Headaches - NICE advice?

Last week, NICE (the National Institute for Clinical Excellence) issued a warning about people taking too many painkillers for headaches which then contribute to more headaches. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19646921 I read this with a wry smile; when I went to see my doctor about my chronic daily headaches her advice, after a perfunctory neuro examination performed more to humour me than anything else, was to take ibuprofen and paracetamol until they finally went away. That was it. No other help or advice except a dismissive "of course it's alright"when I questioned whether that was a safe thing to do.

I don't like taking pain killers and wasn't happy with this advice and so started my journey into finding out what was the cause of these terrible headaches rather than just dampening down the symptoms with medication. Around the same time I was trying to lose some weight and tried Carol Vorderman's Detox for Life diet which basically cut out all meat, dairy, sugar, wheat, alcohol etc etc. Whilst there was some weight loss, the biggest difference it made was that I felt great and had fewer headaches; having taken steps to dismiss other causes like eye strain, stress etc I realised food must be the trigger.
If you think you have a food allergy or sensitivity, the general advice seems to be to cut out that food from your diet for a few weeks then reintroduce it and see what happens (see the Allergy UK website www.allergyuk.org).  I tried this with various different classes of food but never seemed to get anywhere - I wanted something more solid to guide me. So after doing a lot of research on the internet, I decided to have a food allergy test done. The most recommended company was York Laboratries. They can perform a test that covers 113 food types from just a few drops of blood. As this is quite expensive, they do a simple yes or no test first, so that you find out if there is a positive response before forking out a couple of hundred pounds.
Once I sent off my test, I waited to hear back from them - only 2 days later I received a phone call saying I had a positive reaction and did I want to go ahead with the full test, which of course I did.  By this stage I was more than curious, more like desperate to know what to do. I received a call another 2 days later telling me I was showing a very positive result for dairy and yeast, plus a small reaction to lentils (who ever thought lentils could have an effect???).
Even though I'd had my suspicions, I was still gutted - I loved cake, puddings, cheese, wine and bread and apparently all those things I loved were actually making me ill. Luckily I like all sorts of other food as well plus cooking, and it was the beginning of my journey looking in to how foods can heal as well as harm. York Labs arranges for two consultations with a nutritionist as well, so you're not left completely on your own with no idea of what to do - more help than I got from my GP. Somewhat ironically, NICE has also issued advice in the last year or so that these blood tests are not clinically proven and can be inaccurate, but reading more about it this seems to be focused on parents trying to get diagnosis for children's food allergies rather than an on going chronic sensitivity.
Maybe one day NICE will publish some helpful guidelines on how to deal with chronic headaches - they certainly don't seem to have come up with many useful ideas at the moment!