[00:00]
Welcome back to the Heal Your Hormones podcast.
[00:02]
I'm your host, Dr. Danielle,
[00:04]
and I am very excited for today's guest.
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Today, I am joined by Diane Dukarm,
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who is a master in migraine investigation.
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Diane combines Eastern medicine, Western science,
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and technology to uncover the root causes of migraines.
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With an MBA from Harvard,
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fluency in seven languages, and dual studies in TCM,
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she focuses on the power of functional foods,
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adding rather than eliminating,
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which, as you know, is also my philosophy.
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And Diane hosts the Migraine Heroes podcast
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and leads Nectar Health
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in pioneering migraine relief and wellness.
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And I had posted a question box for you all on Instagram
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and got tons of questions,
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so I know that this topic is very much needed.
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I'm super excited for this discussion.
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So, Diane, welcome to the podcast.
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Thank you so much for having me, Dr. Danielle.
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So I'd love to just kind of start off
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to hear a little bit about your background
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and what got you interested in migraines,
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but in particular, kind of treating them
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the way that you do.
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Yes, so that's a very unusual journey I went through.
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When I was 17, I had a skiing accident.
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I broke my femur, I lost half of my blood,
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I shrunk a kidney, and I was never transfused
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because of contaminated blood issues in France.
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And so my body got really limping,
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and so for 12 years, I gained a lot of weight
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and my body was all over the place.
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I was trying to diet.
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I just didn't know it wasn't functioning
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as well as it used to.
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And one of the things that was happening
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is I was napping from 2 p.m. to 8 a.m. the next day
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until for work, I worked across Europe,
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the U.S., and then China.
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And in China, I went to see a Chinese doctor,
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as you do out of almost cultural curiosity.
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I was taking classes with her on Saturdays.
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I wasn't sure if I liked it.
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I thought there was never a clear-cut answer.
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But I thought, okay, either I go
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and I find it's really nice,
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or I just stop that adventure altogether.
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I was quite busy working, et cetera.
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And within three weeks, she got my body back
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to where it was when I was 17.
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It was just spectacular and just adding food.
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And her reasoning was completely different.
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And I was not even coming for a problem,
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but she fixed it the way it used to be.
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And I was so moved.
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I went back to work.
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I was just surrounded by a lot of my colleagues.
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And they said, Diane, it's placebo.
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And I'm like, wow, my menstruation was so irregular,
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My cycles were like 68 days, 53, like the worst.
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And now they're regular.
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I can't just decide that in my brain.
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And so I started to take a lot of my friends to see her.
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And one person was my sister
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who was suffering from migraine disease.
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But I didn't know at the time,
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I did not know the migraine world.
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And I did not know how massive things were
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and how much in pain she was.
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But at that same time, my uncle, sorry, it's a long story,
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but it's a beautiful one.
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My uncle died of a glioblastoma,
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which is a violent form of brain cancer.
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And my sister said, after his funeral,
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she said, I've had done three MRI.
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I'm extremely stressed.
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I think I have the same.
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And I said to her, look, I really hear you.
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I hear that you're in pain.
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I hear that it's very stressful, it's traumatizing.
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He had four children.
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My sister has three.
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I was like, okay, let me,
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I think I know someone who can help.
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And so together with her,
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we wrote three pages on all of her symptoms.
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I'm like, I know it's unconventional,
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but just trust the process.
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We're gonna write three pages.
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Today, I have a test on my website of 100 questions,
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comes from there, three pages of details.
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And she says, it's very simple.
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Just add these few foods, it will be fine.
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And after three to four months, she was fine.
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And I never looked into it until one day,
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my neighbor in New Zealand,
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by that time I was living in New Zealand
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and not accessing that doctor as much,
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she said, oh, I've had this really confrontational
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conversation with my father.
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I've had seven years of migraines.
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And he recommends I medicate for a lifetime.
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And I started to have injections.
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And that woman was 36.
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And I said to her,
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so you're gonna have 50 years of injections in your brain?
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I don't understand what that means.
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It can't be good, could it?
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You know, between WhatsApp and WeChat,
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I think we can sort something out.
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So explain to me everything.
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And so we went into a lot of details.
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Dr. Zhang had a couple of follow-up questions.
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I told her what to eat.
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And a couple of months later, four months later to be exact,
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she had no more migraines.
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And I said, why did your dad recommend
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50 years of medication?
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And you know what she replied?
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She said, because my dad is a renal neurologist.
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And I really thought, what?
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Like that doesn't make any sense.
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If he's a renal neurologist, based in New York,
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then of course he's extremely smart.
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And of course he loves you.
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So why did he say that?
[05:03]
So I started to do investigation.
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I started to realize migraines were extremely common.
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And all people were doing is medicating.
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Then I started to investigate the medication.
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I thought I must have given her foods
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that mimic the medication.
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What I realized is the medication were painkillers.
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And I was listening to the pain, not muting it.
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I was trying to say, why are you in pain?
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What is the root cause of your problem inside your body
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that makes your body manifest a problem?
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And I think my ignorance, complete ignorance in the field,
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which if I had known half of the stuff I know now,
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I would have never put my foot into it.
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I would have told my sister,
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oh my God, you have to medicate for life.
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That's the way to do it.
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My ignorance really helped.
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And then I started to receive word of mouth.
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A lot of people suffering daily from migraines.
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And I said, I never said I could do that.
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And that was migraine as well.
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People with, I mean, incredible lives.
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Hence the Migraine Heroes podcast I started
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because it was jaw dropping.
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People going through things that I'm sure
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in your listeners audience, you know,
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were horrific and heroic at the same time
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because these people would fall and get themselves back up
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and fall and get themselves back up.
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And live for five, 10, 20, 30 years with medication.
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And I was able to help them.
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And then, you know,
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then it becomes your calling, your vocation.
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You're like, you know what?
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It's just not okay what's going on.
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And that's how I got into it.
[06:32]
Now it's been five years
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and I've helped people across the globe.
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And it's an amazing life.
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I'm sure we'll get into kind of the top foods
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that were first recommended to your sister and your friend.
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I don't know what's that kind of started it.
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But I'd love to kind of start with like the basics
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for anyone who maybe even isn't sure.
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Like I have headaches.
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Are these migraines?
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So can you kind of talk us through what the difference is
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between a headache and a migraine
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and what exactly is happening in the body
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when someone gets a migraine?
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So while a headache, the pain is concentrated in the brain
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and it's mild in nature.
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A migraine is a full body experience.
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It's a full body experience that may last anywhere
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between three hours to three days.
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And it's gonna come as with head pain usually,
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You can also experience something called a silent migraine.
[07:29]
We can talk about that later.
[07:31]
Usually we come with massive head pain
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and a lot of other symptoms,
[07:36]
such as nausea, throbbing pain or visual disturbances.
[07:41]
So aura or vomiting, really strong vomiting,
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trembling sensations, half paralysis of the body.
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And so it's a really full body experience.
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It's one word, full body experience.
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And the massive difference between the two
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is for the second one, for a migraine,
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you need a genetic predisposition
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to experience such a violent form of attack.
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People will compare it more to labor than to a headache.
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Yeah, I'm lucky that I've never experienced a migraine,
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but I know just hearing stories from my clients
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in terms of like, yeah, it's completely put me out
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for the day or I'm missing work.
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I'm not able to care for my kids.
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So it really is completely debilitating.
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No, I really wanna highlight all of the words above
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that you said, because you said them fast.
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They matter so much.
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You know, I haven't been able to take care of my kids.
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I came back, you know, after picking them up at school,
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I had to go in a dark room, isolate,
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and they had to sort of be themselves.
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And I feel extremely guilty as a mother.
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And as a child, I feel extremely sad.
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As a husband, I have compassion.
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I also have compassion fatigue.
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This is a lot on our household.
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It takes away work.
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You have people being fired because of the migraines.
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It can take away relationships, you know,
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creating tension and sometimes less, right?
[09:06]
Sometimes it's less dramatic,
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but it can be very debilitating, yeah.
[09:10]
You mentioned the silent migraine.
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Can you walk us through the different types of migraines?
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So the silent type of migraine, to start with that one,
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is a migraine in which you're gonna have aura
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and visual disturbances without the pain.
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So it would be someone typically who see dots or prisms
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in their eyes, in their vision, or the peripheral,
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the side vision is really blurred,
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or the full vision is blurred.
[09:37]
They go to the ophthalmologist or optometrist
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and the optometrist says, your vision,
[09:43]
your eyes themselves are absolutely fine.
[09:46]
You must have a migraine.
[09:47]
But then they say, I don't have a head pain.
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They're like, well, this qualifies a migraine as well.
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So this would be a silent migraine.
[09:53]
And then there's a lot of names in the West,
[09:56]
such as hemiplegic migraine, eyes to big headache.
[10:01]
There's just a myriad of names.
[10:04]
Because I think in the West,
[10:05]
and I always look at East and West to help people,
[10:09]
because if you only look at one of the equation,
[10:11]
it's hard to really make a difference.
[10:14]
In the West, because we start to appreciate
[10:16]
there's so many nuances, there's more names,
[10:21]
depending on where you experience it,
[10:22]
the frequency, et cetera.
[10:24]
Also, for example, you can go from episodic migraines,
[10:27]
which are sort of once in a while,
[10:29]
to chronic migraines, which are 16 days a month and above.
[10:34]
So there's lots of sort of nuances
[10:36]
to explain these differences.
[10:37]
So a silent migraine is really the most common,
[10:40]
I would think, to be undiagnosed.
[10:43]
Or people are maybe like suffering through it
[10:45]
because they're not thinking,
[10:47]
oh, this is a migraine, I'm gonna go to my doctor,
[10:49]
whether that is to be treated with medication or naturally.
[10:52]
Yes, and also, even as a neurologist,
[10:57]
you get one hour on migraines in your entire curriculum.
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So there's very little that is taught.
[11:04]
Most of the education comes more from pharmaceuticals
[11:10]
to doctors themselves.
[11:11]
It's not part of the curriculum itself
[11:13]
because it's still so misunderstood for now.
[11:19]
So what are common migraine triggers,
[11:24]
especially things that people can kind of watch out for
[11:26]
if they know they're migraine-prone,
[11:27]
things to avoid to potentially help prevent
[11:29]
against a migraine?
[11:33]
So in the food domain,
[11:33]
very classic one will be wine, cheese, chocolate,
[11:36]
things that are quite intense on the liver.
[11:39]
You can also have people find that histamine
[11:43]
also triggers them and might go on a low histamine diet,
[11:46]
which might help a lot.
[11:49]
The second category would be stress,
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and people will realize, oh my God,
[11:52]
each time I have a bit more stress at work,
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I start to have a migraine.
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With the stress, it can either be migraine
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during the stress phase,
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which indicates an excess for me when I read the profile,
[12:04]
or the migraine after the stress phase.
[12:08]
So, oh, each time it's Friday night, Saturday, Sunday,
[12:11]
bam, I have a migraine.
[12:12]
Each time it's the holidays, bam, I have a migraine,
[12:15]
which indicates that the body's quite depleted.
[12:17]
But so stress is the second trigger.
[12:20]
Another family of triggers is smell.
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So you might have someone really triggered by smell,
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and they might ask their friends,
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oh, when we see each other, can we not wear perfume?
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Which she feels very bad asking.
[12:32]
She feels a sense of shame asking,
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because it feels so sort of,
[12:36]
quote unquote, princessy to ask that.
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But if her friend forgets,
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for her, it's three days in bed, it's quite awful.
[12:45]
Noise can also be a trigger, for example.
[12:47]
Like, there's too much noise.
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And then some foods will come in either categories.
[12:53]
For example, coffee.
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Coffee might be a trigger for some women.
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And for some others, they will take medications
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that does contain caffeine, and coffee will be a relief.
[13:03]
And so this is where a lot of people will differ,
[13:07]
depending on what situation's going on inside their body.
[13:10]
Can you explain more on, like,
[13:11]
why caffeine sometimes can help a migraine?
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Yes, so if you have a body,
[13:20]
let's imagine two states.
[13:22]
A state where someone is hyperactive,
[13:25]
is hyper-stressed, super intense life, et cetera,
[13:27]
and is gonna get triggered by migraines,
[13:30]
they're gonna be, like, experiencing a lot of sharp pain.
[13:33]
If you give more caffeine,
[13:35]
you're gonna turbocharge their power, their excess.
[13:38]
Can you imagine, like, someone who gets angry easily,
[13:41]
has a really intense life, intense diet,
[13:45]
tends to sweat a lot, is very red in the face.
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Then you add the coffee, it adds to that imbalance.
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Versus you can imagine someone
[13:53]
who's a lot more calm, grounded, a bit lethargic,
[13:56]
very weak, can't move much.
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The coffee might just get the body flow a bit faster,
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and therefore reduce the migraine.
[14:04]
So for example, if you experience morning migraines,
[14:11]
maybe coffee might be good for you.
[14:13]
And you will test it once.
[14:15]
The good thing with coffee is if you test that once,
[14:18]
you will know instantly.
[14:20]
And from the moment you know,
[14:21]
you can tinker a little bit with that idea.
[14:24]
I find sometimes women can tell me,
[14:26]
if I lie down on the floor, and I put my legs up,
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and then I have a small sip of coffee,
[14:32]
I can dissipate a migraine.
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And it's really important,
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the more you can self-dissipate migraines,
[14:38]
the less they will be prevalent in your life.
[14:40]
So if somebody is more in that depleted picture,
[14:44]
and or having more of that morning migraine,
[14:46]
they would be kind of stereotypically a better fit
[14:49]
for potentially having caffeine as a treatment.
[14:53]
And then there's a genetic component with caffeine.
[14:55]
You know, I don't know if you have friends,
[14:57]
they can have a coffee at 11 p.m.,
[14:59]
and have a great night of sleep.
[15:01]
If I have a coffee personally after noon,
[15:04]
after 12 p.m., I can't sleep until 2 a.m.
[15:06]
So there's also, you know, of course habits,
[15:09]
but also a genetic component of how do you respond to coffee?
[15:13]
And so really, you are the boss.
[15:17]
Your brain is the boss.
[15:18]
If your brain says yes, then it's a yes.
[15:20]
If your brain says no, it is a no,
[15:22]
regardless of the person observing you, you know.
[15:26]
So trust yourself.
[15:27]
It's funny, because I talk about coffee
[15:29]
a good amount on the podcast.
[15:31]
And, you know, for PCOS and like cortisol imbalance,
[15:33]
usually it's not the go-to,
[15:35]
but I'm sure if somebody out there is listening,
[15:36]
it's like, yes, you know, like I have migraines.
[15:38]
This is my gold star that I can drink coffee,
[15:42]
which if it helps, then it's definitely worth doing.
[15:45]
And indeed, if you have PCOS with the sort of excesses
[15:50]
you have in your body, the coffee will abandon
[15:53]
the excess zone, and so that might not be
[15:56]
a good choice for you.
[15:57]
So it's really something to, yeah, to pay attention to.
[16:00]
And if you take medication that contains caffeine,
[16:04]
then also have a go with real caffeine.
[16:08]
Could you just kind of dive a little bit into,
[16:10]
obviously you focus a lot on like the functional foods.
[16:14]
Can you just describe a little bit more
[16:15]
about kind of what extent does nutrition
[16:18]
really have on migraines?
[16:19]
And in particular, this is a question somebody wrote in,
[16:22]
like under eating or missing meals,
[16:24]
how that plays a role with migraines.
[16:26]
Yeah, and I'll start with that second one.
[16:28]
I thought it was a brilliant question,
[16:30]
like superb question.
[16:32]
Missing meals is a trigger for migraines.
[16:34]
Yes, it's a really big yes.
[16:36]
And so intermittent fasting can be a root cause to migraine.
[16:40]
By root cause, I mean something that sits
[16:42]
on top of your genetic and that makes your body grumpy.
[16:46]
So missing meals, depending on your imbalances,
[16:49]
will definitely trigger migraines.
[16:51]
So if you feel this is you, then again,
[16:53]
you are the boss, you know best.
[16:56]
Trust yourself, trust your instincts.
[16:58]
Then, you know, always have something in your bag.
[17:00]
You can have your medication in your bag.
[17:01]
You can also have a small snack
[17:03]
and reach out for the small snack
[17:05]
before you have to reach for more.
[17:08]
So yes, absolutely, being underweight sometimes.
[17:12]
Sometimes people can eat a lot and not absorb.
[17:14]
And so they feel they're eating,
[17:17]
but they feel underweight and they feel weak
[17:19]
and they feel they have migraines.
[17:21]
Then it's slightly different, a bit more complicated.
[17:25]
Nutrition, nutrition can influence migraines greatly
[17:29]
in the sense that you have a brain, okay?
[17:33]
And the migraine is a message from your brain.
[17:37]
However, we now know a lot from the West
[17:40]
for the last 15 years, we've been able to prove
[17:43]
that we have a gut-brain axis
[17:45]
and that we can access our brain through the gut.
[17:48]
And so the gut is the problem and is the solution.
[17:53]
And so nutrition can aggravate migraines
[17:56]
and can improve them.
[17:59]
And so it's extremely powerful.
[18:01]
You can do a lot through food.
[18:02]
Now, I have met a lot of women who have impeccable diets
[18:08]
because over the years, they found out
[18:10]
that it was helping them.
[18:11]
And so they make their lives smaller.
[18:13]
Like, I'm not having alcohol anymore.
[18:15]
I'm not socializing too much.
[18:17]
I stopped the cheese and chocolate.
[18:19]
I am on a low histamine diet.
[18:21]
I might be on a FODMAP diet if I have, you know, IBS.
[18:27]
What else do they do?
[18:28]
Like, they make all of these sacrifices
[18:30]
and they're like, and I still have migraines.
[18:33]
So I also want to acknowledge
[18:34]
that it can be incredibly complicated,
[18:39]
but at a basic level,
[18:40]
if this is the start of your migraine
[18:42]
and you're not chronic, but you're episodic
[18:44]
and you can find what triggers you,
[18:47]
just, you know, really leveraging nutrition
[18:50]
might be a way to a beautiful life,
[18:53]
which is what I am here for you to have.
[18:57]
And so if you can undo these things fast before
[19:00]
there's a bit of a domino effect in your body of problems,
[19:04]
then yes, that's the way to go.
[19:06]
You touched a little bit before about,
[19:09]
you mentioned a list of foods.
[19:10]
I think you said chocolate, cheese, alcohol,
[19:12]
things that impact the liver.
[19:14]
Can you share a little bit more about the connection
[19:16]
between alcohol and migraines?
[19:20]
So in scientific papers, it's been proven
[19:23]
that wine is a trigger, is an absolute trigger,
[19:26]
meaning it's a trigger for everyone
[19:28]
with a genetic predisposition for migraines.
[19:30]
And I've, most women I work with,
[19:33]
at some point they stop drinking.
[19:35]
I've stopped drinking because I think they're smarter.
[19:37]
They have a DNA that is quite superior.
[19:41]
I'll just mention that in parentheses,
[19:43]
this is a beautiful paper that was written in 2002
[19:47]
by a Harvard medical professor, Elizabeth Loader.
[19:50]
And in her paper, she mentioned something
[19:53]
I also always refer to that migraine is,
[19:56]
you know, almost like a fire alarm.
[19:58]
And she says, you know,
[20:00]
what is the evolutionary advantage of migraine?
[20:03]
And she says, it's impossible
[20:04]
that you have a genetic predisposition for migraines
[20:07]
of a fifth of women and that it serves no purpose.
[20:11]
So the purpose it serves is longevity
[20:13]
and is an alert to say there's something wrong.
[20:17]
It's a bit like you have a dashboard in a factory
[20:20]
and the light goes on red when there's a problem
[20:22]
and you have to diagnose where the problem is.
[20:24]
Now in a factory, it's incredibly difficult.
[20:26]
In the brain, it's also in the body,
[20:27]
it's also incredibly difficult, but she mentions that.
[20:31]
And so I trust, I tend to trust a lot of migraine sufferers
[20:35]
and they all cut wine.
[20:36]
So I, you know, I cut wine as well.
[20:39]
However, in the alcohol, you have some alcohol
[20:43]
that will also relieve from migraines
[20:46]
for a minority of people because it will provide warmth.
[20:49]
And again, if you think of someone who's very weak,
[20:51]
very cold all the time, it will provide warmth
[20:54]
to the digestive tract.
[20:56]
And in that regard, it can be helpful.
[20:58]
If that's you, embrace it.
[21:01]
In general, wine will intoxicate the liver as a system
[21:07]
and your liver has a very privileged relationship
[21:11]
In the East, in traditional Chinese medicine,
[21:13]
the relationship between the liver system
[21:15]
and the brain is extremely established.
[21:18]
The liver system through the vagus nerve
[21:20]
is gonna access the temple, the eyebrows,
[21:22]
the eyes, the top of the head.
[21:24]
So a lot of the head.
[21:26]
In the West, if you look at the sleep science
[21:30]
and sleep science, we established that
[21:32]
while you are in deep sleep,
[21:35]
your brain and your liver will be still working
[21:39]
and detoxing in parallel.
[21:41]
So from that perspective, we've also established
[21:43]
a privileged relationship.
[21:44]
Not so systematic as to know where do the cables
[21:49]
of the vagus nerve that wire the brain to the liver
[21:52]
are located, but enough that we have a sense
[21:56]
those two pieces of our body have,
[22:01]
I wouldn't say a lot in common,
[22:02]
a lot to do with each other.
[22:05]
Now, when it comes to alcohol,
[22:07]
especially people who tend to have migraines
[22:09]
leading up to their period or during their period,
[22:12]
do you find that it's helpful
[22:13]
that they're potentially able to drink alcohol
[22:16]
earlier in their cycle?
[22:17]
And if they limit alcohol closer to that time period,
[22:20]
it's still beneficial?
[22:22]
Yes, a big fat yes, yes, wonderful, amazing observation.
[22:26]
Because what happens is women, they will say,
[22:29]
oh, is alcohol a trigger?
[22:31]
The other day I had a glass of wine, I was fine.
[22:33]
Then yesterday I did, same quantity, I swear,
[22:36]
and I had a massive migraine.
[22:38]
And so indeed, the timing at which you have
[22:41]
your glass of wine is gonna matter a lot.
[22:43]
If you have it indeed before your menstruation in particular
[22:47]
is the most acute time, then it's a really bad time
[22:50]
to have alcohol because your liver is accumulating
[22:54]
all of these toxins that are ready to be flushed
[22:56]
in the menstruation.
[22:57]
And so the toxicity of the liver is at the maximum.
[23:01]
And so anything in addition, we put it over the edge.
[23:05]
Whereas if you have it, let's say,
[23:07]
10 days after your menstruation,
[23:10]
you could be fine depending on the base load.
[23:13]
Now, if you are someone with chronic migraines
[23:15]
that is heavily medicated, when I say heavily,
[23:18]
you take five, 10 medications sort of regularly,
[23:23]
then your base load of your liver is really high.
[23:26]
And so the time of the month is not gonna matter anymore.
[23:31]
So again, that's gonna be quite individualistic.
[23:33]
And again, trust yourself.
[23:36]
Yeah, I found at least with some of my clients
[23:38]
where their PMS symptoms, whether it's migraines
[23:41]
or something else, are pretty severe.
[23:43]
And we think that reducing alcohol could help.
[23:45]
Sometimes that can be a little daunting.
[23:47]
So I start with just like the week before your period,
[23:49]
let's just cut it then.
[23:51]
The rest of the month, you can have it,
[23:52]
but let's start there.
[23:53]
And usually they'll see at least some improvement.
[23:56]
If not, 100% resolution, at least it's like moving them
[23:58]
in the right direction and more encouragement for them
[24:00]
to like, okay, maybe I should cut this the rest of the month.
[24:05]
Going back to migraine auras,
[24:08]
can you explain a little bit about like what's happening
[24:11]
during an aura and what is someone like experiencing
[24:14]
to know if they're having an aura?
[24:17]
So the migraine has three phases.
[24:20]
People talk about the prodrome,
[24:23]
so a number of symptoms that they experience
[24:27]
before the migraine attack.
[24:28]
And even though those symptoms
[24:30]
do not necessarily carry pain,
[24:33]
they announce the pain most certainly.
[24:36]
And so those can be lack of...
[24:40]
At that phase, you can start to have the aura happen,
[24:43]
which I'm gonna talk about in a minute.
[24:45]
You can also have excessive yawning,
[24:47]
like yawning like you're like, okay, this is not a joke.
[24:51]
Like I'm just constantly yawning, being very fatigued
[24:55]
or having trembling sensations,
[24:57]
announcement that the pain is gonna come.
[24:59]
It's at that stage usually,
[25:01]
but not always that people will start to have the aura.
[25:03]
The aura is gonna come announced sometimes
[25:07]
during the rest of the month by dry eyes, itchy eyes,
[25:11]
sometimes blurred vision at night,
[25:13]
feeling dizzy when standing up fast.
[25:16]
And then in the start of the migraine attack,
[25:18]
it's really, it goes all the way from I see a bit blurry,
[25:22]
blurry on the edges, dots, prisms,
[25:24]
all the way to I've lost complete eyesight,
[25:28]
which is very scary.
[25:29]
It's very scary because it can happen anytime,
[25:33]
especially triggered by light.
[25:35]
So it can happen if you're behind your computer,
[25:37]
then chances are you have a bed next to you
[25:40]
and you can close curtains.
[25:41]
It can also happen when you have children
[25:43]
at the back of your car and you're actually driving,
[25:46]
in which case you have to stop on the side of the road
[25:49]
and rest for 20 minutes, eyes closed,
[25:51]
while the children wait patiently for mom
[25:55]
to be healthy enough to take the road again.
[25:59]
So aura is, it can be very disheartening.
[26:03]
It can also look like a stroke.
[26:07]
A lot of people will experience a first migraine attack
[26:12]
with aura extremely violently
[26:15]
and with the trembling sensations, et cetera.
[26:18]
And it's going to look like they've had a stroke.
[26:20]
It's going to feel like they've had a stroke
[26:21]
and they're going to be taken to the emergency room.
[26:25]
They might be given what is called a green thistle,
[26:27]
which is the largest dose of morphine for their pain.
[26:31]
And then put to bed for three days, literally eyes closed,
[26:35]
and then wake up after three days
[26:37]
to learn they did not have a migraine, a heart attack.
[26:40]
They had a migraine,
[26:41]
which feels a very weird diagnosis to receive
[26:45]
when you've gone through such a traumatic experience
[26:49]
that you don't understand.
[26:50]
You don't know even how it came from.
[26:53]
And now you have to deal with sort of a diagnostic
[26:57]
that you might not feel very convinced about.
[26:59]
You might feel very weird as just a simple name.
[27:01]
You're like, is that a migraine, like really?
[27:03]
Then a lot of empathy suddenly for maybe parents
[27:06]
or siblings who have had experienced that,
[27:07]
like, oh, wow, I'm entering your world
[27:09]
and this is nothing like I imagined.
[27:11]
But yet it's going to start to create anxiety
[27:15]
because you're like, wow, like this really hit me so hard.
[27:19]
I also blacked out and I disappeared
[27:20]
from the surface of the earth for three days.
[27:23]
You know, when is that going to happen to me again?
[27:25]
Like, it's very traumatic.
[27:27]
I feel like in that sense,
[27:29]
migraines are kind of similar to mental health,
[27:31]
like depression or anxiety,
[27:32]
because it's something that you can't really see
[27:34]
versus even a stroke.
[27:36]
You can picture like, okay, you know,
[27:37]
the blood clot traveling to the brain.
[27:39]
I understand like physically what's happening there,
[27:42]
but with a migraine, you know, it's something so severe
[27:44]
when you're like, okay, well,
[27:45]
I can't quite see what's going on.
[27:48]
And it's just in my brain.
[27:49]
I'm sure it's like a hard, it's a hard thing, I'm sure,
[27:52]
to almost like explain to other people
[27:54]
and have them understand like the severity of it.
[27:57]
Completely, completely.
[27:58]
It's a deaf dialogue and therefore that can lead
[28:01]
to a lot of frustrations.
[28:02]
I've done actually something called a podcast for siblings
[28:07]
in the Migraine Heroes podcast for that reason,
[28:09]
because I find sometimes siblings can be dismissive
[28:13]
because they may have headaches themselves
[28:15]
or sort of a milder version,
[28:18]
genetic predisposition from migraines.
[28:20]
And it can create a lot of disharmony in families
[28:24]
for very sad reasons.
[28:26]
But yes, absolutely, yeah, yeah.
[28:29]
Now, can you dive a little bit into who is most likely
[28:33]
to suffer from a migraine?
[28:36]
Somebody specifically wrote in and said
[28:37]
that they have started to experience migraines,
[28:40]
when they say later in life, after 25 years old.
[28:43]
And like, if that's concerning the fact that, you know,
[28:46]
she hasn't had them until now.
[28:49]
Yes, yes, great question.
[28:51]
So if we, I love that you have this question.
[28:54]
I'm gonna address it specifically.
[28:56]
Before that, let me take a step back
[28:58]
and address it generally.
[29:00]
So when you look at the stats, migraines are genetic.
[29:03]
So it's 5% of boys and girls.
[29:05]
And you think that's fair,
[29:07]
because it's mother nature and it's genetic.
[29:09]
So it should be half, half.
[29:10]
However, something crazy happens is the incidence
[29:14]
is gonna triple to quadruple for women at puberty.
[29:18]
And so that leaves 18 women.
[29:20]
And now we talk about 22% of women in the US, for example,
[29:24]
with migraine disease,
[29:26]
as opposed to still 5% of men.
[29:28]
So one in five women versus one in 20 men.
[29:32]
This is also maybe the reason why we're so behind
[29:36]
on migraine versus other disease
[29:39]
or sort of more male problems, yeah?
[29:45]
And so now let's go back to puberty.
[29:48]
So for 5% of women, you know, like girls,
[29:51]
the migraines will start, you know, age five, six, seven,
[29:56]
They might start to have a first migraine attack
[29:59]
at puberty around there.
[30:01]
And then of course, when you're 25,
[30:03]
because it comes from an imbalance
[30:05]
that sits on top of genetics,
[30:07]
a lot of things have happened to you by then.
[30:09]
You may have a lot more stress from your first job.
[30:12]
You may have changed contraception.
[30:15]
You may have had a few happy years at university
[30:18]
where you drank a lot and your liver
[30:21]
has accumulated a little bit of backlog.
[30:24]
You may have a lot more social life on top of work life,
[30:31]
or you might, you know, work and not have a lot of time
[30:35]
to cook for yourself and dine out a lot.
[30:37]
And so just one of these things might be enough to trigger.
[30:42]
And a change in contraception
[30:43]
can completely kick you start with migraines.
[30:47]
And you might not completely appreciate it
[30:50]
because there might be a delay
[30:51]
between the change in contraception
[30:52]
and the migraines themselves.
[30:55]
With migraines related to contraception,
[30:58]
I mean, I learned in school
[31:00]
that if somebody's on the birth control pill
[31:02]
and they're having a migraine,
[31:03]
like especially recurrent migraines, you get them off.
[31:05]
I see a lot of women who tell their doctor about this
[31:09]
and they're still kept on it for, you know,
[31:13]
What are your thoughts on that?
[31:15]
I'm completely with your school of thought.
[31:17]
If you're put on a birth control
[31:19]
and it does not agree with you,
[31:20]
again, trust you, go back to your doctor, discuss it.
[31:23]
If your doctor is not taking you seriously,
[31:26]
you know, go to Dr. Danielle, she will.
[31:28]
It's very true because the problem is
[31:31]
if you leave that imbalance for five years,
[31:35]
you enter a domino effect
[31:37]
of which it's a lot harder to get out on your own.
[31:41]
It becomes of a level of complexity
[31:44]
because the more you're gonna have that pill,
[31:46]
the more you perturbate your hormones,
[31:49]
the more your body's grumpy.
[31:51]
And so you're gonna have a domino effect within your systems
[31:54]
from the liver system to the kidney system.
[31:56]
It's gonna affect your liquids,
[31:58]
it's gonna affect your blood production,
[31:59]
like lots of problems.
[32:01]
And on top of that, you're gonna start to layer that
[32:04]
with a lot of medication.
[32:06]
And so the whole gut itself start to be very grumpy,
[32:09]
which then leads to,
[32:11]
this is where people start to go from episodic to,
[32:14]
oh, you know, it was used to be once a month
[32:17]
and then it lasted longer and then it was more intense.
[32:22]
And then it would sometimes come randomly
[32:24]
and used to be just PMS, but now it's more.
[32:27]
And now I used to be able to tell my triggers,
[32:30]
but now I can't anymore.
[32:32]
I'm really, honestly, I haven't done anything wrong.
[32:34]
Then I've cut back on all of the stuff.
[32:35]
And so you do all of the right things
[32:37]
and you don't have the results.
[32:38]
So yes, a massive, I'm in violent agreement with you,
[32:43]
but among the birth control,
[32:45]
there's another one, which is a lot more complex,
[32:49]
which is the, for example, a Mirena IUD.
[32:52]
In the pill, there will be an immediate cause and effect.
[32:56]
And the Mirena IUD, it's quite different.
[32:59]
You could have a woman who suffers from migraine disease
[33:01]
because she just has a blood volume,
[33:04]
not enough blood volume.
[33:05]
So she's lost, she used to bleed a lot
[33:08]
and she would put on a contraceptive
[33:10]
for that reason, Mirena IUD.
[33:12]
And because she used to bleed a lot,
[33:13]
her brain would complain and become in competition
[33:16]
with her digestion, if that makes sense.
[33:18]
So either she's digesting or thinking,
[33:20]
but when she's digesting, her brain is complaining.
[33:23]
She takes a tryptophan.
[33:24]
The tryptophan is going to contract the blood vessel,
[33:25]
send the, force the blood back to her brain.
[33:29]
That's going to give her a relief.
[33:31]
It's not going to make her feel sharp and free,
[33:33]
which was what we're after,
[33:35]
but it's going to give her sort of an absence of pain
[33:37]
with a fuzzy feel.
[33:40]
Once she has a Mirena IUD,
[33:42]
she's going to initially fill up her tank
[33:44]
and she's going to feel better.
[33:45]
She's going to be like, oh wow, I feel better.
[33:48]
The problem is if she doesn't bleed at all,
[33:51]
she doesn't have a door to remove the toxins
[33:54]
with the menstruation.
[33:56]
And from there, the toxicity of her liver
[33:58]
is going to increase, increase, increase,
[34:00]
then causing migraines.
[34:02]
She might intuitively feel it's a Mirena IUD,
[34:05]
but she can't prove it on paper.
[34:07]
And when she goes back to her gynecologist or OB-GYN,
[34:10]
they might refuse to remove it, like really push back.
[34:14]
And if they end up accepting and she removes it
[34:18]
because of the domino effect,
[34:20]
she might still have the migraines
[34:21]
and the OB-GYN might say, see, it wasn't that,
[34:26]
but her intuition was right.
[34:28]
So this is a more, a more subtle one or more perverse one.
[34:32]
So if someone has bled a lot,
[34:34]
then a Mirena IUD is great for two years
[34:36]
and then let your body bleed.
[34:40]
Yeah, it's like almost like delayed onset of the migraines
[34:42]
and then delayed improvement.
[34:43]
So hard to connect it back.
[34:48]
Now you mentioned the increase in migraines around puberty.
[34:53]
Do you see any shift happening as women enter menopause
[34:57]
for better or worse?
[34:58]
Yes, for better and for worse and for change.
[35:05]
You could have a lot of different trajectories.
[35:08]
You could have a woman who's had
[35:09]
what she would qualify headaches her whole life.
[35:12]
And then she enters perimenopause
[35:15]
and she starts to have migraines for the first time
[35:17]
in the sense that they start to be completely debilitating.
[35:19]
She can't work anymore.
[35:21]
She can't engage in society as much.
[35:23]
And so she's going to lose a lot of her self-confidence.
[35:26]
You can also have women who stop having migraines
[35:29]
when they stop having their menstruation.
[35:33]
And therefore some others that might consider
[35:36]
a hysterectomy in order to get rid of their migraines
[35:41]
And so you have sort of all shades of possibilities
[35:44]
depending on, again, what is causing the migraine
[35:48]
in the first place.
[35:49]
So if we go back to the example of,
[35:50]
I don't have enough blood volume in my body,
[35:53]
the moment you start bleeding, you stop bleeding,
[35:56]
you start to be able to recuperate sort of your full self.
[36:01]
And that's going to attenuate your migraines.
[36:03]
But if you were a profile that was heavily constipated
[36:07]
with evening migraines and a lot of medication,
[36:12]
it will go worse and worse and worse
[36:14]
to the extent you will lose all joy in your life.
[36:21]
So it sounds like if you tend to be more
[36:23]
on the depleted side of things,
[36:25]
you go through menopause, then things could improve.
[36:28]
But if you're more in excess and you go through menopause,
[36:31]
Is that generally?
[36:34]
With a lot of nuances,
[36:37]
because if you're constipated constantly,
[36:40]
women will recognize that they try to go to the bathroom,
[36:43]
they can't, they take a lot of laxatives
[36:47]
and they feel just constipated.
[36:49]
It's also a sign of deficiency, but of another type.
[36:52]
So if you have a blood volume deficiency,
[36:54]
then yes, if you have other types of deficiencies,
[36:57]
then it still can go worse.
[36:59]
It's going to take a shape that is sometimes referred to
[37:01]
as Meniere's disease,
[37:03]
which is a disease where you have a lot of vertigo,
[37:05]
dizziness, sort of lack of sense of orientation.
[37:11]
And it can happen every single day.
[37:13]
And you take that to the rest of your life.
[37:17]
Earlier in the conversation,
[37:19]
you mentioned depression, anxiety,
[37:21]
and I wanted to echo that because at that phase of life
[37:24]
or when you are in such pain,
[37:26]
you will be more likely to experience depression, anxiety.
[37:30]
And so the correlation in the statistics
[37:34]
is really, really high between if you have migraines
[37:37]
or the more you have severe migraines,
[37:39]
the more you have severe anxiety,
[37:40]
the more you have severe migraines,
[37:41]
the more you have severe depression and vice versa.
[37:45]
From a genetic perspective,
[37:46]
the depression seems to share some genes with the migraine.
[37:51]
My view is a gene is there for protection.
[37:56]
And so you can always act on the biology on top of the gene,
[38:01]
but the prevalence of both is really intense.
[38:04]
And you can have a lot of women
[38:06]
being prescribed antidepressants
[38:07]
because the doctor will say,
[38:08]
hey, you're depressed.
[38:09]
It's like, no, no, I'm just in pain.
[38:11]
Yeah, but you're depressed.
[38:12]
Yeah, but have you seen my life?
[38:13]
I can't see my grandchildren or I can't take time.
[38:17]
I can't put my kids to bed.
[38:20]
I create a lot of problems in my couple.
[38:23]
Of course it's tough.
[38:24]
Yeah, so you're depressed, but I'm not.
[38:26]
And so they might initially resist it,
[38:28]
but then ultimately they're gonna start to doubt themselves.
[38:32]
But I'm such a joy of life, but I am depressed.
[38:35]
So maybe I do need the medication,
[38:39]
which adds then to the toxicity of the liver.
[38:41]
And so in the West,
[38:42]
we're gonna talk about rebound migraines
[38:44]
or medication overused headache
[38:46]
for certain specific medication, certain quantities.
[38:50]
And my humble experience,
[38:52]
just doing that every single day
[38:55]
for a lot of people worldwide,
[38:57]
the more you add toxins of all nature,
[39:00]
the more your brain will just not be happy,
[39:02]
just like a hangover for a normal person.
[39:05]
The brain does not like excess toxicity.
[39:08]
A woman carries life.
[39:09]
A woman gives life.
[39:11]
So the bar for a clean body is just pretty high.
[39:16]
The body's like, hey, we're not doing this here.
[39:18]
We're carrying life.
[39:20]
Now, before we get into treatments for migraines
[39:24]
in specific situations,
[39:25]
you touched on earlier mentioning excess
[39:29]
in relation to PCOS and migraines.
[39:32]
Of course, a good percentage of my listeners do have PCOS.
[39:36]
So can you talk a little bit about the connection
[39:38]
between PCOS and migraines?
[39:41]
I think if you have PCOS
[39:44]
and a genetic predisposition for migraines,
[39:46]
you will have migraines.
[39:49]
And if you solve your PCOS naturally,
[39:53]
you will cease to have migraines, most of them.
[39:58]
Yeah, you can really take a big chunk out.
[40:00]
So very, very strong,
[40:03]
very strong relationship between the two, yes.
[40:06]
And do you find that's mostly related
[40:08]
to insulin resistance related to PCOS
[40:11]
or more so related to high testosterone?
[40:14]
Or, I mean, is there kind of like one driving cause
[40:19]
that's linked to PCOS that is the trigger for migraines
[40:21]
or is it like pretty variable?
[40:24]
Yeah, so there are several.
[40:29]
A lot of the things that we observe
[40:31]
are almost symptoms that sits below the PCOS.
[40:34]
So if you were layering the symptoms,
[40:36]
you'd say, what I can feel is the migraine.
[40:39]
What I can feel are the,
[40:41]
what I can know about is my PCOS symptoms.
[40:44]
If you go one layer deeper,
[40:46]
you know you have insulin resistance,
[40:48]
other issues like that.
[40:49]
If you go a level deeper,
[40:51]
then you have systems that are not functioning optimally.
[40:55]
And all of that's gonna cause migraines.
[40:58]
So in the case of PCOS,
[41:00]
the liver system is not gonna function really well,
[41:03]
the kidney system neither.
[41:05]
And so both of them are hyper-connected to the brain.
[41:08]
The kidney system is slightly less,
[41:09]
but still is really connected.
[41:11]
And because they're both dysfunctioning,
[41:13]
then you have all of these symptoms
[41:14]
that leads to the PCOS.
[41:15]
And so that's gonna fire.
[41:17]
The fire alarm of your migraines is for the PCOS.
[41:20]
It's like, can you please solve this?
[41:22]
This is not what I want for my body.
[41:25]
I want longevity, I want fertility.
[41:28]
Can you please attend to me is what the migraine means.
[41:31]
So if you really pay attention and turn towards your PCOS,
[41:36]
you should be able to significantly decrease your migraines.
[41:39]
Another form of migraine that really relates to the PCOS
[41:42]
is really if you have cysts on your ovaries,
[41:47]
it's very possible that when you ovulate,
[41:49]
you have migraine pain.
[41:50]
Because through your vagus nerve,
[41:52]
so your vagus nerve is this massive nerve
[41:55]
that connects 100 billion cells in your body,
[41:57]
nerve cells in your body.
[41:58]
Imagine like a massive tree
[42:00]
that is planting its roots around your heart,
[42:02]
around your lungs, around your liver, around your stomach,
[42:05]
around your small, large intestine,
[42:06]
around your uterus and your ovaries.
[42:09]
When you ovulate, if there's a problem,
[42:13]
the nerve system will send the signal.
[42:16]
You can also have fibrids or cysts inside your uterus.
[42:21]
When you will have your menstruation,
[42:23]
you will experience migraines.
[42:24]
Those migraines relate to the cysts and fibrids
[42:27]
that are in your uterus.
[42:29]
That's what's happening.
[42:32]
And so medicating on top of that will add toxins
[42:35]
that adds to a weak liver.
[42:37]
The solution is, you know,
[42:40]
can you naturally make these cysts go away?
[42:44]
These fibrids, these blood clots
[42:46]
and clean your, you know, beautiful temple of life.
[42:52]
So I feel like the definite theme so far that I'm hearing
[42:54]
is like the liver obviously plays a major role with migraines.
[42:59]
Obviously you focus more so on like food as medicine.
[43:03]
If somebody had to take a medicine for a migraine,
[43:07]
what is your preferred medication
[43:10]
that you feel is most effective, maybe least harmful?
[43:15]
So people who have migraine disease,
[43:19]
they will feel it varies a lot in efficacy.
[43:22]
And they will feel sometimes certain medications
[43:26]
are gonna work and sometimes not
[43:28]
because they will have different forms of migraines.
[43:31]
So let's take a woman who has migraines
[43:34]
before her menstruation and at ovulation.
[43:36]
They will have these migraines for different reasons.
[43:38]
They're of a different nature.
[43:39]
And so it's very possible that she finds that,
[43:43]
for example, tryptamine might help more in ovulation
[43:47]
and that Tylenol might function a lot better at PMS.
[43:51]
And so trying to also link and map if you can,
[43:55]
tracking is incredibly important for migraine.
[43:58]
You can really try to track your migraine,
[44:01]
track your cycle, track your symptoms
[44:03]
and track and see, okay, did that medication work
[44:07]
And can I reproduce that effect?
[44:11]
In terms of medication, there was a study recently done
[44:14]
and they said the top three that are working
[44:17]
are tryptamines, tryptamines are really old.
[44:20]
And yet I find people have the best results.
[44:23]
They just will give rebound migraines
[44:26]
if you have them too much.
[44:28]
I think it's above five a month,
[44:30]
which is technically really not a lot.
[44:33]
I've had people who were taking six a day,
[44:35]
five days a week because of the pain they were experiencing.
[44:39]
And it's complicated because you're in pain.
[44:44]
So you have to act on your pain always,
[44:46]
you have to manage yourself.
[44:49]
So I just want to say a few words,
[44:52]
medications for migraines,
[45:00]
they were borrowed from other diseases, meaning that coincidentally, accidentally, clinically,
[45:08]
doctors found out that there were a number of medications that were used for other diseases
[45:13]
that would also work quite decently for migraines.
[45:16]
And so, triptans were initially done for cardiovascular issues and then found out that they were really
[45:23]
useful for migraines and to this day have, you know, continued to be very useful.
[45:30]
Antidepressants have been found also in that category.
[45:34]
Anti-epileptic drugs.
[45:36]
What else do we have? Ergots.
[45:38]
And so lots of medications have been invented for a completely different reason.
[45:43]
And then retrofitted because they were useful in the case of migraines.
[45:48]
It's only in 2019, December 2019, that the FDA approved NTCGRP.
[45:54]
We're the first one that were conceived for migraine disease, trying to prevent, you know,
[46:02]
that incidence of pain going from, yeah, to the brain essentially.
[46:09]
But it's the first time. And so I find it varies tremendously what works for people.
[46:15]
But I have to say that that's the one that usually people will start with Tylenol or
[46:20]
like something small or Advil.
[46:23]
Then they will go to an ibuprofen.
[46:26]
Then they will start on triptans and then from there they will continue to move up the
[46:31]
ladder, which is going to add, you know, sometimes a lot of expenses and also add a bit of anxiety
[46:39]
because they can feel that they always need it with them and that, yeah, the more time
[46:45]
goes on, the more they have to up the dose or up the level because they become resistant.
[46:53]
Those medications no longer work.
[46:55]
What I will say is for your women who are pregnant, Tylenol has been proven fairly
[47:04]
recently to give more ADHD to children when the mom was taking them pregnant.
[47:11]
So when you're pregnant, try to really, it's really hard.
[47:16]
Try to really, you know, solve and not take medication.
[47:21]
I think this is the really moment when the impact is not just on you, it's on the two
[47:26]
And, yeah, it's hard to raise a child, let alone one that is healthy.
[47:33]
Do you think so avoid all medication when pregnant or specifically Tylenol?
[47:39]
That would be my strong take.
[47:41]
A lot of doctors will abandon that direction and look, it's what people say always and
[47:48]
I think it's true also in case of migraines.
[47:52]
What would you recommend for somebody who is pregnant who has especially like an uptick
[47:56]
in migraines to help relieve symptoms, whether that's reduced frequency, reduced severity?
[48:06]
It is quite tricky.
[48:07]
I've helped women who wanted to be pregnant or are pregnant a lot.
[48:13]
When people have migraines in pregnancy, it can usually be due to small impurities they
[48:19]
have in the blood.
[48:21]
And because the blood circulates, it does times 1.5.
[48:24]
So if you start, let's say with four or five liters of blood, you have seven to eight liters
[48:29]
when you're pregnant and you need to create all of that blood.
[48:33]
If you were not having enough, that's going to make you struggle a lot because all of
[48:37]
that is going to be concentrated for the baby.
[48:39]
And so the mom is going to feel a lot of migraines and we don't want the blood to go to the mom.
[48:44]
We want the blood to stay with the baby because that's what Mother Nature has designed things
[48:49]
So then the most simple is to increase that.
[48:55]
But sometimes she may have had before a C-section for another child and a few blood impurities
[49:00]
or medication that are stuck and circulate.
[49:03]
And that's what's causing the pain.
[49:05]
It's about making those things melt and exit the body, if that makes sense.
[49:12]
Oftentimes it can be the case and then of course everyone's different and needs to be
[49:17]
looked at differently.
[49:18]
But oftentimes it can come from these two angles.
[49:23]
So at the beginning of the episode, you mentioned your sister and I think it was your friend
[49:27]
who were given food recommendations specifically to help with their migraines.
[49:32]
What are some general food recommendations you make for...
[49:36]
I'm sure it's very individual, but general recommendations you make for your clients
[49:40]
that listeners can start to kind of put into play themselves?
[49:45]
If you experience migraines before your menstruation, which is maybe of all of the types is the
[49:52]
most common, then my go-to is a good chamomile and goji berries infusion.
[49:58]
You put chamomile in a teabag or loose, whatever you have in your home.
[50:03]
And it's really easy to find even if you're at the restaurant.
[50:06]
And a few goji berries, eight to 10.
[50:08]
And the reason why you do that is the chamomile is going to detox and stimulate your liver.
[50:14]
And we love stimulation.
[50:15]
We don't just like harsh detox.
[50:17]
We love stimulation.
[50:19]
And goji berries are going to stimulate your liver, detox your liver, and nourish your
[50:23]
kidney, increase your blood, increase your yin, incredibly rich.
[50:26]
That's why we only put eight to 10.
[50:29]
However, do not take that when you have your menstruation, because if you stimulate your
[50:35]
liver when you have your menstruation, you're going to bleed too much, which itself is going
[50:39]
to lead to another imbalance.
[50:41]
You don't want to bleed more than what the body decides to do.
[50:44]
So during the menstruation, we keep it nice and easy with a bit of warm water.
[50:50]
If you have IBS, an irritable bowel syndrome, and that you are on a FODMAP diet, don't take
[50:58]
that because both chamomile and goji berries contain fructan.
[51:04]
So that's going to make you bloated.
[51:08]
If this beverage, which is very simple in nature, makes you bloated, then it means likely
[51:15]
you have quote unquote a proper IBS.
[51:17]
It's quite an easy way to diagnose yourself.
[51:20]
If you have a goji berries infusion and it makes you bloated, the only reason why that's
[51:24]
such a beautiful adaptogen would make you bloated is because you can't digest oligosaccharides
[51:33]
So that's a beautiful one.
[51:35]
The reason why it's paired, it's really interesting.
[51:38]
In 1983, there was this scientific paper written saying that Feverfew, which is essentially
[51:42]
chamomile, was helping with migraines for 40% of the women.
[51:46]
But they said a lot of people, they had diarrhea.
[51:51]
It's because chamomile is really cool and cold in nature.
[51:54]
And so it's going to initially alleviate your migraines if you have a bit of chamomile.
[51:58]
But if you have too much, it's going to make your digestive tract really cold.
[52:02]
And then you've created another problem.
[52:04]
And so I find that chamomile and goji berries is a very perfect blend because the goji berries
[52:09]
are neutral in temperature and they're a bit warming because they add substance.
[52:13]
And so in between the two, they have that perfect combo that suits a lot of people.
[52:18]
I work with 720 foods and that is one that is really recurring because it just suits
[52:26]
So it starts there.
[52:27]
If you've had a bit too much to drink, try that infusion after and try to see, can I
[52:35]
What we've realized over the years is we're able to untrigger people, de-migraine people,
[52:43]
abort migraines and prevent migraines.
[52:46]
And abort a migraine is when you have all of the prodrome symptoms, but you can recognize
[52:52]
So if you recognize you have excess yawning, if you have sort of that aura starting, you
[52:58]
could, you could, if you catch it early, you could with a tea like that, that you take
[53:04]
a couple of times, stop it.
[53:07]
You'd feel extremely powerful.
[53:09]
If you can't because it's too complicated, then we'll help.
[53:13]
But the goal is to help as many people and that's not feasible unless we allow people
[53:17]
to find their path.
[53:18]
So try that and that might be, that might be enough.
[53:22]
So if somebody tries that, they should notice an improvement fairly quickly.
[53:26]
It's not something where they are having to do it for like weeks at a time before they
[53:28]
start to see a difference.
[53:30]
It's going to depend on the level, the underlying level of toxicity of their liver.
[53:34]
So is the liver grumpy because you just had that one glass of wine or is the liver grumpy
[53:39]
because you had a lot of parties when you were 18 and you just burned the life by the
[53:45]
two candles and there's just a lot of backlog.
[53:47]
If there's a lot of backlog, then have it once a night, once a day, every evening, an
[53:53]
hour and a half at least before bedtime.
[53:55]
Put a warm bottle on your tummy to allow your liver to detox faster and that's the prevention,
[54:04]
It's the prevention of trying to deload and increase the tolerance again for a bit of
[54:13]
Two questions left from the listeners before we wrap up.
[54:18]
The first is tips for when migraines are triggered by barometric pressure changes.
[54:24]
That's a huge one.
[54:25]
So as human beings, we live in nature and the climate will impact us.
[54:31]
So we have a skin that can sweat or absorb water.
[54:35]
Like if you're in the water for a really long time, you're going to see your fingers are
[54:40]
This is because we're not, it's not a firm barrier.
[54:42]
It's a barrier that allows things in and out.
[54:44]
And so with weather, there's a number of types of weather that will influence migraines.
[54:50]
If your body has a tendency to be damp, so humid, and the barometric pressure changes
[54:56]
and the humidity increases in particular, then you're going to feel more fogginess and
[55:01]
more migraine, which is awful because you can announce the weather essentially.
[55:07]
The way out of those is to reduce the level of, it's a very Eastern notion of dampness,
[55:14]
the humidity inside your body.
[55:15]
You can do that by either checking that you don't have any exposition to mold in your
[55:21]
If you do, that's a massive migraine trigger.
[55:23]
Try to really solve that.
[55:25]
It's really important.
[55:27]
And how to avoid dampness in the body is avoid ice creams.
[55:32]
They're really, really like the combination of dairy meets cold meets sugar is just extremely
[55:40]
Avoid also just sweetened dairy.
[55:42]
If you need to have a yogurt, try to have it natural and put it out of the fridge before
[55:48]
Avoid flat whites.
[55:51]
What else would make you?
[55:52]
A flat white, meaning like a flat white milk or wine?
[55:57]
I didn't know there was wine version.
[55:59]
No, a coffee with some, any form of milk, cow milk or yeah, it's going to be quite damp.
[56:08]
So try to have your coffee black if you can, which is a hard habit to change, but these
[56:12]
ones will make you more damp and therefore more prone to having migraines.
[56:18]
And then the last one is how to treat or even prevent the post migraine brain soreness.
[56:28]
That's also a fantastic one.
[56:32]
What I've learned over the years is, so we have an app called Migraine Heroes app and
[56:36]
inside the app, there's a Migraine Now button and the Migraine Now button comes from the
[56:40]
fact that people were saying, Oh wow, I was having all of my prodrome symptoms.
[56:44]
Then I close my curtains, cancel my meetings, had one last tea infusion before I went to
[56:49]
bed and I went to bed and my migraine was gone and I had never experienced that.
[56:55]
And and so then we started to do that, to do that again.
[57:00]
And what people were saying is I don't have anything the next day.
[57:05]
The next day I'm clean and I'm clear, which is huge.
[57:09]
It's not just that it skips the middle part where I'm in massive pain and then it picks
[57:16]
It just skips the whole of everything coming after.
[57:19]
And so based on that experience, my intuition is that it comes from the recovery sometimes
[57:28]
of the medication themselves sometimes.
[57:31]
That's a hypothesis.
[57:32]
I can't say that for sure, but what I see is when people are able to cut it short with
[57:37]
food, the same way that they would do with medication, they don't have that brain soreness
[57:45]
I am not encouraging you to be in pain.
[57:48]
You need to manage your pain and you need to do what's right for you.
[57:52]
But sometimes it can come from that.
[57:56]
Well, this was incredibly helpful.
[57:58]
This is going to be one of my favorite guest episodes that we've done.
[58:02]
You had so much good information to share.
[58:05]
Where can people follow you, learn more, potentially work with you?
[58:11]
So the first is we have an app that is free of charge where people can just track.
[58:18]
They can track their migraines, but the way they need to be tracked so that we can solve
[58:22]
So there's a lot of things that another app wouldn't have because we tried from day one.
[58:28]
I tried on paper, et cetera, to solve it.
[58:33]
My only goal, you know, having had a beautiful career like I had before, my only goal was
[58:38]
I only get into that space if I can make a difference for a lot of people.
[58:42]
So you can take that app.
[58:44]
It's called Migraine Heroes.
[58:45]
You can track free of charge and then for a really small price.
[58:48]
Now we can give you advice so you can practically try to get away without any human help.
[58:56]
If things are more complicated than there are plans to escalate and have human assistance
[59:02]
to really help decode and understand the intertwined root causes of your migraines.
[59:09]
In addition to that, so on Instagram, you can also go for Migraine Heroes on Facebook
[59:14]
And my company is called My Nectar Health, which you can find mynectarhealth.com.
[59:18]
There's a beautiful test.
[59:19]
If you take that test, it's about a hundred questions.
[59:22]
You know, hence the story I started with, like where we had to write a lot of details.
[59:26]
I want to know everything about you.
[59:28]
And then we can meet for, usually we meet for, I see it's an hour.
[59:32]
It lasts for an hour and a half or two hours for $30.
[59:35]
And you understand, you understand, you have your own sanity.
[59:40]
It's like, oh, I now understand what happens to me all the way from the first migraine
[59:45]
attack to now and why it's evolved the way it has evolved now.
[59:49]
So yes, you can try these different ways.
[59:50]
I'm genuinely here to help.
[59:53]
I think it's unfair what's going on in the world.
[59:55]
And I'm so delighted to see doctors like you in the trenches to help people decode their
[60:01]
body in a holistic way.
[60:03]
This is important for Titi's importance.
[60:06]
We're producing the world and we need to produce a good world of beautiful humans.
[60:12]
And I'm assuming you work with clients who are virtual in the United States?
[60:17]
Yes, everywhere in the United States, in Canada, but also in Australia and New Zealand and
[60:22]
Europe, literally everywhere around the globe.
[60:26]
Which means also if you move, it doesn't matter, or if you're on holidays, you get 24-7 assistance,
[60:33]
which people really love.
[60:34]
They're like, I'm about to fly.
[60:36]
Flying is a huge trigger for me.
[60:38]
Okay, here's how you handle flying.
[60:40]
This is why you get the migraines when you fly and this is how you do it.
[60:45]
It went really well.
[60:47]
I think we get in the team, we're so motivated by just making your life better, more fun,
[60:52]
just full of light, full of life, full of family, full of love, full of relationships.
[60:59]
And usually people, they get also promoted because, I don't know, they evaluate something
[61:05]
People will also comment on them and say, oh, you know, did you lose a bit of weight?
[61:09]
Did you change skincare?
[61:10]
Did you do something to your hair?
[61:12]
Like, they're not quite sure what changed, but they can see something changed.
[61:19]
They're probably feeling younger and pain.
[61:20]
They're probably feeling lighter, freer.
[61:22]
And you know, a situation like that where someone's about to get on a plane and you
[61:25]
help them avoid a migraine, it's also almost like immediate relief, immediate improvement
[61:33]
where they can see like, okay, this was a situation where I expected it to trigger me
[61:38]
So I know that these things are working, which is great.
[61:45]
In the community, we have an app.
[61:46]
I remember vividly, there was this woman who said, you know, I'm watching the sunrise
[61:49]
and I was trying to have a migraine and I took a tea and I'm like, I'm watching that
[61:53]
sunrise and I want to cry of happiness because I'm not in pain today.
[61:57]
And I was planning to be in pain today and it's just, you know, an ocean of love and
[62:02]
And so that's why on the Migraine Heroes podcast, we have women who come and they tell
[62:08]
their story, their full story, the un-Instagrammable side of their life for an hour.
[62:15]
And they do that not because they're paid, but because of you, because they feel part
[62:20]
of, hey, you know what, it's so nice to be healthy again.
[62:24]
And I don't wish that on my, anyone, not even on my enemy.
[62:28]
Like it's just, it's so hard.
[62:29]
It was so hard for 20 years and now I feel free.
[62:32]
I don't feel anxious to have migraines.
[62:35]
I understand where they used to come from.
[62:37]
I understand how to master them.
[62:38]
I can do that from my kitchen.
[62:40]
I have made friends.
[62:41]
It's just really special.
[62:44]
Well, thank you again so much for joining me today and thank you so much to the listeners.
[62:49]
As always, if you found what we share here on the podcast helpful, leaving a review or
[62:54]
sharing with a friend or family member is the best way to support the podcast and allow
[62:58]
other women to discover this information as well.
[63:01]
I will see you next Tuesday.
