Let’s assume that after following the anti-migraine diet for up to ten days, your headaches have ceased. At this point, beginning with breakfast, you should begin to test the suspect food at the top of your list; we’ll use yellow cheese as an example.
You do this by continuing to eat your anti-migraine diet. But at each meal, reduce your usual serving by about 15 per cent. In its place, add a fairly generous serving of yellow cheese. The later in the day, the larger you can make the helping of suspect food. However, do not eat more of the suspect food than you would in your normal everyday diet. Eating unusually large amounts of a suspect food can unbalance the test.
Test only a single suspect food at a time. And continue the test for a full 48 hours.
Keep a diary of foods eaten and of headache reactions. If the yellow cheese does not set off a headache, begin testing the next food on your list—say ice cream. Test it over the next 48 hours. Start with the food you suspect most and work down the list of suspect foods.
But what if the yellow cheese triggers a headache? In this case, you would stop eating it and return to your regular anti-migraine diet for the next four days. You would then commence to test the next suspect food on your list, ice cream. If after 48 hours, the ice cream did not precipitate a headache, you would return to testing the yellow cheese for a second time. You would test it for the next 48 hours. If the yellow cheese gave you another headache, this would confirm that yellow cheese is very likely a migraine trigger food for you. So you would eliminate it once more and return to testing, one by one, the remaining foods on your list.
Test not more than four foods in any one test period. After testing for a period of eight days, return to your regular anti-migraine diet for a four-day rest period. You may immediately add to your diet each and every food or beverage that has successfully passed your test. After resting for four days, you may then resume testing for another eight days.
If and when a headache occurs, which will often be late in the evening or early the next day, the probability is that it was set off by your most recent test food. If a certain food continually provokes a headache, this is almost certain proof that it is a migraine trigger.
After testing all the suspect foods on your list, you can begin to add back other foods by testing them, one at a time, for a 48-hour period. Eventually, you will have restored to your diet every food and beverage that is safe for you.
There’s more good news. After eliminating a proven migraine trigger food for four months, you can reintroduce it into your diet on a rotational basis, that is, once every four days. Naturally, if it sets off a headache again, you would eliminate it permanently.
In some cases, chronic tension headaches have also been traced to food addiction. The possibility that headaches other than migraine may be related to food was emphasized by James M. Breneman M.D., when recently chairman of the Allergy Committee of the American College of Allergists. Dr. Breneman suggested that as many as 70 percent of all headaches might be traced to food sensitivities.
Once more, we emphasize that before making any dietary changes, you should consult your physician.
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