Is Tyramine Causing Your Headaches? Here’s What You Can Do

Do frequent bouts of headaches prevent you from heading out for a fun day with your loved ones? Are you unable to commit to travel plans and food trips in fear of the pain and discomfort that you might experience because of migraine episodes? Are you tired of chasing your symptoms and constantly adjusting your routine to avoid triggering painful headaches? Billions of people worldwide share the same fate!

As someone who is no stranger to migraines, you know how bad the symptoms can get. It can affect your level of productivity. Sometimes, your episodes can even make them miss important life events. 

The exact cause of migraines remains unknown, but experts believe it’s linked to abnormal brain activities. Many patients also report an onset of migraine linked to their diet. There are food products and components known to trigger migraine, such as tyramine.

Tyramine is an amino acid in certain foods and beverages that can cause headaches in specific individuals. Sometimes, a low-tyramine diet is recommended to help reduce the frequency of migraine episodes.

Foods High in Tyramine

Below are a couple of products best known for their high levels of tyramine. Reducing their intake or eliminating them from your diet, along with regular visits to a chiropractor for migraines, might be the combination you need for migraine relief.

#1. Aged Cheeses

Some types of cheese can have high tyramine levels during their aging process. These include blue cheese, Camembert, cheddar, feta, parmesan, swiss, and parmesan. 

#2. Cured or Processed Meats

Like aged cheeses, tyramine can increase in meats undergoing a process, and the longer it takes, the higher the tyramine levels get. These include cured, processed, or smoked meats such as bacon, bologna, hotdogs, pepperoni, salami, and smoked fish.

#3. Pickled or Fermented Vegetables

The fermentation process can also increase tyramine levels in food such as kimchi, pickled beets, cucumbers, peppers, and Sauerkraut. In addition, soy products that undergo fermentation, such as miso, soy sauce, and tofu, also contain tyramine.

#4. Citrus and Tropical Fruits

While citrus fruits are particularly rich in vitamin C, they contain high levels of tyramine, including orange, grapefruit, lemon, lime, and tangerine. Some tropical fruits also contain higher levels of tyramine when they ripen, including avocado, bananas, and pineapple. If you are sensitive to tyramine, avoiding these fruits may prevent you from the pain it can bring when it triggers a migraine episode.

#5. Alcoholic Beverages

The fermentation process involved in making alcoholic beverages can increase the tyramine levels of these products. Therefore, you may need to watch your intake of beer, red wine, sherry, vermouth, and some liqueurs as they have high amounts of tyramine.

Exercise to Help You Beat Headaches

Apart from avoiding foods rich in tyramine, you may also incorporate these exercises into your routine to help reduce your headaches from happening. These gentle exercises supplement the adjustments you usually get from your chiropractor for migraines.

#1. Yoga

This can help improve your posture, loosen tight muscles, and reduce the stress that can worsen headaches. 

#2. Stretching, deep breathing, and muscle relaxation

You can incorporate these simple steps to improve your blood circulation and reduce muscle tension if you find yoga too much.

#3. Cardiovascular exercises

Engaging in cardiovascular or aerobic exercises can help reduce your anger, anxiety, depression, and stress which can all trigger headaches. You also improve your sleep quality and release happy hormones or endorphins when exercising, which can serve as natural painkillers.

An Upper Cervical Chiropractor For Migraines Can Provide Lasting Relief

Besides avoiding foods high in tyramine and engaging in movements to reduce headaches and migraine episodes, upper cervical chiropractic care is also known to deliver promising migraine relief.It’s not top of mind, but a misalignment in the upper cervical spine can bring debilitating headaches and other symptoms of migraine. It’s a common problem among people who experienced the following:

• Falling on one’s back
• Overextending your neck 
• Suffering from a whiplash or concussion
• Falling from a swing when you were a child
• Suffering from traumatic events that affect your head or neck 

The force from such events can damage the ligaments holding your topmost neck bones in place. Unfortunately, this leads to postural imbalances that will impact the entire length of your spine. The changes in your posture can also affect cerebral blood flow and cerebrospinal fluid drainage - issues that can contribute to worse migraine attacks. Thankfully, with the help of an upper cervical chiropractor, you can rectify the situation. Fixing your posture with the gentle atlas bone adjustments can reduce the onset of these symptoms and help your body regain optimum function. Cervical chiropractors focus on maintaining the alignment and balance of these bones to ensure your blood circulation is not interrupted, no nerves or muscle tissues are irritated or stressed, and the communication between your brain and body is not hindered. Reach out to an upper cervical chiropractic doctor near you so you can finally start putting an end to your search for lasting migraine relief.

to schedule a consultation today.