Headache tracking

Quantified Self General Health
1

http://quantifiedself.com/2011/08/my-n1-quest-to-live-headache-free/#comment-2695 - such a good post

Wow - I can totally relate! Myself, I’ve often noticed that I get headaches after using my cellphone for an hour (as it turns out, my cellphone emits more radiation than most).

And also - I get headaches when I’m sitting in the back of the bus for too long, and when I’m walking in a big city for too long. Apparently, air pollution can be really nasty on the brain - see http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-particularly-nasty-neurological-effects-of-air-pollution

Also - I get headaches after eating too many high-glycemic foods.

I wonder if anyone else can relate to that

2

I get headaches from high glycemic foods often, but I assume this has mostly to do with the fact that I have really excluded these foods from my menu for many years and my organism is very unprepared for them and the glycemic spikes. Similar for alcohol, where when I used to drink, I had no major problems. .
Other sources:
-backpacks that unproperly pressure my back
-from smoke like candles or indian scents
-light reflections on my computer monitor
-cooked butter, this is based on 4 trials from a particular egg meal form the same place, could be that they used bad/old products
-high amounts of raw garlic and garlic powder…This is a new weird one and I still have to investigate it and come with a reasonable hypothesis.
-I still test the extent to which I get headaches from mycotoxins, particularly molds

The lecture by Dave Asprey is a great one:
http://www.bulletproofexec.com/bulletproof-video-get-stable-energy-perform-better-by-avoiding-these/

3

High glycemic foods and headaches are common due to fluctuations in blood sugar.
Furthermore, low blood sugar is a trigger for a lot of people.

Other triggers: sleep deprivation, food additives, nightshade plants, stress!

Exercise, eating a clean diet, and sleeping normal hours made a huge difference for me and I no longer have migraines!

5

Stephen, are you using anecdotal evidence or do you have actual data on migraines and cellphones?

I did a PubMed search of “cellphones” and “migraines” and got 3 results 1 of which was valid.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=("Cellular%20Phone"[Mesh])%20AND%20"Migraine%20Disorders"[Mesh]

"Headache and migraine
In total 33 studies with investigation periods between 1992 and 2006 were identified (Table 4), 24 of these from Europe (Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Denmark, Finland, BRD, France, Great Britain), 7 from the USA, and 1 study was performed in Europe and USA. To obtain data from Canada, also, 1 study from 1992 was included (O’Brien et al., 1994).

In 10 studies prevalence for both headache and migraine were given while another 10 focused on migraine only and another 13 on headache only.

The studies show very high differences in their results for prevalence depending on the studied type of headache and/ or migraine. Prevalence for headache varied from 2% to 84%, for tension-type headache from 2% to 89%, for migraine from 4% to 30%. Lyngberg et al. report a 100% lifetime prevalence for headache (Lyngberg et al., 2005). Over the 14-year period reviewed it was found that frequencies differed according to definition of disease or complaint and gender but did not show any systematic increase or decrease. It was also noted that both headache and migraine were detected more frequently in women than in men (Michel et al., 1996; Launer et al., 1999; Lipton et al., 2001; Prencipe et al., 2001)."

Physicians appeals on the dangers of mobile communication–what is the evidence? Assessment of public health data.
Zur Nieden A, Dietz C, Eikmann T, Kiefer J, Herr CE.
Int J Hyg Environ Health. 2009 Nov;212(6):576-87. doi: 10.1016/j.ijheh.2009.07.002. Epub 2009 Sep 6. Review.
PMID: 19736044 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

_M