fresh fruit, or other healthy tidbits I can come up with. If I start to feel hungry after supper, I will have a light snack for dessert, my favorite being almonds and grapes with a tablespoon of yogurt.

I have cut out both soda and kool-aide for the most part, as well as most sweets, like cake (I had one small piece for dessert on my hubby's birthday yesterday), candy, and other high-sugar foods that I used to consume in high quantities.

My husband said the headache may be caused by a change in diet that is too sudden after the body has been used to consuming the same stuff for long.

All I know is that this headache is starting to cause me sleeping problems. It's there when I go to sleep, and is often what wakes me up. I'm trying to not take anymore pain killer, since I've taken a pretty decent amount of ibuprofen and aspirin over the last few days, and I don't want to ruin my liver.

If anyone has had the same thing and/or can offer some insight, I would really appreciate it.

I don't have migraines but my wife and daughter sure do. Our daughter found that hers were being caused by Gluten Intolerance. We are looking into that now to see if my wife's migraine may be related to that. You might want to check with your doctor, it is a long shot but I say leave no stone unturned when searching for a cure/cause. Good luck in finding the cause.

Larry

[korij]

It died down around 7:30 EST to where I couldn't really tell it was there, and I was able to sleep for a few more hours, undisturbed. My hubby woke me up so I didn't oversleep, and while, occasionally there are little pangs here and there, I can't feel it. However, I will definitely look into all of these things that you guys suggest, just to outweigh all my options.

[korij]

PLEASE READ THIS!! Especially if you are having sudden and intense headaches yourself.

Sorry for dredging up this threat after such a long period of time of inactivity, but I did want to shed some light on this, and what was actually going on with my headaches.

After my last post, my headaches returned. About a week and a half after the last date of my last post on this thread the pain was so unbearable that I checked myself into the emergency room.

Initially they diagnosed me with basic migraines and prescribed me some medicine and told me to me to buy over the counter migraine medicine if they started occurring again. The day after, as my husband and I were on the way to pick up my pain prescription, my right eye began to deviate. Over the following two days, the iris and pupil of my right eye were all the way in the right corner even though my left eye was staring straight ahead. The eye that deviated also happened to be the eye on the side of my head where my headaches were effecting. The meds helped the pain but the headaches were still recurring and the loss of control of my eye, and the accompanying double-vision, were worrying enough that I returned to the ER after a few days.

At this time, a neurologist was called and I was checked into the hospital for a night to be monitored. The next day, I was referred to an eye specialist. The eye specialist told me there wasn't anything wrong with the eye itself and that the deviation, paired with the headaches and migraine-like symptoms (nausea and vomiting) could be caused by a disorder known as psuedotumor cerebri, and that I would need to be examined by the neurologist again.

When I visited the neurologist he said it was most likely pseudotumor cerebri, which is when there is too much intracranial pressure on the brain and optic nerves caused by too much spinal fluid being produced or my body not absorbing the fluid quickly enough. However, only a spinal tap could verify it, to check my spinal pressure, and that, if there was too much pressure, they would remove some during the spinal tap.

Now, why am I saying all of this, when it seems otherwise unrelated to the purpose of this forum?

The ER doctor, the eye doctor, and the neurologists all agreed that what my most contributing factor for my PTC was my weight. I am clinically classified as obese, with a BMI over 30% and more than 100lbs overweight. I was told that losing weight would probably lessen the headaches, and help with appropriate fluid production/absorbing, but that it was never 100% if my symptoms or disorder would improve since its surfacing, even if I did so.

I waited a really long time before going to the doctors for these headaches, so I'm hoping that anyone else who is overweight or obese and starts experiencing excruciating headaches won't wait as long as I did.

I did have a spinal tap, though, and my ICP (intracranial pressure) was more than DOUBLE the normal amount. I was put on a medicine known as acetazolomide, or diamox, and the generic of it is very expensive.

I had to spend a lot of time in bed after my spinal tap, and even had to return to the hospital a third time to have a blood patch put in my spine to equalize pressure because they took too much fluid and I couldn't stand up without my neck and shoulders hurting, and couldn't even keep water down for 3 days. I ended up losing 12lbs in 3 days, and was very dehydrated when I was admitted to the hospital. That is not a goal or victory for me, because the weight was lost in an unhealthy way.

So I beg you, if you are having headaches suddenly, and you are overweight or otherwise, don't write it off as detox like I did, and get checked out. If you catch it earlier you will probably have a higher chance of recovery.

I have been on bedrest off and on for the last 5 months, and I am just now starting to work on getting healthy and fit again. Sorry for my inactivity.

[TripSwitch]

Thanks so much for the update... I'm so sorry that it turned out to be something much more serious... and I'm glad that they figured out what was actually wrong and hopefully you're starting to feel a bit better...

You bring up such a good point... it really is better to get things checked out sooner, rather than later and sorry for the cliche, but it really is better to be safe than sorry....

As someone who has taken care of countless heart attack and stroke patients, I can't even tell you how many tried to ignore their symptoms only to wind up doing more damage... People are so afraid of embarrassing themselves, it's silly really... but as far as I know no one has ever died from embarrassment...