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I'm Polly Warren and welcome to the Positive Perimenopause Podcast.
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This is the place for some positive inspiration to help you through the rollercoaster ride
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I truly believe that with the right support, knowledge and wellness tools, you can feel
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your best yet, because I'm learning this life phase can be a truly exciting and often
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pivotal time of life.
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With every episode, my mission is to support and empower you to own your menopause, because
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it's time to start taking care of the most important person, and yes, that's you.
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So thank you for being here and sharing your time with me.
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Now let's dive in.
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Hello, hello, and welcome back to the podcast.
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I hope you've had a really good week.
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I am fresh back from a trip to Newcastle with my 17-year-old this weekend.
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We travelled up from Brighton, and for those who don't know, Brighton's right on the south
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We travelled up by train to Newcastle.
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It's about six, six and a half hour trip to go and visit the university for an open day
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because my 17-year-old's thinking about where he might want to go for uni.
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We had a really great weekend, and actually we then popped to Durham where my eldest is
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So it was really lovely to catch up with him, see where he is.
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And it was quite interesting, actually, yesterday.
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It was kind of making me chuckle because both of our train journeys up and back were long.
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They were both incredibly busy, and it just made me realise how we all have a choice how
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we cope with situations because on the way up in our carriage, it was so busy.
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Thankfully, we had seats there, but in our carriage there was a stag do on the Friday
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I think they were all going to Newcastle as well, and they were doing some sort of quiz
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and drinking game.
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So it was really noisy, but actually it was quite funny to listen to.
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And actually on the way back, there must have been some school trip, but there was honestly
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our carriage seemed to be full of 14-year-old girls.
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So it was just really, really very noisy.
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And I must admit, I went with the intention to really use the time on those journeys.
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I had a book I really wanted to read.
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And on the way up, I edited this podcast, actually, and then on the way back, I ended
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up writing a landing page for my new offer, which is going to be coming out very soon,
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which is all about offering breathwork in a really accessible and easy way.
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I'm so excited about it.
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And I wasn't actually even going to do a web page initially.
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I was just going to put it out there.
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But I had the time.
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I thought, oh, do you know what?
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I'm just going to get it out there, work out the words I want to use.
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So I was really enjoying both of those journeys, and I had a book to read, and I was just enjoying
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Whereas, on the other hand, Alfie, my 17-year-old, was getting really frustrated.
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He did have work to do, but he didn't do much of it.
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He did a little bit of it.
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But he was moaning about how uncomfortable he was.
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He was moaning about the noise, particularly of the girls on the way back.
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He just wanted the journey to finish.
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And because he was moaning about it, I think it just made it worse for him.
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So I was saying to him, look, Alf, we're on the train.
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Whatever happens, you have a choice.
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You can either moan about it, hate it, be miserable, and it's going to be a really unpleasant
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experience, or you can actually choose to use the time in a productive way.
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You can get your college work done.
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You can listen to music.
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You can, I don't know, think about something productive.
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He had his laptop there, and just actually see it as a really nice, relaxing time.
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Or you could actually talk to me and spend some time with me.
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Although, I think on the way back, he'd had enough of spending the whole weekend with
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He needed some time away from me.
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But it was interesting to see that he actually really struggled with this.
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And I think so many of us do struggle with this, and I know for sure that I used to really
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struggle with this.
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You're so wrapped up in the moment of it being so not very enjoyable and uncomfortable.
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But I just want to tell you this, I suppose, to just remind you that you always, always
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have a choice of how you perceive a situation.
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Sam and I had exactly the same situation.
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We were in the same boat.
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But actually, I was choosing to really enjoy that time, and he was choosing not to.
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And so we both had a very different experience of it.
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So let's talk about this week's FSA.
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Now, this week, I speak to the remarkable Diane Ducamp.
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Now, Diane, sorry, I'm going to say it in the French way, Diane, because Diane is French.
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She is the founder and CEO of Nectar Health.
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Nectar Health is a company dedicated to adding years to those suffering from migraine disease.
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Diane's journey is as impressive as it is diverse.
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With an MBA from Harvard Business School, a master's in science, engineering, technology
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and mathematics, and studies in traditional Chinese medicine in China, Diane brings a
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real unique blend of expertise to the field of women's health.
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Diane, having initially worked as a venture capitalist supporting startups, decided to
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take her career in a whole new direction when she discovered her true purpose and a real
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passion for making a difference to the lives of those who suffer with migraines.
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Her drive to understand the impact migraines have on people worldwide led her to found
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her company Nectar Health.
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Migraine disease affects over one billion people worldwide, with women affected three
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to four times more than men.
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In this episode, Diane and I talk about the complex nature of migraines and the misconceptions
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around migraine treatment.
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We also talk about Diane's pioneering approach to migraine treatment and management using
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AI in the form of an app which she's developed, which ultimately discovers each migraine sufferer's
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unique migraine profile.
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It's unbelievable.
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And it's through Diane's comprehensive online testing, regular contact and daily tracking
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that she and her team get to know what functional foods and teas will help improve the root
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cause of your migraine attacks.
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What makes Diane and her team's approach different is just how they combine the concepts of traditional
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Chinese medicine and Western medicine to get really unprecedented results.
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Diane's relentless passion, her meticulous research and support to help women with migraines
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really is so admirable and shines through in this conversation.
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So without further ado, please welcome the remarkable Diane Ducam.
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I am delighted today to have Diane Ducam here with me on the podcast.
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I'm so excited, Diane, to have this conversation with you.
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We have done it before.
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We're going to do it again.
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We've had a few technical hitches, but this time it's going to be amazing.
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So welcome to the podcast for the second time, Diane.
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Thank you so much, everybody, for having me for the second time.
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Yeah, no, well, it's a it's a real pleasure because I really, really think this conversation
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is such an important one to have because you are all about helping women with migraines
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and we're going to really come on to that in this conversation.
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But first of all, I think it would be really good to really understand how you got into
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Why are you so passionate about helping women with migraines?
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Where did it all begin?
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I will only ever recommend brands that I know, love and use myself.
[08:33]
And one of those is Ancient and Brave.
[08:35]
Honestly, they've become part of my daily habits.
[08:38]
The very first thing I do every morning is pour myself a big glass of water with their
[08:43]
true hydration in it.
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It feels like such a simple ritual, but it really sets me up for the day.
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And I know I'm properly rehydrating with that blend of electrolytes and minerals, especially
[08:55]
before I exercise, which I always do in the morning.
[08:58]
Then later on when I make my coffee, I stir in their true collagen powder into the coffee.
[09:03]
Now it blends in straight away.
[09:08]
And collagen is something we naturally lose as we age.
[09:11]
But it's so important for our skin joints and overall vitality.
[09:15]
Now I'll be honest, Ancient and Brave may cost a little more than some of the tubs you'll
[09:19]
spot on supermarket shelves.
[09:22]
But the difference is you're getting the highest quality ingredients, sourced with integrity
[09:27]
and tested to a higher standard and absolutely no nasties added.
[09:33]
That's why I trust them and why I think they're worth every penny.
[09:37]
And because I want you to be able to try them out for yourself, I've got a special offer
[09:43]
As a listener of this podcast, you can get 20% off your very first order.
[09:48]
All you need to do is click the link in the show notes and pop in the code POLLYW20 at
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They've got more than just collagen and hydration too.
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They've got creatine.
[10:00]
They've got blends, supplements.
[10:02]
So it's a perfect chance to explore their range and make the most of that 20% off.
[10:08]
So that's a little bit of a long and extremely unusual story.
[10:18]
So when I was 17, I had a skiing accident and I lost half of my blood.
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I broke my femur and I shrunk a kidney and I was never transfused.
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And so I went from a state of being extremely fit and, you know, dynamic and everything
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to being in work coaches for a year and a half and having my body completely limping.
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I gained about 12 kilos, which is 24 pounds, and my body completely changed.
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On paper, I was fine and on paper everything was repaired, but inside I wasn't doing well.
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And so I went on a journey of, unfortunately for me, 12 years of trying to figure out,
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OK, what's changed with my body and why is this machine not working the way it used to be?
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So like, I would nap from 2 p.m. to 8 a.m. the next day.
[11:12]
So in spite of that, I finished my studies and then I worked at McKinsey and then I went
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to Harvard. And while everything on the outside looked fine, inside, I really wasn't quite
[11:24]
myself, really. And I was constantly looking for answers and roaming the, you know, roaming
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the world to find solutions until I lived in China.
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And there I just went to see a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, but with no special
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intent. And with three weeks and just a few foods, she fixed me.
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I was back to where I was when I was 17.
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And I went back to work and my colleagues told me it was placebo.
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And I was like, there is no way.
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There are things that she's done.
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For example, she took my cycles from being 56 days, 43 days, you know, 48 days to just
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regular again, just like when I was 17.
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And you can't just commence that in your mind.
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OK, and so I was blown away by that.
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I was blown away by how food can help.
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And then she helped me help a few more people.
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I get to buy grains.
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And then one day, so my uncle, who was also my godfather and my second godfather, died
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of a glioblastoma, which is extremely violent form of brain cancer.
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And my sister took me apart.
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One of my sisters, she took me apart and says, you know, have these terrible migraines for
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the last three to four years.
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And I don't I don't dare tell it to mom because I fear I might have the same.
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And and I'm not a saint, but, you know, when when someone tells you they have a migraine
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and you've never experienced it, you're going to hear I have a headache and you're going
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to completely brush it over.
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And I have done that in the past.
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I have just like, you know, a lot of people.
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But that day I tried to listen slightly harder because, you know, things were serious and
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I could see she was anxious and she went on and she told me she had done three MRIs and
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there was no answer and there was no problems in her blood test.
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Everything was normal because she could feel the pain.
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And so I'm like, well, I know someone who I think could help.
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Why don't we do a call with my doctor in China?
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And I'm sure between the three of us, we can figure this out.
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So we did that for an hour and she gave her a list of foods to eat.
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And and and and then four months later, she had no more migraines.
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And I didn't think much of it because I knew nothing about this massive world until
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other of my friends asked me the same.
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But one of them was my neighbor and she was from New York and I live in New Zealand and
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she was from New York and she said, I've had this really confrontational conversation
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with my father after seven years of experiencing migraines.
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He tells me I need to get medicated for life, including having injections in my brain.
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And I don't quite feel comfortable with that.
[14:05]
And I thought, oh, my God, what a weird thing to say.
[14:08]
Why would you do that?
[14:09]
Like, um, you know, you were not born with your migraines.
[14:13]
I mean, not born like as in born in pain.
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You've been in pain for the last seven years.
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Well, let's find the reason.
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So anyway, I I dig up in my books, you know, because by that time we're living in New
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Zealand and I'm doing some research.
[14:29]
I'm contacting Dr.
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Zhang and I'm like, well, if you give me a bit of time over the weekend, I'll try to
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And anyway, so I tell her what to eat.
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And I see her again and I has the migraines, you know, and she's like, well, they're gone.
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I'm completely shocked they're gone.
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And I'm like, oh, well, then why was your father telling you?
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I found it just unusual for a father to recommend 50 years of medication, including
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injections. And she tells me my father is a neurologist.
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And I thought, what?
[14:58]
Yeah, he's a neurologist.
[14:59]
And so I started to dig into migraines.
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And I want I want to share with you, Polly, like all of the things I've learned that
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Shocked me to the core, because for the first time I discovered it's a bit like you
[15:13]
discover life on Mars, like you're like, oh, there's some people or e-sports for the
[15:17]
first time when you're 40 or 50, you're like, what is this?
[15:20]
Oh, well, it turns out like millions of people do this.
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And it turns out a billion people suffer.
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And it's just like this entire other world.
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And I was shocked and moved.
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And that was really what what Ben was like, opened up this whole new world.
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I mean, honestly, Jan, the firstly, can I just go back and you know, the fact that you
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spent 12 years at such a young age, not feeling yourself, not feeling great because you
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didn't get that blood transfusion after your accident is just, you know, it's just
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awful that that's what kind of happened in our Western medical world.
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And then you went to see Dr.
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Zhong, as you said, that's the name, isn't it?
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You're this Chinese doctor.
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And within, you said, within literally a few weeks, she managed to just give you a few
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natural foods and suddenly you were better.
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I'm not surprised that blew your mind because that's just like, oh, my goodness.
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And then your sister, after struggling, how long was she struggling with migraines for?
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Three, four years.
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Three, four years. And then you said in a couple of days of seeing Dr.
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Yeah, a couple of months.
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A couple of months, sorry.
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So she kind of sorted it out and then your neighbour, the same thing.
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So no wonder you're like, oh, my goodness, this is, you know, why didn't more people not
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Yeah, I was completely shocked because for me, in the case of my friend, it was her
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father. So, I mean, I, you know, I'm a parent, I have two children, you know, as a
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parent, you do anything for your child.
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And and if it's your field of expertise, you know the best of the best.
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So it was really so I remember it was a it was an afternoon, there was sun outside and
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I'm like, well, let me dig a little bit into this.
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So I had a very sort of, quote unquote, no one standard career before that.
[17:18]
And and I was like, what?
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So it's genetic, but 18 percent of women have that.
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So it tripled the number of women than men.
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Oh, that's bizarre.
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And oh, my God, they give painkillers or they try to kill the pain.
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Oh, that doesn't make any sense.
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You need to listen to the pain.
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Just do the opposite.
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You need to listen and understand why is the pain being expressed on top of the gene?
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And so I really thought, oh, that's really upside down, like what a weird logic.
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It's like you have a fire alarm in your home and what you try to do is to hammer it.
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You're like, well, no, that's not how it works.
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Like just go and find the smoke and the fire.
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Why would you try to hammer the alarm box?
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It's not responsible.
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It's just giving you a signal.
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And so it fascinated me, and then I called a couple of my other friends because I
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thought I went back to bed and that night and I thought 18 percent of women.
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I mean, I have so many friends.
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Like how come I have I'm like now I was what, thirty four, thirty five, thirty six.
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How come I have missed this?
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How come I have not listened enough?
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And I start to recollect these conversations where I was with friends, good friends
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telling me I'm going to go home.
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I started to have a migraine.
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I thought, wow, I really brushed that over.
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I didn't. It's not that I didn't take it seriously.
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Empathy is the ability to relate in your brain to what the other is feeling.
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And I just wasn't capable of feeling what they're feeling.
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Now, when I when I meet people and I explain what I do, I'm like, oh, don't try to
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relate to it. It's a full body experience.
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It's genetic. So unless you tell me you have them, I'll just cut you short here
[19:04]
because, you know, this is going to be a bit of a death dialogue.
[19:06]
So let's just talk about what a migraine is, because I think a lot of people there is
[19:11]
that misconception that it is just a really bad headache.
[19:13]
I'm sure people listening who suffer with migraines will tell you that is not the
[19:18]
case. Maybe you could just tell us, you know, for those who don't really understand
[19:22]
what is a migraine, Diane?
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Well, I'll try to go in very simple terms here.
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To have a migraine, you need the genetic predisposition.
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And when you have what is called a migraine attack, you have a full body
[19:37]
experience that may involve head pain, but actually not always.
[19:42]
But most of the time, it involves massive, massive head pain.
[19:46]
That can also involve light sensitivity, nausea, like the desire to vomit.
[19:52]
It can involve paralysis of like half of the body.
[19:56]
We can experience like pins and needles, trembling sensations.
[20:02]
And so it can feel a complete loss of vision.
[20:05]
So it can feel extremely scary, actually.
[20:09]
A lot of people who have a first migraine attack that, you know, with a loss of
[20:15]
vision, they'd be sent to the emergency room and they're certain something else
[20:20]
happens, maybe something to their heart.
[20:23]
And when they wake up after a lot of dose of medication, the doctors say, oh, it was
[20:29]
a migraine, go back home.
[20:30]
They're like, what? What do you mean it was a migraine?
[20:32]
Like, what does that? Because for them, it also tries to give a new definition.
[20:38]
And you it's the matching of a sensation in your body with a word, and it's not
[20:44]
necessarily the word they expect.
[20:46]
So 18 percent of women suffer with migraines.
[20:51]
So when they're with children, that's 18 percent really comes about after puberty
[20:57]
for girls, doesn't it? Because up until that point, boys and girls kind of are
[21:01]
equal in terms of migraines.
[21:03]
Yes. Yes, completely.
[21:05]
And so that's something I found fascinating, because you see in traditional
[21:11]
Chinese medicine, there's a saying that says when you have cured 10 men, you still
[21:15]
haven't cured a single woman.
[21:17]
Just to see the woman's body is really, really more sophisticated.
[21:22]
And I oftentimes compare it to a factory like, you know, if women if men produce
[21:28]
sperm, which is very useful, is very simple.
[21:31]
You know, a woman is going to produce an entire child, you know, a brain, bones,
[21:37]
a heart. She's going to produce eyes.
[21:40]
She's going to produce nails like you need a hell of a machine to produce that.
[21:44]
And so what I loved in traditional Chinese medicine was the acknowledgments that the
[21:48]
female body, the female body is so different to the male body.
[21:53]
And that's that disease was proving it.
[21:58]
It's like, you know, five percent of boys and girls when they're not in age of
[22:01]
reproducing have migraines because it's genetic.
[22:04]
So it's fair. Half, half, you know, and then triples to quadruples at puberty, which
[22:10]
in Western science, we still don't fully understand because pure hormonal migraines
[22:15]
do not account for the 12 percent difference.
[22:17]
And so in Western science, we we we are still a little bit puzzled about that.
[22:22]
That number difference.
[22:25]
OK, whereas in Chinese medicine, what what is the what is the reason for that that
[22:30]
difference? For them, like the reason for that difference is the sophistication of the
[22:39]
And there are many, many, many root causes to migraine.
[22:42]
So for them, migraines is a result of a root cause.
[22:46]
It's not the root cause itself.
[22:51]
OK, so let me just make sure I've got this.
[22:53]
So a migraine is you've got to have a genetic disposition in order to get a migraine
[23:00]
and in order to get a migraine, there are different imbalances or causes within the
[23:05]
body which might cause which might trigger that migraine.
[23:08]
So in terms of what you do, it's about finding what those triggers are, what those
[23:14]
causes are. And this is what you've spent so many years looking into and researching,
[23:19]
which is is amazing what you've done.
[23:23]
Yeah. And I have to say it's thanks to thanks to old books and traditional Chinese
[23:28]
medicine. But but it's also thanks to women.
[23:32]
And I never I think there's a new terminology called gas gaslighting, which means
[23:39]
sort of snubbing a symptom that your your customer or your patient gives you and saying,
[23:44]
yeah, that doesn't exist.
[23:45]
No one has that. You know, I never, ever, ever did that.
[23:49]
Quite the opposite. I would dial it up.
[23:51]
I'm like, OK, you have only migraines behind the left eye.
[23:54]
Can you tell me more? Tell me more.
[23:56]
OK, I've never seen anyone have that.
[23:58]
So let me investigate. And then I'm like, oh, I know what it is.
[24:01]
OK, do you also have you had surgeries?
[24:04]
How do you have hemorrhoids?
[24:06]
You know, do you bruise easily?
[24:08]
Do you have purple dots on your skin?
[24:10]
I see. OK, OK, OK.
[24:12]
So this is new for me, but it's not new for you.
[24:15]
And it's me, not you.
[24:17]
Apologies that I couldn't know immediately what it is.
[24:19]
I know what it is now. Let's go fix it.
[24:23]
And so I always, always, always assumed that the person in front of me
[24:29]
was telling me the truth and the whole truth when it came to their body and their
[24:34]
symptoms and whatever they were experiencing.
[24:36]
If I couldn't explain it, it was for me to apologize and figure out what was going on.
[24:43]
And that's what I did for hundreds and hundreds of women.
[24:47]
And so you collected all of this data.
[24:52]
So initially, was that just that was just through paper and writing it down,
[24:56]
logging their symptoms and you've used all of that data now to create an app.
[25:03]
Yeah, and so initially I thought, naively, so I thought there's three or four root
[25:07]
causes why women have migraines, you know, like, you know, for my sister and my
[25:12]
friends. And I called a lot of other friends and I first apologized.
[25:15]
I'm like, I'm so sorry that I never it's not that I never took you seriously as I
[25:19]
never heard you. I never heard how much pain you were into.
[25:22]
And how is it going now?
[25:24]
It's like, oh, worse than ever.
[25:25]
More indication than ever.
[25:27]
And I think I can help you really.
[25:30]
And yeah, and it's it's, you know, through all of these stories, the figuring out
[25:36]
what are the different causes.
[25:37]
And then I found like root cause combinations and it got way more complex than I would
[25:43]
have ever imagined because women come to you and say, I think I'm unique.
[25:47]
And now I'm like, you know what?
[25:50]
They're all completely unique between, I think, ethnicity plays a role in how fast
[25:56]
they get back on their feet.
[25:58]
And it really matters.
[25:59]
And it's very dear to my heart, but also their age, their gastric juices and their
[26:06]
You know, a woman in pyramid was going to be very different to a woman in full
[26:10]
fertility versus very different than women.
[26:14]
So before we talk about how you help them, can we first of all talk about, you know,
[26:21]
Say I was suffering with migraines and I went to my doctor, how would they treat me?
[26:27]
So with with painkillers of different types.
[26:31]
So, you know, maybe a woman's going to start with stuff over the counter.
[26:35]
She's going to pick up in her drawer and say, oh, I have a headache again.
[26:38]
You know, I might. And depending how it starts.
[26:41]
Right. Let's imagine that in her case, things start with a bit of a headache that
[26:46]
gradually came up more and more.
[26:48]
Then she might start to grab, you know, aspirin, Tylenol, Advil and put it in her
[26:55]
bag. And little by little, she's no longer quitting that medication.
[26:59]
And she goes to an ibuprofen and Neurofen.
[27:01]
Then she might try an Excedrin, which is like an aspirin with caffeine.
[27:06]
And then she's not going to be well.
[27:07]
Then she goes and see a doctor.
[27:09]
They might start to recommend the Triptan.
[27:12]
A good one is, for example, Simatriptan, which then acts differently, but still is a
[27:17]
painkiller. Then all the way to to brain injections.
[27:22]
And then when things are going to be difficult now, we're going to do migraine
[27:26]
cocktails because there's so many a person can have so many different migraine types
[27:32]
that sometimes a medication is going to work for them and sometimes not.
[27:37]
And so because they're shooting a little bit in the dark, they might end up giving
[27:40]
them three medications to hope that something works.
[27:43]
Now, here's the here's the profound, profound sadness.
[27:49]
Is that the more the woman's going to medicate.
[27:54]
The more she's going to have migraines, and that's a phenomenon that many of them
[27:58]
know about, called MOH, medication overuse headache or rebound migraines.
[28:07]
So it's the more you're going to take medication, which is proven in Western science
[28:10]
in scientific papers.
[28:12]
It's also explains details in traditional Chinese medicine.
[28:17]
Oh, so it is a lose lose, isn't it?
[28:20]
It's a lose lose. It is awful because you have women who lose.
[28:23]
They will lose 50 percent of their life.
[28:26]
They lose 10 years to the disease, 20 years to the disease.
[28:30]
They're in massive pain.
[28:31]
And the worst part is, oh, you have a migraine again.
[28:35]
Really? There's just a complete lack of understanding from society.
[28:39]
Yeah. And so they're going to try to lie about it, a lie that they're fine.
[28:44]
So they're going to try to like, hey, you know, because it's an invisible disease.
[28:48]
So you can try to fake it that you're completely fine.
[28:52]
So they're going to feel very isolated.
[28:54]
Also, if they say they have a migraine, people are going to jump to them with a lot
[28:58]
of solutions because you can imagine because everyone has a different type of profile of
[29:03]
migraines, everyone for everyone, something else worked.
[29:07]
And it goes all the way from medication to lots of in French, we say grandmother
[29:13]
recipes all the way to to device, you know, that are not invasive, not as invasive
[29:20]
for the body. And and so they feel completely bombarded.
[29:23]
So initially, I think they share it and then little by little they go in their shell and
[29:29]
they they feel completely isolated from society.
[29:34]
So your approach, which is very different, is to ask a huge range of questions to really
[29:39]
try and understand what is actually going on with each individual woman.
[29:45]
And you've learned this with your through your amazing doctor, Dr.
[29:49]
And also, obviously, all your all your own research.
[29:52]
And so you've now you now use all that huge wealth of data to to kind of figure out, you
[30:01]
know, what is the best remedy for each woman?
[30:04]
So really, essentially, each woman is providing essential insights to help you treat the next
[30:12]
So it's like think of it of like a network of solidarity.
[30:15]
And I would really think we only have ourselves like a massive network of solidarity among
[30:20]
women where the system never forgot any woman.
[30:25]
It helps. It knows.
[30:28]
And it will never make a mistake.
[30:30]
It will know. Yes, so much like even it's going to respect your medication, so not all of
[30:35]
the foods that would, you know, mess up with your medication.
[30:38]
We want to respect it. It's not my place at all to tell you not to take your medication.
[30:43]
Your job is you manage your pain, my job is you have no more pain, very different jobs,
[30:49]
and once you have no more pain, then you go back to your doctor, not a doctor, in order
[30:53]
to, you know, revise your medication as as you as you feel different and hopefully no
[31:00]
more pain. And so that system was, you know, I have to say that sometimes when I was
[31:06]
developing that, I thought, oh, my God, like if I was an external people, I think that
[31:11]
woman, yeah, she's on a spectrum of, you know, like she's
[31:18]
quite focused and quite peculiar about what she's developing.
[31:23]
And it's a bit weird and it's a bit unusual.
[31:26]
But the complexity of the disease makes it such that you can't simplify things.
[31:32]
You have to. It only got more complex with time, but also it got so caring because
[31:37]
it's full of love.
[31:39]
And I think one of the major thing I pride myself is that we're faster and we're
[31:46]
smoother. Yeah, because you have to sort of remove a number of imbalances.
[31:51]
And if you do that really well in the right order, it goes faster and smoother.
[31:55]
Yeah. So let's just really try to understand the system that you've created.
[31:59]
So a woman comes to you, she fills out, answers a huge number of questions.
[32:03]
You use all of that information.
[32:05]
So you're feeding back, I presume, into your app, which you've created and into your
[32:09]
all of your systems. And then from that, you can you are then able to pinpoint what
[32:15]
the root causes might be and recommend something which this woman can then take to
[32:22]
help her. In terms of what you recommend, is it are these things readily available for
[32:27]
women? Are they hard to get hold of?
[32:31]
Completely. So there's a there's like I work with, you know, five hundred and sixty
[32:35]
different foods and and I would say a third of them you've seen, you've eaten, you
[32:41]
know, a third you've heard of, you might have tasted, but not part of your diet.
[32:46]
And a third is like, oh, this is exotic.
[32:48]
I've never tried. There are some form of migraines that you can only remove with
[32:54]
with exotic things like very specific flowers or things like that.
[32:59]
But if that's the case, then I let people know upfront and on Amazon you can find
[33:04]
them. So it's just a matter.
[33:05]
It's more it's not that they're hard to source.
[33:08]
It's a matter that if if that type of migraine comes, let's imagine it's a sinus
[33:12]
migraine. I'm like, oh, I cannot, you know, it's a sinus I can really relate to because
[33:16]
I'm like, you know, it's very, very painful.
[33:20]
And so I'm like, I'm going to say, OK, you need to rescue kids in your kitchen because
[33:23]
the day it hits you, I want you to have, you know, what you need immediately and not
[33:28]
have to wait, you know, for delivery.
[33:32]
But yeah, my dream is to send boxes as well.
[33:34]
But I think we're still a couple of years away from that.
[33:37]
It's not the focus for now. The focus is recovery and and speeds.
[33:42]
Then we go for good for extra convenience.
[33:45]
So when someone's working with you, they're constantly in touch with you, constantly
[33:49]
telling you what they're experiencing and then you're able to respond.
[33:54]
It's a very flashy app because there's a chat in the app and there's a real person
[33:59]
behind the inside the app.
[34:01]
And it's me together with Elaine, who's like a 12 hours difference than me.
[34:09]
But yeah, it's very, I say very flashy because no one would ever build an app in
[34:17]
the app store or Google Play with an internal chat with a real human only for to
[34:21]
serve, you know, 60 to 80 people at a given time.
[34:24]
Like it doesn't make any financial sense, but there's so many features that we needed
[34:29]
to have that over time we went full stack.
[34:32]
And I, yeah, and it's quite special.
[34:35]
For example, we were able to have a Migrate Now button and it's exactly what you
[34:39]
mentioned it is, which is really cool.
[34:42]
If you've got a migraine, if someone's got a migraine, they hit the Migrate Now
[34:45]
button and then they get a response.
[34:49]
Then it asks a couple of questions and, you know, they can know what to do in that
[34:54]
moment because in that moment, it really matters at that stage when they feel
[34:58]
that migraine is coming up.
[35:00]
It's a matter of acting.
[35:02]
I mean, the faster they act, the more they can have a go at, you know, stopping the
[35:07]
migraine altogether.
[35:09]
Which is something I discovered over time is like people would tell me, oh, you know,
[35:13]
I was trying to have a migraine, I was having all of my sort of what is called
[35:18]
prodrome symptoms, like all of the symptoms leading to my migraine.
[35:22]
Then I went to my bed, I closed my curtain, but on the way I went through the kitchen
[35:26]
and I drank one of your infusions and then I went to my bed and I lied down there.
[35:32]
And I was like, oh, my God, it's gone.
[35:35]
That's a weird sensation.
[35:37]
I've never had that sensation.
[35:38]
And then they'd call me and text me like, oh.
[35:41]
And so over time, I realised, which I didn't know initially, you can actually stop a
[35:46]
migraine as well. So you can prevent it when you can prevent it.
[35:49]
Like that's a claim.
[35:52]
Based on my work, based on all of the work that I've done, I see you can prevent the
[35:58]
migraine and I also see you can stop when it's arriving.
[36:03]
And are you still in touch with Dr.
[36:05]
Xiong? Is she very much part of the team?
[36:10]
So like, look, in 2019, I went to China just before Covid, you know, my kids were both
[36:16]
born in China. I took them back and I went to see her and I said, look, Dr.
[36:22]
Xiong, I've had a really difficult and this is what I want to do.
[36:26]
And she was super supportive.
[36:28]
She has, you know, she's a sort of prostitute.
[36:30]
I don't think she's ever doubted me, but I think she thought.
[36:36]
Yeah, good luck with that one, that's going to be really hard to pull off.
[36:40]
And so over the years, she just is so happy with the potential because she knows.
[36:47]
And she says, oh, my God, this is crazy.
[36:50]
And so she's like, can we have that app in Chinese?
[36:52]
And I'm like, wait, not yet, if I can serve 60 to 80 people at a given time, we're not
[37:00]
going Chinese, but yet, you know, but I think it's a huge knowledge.
[37:06]
And over time, it's a knowledge that comes from traditional Chinese medicine and
[37:10]
combined with Western science and combined with additional insights.
[37:14]
It's a lot of a lot of love, a lot of patience, a lot of listening, a lot of
[37:17]
iterations, a lot of.
[37:20]
Yeah, curiosity, and you've developed it pretty much on your own, you financed it
[37:26]
yourself. Yeah, yeah.
[37:28]
Look, I really think that, unfortunately, money is part of the issue here.
[37:33]
I think women feel incredibly vulnerable and incredibly abused.
[37:40]
I've had people tell me, oh, you have a problem with money.
[37:42]
You need coaching. Pay me 10K and I'm going to fix your money problem.
[37:46]
And I'm like, I don't have a problem with money.
[37:49]
But I think I think that we live in a GDP world.
[37:53]
And unfortunately, people have legal obligations that, you know, to give more money to
[38:01]
their investors. And it really comes against, you know, like getting someone out of
[38:07]
their migrants. And so initially, I really thought I was going to raise money, you
[38:11]
know, like, you know, having studied at Harvard and, you know, with my my business
[38:18]
background, I was surrounded by VC investors.
[38:21]
I wasn't a VC myself, you know, I was investing in startups.
[38:26]
But then I started to have these weird questions on.
[38:28]
First of all, it would be like a lot of men.
[38:32]
And then they would ask me, oh, 18 percent of women have migrants.
[38:35]
Yeah. Are you sure about that? Because that's a lot.
[38:37]
And I don't know anyone with migrants.
[38:38]
I'm like, OK, sure, maybe that says more about your EQ.
[38:43]
Try to listen a bit more and see if you if you come across women or, you know, or
[38:51]
people asking me, yeah, so you solve their problem.
[38:54]
Yeah, that's a problem. Can you make them sick longer?
[38:57]
I thought, oh, yeah, I really don't like that question really doesn't resonate.
[39:01]
And it's just accepting that, you know, when you're a VC, you have an obligation to
[39:08]
Yeah. And I that was not my objective.
[39:12]
It is not my objective.
[39:14]
I want, you know, when I meet a woman, I want to give her life back, the life that
[39:20]
she deserved for the longest, like the fastest possible.
[39:22]
And I thought I can only.
[39:26]
Being responsible for.
[39:29]
Not being able to pull it off, do you see what I mean, like just like I don't I don't
[39:32]
want to take anyone on this journey.
[39:34]
And so, yeah, I financed it myself and I have not paid myself players and it's a it's
[39:40]
a bit of an investment when you have an app, but oh, my God, the the you know, the the
[39:47]
joy, you know, the joy just, you know, I had a woman write to me yesterday and she
[39:52]
was adorable. And regardless of everyone's faith, she said, look, I've prayed so much
[39:57]
to find a solution.
[39:58]
And I was in tears this morning waking up again without a migraine and really thanking
[40:03]
because you are the answer to my prayers.
[40:05]
And I just thought it was just completely gorgeous.
[40:08]
And I think that's what keeps my fuel going.
[40:10]
Gosh, what you are developing really could be, I mean, potentially I know your I know
[40:14]
your focus is on women with migraines, but it could potentially be spread to help other
[40:20]
people. So I was thinking, you know, I'm thinking about menopause and perimenopause
[40:23]
symptoms because it's very similar.
[40:27]
You know, women experience different symptoms as they're going through perimenopause,
[40:32]
menopause. And I see them in exactly the same way as you do with the with the symptoms
[40:37]
for migraines. You know, they're wake up call, they're your body's way of of communicating
[40:41]
with you that something's not quite right, something's out of balance.
[40:45]
And so it's about, yeah, OK, something needs to something needs to change, something we
[40:48]
need to do something here to put things, you know, get things feeling good again.
[40:53]
And it's almost, you know, gosh, imagine if there was an app and you could put in exactly
[40:57]
how you were feeling and out came an answer like this is the right thing for you because
[41:02]
we're all so different and we all experience all of these things so differently.
[41:07]
And you are creating something so amazingly unique to help women with migraines.
[41:13]
Amazing. Really amazing.
[41:16]
I'd love to talk about migraines, though, and perimenopause and menopause, because
[41:23]
I remember you saying to me that some women, as they go through perimenopause,
[41:28]
actually stop having migraines.
[41:30]
So someone with a genetic disposition for migraines actually stops.
[41:34]
I wonder if you could maybe tell us a little bit more about that.
[41:36]
Yeah. So so it's going to go three ways for women when
[41:43]
they hit perimenopause and menopause.
[41:45]
For some, the migraines are going to fade and they're all going to live in the hope that
[41:50]
it's going to be them. For some, they're going to change and for some they're going to
[41:56]
increase. And I was, you know, yesterday on the phone with someone from the US.
[42:02]
She says, oh, I was hoping, you know, I was going to be my lucky, lucky side of the of
[42:06]
the life. And yet again, it's worse than ever.
[42:10]
And and I've even met women who were doing a hysterectomy in the hope to get rid of
[42:15]
migraines and that's not working.
[42:18]
It's really tough.
[42:19]
It's really tough because can you imagine on top of everything else, then you have to
[42:25]
And really at this stage of life, I think most women have learned so much about life
[42:30]
that, you know, a lot would like to be as natural as possible.
[42:35]
So you have to pile up additional medication on top.
[42:38]
And so there's the appearance of something called the Meniere disease, which is
[42:42]
vertigo and dizziness, sort of constant inability to focus.
[42:47]
And is that more likely to happen during perimenopause?
[42:50]
It is more likely.
[42:51]
But again, if you go back to the firearm analogy, what is the brain trying to say here?
[42:56]
It's trying to say here, dear Casey, we're trying to age really nicely.
[43:00]
We're trying to keep our brain in shape for when we go old.
[43:03]
Can you please help me and feed me the right stuff that's going to hydrate my brain?
[43:07]
Please, please, please, please.
[43:09]
And so and so sometimes I mean, there's other layers, right?
[43:13]
Of course, like we're at a body that has gone through the years.
[43:16]
So there probably is a few imbalances that have been piling up.
[43:21]
But that additional to the perimenopause imbalance of hormonal changes, but also.
[43:27]
Overall dryness, like if we make it very simple, if you make it very simple, you have
[43:33]
your vagus nerve, which is that beautiful tree inside of your body that plants its root
[43:37]
around your heart, around your liver, around your kidney, around your gut.
[43:41]
OK, and then has all of these nerves that go as ramification in your neck and then plug
[43:48]
in like a Tesla in your brain.
[43:50]
So all of that tree when you're a child is massively irrigated.
[43:54]
There's lots of water, lots of collagen.
[43:56]
There's you know, and then you go through puberty and pregnancy and there's liquids
[44:00]
that leak out from everywhere, from your breast, so much hair, so much, so much blood.
[44:06]
You know, this abundance and generosity to hearts, to mind, to brains.
[44:10]
You know, it's wonderful.
[44:12]
And then we go through autumn, which is arguably the second spring in traditional
[44:16]
Chinese medicine. But it's a moment where you have to fight the dryness.
[44:22]
And so the dryness goes into that vagus nerve.
[44:25]
And so not only does the bowel movement get sometimes for some people more dry and we
[44:31]
talk about vaginal dryness, but also the brain therefore starts to be more dry.
[44:38]
And so that if you have, if you're if you're I want to say lucky, you know, I hope in the
[44:44]
future it's a lucky trait and it's a tool for longevity.
[44:48]
If your brain says, hey, it's superior, I think, and says, hey, you know, can you help
[44:54]
me address this? We're drying over here.
[44:58]
Can you feed us the right stuff?
[45:00]
then your brain's happy and your gut's happy
[45:02]
and usually your bowel movement goes exactly back
[45:05]
to where it was when it was younger.
[45:08]
Yeah, so it's just adding in what is missing
[45:11]
and that is what you are helping people to do
[45:14]
and that's what Chinese medicine helps people to do.
[45:18]
Are there any things which you recommend women
[45:23]
with migraines, are there anything which you recommend
[45:27]
pretty much to everybody?
[45:28]
I'm just thinking of helping people generally
[45:31]
who might be listening to this,
[45:32]
who are going, okay, just give me a few things,
[45:35]
what are some things which I can add into my diet
[45:37]
which are quite easy, which might well help me?
[45:39]
I know it's all very nuanced, but yeah.
[45:41]
No, no, no, completely.
[45:42]
I think when you look at overall health
[45:45]
and especially if you don't have migraines,
[45:47]
you need to always ensure a really quality bowel movement.
[45:52]
There's a, if you go on Google
[45:54]
and you type Bristol chart bowel movement,
[45:57]
you will see seven images of what bowel movements
[46:02]
So all the way from rabbit-like, small bevels
[46:06]
to something very runny.
[46:08]
And in the middle, there's like a banana shape
[46:10]
that comes out fast and requires no wiping,
[46:13]
that's what we're after.
[46:15]
So you can start to really observe in your food,
[46:19]
in your day to day, what gets you to that beautiful shape
[46:23]
and what gets you away from it.
[46:26]
And so there are a few foods that will help you
[46:28]
to get there if it's too dry.
[46:32]
For example, chia seeds for breakfast
[46:37]
might help more in that phase of life
[46:39]
because they're also cooling in temperature.
[46:41]
So that's gonna help us.
[46:43]
Flax seeds that you reap, soak, both soaked, please.
[46:48]
Like no, so like, let's talk about that
[46:51]
for a minute afterwards.
[46:53]
So flax seeds, you can have goji berries
[46:56]
if you do not more than eight to 10, it's super powerful.
[47:00]
And the body can really thrive with eight to 10
[47:04]
goji berries in an infusion a day.
[47:06]
But beyond that, it's a bit too much.
[47:09]
Or just rehydrated prunes.
[47:12]
And what you're trying to do,
[47:13]
again, I don't want to generalize,
[47:16]
everyone has a different bowel
[47:18]
and different digestive tracts.
[47:19]
But let's imagine that you were in a situation
[47:22]
where things are getting more dry.
[47:24]
Trying to keep that internal hydration
[47:27]
will keep not only your brain hydrated,
[47:30]
which is super important,
[47:32]
but also I start to see,
[47:34]
and that's more intuitive than a fact,
[47:36]
I start to see that the more you have what is called yin,
[47:41]
the more your hormones circulate freely,
[47:45]
even if you take HRT.
[47:47]
So let me try this again.
[47:50]
So in Western science,
[47:52]
we know that the body is 60% water.
[47:54]
And we have a number of scientists
[47:56]
that wrote some paper to analyze it further.
[47:58]
And they said the brain is around 74% water,
[48:01]
the lungs, 83, the kidneys, 79.
[48:06]
That's a lot of water.
[48:07]
Now, as we grow older, we lose some of that liquid, right?
[48:11]
If you think of someone older,
[48:14]
we're gonna age, there's more wrinkles,
[48:16]
there's more dryness.
[48:17]
The dryness is gonna translate
[48:19]
in every part of the body, internal and external.
[48:23]
And so what we're trying to do here
[48:25]
is we fight the dryness.
[48:26]
If we fight the dryness,
[48:27]
we can let the hormones circulate inside the body
[48:31]
more freely, and then things are more comfortable.
[48:34]
So your bowel movement is a great barometer
[48:37]
to figure out, is my body happy?
[48:40]
And is my brain happy?
[48:42]
Or is my brain grumpy?
[48:44]
All right, and then everything circulates better.
[48:48]
So when you talk about yin, are you talking about energy?
[48:52]
Yes, so yin is the concept of the water
[48:55]
in traditional Chinese medicine.
[48:57]
They say the body is formed of a lot of yin,
[48:59]
so think of liquids, but think noble liquids,
[49:02]
brain, bone marrow, lymphatic system.
[49:05]
And it's in that yin that, for example,
[49:09]
the estrogen will circulate.
[49:11]
So if you look at, this is where it's fascinating,
[49:14]
when you look at yin foods,
[49:15]
they will tend to have estrogen.
[49:18]
Yang food will tend to have a bit more progesterone.
[49:21]
And so you can play around with foods
[49:23]
that will respond to you.
[49:26]
But also notice, for example,
[49:28]
everyone always raves about ginger, including for migraines.
[49:32]
And I'm like, yeah, I like ginger,
[49:33]
but, but, but, but, but ginger on its own is really warming.
[49:39]
And so when you warm the body,
[49:42]
you decrease the yin, and so you dry it further.
[49:46]
So let's imagine someone,
[49:47]
let's imagine someone in their 40s,
[49:51]
and they have migraines, and they're writing a book
[49:53]
that, you know, ginger is great for migraines.
[49:56]
Or someone who is in perimenopause
[49:58]
and reads that ginger is a great tonic, which is true.
[50:03]
The problem is if they take that,
[50:05]
yes, it's gonna help something,
[50:07]
but it's gonna hinder something else.
[50:10]
And so it's gonna need to warm the same protein break.
[50:13]
So just pairing them with something
[50:16]
then cool like a milder, in the case of ginger.
[50:20]
Does that make sense?
[50:21]
Yeah, so it is extremely nuanced
[50:24]
in terms of what you're suggesting, yeah.
[50:26]
Yeah, so being attuned to this food,
[50:29]
like if you, if you try to cut the noise,
[50:32]
oh, I've eaten this, and my bowel movement was really dry.
[50:36]
Like, for example, for me, if I eat something with MSG,
[50:39]
you know, like monosodium glutamate,
[50:42]
oh, my body just really doesn't like it.
[50:44]
It makes me very dry inside, but I can see the causation.
[50:47]
So I'm like, okay, maybe we'll drop the MSG.
[50:52]
So let's just go back to the-
[50:54]
Okay, I was about to say,
[50:55]
let's go back to the chia seeds,
[50:56]
and the green seeds, what were you gonna say with that?
[50:59]
Please, please, please, soak, soak, soak, soak, soak.
[51:02]
If you do not soak your food long enough,
[51:05]
it will soak inside you,
[51:07]
and, you know, take all of your good gene
[51:10]
to be digested and processed.
[51:12]
Oh, no, so I, on my breakfast most days,
[51:15]
scatter on chia seeds and, well, it's groundland seed,
[51:20]
but it's not soaked.
[51:22]
Soak, soak, soak, soak,
[51:24]
otherwise it soaks inside of you.
[51:26]
Even if it's ground, even if it's ground?
[51:30]
Yeah, always soak.
[51:31]
It's better ground, but it's soak.
[51:36]
Everything that you eat, it needs to be rehydrated.
[51:40]
I mean, anything dry that you eat.
[51:43]
So it's true that, especially in this phase of life,
[51:45]
seeds and beans are really good soaked.
[51:53]
Otherwise, yeah, I mean,
[51:55]
and when you soak them, it can be for a long time.
[51:59]
Okay, how long is a long time?
[52:02]
Well, sometimes, you know,
[52:03]
if you're gonna have that for breakfast,
[52:04]
just do it overnight.
[52:08]
All right, well, I should be doing that from now on.
[52:11]
Yes, absolutely, please do.
[52:12]
I have an amazing Pilates teacher,
[52:15]
and I've known her for seven years.
[52:19]
And I could see recently she was getting really, really dry.
[52:21]
So I tiptoed on the topic,
[52:23]
and it turns out she was having sort of completely dry muesli
[52:28]
that she was making herself.
[52:30]
And I'm like, ooh, that is eating all of your face.
[52:39]
She was making a big effort.
[52:41]
So really, really, really soak, yeah.
[52:43]
Okay, yeah, well, right, I've taken that on board.
[52:46]
I think a lot of people listening will be going,
[52:47]
oh my God, I need to soak my seeds.
[52:53]
I mean, if you look online,
[52:55]
you'd find a lot more details about this,
[52:57]
and the time if you want to have exactitude.
[53:02]
But if you're busy and you want to get on with life,
[53:05]
just you prepare your breakfast the day before,
[53:07]
or you prepare just the nut components,
[53:10]
and you soak them.
[53:11]
Even, for example, walnuts are amazing,
[53:14]
in very small quantity, pre-soaked.
[53:17]
Thank you for that.
[53:19]
Diane, is there anything we've missed
[53:22]
which you would like to bring up,
[53:23]
which is important, really,
[53:25]
for particularly this audience listening should know?
[53:30]
Well, maybe a message to two different audiences,
[53:33]
the ones who do not have migraines.
[53:36]
Well, then, if I can please, from the bottom of my heart,
[53:39]
like just to ask you for massive empathy,
[53:42]
when someone says, I have a migraine,
[53:44]
pause, stop, just stop everything,
[53:46]
and stare at the person, look at their heart,
[53:49]
look at their soul, look at their pain.
[53:51]
And on behalf of society,
[53:53]
apologize for everything they're going through.
[53:56]
And if you do suffer from migraines,
[54:02]
I'm sorry too, I'm really sorry,
[54:04]
because it means you've come a long way.
[54:06]
And yes, there are possibilities,
[54:08]
and trust your intuition.
[54:09]
You're not born with them,
[54:11]
you're born with the genes, but you're not born in pain.
[54:13]
You don't have the latter part of your life.
[54:17]
Maybe that's your second spring.
[54:19]
You know, just that life of, oh, no, migraines,
[54:22]
or, oh, like a whole new level of understanding of my body.
[54:25]
Well, it was a bit, you know,
[54:27]
unfortunately, I wish I had come earlier,
[54:29]
but I'll take, you know, someone had said,
[54:32]
you have 100% of the rest of your life to live.
[54:36]
And so if you've been suffering for most of your life,
[54:39]
well, then it's a strong invitation
[54:41]
to do something about it.
[54:42]
Yeah, and I think just you saying this,
[54:45]
and hearing you talk about this in such a positive way
[54:50]
is gonna give hope to so many people
[54:52]
who are suffering with migraines,
[54:54]
that it is possible to get over them.
[54:57]
I'd love actually, Diane, before we go,
[54:59]
just to hear perhaps a couple of stories,
[55:02]
or just maybe one story of someone
[55:04]
who has suffered massively,
[55:06]
and then they've worked with you,
[55:07]
and then what's happened?
[55:08]
Yeah, a woman, she was 50, around 50,
[55:11]
she started to have headache when she was seven.
[55:14]
So she would go by life with constant headaches,
[55:17]
which she would qualify as headaches.
[55:20]
And when I say constantly, four days a week,
[55:23]
she goes to the nursery at school to ask for medication.
[55:26]
So at school, she was accused of not liking school
[55:29]
and trying to get a day off.
[55:31]
But she was like, no, I'm in pain.
[55:32]
Yeah, yeah, you're trying to get a day off.
[55:34]
Okay, take a pill, go back to your classroom.
[55:38]
And she goes through life,
[55:39]
and she's a neurologist and everything, and nothing works.
[55:44]
And then things start to get worse around pyramidopause.
[55:47]
Like it starts to really intensify
[55:49]
and become like full-blown migraines.
[55:51]
And she's a journalist,
[55:52]
so like really difficulty to concentrate and to work.
[55:55]
So very frustrating.
[55:57]
And someone recommends me and says,
[56:02]
oh, you should meet with Diane.
[56:03]
And she's like, oh, I've seen so many people.
[56:05]
I'm just stuck with the whole thing.
[56:06]
Like, oh, you don't know what you're talking about.
[56:08]
Then the second person that says that, no.
[56:10]
Then the third person, she's like, okay, fine.
[56:12]
I'll give it a go.
[56:14]
And she tells me, look, I cannot believe you pulled it off.
[56:17]
And just with foods, it's incredible.
[56:19]
And I've learned so much on my body.
[56:21]
And now I can really keep it in balance.
[56:24]
And so full of life.
[56:26]
It's not just that my migraines have, you know,
[56:29]
literally, virtually completely disappeared.
[56:31]
It's just that I can rebalance myself.
[56:34]
I've learned so much that, you know,
[56:36]
I feel completely full power, full potential.
[56:40]
And this is maybe, you know,
[56:41]
part of your message on Positive Pyramid Pose.
[56:45]
There's really, you know,
[56:47]
a possibility to, in this phase of life,
[56:50]
reinvent yourself and actually have way more comfort
[56:54]
moving forward than looking backward.
[56:56]
Yeah, it's about really not accepting,
[56:59]
not accepting that actually you have to live
[57:02]
a life of pain, a life of struggle.
[57:04]
That actually, when you delve deep,
[57:09]
I genuinely believe there is a solution for all of it.
[57:12]
It's just a matter of finding it.
[57:15]
And you are just such a testament to that, Diane,
[57:17]
in that you, all of this incredible, meticulous work
[57:21]
that you have carried out over the years
[57:23]
is testament to that,
[57:24]
because you are finding solutions to this very complex,
[57:28]
I mean, I don't know what you call it,
[57:30]
a condition, a disease, whatever it is.
[57:33]
And you're showing that actually it is possible
[57:36]
to get to those recourses and fix them.
[57:38]
Yeah, and look, like a lot of my first career
[57:41]
was in the men's world,
[57:42]
and I was really tired of being told it's placebo,
[57:46]
it doesn't work, it's not scientifically proven.
[57:48]
It really built up a little bit of positive anger.
[57:52]
I was like, you know what?
[57:55]
Let's use your tools.
[57:56]
Let's call it with big data and AI,
[57:58]
and we're going to use all of that,
[57:59]
and we're going to prove it works.
[58:01]
And then we work with universities
[58:04]
so that they can actually reverse engineer
[58:07]
and understand and make progress.
[58:09]
Progress on women's health, progress on food,
[58:11]
progress on the complexity of the disease,
[58:14]
because we're really, we're behind.
[58:16]
Like, you know, come on, it's 2023.
[58:21]
Great, that's amazing.
[58:23]
So they're now using some of your data
[58:24]
to kind of use it for their research.
[58:26]
Yeah, that's really, I mean, that's the goal.
[58:29]
Like, that's where I'd like to head.
[58:33]
But first, let's take care of women.
[58:37]
I think first and foremost.
[58:39]
But later, yeah, I would love to, you know,
[58:41]
be able to contribute in that way.
[58:43]
Yeah, I think it would help for other diseases too.
[58:47]
Yeah, and my last question I ask all my guests,
[58:49]
because this is called the Positive Perimenopause Podcast,
[58:52]
I'd like to give the listeners
[58:53]
one practical, actionable takeaway.
[58:57]
Is there something that you can think of
[58:59]
which you can offer the listeners today?
[59:03]
Well, what I love in your podcast, Polly,
[59:05]
is like, you know, how you framed it
[59:07]
as a positive perimenopause.
[59:09]
We've alluded to that in the past,
[59:11]
is how in traditional Chinese medicine,
[59:14]
it's called the second spring.
[59:16]
It's really a time to reinvent yourself,
[59:18]
not trying to go backwards,
[59:20]
but to embrace forwards with a new identity,
[59:25]
And so I love that message,
[59:28]
and I really want to dial it up,
[59:29]
because I think you do brilliant work at,
[59:32]
make us think positively about what's to come,
[59:35]
when it can be a bit fearful and full of unknowns.
[59:41]
Thank you for that.
[59:42]
I appreciate that.
[59:44]
Deanne, if anyone who is listening
[59:46]
who is a migraine sufferer is going,
[59:49]
right, my goodness, I need to get hold of Deanne.
[59:54]
Where can they come?
[59:55]
Where can they go to kind of get access to you?
[60:00]
which is called www.mynectar,
[60:04]
nectar like the flower,
[60:06]
the idea of food and flower,
[60:09]
mynectarhealth.com.
[60:11]
So mynectarhealth.com.
[60:13]
My name is Deanne Ducarme,
[60:14]
and yeah, and you can take the test
[60:16]
on the website currently,
[60:18]
and we currently still meet,
[60:21]
and I love meeting with women.
[60:23]
It takes me 60 to honestly 90 minutes,
[60:26]
but I love to hear their stories
[60:28]
and how things started,
[60:29]
and then to explain to them,
[60:32]
not only their migraines today,
[60:33]
but the evolution, how it evolved,
[60:35]
and then that's how we get going
[60:37]
and how you get into the app.
[60:40]
What you're doing is truly admirable,
[60:42]
and I can just tell the time, the love,
[60:46]
the effort that you give these women is,
[60:48]
you go above and beyond.
[60:50]
So thank you for all you do.
[60:52]
Your work really, truly is incredibly special
[60:56]
and thank you so much for coming here today
[60:59]
and talking to me.
[61:00]
Thank you so much for having me, Pauline.
[61:02]
Thank you for your work,
[61:04]
to lead the charge,
[61:05]
and I feel very, thanks to many of you,
[61:10]
I feel very more equipped,
[61:12]
like I feel I'm going in an unknown world
[61:15]
with known facts and known information.
[61:18]
So a huge thank you for this community.
[61:21]
Yeah, well, my pleasure.
[61:23]
Here are some of the key takeaways.
[61:27]
Number one, migraine disease affects
[61:29]
over 1 billion people worldwide,
[61:32]
with women affected three to four times more than men.
[61:36]
To have migraines, one needs a genetic predisposition.
[61:41]
It is then due to imbalances in the body
[61:43]
which can bring on the migraine.
[61:45]
Number three, while 5% of boys and girls have migraines,
[61:49]
that incident triples at puberty
[61:51]
with 18% of women suffering from migraines.
[61:56]
Number four, when you have a migraine attack,
[61:58]
you may have a full body experience
[62:01]
that may involve head pain, but not always,
[62:04]
and it can also involve a whole range
[62:06]
of other symptoms too, which can be very scary.
[62:10]
Number five, during perimenopause and menopause,
[62:13]
that changes again, and you can go in either direction.
[62:17]
So for some, migraines are gonna fade.
[62:19]
For some, they will change, and for some, they may increase.
[62:24]
Number six, by knowing your migraine genetic profile,
[62:27]
you can make informed decisions
[62:29]
about your health and well-being,
[62:31]
and this is what Deanne's approach
[62:32]
helps migraine sufferers with.
[62:35]
Number seven, consider eight to 10 goji berries,
[62:39]
some rehydrated prunes, some chia seeds,
[62:41]
or flax seeds if you are a migraine sufferer.
[62:45]
However, make sure you soak any dry food.
[62:48]
If you don't soak dry food, it will soak inside you.
[62:52]
Anything dry you eat needs to be rehydrated.
[62:56]
Number eight, if you don't have migraines,
[62:58]
remember to show someone you know with migraine disease
[63:02]
lots and lots of love and compassion.
[63:06]
And number nine, and if you do suffer from migraines,
[63:09]
know there is hope to live a life without migraines.
[63:14]
I really do hope you have found something
[63:17]
in this episode which is helpful.
[63:19]
I'm sure if you're a migraine sufferer,
[63:21]
you've probably learned loads.
[63:22]
I'll put all of Deanne's information
[63:25]
and contact details into the show notes,
[63:27]
and if you have enjoyed this conversation,
[63:30]
particularly if you know somebody
[63:31]
who is a migraine sufferer,
[63:32]
please, please, please forward this episode to them
[63:35]
because you never know, it may just change their life.
[63:40]
If you would like to get in touch with me, you can do so.
[63:43]
You can email me at info at polywarrencoaching.com,
[63:47]
or you can come over to Instagram at polywarrencoaching.
[63:52]
And if you would like to,
[63:55]
please do come and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts.
[63:57]
It really is so important to help this podcast
[64:02]
And also just by hitting that like and subscribe button
[64:08]
Thank you for listening.
[64:09]
I know you're super busy.
[64:11]
I really do appreciate it.
[64:13]
And yeah, can't wait to speak to you next time.
[64:16]
Take care, lots of love.
