I had debilitating multi-day migraines as a child. As I got older, they faded into...well, debilitating few hour migraines.

Then I emigrated to the U.S. and POOF my migraines went away.

I am one of the lucky ones who *can* "game my triggers," and don't even need medication. I feel bad about it.

My primary trigger is aspartame.

The reason my childhood migraines were so debilitating wasn't because of puberty.

Basically, I would get a migraine, or a "sicky headache" as I used to call them when in single digits...and we THOUGHT the trigger was stress.

My mother would feed me crackers, barley water (an anti-emetic) and lucozade, an energy drink that mothers in the U.K. would give sick kids because it would help them feel better.

Guess what lucozade contains.

Yup.

Every time I got a migraine my mother dutifully fed me my dietary trigger. I never had the heart to tell her when I identified it years later. (The reason my migraines went away when I went to the U.S. is because aspartame is put in cheap regular soda in the U.K., so what was actually happening was that every time my mother bought a specific brand of cheap soda for me...)

Again, I feel kinda bad to have them under control, unlike a close friend of mine who just can't...and is always afraid of having to bail on stuff.

*hugs*