Msg

[midcan5]

For those prone to headaches that are not caused by reading USMB member posts.

Hold the MSG

By Charlotte Laws

"I always assumed monosodium glutamate was like a snowstorm in Los Angeles: easy to avoid. I simply needed to sidestep Chinese restaurants and eyeball product labels for those conspicuous three letters: MSG.

At the same time I asked myself, why even go to the trouble? What’s the harm in ingesting this salty filler? If it were a culinary “evil doer” surely Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would pierce it with its mighty sword or at least put it in the stockades for all see and taunt. Since the FDA had no ban and no serious disclosure requirement, I figured all was fine in kitchenville, grocerville and restaurantville. I was wrong.

I suffered from migraines before I was old enough to say the word, “eye ache,” my childhood name for the excruciating pain that pulverized one side of my face eight days out of every month. While my school friends enjoyed recess between classes, I’d lie in my usual spot: on the cot in the nurse’s office."

Charlotte Laws: Hold the MSG

 

[American Horse]

My wife reads all labels to see if there is any MSG. She can't necessarily get that information in restaurants but she soon learns (within minutes) if it has been added to the food. She has an auto-immune disorder called Behcets Syndrome. MSG, among other toxic additives to food, or even "glutens" as a food product, or toxic chemicals in living spaces can cause almost instantaneous pain, swelling, redness, ulcers in the mouth, eyes and other "orifices" and within hours lesions in any of the connective tissue. People with disorders like Behcets (perhaps Crohn's Disease) are like the "canary in the mineshaft". They unwillingly detect conditions that in reality are harmful to almost all of us.

 

[DamnYankee]

Then there are "stress/tension" headaches.... Which have nothing to do with ones diet at all. Every bit as debilitating as migraines. Was well over 20 yrs. before the PCP made the appropriate referral.