I suffered from migraines for 23 years. I'd usually woken up every day with at least some pressure up my neck or behind my eye in addition to days-long full-blown migraines at least twice a month.
In November 1997, I happened to stop drinking black tea, and switched to green tea. A week later, I realized that I'd gone about a week without even a slight migraine and felt great.
I wondered if I was doing something differently to keep the migraines at bay. Later that day, I read an article on the web about Michael Mather's suggestion that there may be a link between tannins and migraine. Since I knew that black tea had a much greater tannin content than green tea, I said "aha!"
I began to research what other food items contained tannin. Because the list of things containing tannins was very similar to the food items that I was certain or nearly certain triggered migraines in me (chocolate, walnuts, red wine, and beer in particular), I decided to cut as much tannin out of my diet as I could. And, as of three months later, I am happy to report that I have hardly had ANY migraines since. This is incredible and exciting to me, as I have tried many different migraine drugs, diets and other possible cures or preventatives over the last 23 years.
The few migraines I have had since November I've attributed to an abrupt decrease in caffeine intake, and to things that I later found contained tannins: Red Zinger tea, raspberry cookies, pecan pie, chocolate that sure looked to me like maple candy, and an herbal supplement of ginkgo biloba that contained a base of alfalfa leaves.
Certain things that used to trigger migraines: stress, eye strain and weather changes, no longer trigger migraines in me. I suspect the tannin has to be present in my system for these triggers to trigger the migraines. I've had three menstrual periods since I stopped tannins, and two of those periods were migraine-free (!!); the other period started shortly after I'd taken the alfalfa-containing herbal supplements for three days, so I don't know if that migraine was more related to my period or to the alfalfa (perhaps a combination of both). I can't say (yet) that I ONLY get migraines when I've had tannins, but I can say I've decreased my migraines *dramatically.*
I think that if I had read the article before I'd stopped drinking the black tea, I might not have paid it much attention. I may have thought, "My tannin consumption stays steady, but my migraines fluctuate in intensity all month long," and figured such a simple solution as cutting a few things out of my diet wouldn't apply to me. I had only been drinking one mug of tea a day, in the mornings, and would have thought such a little bit of tannins wouldn't affect me the next morning. However, I've found that cutting out this "little bit" of tannins, has indeed made a big difference to me. (But beware the migraine that's sure to come if you decrease caffeine abruptly!)
I have my own web site, which is about Marfan syndrome and also about the connection between migraines and tannins. It is at: http://www.widomaker.com/~jnavia. As part of that site, I have created a list of food items and herbs containing tannins. It is at http://www.widomaker.com/~jnavia/tannins.htm.