A very kind reader sent me The Complete Book of Ayurvedic Home Remedies, and I’m trying the migraine remedies it recommends. The first remedy (yawning in a funny way) was a failure at treating migraines, but feels good.

The second thing I tried was to eat a breakfast of bananas, ghee, cardamom, and date sugar every morning for a couple weeks. I normally avoid bananas because they’re gross and they have a lot of tyramine, something I know I’m sensitive to.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this remedy made my migraines much, much worse.

I was thinking about trying some overall dietary recommendations from the book based on ‘constitutional types,’ or doshas. This idea is pretty similar to ‘humors’ in the west, which have been thoroughly discredited. The shaky scientific basis aside, my constitutional type is strongly Vata.  The diet recommended for Vata contradicts the Pitta pacifying diet I’m supposed to follow for migraines and both diets recommend many of the foods that I know are triggers for me. Perhaps I could avoid all the foods on the no list for both types? That’s pretty restrictive.

I think I’ll work on getting my hands on the herbs it recommends instead.