What I've Been Quiet About...

These headaches, we just passed my one year anniversary of their on-set, it happened to be the Monday before Valentine's Day.  I've been fairly quiet on the blog about these headaches, mainly because I don't want to be a big downer each time someone comes to check out our happenings.  I also don't want people to see how frustrating the whole thing's been for me (it has gotten really bad at more than one point).  But here are two things I thought were important enough to share:

1. The medication I take daily for my headaches also causes my hair to fall out-think post-partum, and it makes my nails break super easily; as well as lowered my blood pressure to low levels.  This actually took me took me awhile to figure out-thanks to a very observant doctor (not my neurologist, but a DO)  We found out I had super low vit-D levels in August.  In December I looked at the side-effects of Topimax again and that's when we found out that the medication was causing all the other issues (plus it makes me angry if I take too high a dose-no joke).  The good news is that if/when I stop, the effects will all go away.  I have found, in the past two months, a Rx level that works for me (by splitting my dose between night and morning), and it keeps the headaches at bay w/o me being angry.
2. I have over the past month been trying something else out for our family.  Aidan was having another flair-up, and we were worried that he might have to be put on another round of steroids (just as he started to grow too), so I went to the temple and the thought came afterwards: what if he never out-grew that corn "sensitivity" he had as a baby? (All 4 of my kids once they started eating until they were out of diapers, would get blister rashes if they ate anything with any type of corn product in it -corn flour, meal, starch...-and they got it from me, I was the same way).  The thought was quickly followed by another, what it I never outgrew it either? (I've always had different issues all throughout my life).  So 4 weeks ago we took out ALL corn products from our diet (that's right-no corn syrup-it's in everything!!), along with soy-just to be safe.  And my headaches have never been under better control, Aidan's doing great (the rest of the kids are far less gassy), and as a bonus-my weight is down 2-3 pounds.

The cutting out corn was both easy and difficult.  I can live without cake mixes-I've got cookbooks to help me out there.  I found a bread that the kids like that doesn't use corn syrup the first day I looked (I found  second kind just this week, so we're up to two brands now); I found a good lunch meat (both turkey and ham) that are corn syrup/starch-free as well.  The kids are a bit sad that pop corn is going to be a by-gone treat, that hot dogs for grilling over the summer are out (but we made that up to them by having bacon cheeseburgers on President's day).  I already make homemade ice cream all summer long, so that's not a problem, and my dad already came to my rescue with some wonderful brownie recipes (so happy).  I can live without cream of mushroom soup, I will cry this summer when I have to pass up corn on the cob though.

But I know it's working, two weeks into this and Eric and I went out to eat.  I'm sure the bbq sauce had corn syrup in it (they all do), who knows what the bun was made of, I know that Panko uses corn in it (zucchini chips), and we had store bought ice cream (loaded with corn syrup).  I woke up the next morning with a migraine worse than I had had in months and the kids all had sore tummies from the ice cream.  And because it's working I can give up caramel (as in Milky Way Dark), but thank goodness Reese's are totally safe!!