I’m no expert but from my basic knowledge your brain will revert to ketone bodies as energy instead of serum glucose during times of fasting. I also had headaches when I started 3 weeks ago but I was also dehydrated. It’s getting easier now but first week was a challenge.
I personally don’t think you should fast if you feel unwell. It’s tough enough anyway!!
Good luck
🙂 Z

I fasted for the first time in months, from 1pm to 1pm. I do suffer from sinus headaches anyway, but also had a killer headache, the pain of which made me feel really sick and I had to come home from work or pass out. I didn’t think it was the fast, but now I wonder?

I suffer from Migraines as well. I’m trying to avoid caffeine as it is definitely a trigger and I’m trying to up the amount of water I drink. I can’t do the whole day without food that many people do so I have 3 small things a day, or sometimes 2. I have a few wee low calorie snacks that I keep at work to revive me if I’m finding it too much of a struggle on fast days. I spend my whole day in front of a computer as well which doesn’t help so will try and get out on lunchtimes occasionally.

Hi everyone

I am a migraneur too, been suffering since I was a child too, but I have actually found the Fast Diet to help mine. Not at first, because I used to always get morning migraines when I would wake up hungry, so my early Fast Days were breakfast-heavy, but doing the fasting has actually broken my body out of that routine and now I don’t get migraines as soon as I’m hungry. I have fasted through a few migraines because I figure i’m in hell anyway, may as well lose some weight while i’m there, but if yours get work, I agree with Tiaramy, nothing is worth a migraine, you have to put your health first. I write a summary blog post each week about the Fast Diet and have talked about my health changes in my general page, if you fancy a read, I’d love to hear more peoples’ experiences and how it is effecting their migraines!

http://meg-made.blogspot.co.uk/p/the-fast-diet.html

Good luck!! Meg

Having suffered from migraines for forty years it is frustrating to hear some people still think of them as headaches. I can assure you they are far far worse. Pain so severe that it makes you physically sick, disrupts your vision, impairs your thinking processes and makes you curl up in a corner and wish you could pass out because then you might get some relief. They are to be avoided at all costs.

So know what your triggers are and avoid them. That is true of any diet or life style. Suffers will know what triggers an attack so make sure that you avoid chocolate, or dairy products, or oranges, whatever the trigger. Get good quality sleep, keep hydrated and be sensible. So far I have not found that the fast diet has had any impact positive or negative on migraine attacks but it is early days for me. Some people have found a daily magnesium boost helps especially women. Research it first though to make sure it is right for you.

my first week i suffered with terrible migrane on the first fast then realised i need to drink more water. after this have been able to manage fine . also found it beneficial to have an early night the day i fast as well. no exercise on my fast day as this just doesnt work for me either as i feel exhausted.

Hi,

i just started the fast diet precisely in order to get rid of migraine. there is a theory that migraine is due to an energy crisis of the brain (caused by insulin resistance or too many carbs on a regular basis), and the brain is not able to maintain the required blood sugar level. the theory is that by “relearning” to use ketons for energy, migraine can be cured for good because the brain can then use ketons whenever it needs them to maintain constant blood sugar.

if your migraine is caused by such energy crises then it is predicted that it will get (much) worse when you start fasting, but at some point, when your body learns to use ketons, should vanish.

i usually had a migraine every two weekends for many years since i was a child. i had two fasting days now with a heavy migraine each day, which is quite unusual for me, but seems to be as predicted. so i will keep going.

i got this information from a german site http://migraeneinformation.de run by Peter Mersch. he writes that his first days and weeks of low carb & fasting were like hell, but he has not had a migraine for many years. the theory is based on the book by wolfgang lutz “life without bread”.

cheers,

tom

Im realy intrested in doing the 5:2 but ive had such succses with Topramite for my migraines that to scared to upset the balance. Ive had a migraine,sinus or bad headache everyday for as long as i can remember. But now i have a mirgaine once every two weeks klled with a triptan or a headache which is sorted with a nice coffee. So even with all the health benefits im scared witless to start the 5:2.

Hi – I know this is an old thread, but I joined this community just to see if I could find any research on this. I get migraines, and my GP and I have worked out that skipping meals is definitely a trigger for me. There’s a fact sheet here about that, and it seems fairly common.

http://www.migrainetrust.org/factsheet-hypoglycaemia-and-migraine-10907

I’ve been wanting to try Intermittent Fasting ever since watching Horizon as it makes so much intuitive sense to me, but I’m put off by migraine suffering. In fact I’ve recently put on weight partly because I’m so scared of missing meals and triggering migraines. If anybody has seen any fuller research on this I’d be very interested to read it.

In the meantime I’m starting 5:2 this week so will see how it works for me..

Hi Maler – pretty positive for me so far. After two fast days I have had one migraine, but I’m not sure that it was directly triggered or not as it was a day after (and easily managed with a sumatriptan). So will definitely stick with it, everything else about the fast days was very positive for me, and I was surprised how easy it was to get through the two days. Good luck with it, I hope the headaches don’t mean that you can’t continue.

I did my first fast day yesterday and I was really worried about migraine. I’ve been suffering form them for the last twenty years and have only managed to get them under control in the last couple of years with my GP’s help, mainly by keeping my blood sugar steady. I was starting to get into a habit of translating ‘steady’ as ‘constantly high’ and munching on oatcakes, muesli, cereal etc all day long – ok so they’re good carbs but still carbs.

So I started yesterday with some trepidation and with some triptans at the ready…

But amazingly yesterday was my first day in about a week with no sort of headache, and no signs of a migraine at all. I drank lots and lots of water and herbal tea (I put lime in the water, it was really tasty) and I think the fact that I made sure I did that really helped. I also didn’t skip lunch – I had a 200cal high protein lunch and then waited until supper for the last 150cal of the day. Skipping lunch is a major migraine trigger for me so I knew I couldn’t wait till dinner, which I skipped instead.

Hopefully my next fast day on Monday will also be migraine free. I’ve also learned to keep drinking and keep hydrated.

My first week were fine, but the second week I had a few migraines, particularly towards the end of my fast days. I did some reading online and decided to up my fluid intake on fast days to almost double, with at least 8 oz of that being chicken broth. I’ve had no fast day migraines since, and I’m very prone to migraines with any changes in my sleep, diet, or hormones so that’s saying a lot for me. Good luck!