Drop Sugar, Gain Headaches?

Libellue23

People on low carb get this even after the start. Most times it is electrolyte imbalances, sodium is a big culprit. Eating low carb (150 carbs or less) is like being on diuretics, you need to up your electrolytes.
Mine were fine for 2 months after the first week. Now the headaches have come back

Ming1951

This is how it was explained it to me.. http://www.cancercenter.com/discussions/blog/natural-vs-refined-sugars-whats-the-difference/

lemurcat12

Ming1951 wrote: »

This is how it was explained it to me.. http://www.cancercenter.com/discussions/blog/natural-vs-refined-sugars-whats-the-difference/

That's super oversimplified so not entirely correct. You can look up the facts I stated above (like that fruit does not only have fructose, but also glucose, sucrose, and other sugars in various amounts and that sucrose is just fructose + glucose). Even so, if you actually read that article closely, you'll see that it's not actually different sugars are different, but sugar from fruit and veg come with fiber and the fiber slows digestion.

Why that's incomplete is, of course, sugar in milk doesn't come with fiber and can be digested quite quickly, and sugar added to a higher fiber food (like oats, rhubarb, even a tomato sauce with meat and lots of veg) will also be "processed" by your body more slowly. And, on the contrary, some fruits don't have that much fiber and will be digested quite quickly -- there is a reason why people eat bananas right before/after a race.

Also, whether it matters if things are digested quickly is that it is being assumed (weirdly, IMO) that they are being eaten alone, and that for some people -- not all -- this makes them not filling. It's not really about health unless you end up overeating.

IMO, a much bigger factor is that most added sugar people get is from hyperpalatable sweet foods that don't have much nutritional benefits but are delicious and not that filling, so easy to overeat. (I was not hungry after dinner yesterday -- took half my dinner home, in fact -- and yet when offered a bite of dessert by a friend who ordered it I enjoyed it and realized I easily could have eaten dessert because it tasted good and wasn't that filling and was a sufficiently different taste from dinner. Eh, but I just had a bite and we ended up with half the dessert left because she also exercised self control.)

Anyway, I totally agree with a decision to cut down on added sugar if one eats a lot (although focusing on the specific items and not deciding that you can't add any to oats if you like it -- I don't, but I never added sugar to foods like that so need a hypothetical -- makes a lot more sense to me). I also think experimenting with no added sugar can be valuable -- I did it myself. What I object to, because it's just not true, is pretending like the sugar themselves are meaningfully different, and not what they come with (you know, the foods).

To your body, and therefore, if we are talking about physical reaction, sugar is sugar (and sugar is a carb, basically), as anyone doing keto no doubt knows. Your body will easily treat any starch or sugar as sugar. Cutting carbs may have an effect, obviously, but not cutting added sugar while continuing to eat plenty of other sugars and carbs. Not physically. Mentally? Who knows.

marm1962

amusedmonkey wrote: »

hazcad wrote: »

It's a withdrawal symptom from the sugar, every addiction has a withdrawal this is just one from sugar and commonly caffeine but people don't realise it. It should pass after a while once your body has adjusted.

Physical sugar addiction is not a thing. I spontaneously go on and off sugar for weeks at a time because the foods I want change, and I have never experienced anything even remotely resembling a withdrawal. In fact I don't realize that I haven't had sugar for a while until one day I think "hmmm, it's been a while since I had sweets, why don't I get some?".

Some people can do the same with caffeine and nicotine and never have a withdrawal symptom where others have major ones. Every BODY is different, foods and drugs effect different people in different ways.

RemoteOutpost

Try adding sugar and see if the headaches stop.

nvmomketo

Libellue23 wrote: »

People on low carb get this even after the start. Most times it is electrolyte imbalances, sodium is a big culprit. Eating low carb (150 carbs or less) is like being on diuretics, you need to up your electrolytes.
Mine were fine for 2 months after the first week. Now the headaches have come back

Very true. When carbs are dropped insulin levels fall. When insulin falls, water and electrolytes are lost. Low electrolytes causes headaches, fatigue, brain fog, nausea, BM issues, muscle pain, and eventually muscle spasms once K and Mg are starting to get low too.

To avoid the elctrolyte imbalance, supplement with 3000-5000 mg of sodium per day. That's 1-2+ tsp of table salt. You can also drink broth, take salt tablets, or just salt your water and chug it back.

The headaches are fixable with sodium.

RemoteOutpost wrote: »

Try adding sugar and see if the headaches stop.

Adding sugar would probably stop the headaches. Insulin will go up and you'll be back to retaining more water.

sgravesmfp

Agree with others it'll go away in a few weeks.. but. Try stevie in your coffee.. I've replaced my sugar with that delicious...

CrepedCrusader

****Update*****
I quit the tea that had roasted chicory in it and did not get headaches. After 3 days of no headache I drank some of the tea just to see if it would give me a headache, wanted to be sure it wasn't just a coincidence that I quit the tea on the day my body had finally adjusted. Like magic I got the same ripping headache.
So now at least I know I also have to make sure things do not have any kind of chicory in them whatsoever while I am reading food labels.

lemurcat12

Good you figured it out! That's so interesting, and yeah, you know what to avoid.

jen_092

Interesting thread! Glad you figured it out. As a migraine sufferer it has been so useful to log all my food and drink. I found a new trigger recently by doing this.

harribeau2012

trigden1991 wrote: »

Sugar is not inhernetly bad for you. There is no reason to cut it out.

Whilst I agree with this. Things we eat are either poisonous or not, it's too much of some things that causes issues. I was however reading just yesterday an article regarding altzeimers and possible connections to sugar consumption over a Lifetime (refined sugar/processed foods, in the modern interpretation of processed). I knew I needed to cut down on things and eat more freshly prepared food before...Now I really really want to.

khhregister

Oh my goodness. I found your post right when I needed it. This makes me feel a lot better.
I totally forgot this was a thing.

So for the last few days, I've had pretty much a non-stop migraine. Well, it starts on one side of my head, I take some medicine, it leaves for a few hours and then shows up again on the other side. Rinse and repeat. I was thinking I'm going to have to go back to my doctor and tell him my migraine medicine isn't really working anymore.

BUT

about 4 days ago, I threw out all the candy in the house because I had been over-indulging (sneaking ~4 peppermint patties a day because they were just sitting there). I haven't had any added sugar (I don't take it in my coffee or tea and I don't really use it in cooking) for days.

Ok. My head is probably ok. Probably won't need an emergency appt. with the neurologist. WHEW.
So some people are saying a week? Ugh...three more days of this, then.