GF Feb 2, 2013

Q: Hi! So I was looking through the migraine tag and saw that you have both migraines & celiac. If you don't mind my asking, I was wondering how long you've had each? I was diagnosed with chronic migraines by the time I was 13 and have recently started to wonder if I have a gluten sensitivity or possibly celiac. I've have stomach issues for most of my life (I'm now 24) and am pretty lactose intolerant. If you wouldn't mind I'd be interested to hear if you think the two are connected. Be well!

MY ANSWER: Well, I’ve had my migraines since I was 16, and cut out gluten last June or so. It helped tremendously! 

I decided to do it because I started to have a blind spot in my left eye that kept growing and growing until it was over 3/4 of my vision. None of the Dr’s around could figure out what was causing it so I flew across the country and while I was visiting my brother I saw a neuro-opthamologist.

He put it like this
’ if your body feels like it’s under attack, your vessels will swell up. If you’re even slightly allergic to something and you eat it all the time, you’re setting yourself up for a migraine. The first the I recommend for people with migraines is to try gluten free and see if that helps’

To me that helped me understand why it helped, it also helped me understand enough to explain it to other people. Even if I didn’t have celiac disease, I am allergic to gluten enough that it’s a constant thing that sets me on edge.

I like to think of my triggers as a bucket of water. I can only have a certain amount of my triggers in a certain time period or it will overflow and I will have a migraine. Gluten is like a chunk of cement in the bottom of my bucket that pushes the amount of triggers I can have to next to nothing. 

Then I found out I have celiac disease and everything became a little more clearer. 

tl;dr: migraines since 16 (22 now) , celiac for 7 months much better still not good though