Yeah I know, I haven’t posted here for a long time. Slack.

But I needed to take a break from migraine stuff for a while and actually just enjoy living my life attack free. Sometimes when you think about migraine all day it’s not helpful. For either your physical or mental health.

But after two crashes in the last 12 months I give in. I’m back to thinking about it and managing it 24/7. Back to controlled eating, and screen time limits, and pacing, having ice and heat packs at the ready every day, and allllllll the things.

One new thing I wanted to share with you is my new rescue diet. It was something I tried last year when my really big crash took me by surprise and back to migraine reality. I tried it again the last couple of days after my latest crash – which was less of a surprise given one of my Aimovig pens was faulty – and it worked an absolute treat to set me back to functional nice and quickly.

What will work for you is of course unique to you, but this has worked wonders for me.

Rescue diet

General principals: keep food as simple as possible, and small portions throughout the day. Try and go as close as you can to oil, sugar, and spice free (salt is ok), and avoid anything strong in colour and flavour like avocado or tomato.

Breakfast

Either:

• 2 cups of diced pears. I get the Coles ones because they are in the syrup and not the juice – juice is very high in food chemicals.
• Two pieces of plain white or wholemeal (no seeds!) toast, with butter or your safe margarine if you need, but no other topping or spread.
• Two weetbix with milk

Feeling nauseated? Eat slowly. I’ll often eat the pears spoon by spoon over as much as two hours.

Need caffeine? Weak green tea. Try and avoid coffee, or if you really need it, just have the one cup at the same time every day, black if you can.

Morning Snack

Either:

• a handful of plain rice crackers
• one white bread slice or roll with or without butter
• A rice cake with butter

Lunch

Either:

• Two minute noodles without the flavour sachet
• A cheese sandwich on white bread. Try a pale coloured cheese like swiss rather than a very yellow cheese.
• Two hard boiled or poached eggs on toast – not runny (sorry).

Same as breakfast, eat slowly if you’re feeling nauseated.

Afternoon snack

If you’re anything like me, mid afternoon is when you NEED sugar. Try and keep the beast happy with carbs, but if you’re really struggling – 250ml of icy cold Coke is my magic potion that always keeps the migraine symptoms at bay for the rest of the day. Other options:

• A peeled fresh pear or a cup of diced pears in sugar syrup
• Hot chips with salt (small serving – air fried or try and minimise the oil)
• Plain Salada’s
• Anything from the morning snack list

Dinner

I always struggle to eat in the evening, but I know if I don’t then I wake up nauseated. So I try and eat something substantial, even if it takes me a while.

Either:

• Steamed chicken or fish, small portion, with potato (masked or steamed preferably). Can add either a small serving of beans or one carrot, not both, steamed.
• Plain pasta with either a white sauce or no sauce
• Scrambled eggs, with or without toast
• Mushroom risotto (boring recipe – see below)
• A simple soup like potato and leek, cabbage, chicken, or vegetable – home made or from a source you’re sure has no spices other than salt.

I’ll often just have a bowl of steamed potato and carrots with a bit of butter and salt – nothing else.

Hungry after dinner? Salada’s, rice crackers, or similar.

Secret ingredient: ice cold water.

Adding constant sipping on ice cold water speeds my recovery up substantially. I get a water bottle, fill it maybe a third of the way and freeze it: and then add fresh water to the bottle and just take little sips of ice cold water consistently every 10-20 minutes all day. This without the diet doesn’t do much, but combined with the diet is magic.

It takes about 3 to 5 days after a big crash for this to work for me. I’m usually back to functional but fatigued day two. Good luck if you want to try it and see if it works for you.

RK’s boring but simple Mushroom Risotto

• half a cup of arborio rice
• half a litre of vegetable stock (pick one with few additives or preservatives, or make your own)
• 250gm of white mushrooms, sliced, stalks and skin removed
• half an onion, diced
• Salt
• 30gm of butter

Put the butter, mushrooms, onion, and salt in a medium hot pan and saute until the onion is clear and the mushrooms reduced in size. Remove from pan and set aside – but do not clean the pan.

Using the same pan (to keep the flavour and minimise oil use), put in the rice, and toast on medium heat, stirring to make sure none burns. Takes a couple of minutes.

Once that’s done you can either slowly add the stock and stir constantly, or just chuck all the stock in, turn down the heat to simmer, and have a rest. The end result isn’t much different. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s a bit gluggy, but it tastes the same and if you need a rest well… stuff it. You can also chuck it all in a slow cooker but I’ve never liked that result.

Once the rice has absorbed all the stock, put the mushroom and onions back in and stir on a higher heat for a minute or two.

Serve – you can add a little cheese if you want.