Migraine Heroes
Marine smiling, with long brown hair, a white blouse and large dark earrings against a plain white background.
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Marine

41 years old, UAE

60 min

What changed

Freed from fear: could travel, work, and be present with her kids without planning around the next attack.

Discover Marine's journey as she battles debilitating migraines with courage and finds holistic solutions. Join us in this talk where we share time-proven insights into overcoming pain and embracing hope.

Highlights:

  • Marine's migraine journey: The real migraine challenges - both physically and emotionally
  • Ancient Healing: Traditional Chinese Medicine transformation through holistic practices
  • Holistic Healing for Migraines: The links between nutrition, well-being, and a whole body-balance
  • Empowering Migraine Warriors: Marine's mission to destigmatize a migraine
00:00
-60:00
Transcript

[00:00]

Hello, this is the Migraine Heroes podcast, a podcast where we share real stories from

[00:08]

real people suffering and battling with migraine disease.

[00:12]

In this podcast, we seek to provide support, hope, holistic health advocacy, and inspiration

[00:19]

for those who suffer from migraines.

[00:22]

Hello, Marine, great to have you here.

[00:30]

Thank you, Diane.

[00:31]

I'm so happy to be with you.

[00:33]

I'm so thrilled to do this first podcast with you.

[00:37]

When I was thinking who I should do this very first podcast, your heart and your soul and

[00:43]

your face came in my mind and I thought it would be just, you know, the perfect match.

[00:48]

Thank you so much.

[00:50]

And as you will hear in this podcast, our journey intertwined and it just changes our

[00:55]

life for good after.

[00:57]

So we meet in 2011, which is already about 12 years ago.

[01:03]

And do you want to explain, do you want to explain in what context?

[01:07]

Yes, definitely.

[01:08]

I was, you know, we were living in the same residence in Shanghai, both of us had newborns

[01:14]

at home.

[01:15]

And as we came of a walking age, my son kept on thinking you were me from afar and calling

[01:20]

you mommy.

[01:22]

And so, and so at some point you reach out and say, hey, maybe we should meet since we

[01:26]

seem to have shared the journey.

[01:30]

And that's how we started, our kids became friends and started playing with each other

[01:34]

every day.

[01:35]

And, you know, the rest is history.

[01:37]

Yeah.

[01:38]

It's so cute because Manon would come back and she mentioned your son a lot.

[01:43]

And so I said to my husband, maybe we should meet these people.

[01:47]

And so we didn't shoot as they, as they grew up together and still know each other after

[01:53]

all these years.

[01:54]

Yeah.

[01:55]

So you remember what you were doing at the time and how life was?

[02:00]

Yes.

[02:01]

Well, you know, Five Space Life in China, I was working in a foreign American company

[02:07]

in the incentive business.

[02:09]

I was traveling a lot for trips with clients and so on and so forth.

[02:15]

Very busy time, partying, brunching, traveling in a young mom.

[02:20]

So it was really, it was really something, Shanghai times.

[02:25]

It was so good.

[02:26]

It was so good.

[02:27]

I remember on Friday evenings, we'd, you know, get together and the kids would bath together

[02:32]

and we'd have a cheese and wine and I thought, this is the time to have a relaxing time.

[02:37]

And we were so happy to be together.

[02:41]

It was really, really special.

[02:42]

How did you find becoming a mom on top of work?

[02:47]

You know, it was, I was, I mean, I was ready to be a mom.

[02:50]

I think I was, I don't know.

[02:52]

I knew that I would be mom by pretty young age for my generation, 26.

[02:58]

And for me, it was very natural.

[03:01]

It was very scary.

[03:03]

I was very surprised about how focused it made me at work.

[03:08]

I was worried because I was really in the workaholic category and work hard, play hard,

[03:14]

which you do a lot when you're 20 plus.

[03:18]

And anyway, I was very surprised.

[03:21]

I was so much more focused and efficient.

[03:24]

When I came to work, I started understanding my colleagues who had been moms before me,

[03:30]

which is, you know, was a good realization, humbling realization.

[03:34]

And it was scary though.

[03:36]

It was, it was painful.

[03:37]

It was tiring.

[03:38]

It was very demanding and juggling, I think, different roles, which that one extra that

[03:46]

took so much space was tough as well, because you're not just, you know, a woman and a wife

[03:52]

and a daughter, a sister or a best friend, and you add the mom on top of it.

[03:56]

And that's kind of the most important one, the most important role that takes on, especially

[04:01]

the first two years, breastfeeding was tough, yet I couldn't let it go.

[04:08]

So yeah, it's just full of contradiction.

[04:10]

I think motherhood, but overall, it's beautiful.

[04:15]

I still love being a mom.

[04:17]

And I became a mom a second time, a couple of years later, and I'm very happy.

[04:23]

And if I remember, like, you were quite a machine, right?

[04:26]

Like when, I mean, we both were to some extent, like you were working really long hours.

[04:34]

And then you were like me, you were full at work and then full as a mom, like there was,

[04:40]

then still exercising, looking gorgeous.

[04:45]

I had a lot of motivation at home.

[04:47]

My husband is very much in that movement.

[04:50]

And I don't come from a background or a family where sports was, you know, at the core of

[04:54]

education or anything.

[04:56]

I did have that on my own when I was young.

[04:58]

And then when I met my husband, it was so key to him.

[05:02]

So I got into it to be with him basically at the beginning, and then it becomes part

[05:05]

of your routine.

[05:06]

But yeah, it's true also that, you know, maternity and weight takes a toll and, you know, it's

[05:13]

hard to get back.

[05:14]

I feel it's like, you know, your feet are bigger and your clothes don't fit, you know,

[05:19]

the pants that you used to wear so proudly with a very tiny waist, suddenly you feel

[05:23]

like your ribcage have expanded, you feel like, oh, yeah.

[05:26]

But yeah, no, it's, I mean, you change a bit lifestyle.

[05:30]

Even though we didn't change that much, we kept on going out and, but your priorities

[05:35]

shift and, and yeah, I've always been a hundred percent in what I do.

[05:41]

I still am to this day.

[05:42]

It can play against me sometimes, but no, it really is part of my personality.

[05:48]

I wouldn't do anything any other way, really.

[05:51]

I've had my company and I was full-on and when I've been working for many other entrepreneurs

[05:56]

and I've been full-on just as it was, just like it was my firm as well.

[06:00]

And I love it just the same.

[06:03]

At that stage as well, I remember you migraine less, right?

[06:06]

You did not have migraine.

[06:08]

Yeah, absolutely.

[06:10]

Yeah.

[06:11]

I, it didn't start up until I came to Singapore in 2015.

[06:15]

Yeah.

[06:16]

And also at that, at that time I was super unknowledgeable about migraines.

[06:24]

So I was working full-time as a consultant.

[06:28]

So as traveling, as, as, you know, I don't know if it was more or less than you, it was

[06:33]

probably about the same or differently, but your hours were crazy because you were working

[06:38]

with the U.S.

[06:39]

I remember you had calls very late.

[06:41]

Yeah.

[06:42]

Yeah.

[06:43]

So when I started with McKinsey, my first engagement was in Italy.

[06:47]

And then I had like, you know, I was in charge of multiple countries and there was not enough

[06:50]

data on China.

[06:52]

And I remember working really long hours.

[06:55]

I'd start at nine, but then I remember one day finishing at five, except it was not 5

[07:01]

PM, it was 5 AM.

[07:03]

Otherwise midnight would be the norm.

[07:04]

Yeah.

[07:05]

It was really intense, but I, I, I, I liked it.

[07:10]

Did, um, did becoming a mom made you feel a need for change of purpose or not really?

[07:19]

Maybe not.

[07:20]

I think you have, um, you have a different, what really changed was my conception of time

[07:26]

and where I was putting in, um, let's say the chitchat at work and the meaningless meetings

[07:33]

and long hours.

[07:34]

Sometimes you're like, you know what?

[07:35]

If I don't go home by that time, I'm not going to see my son.

[07:38]

And that's not something that I'm going to compromise.

[07:41]

Um, yet I was also in a, in an environment where when I was traveling and I had to be

[07:46]

1000%, it was so much better to be doing this job outside of home.

[07:51]

Otherwise the guilt just wouldn't let you go.

[07:54]

And I still have this to this day when I go to some of my engagements during the week

[07:58]

for myself and I have to leave the kids at home.

[08:02]

It's tough.

[08:03]

So I would rather leave from work because it's easier to leave work than to leave home.

[08:08]

So that these days, which is Thursdays, I go to work the whole day and I go from work

[08:12]

to, um, my, um, my lessons so I can, uh, so I can go there freely without the mom guilt

[08:19]

and the, you know, that look in the eye, the kid's eye to say, hi mom, why don't you stay

[08:24]

with us?

[08:25]

Um, so no, I think, yeah, conception of time for sure.

[08:28]

Priorities shifting, uh, I think I've always been quite responsible and for me, uh, yeah,

[08:34]

when you put your attention differently, being far away from family was a bit tougher

[08:39]

back then as well because then, um, there's so many micro moments that happened that you

[08:44]

wish your mom and brother and sister and uncles and grandmas would be here for.

[08:49]

Um, so yeah, I think obviously it, it changes a lot, uh, not to my core, but, um, yeah.

[08:57]

It's funny.

[08:58]

Like it's funny.

[08:59]

I really agree with you on the chitchat.

[09:00]

It finds, I was, you know, going back home and to see my mom, um, like every day to bath

[09:07]

with her.

[09:08]

Like I come back from work and go in the bathtub and everything for an hour and then go back

[09:13]

to work.

[09:14]

Um, and I've never been able to do, I mean, to do that anymore, I think.

[09:20]

Um, yeah.

[09:21]

And you don't cancel hours.

[09:22]

But on the other side, I remember, uh, you know, I had a nanny at home luckily, which

[09:27]

made all of this possible too.

[09:29]

And at some point I was seeing her, our hours pining up because the extra hours, obviously

[09:34]

I was paying her for it.

[09:36]

And, um, and I was like, I didn't realize the volume of extra hours I was doing all

[09:41]

the time.

[09:42]

I have some, I had not realized that.

[09:44]

And so it was really, um, yeah, it was really strange.

[09:48]

It was like, wow.

[09:49]

Okay.

[09:50]

That's, that's a hundred plus hours that I paid the, uh, yeah.

[09:54]

I came to my boss and say, I'm not counting hours and I never will, but that's also the

[09:57]

reality of what it's costing me.

[09:59]

And I asked for a couple of holidays extra and say, I, it's not about the money.

[10:03]

I just, I just need a bit of a rest.

[10:05]

Yeah.

[10:06]

Okay.

[10:07]

Very cool.

[10:08]

Okay.

[10:09]

And, um, and so then we part ways with the children who grew up together, they're really

[10:13]

tight.

[10:14]

They go to kindergarten together.

[10:15]

They're really, they speak together.

[10:17]

I think Mandarin, um, a couple of years in French, I think now, and they see each other

[10:22]

and they speak English.

[10:23]

Um, and so we part ways.

[10:28]

For me, I would add also like massive slap in the face when, um, well, you know, when

[10:33]

Manon was born, I really felt like I was pushing consumption in China and that needed to change.

[10:38]

Like I, I felt really bad about my work.

[10:41]

I think it was really from the moment she landed on my tummy after birth, it was like

[10:46]

a, a gigantic slap of like, how are you using your brain?

[10:51]

What are you bringing to this planet?

[10:53]

Like, you know, what a waste of your talent.

[10:56]

And, uh, and that was quite, um, a massive, um, setback with a big question, but kind

[11:02]

of no answer.

[11:04]

Um, so we part ways.

[11:08]

When did you leave China?

[11:09]

What do you remember?

[11:10]

2015.

[11:11]

2015.

[11:12]

Okay.

[11:13]

So same time as us.

[11:14]

Do you remember the month or I, uh, we left in August.

[11:18]

Well, I left, uh, end of June, uh, had a couple of work trips to do before.

[11:22]

Um, and then, yeah, we moved into Singapore early August.

[11:26]

Oh yeah.

[11:27]

Very, very good.

[11:28]

I didn't realize that we left exactly at the same time.

[11:30]

I don't have a very good recollection of that time because I was also had just given birth

[11:34]

to James.

[11:35]

And so, you know, your memories are slightly more fuzzy, um, um, and so you go to Singapore

[11:43]

and you know, I go to New Zealand, um, and then we meet again when you're pregnant with

[11:49]

Mattia.

[11:50]

Yes, we did.

[11:52]

We were passing by Singapore for work, I believe.

[11:54]

And we had, uh, we had lunch together at, uh, Intercon, I believe, in Singapore.

[11:59]

Yeah.

[12:00]

Yeah.

[12:01]

At an event.

[12:02]

And, uh, yeah, yeah.

[12:03]

And I was pregnant with Mattia, which happened, uh, a bit by surprise and, uh, it was, uh,

[12:07]

it was great because my husband was still back and forth between China and Singapore

[12:11]

back then.

[12:12]

Um, and then we, we, we just pregnant again, the choice he had to go and, and join the

[12:17]

family in Singapore.

[12:19]

And that was, uh, yes, that was probably early 2016.

[12:22]

So when did your migraines start for the first time?

[12:26]

That started after the birth, um, and that was, uh, that was a bit unsettling.

[12:32]

I honestly didn't put the term migraine to it for up until I met you, um, again in 2020.

[12:39]

Um, I was, uh, but yeah, it was, for me, it was like massive headaches, um, and I was

[12:46]

just feeling so sick and being in Asia, having lived in China and in Singapore, which a traditional

[12:52]

Chinese medicine is very much around, but I feel like I tried everything, uh, was it

[12:57]

my chair?

[12:58]

Was it my posture at work?

[13:00]

Um, was it my teeth grinding?

[13:02]

Was it my eyesight?

[13:03]

Uh, I checked my spine.

[13:06]

I discussed with my OBGYN.

[13:09]

I mean, I really feel like I did everything.

[13:12]

Um, and some stuff were working.

[13:14]

Um, you know, you do some cupping or some, you know, acupuncture, things like this, but

[13:19]

two weeks later, it was just back for speed and, um, and I was just constantly popping

[13:24]

medicine and you just don't realize, I mean, at some point you don't realize cause you're

[13:28]

so afraid of the, of the pain.

[13:30]

Um, and so you just prevent it as much as you can because you know, once you're down

[13:34]

into that cycle, you're just not going to get out of it.

[13:37]

Um, and it was really, really tough.

[13:40]

It was not a very long in time.

[13:42]

It was about two, three days compared to others.

[13:46]

Um, but it was the frequency.

[13:48]

It was just, uh, yeah, it was really...

[13:50]

When you were having a migraine attack, like what did it look like?

[13:54]

Well, there was a lot of fatigue before, uh, but I could not really, I think, link it to

[14:00]

it because I was just, you know, traveling.

[14:03]

I was literally going around Singapore.

[14:04]

I was known for going around town with my suitcase.

[14:07]

I literally had to carry on with me all the time with all my chargers, my files and what

[14:12]

have you, because I was just always on the go in between planes and things.

[14:16]

Um, and so definitely fatigue, uh, sensitivity to sound with children is difficult.

[14:24]

Too light, which in Singapore, very sunny place, uh, was difficult.

[14:30]

And so, um, so yeah, it was, uh, and that this, this pain, uh, that's indescribable,

[14:35]

um, crippling really.

[14:37]

I mean, it's just like getting to your room in the dark, uh, with a hot bottle on my tummy

[14:42]

and my husband helping out with massage and, uh, not able to eat much.

[14:48]

It was just really, really, yeah, crippling really.

[14:50]

And, and yeah, having to cancel on some plans because your, your head hurts and you just

[14:55]

didn't manage to stop it in time and you fell into the styro, uh, it's really difficult.

[15:00]

It's very isolating.

[15:01]

It's, it's, for me, it's really memories.

[15:04]

I think the pain, maybe your mind in a way kind of forgets, just like when you give birth,

[15:10]

you have to forget, otherwise you wouldn't go back.

[15:13]

Um, then nature is probably done this way, but, um, the, the, the feeling of loneliness,

[15:19]

that's something that, uh, that was really striking to me.

[15:22]

And honestly, my husband was a champion, was really helpful.

[15:26]

Uh, but you have this, this old joke, cause I, Oh, you have a headache.

[15:30]

So when you have a headache, not too late to do like, gosh, this is me.

[15:34]

Uh, that was, yeah, I think even, you know, maybe socially or mentally, it's like, okay,

[15:41]

I'm, I'm this woman, like, you know, it was like this big, uh, cliche that was hanging

[15:46]

over my head.

[15:48]

Why did you feel isolated?

[15:51]

You can't share pain, right?

[15:52]

You can say anything you want, but, uh, no matter what anybody can try to do for you,

[15:57]

sharing pain and having somebody to understand what you're going through, uh, it's like,

[16:02]

come on, it's just a headache.

[16:04]

No, it's not just a headache.

[16:05]

I'm like in massive pain.

[16:07]

And you know, pain as a woman, you have PMS and contractions and a lot of things in your

[16:13]

life that are difficult when you're from a very young age, actually you're, you're groomed

[16:18]

to handle pain from 11 or 12 years old.

[16:20]

It's very, very young.

[16:22]

I mean, I'm literally teaching my son now what his classmates are going through at this

[16:26]

age.

[16:27]

It's like, you know, uh, your girlfriends that are going through what I'm going through,

[16:31]

but it's very new to them and it's very frightening and we're not talking about it.

[16:35]

So yeah.

[16:36]

So yeah.

[16:37]

The, the pain, yeah.

[16:38]

Like I said that I was really supported, um, and I had had a home, so I know that if, if

[16:44]

I was not able to feed my children, somebody would, um, but it was, yeah, it was very lonely,

[16:50]

very, very lonely.

[16:51]

And it's also not to be able to talk to somebody who understands it's, if, if you have not

[16:56]

lived through that, it's very difficult to, to understand how much, um, how difficult

[17:01]

that can be.

[17:02]

So what happened with you?

[17:03]

So I moved to Singapore in 2015 when we meet, uh, early 2016, you're already in New Zealand,

[17:09]

still with McKinsey.

[17:10]

What, what was up with you by then?

[17:13]

I had transferred internally at McKinsey and I thought I'd put myself in an internal role.

[17:19]

I visualize it as a parking lot to decide what I do with my life.

[17:23]

Um, I was still, I was still really in search of meaning.

[17:27]

And I remember one of our friends in the halls from Shanghai, when I would change roles,

[17:32]

she'd say, Oh, it's the story of your life.

[17:33]

I'm like, no, I'm just, I'm generally in quest of, you know, of, of my purpose.

[17:38]

Um, and so after that, I worked for, uh, Fonterra for two years, uh, which is large dairy company,

[17:45]

um, which is a cooperative, actually a farmer's, um, and that role taught me how to incubate

[17:52]

ideas.

[17:53]

Cause when we were in China, um, I, um, I met with Dr. Jiang.

[17:58]

I don't know if she, if she knew her, um, you told me about her back then.

[18:03]

I think you shared your masseuse name, which helped me a lot, but I did not meet Dr. Jiang.

[18:08]

She was fabulous too.

[18:10]

Yeah.

[18:11]

And so I met Dr. Jiang and Dr. Jiang really changed my life actually when I was pregnant

[18:15]

and probably hadn't seen her in days because back then I didn't know you yet.

[18:19]

And then we just met, but she basically transformed my health.

[18:23]

Um, so after I had a skiing accident when I was 17 and I lost half of my blood and which

[18:29]

relates to why you were having migraines, we took my half of my blood instantly.

[18:35]

And uh, I shrunk a kidney and I had a skin in the forehead.

[18:38]

So all my face was bruised for a month.

[18:41]

Um, the, like literally like purple, yellow, black, like such as if I had been in a big

[18:47]

fight.

[18:49]

And, um, I was never transfused.

[18:50]

There had been issues with contaminated blood in 2001.

[18:55]

And so they said, we don't have enough blood in the bank.

[18:57]

And she's 17.

[18:58]

We think that she's just gonna make it, she can make it.

[19:02]

And so there's so many things that in my body went out of whack.

[19:07]

Um, and, and you met me when she, at the time she transformed me because she transformed

[19:12]

me when I was pregnant.

[19:15]

And she basically fixed my body just with foods and it was just a miracle.

[19:20]

She pulled off a miracle.

[19:21]

Um, and I had been living, you know, um, with problems for about 12 years, uh, like female

[19:27]

stuff, you know, like, uh, morning balances, weights, um, really long cycles.

[19:33]

My cycles were eight days, 36, 15, I remember, um, so like getting pregnant was a question

[19:41]

of temperature taking, et cetera.

[19:43]

I was, was reasonably fast, but also because like you, you know, 29 for first pregnancy

[19:47]

was on this, on that sort of conservative end of the spectrum.

[19:54]

Um, and so she changed my life.

[19:56]

And so after that, my dream was to study that and to create food as medicine.

[20:02]

But I didn't dare, I think I didn't dare sort of come out of the closet with that idea.

[20:08]

And I thought it wasn't possible, et cetera.

[20:10]

And so before taking the role at Fonterra, I already wanted to do that, but I didn't

[20:14]

know how.

[20:15]

I thought I can do it on sleep, on stress.

[20:17]

You know, I really want to give and, and, and, um, right.

[20:21]

And take these type of doctors that do this and then, and then put her like in an AI so

[20:26]

that you know what to take when for women's health, but it wasn't possible.

[20:31]

And then I went to Fonterra and there I learned I was spending three hours with the CEO every,

[20:36]

uh, every week, two to three.

[20:39]

I was a phenomenal role and I learned how to incubate ideas.

[20:43]

And at that time I helped my sister get over her migraines, uh, and then the, and then

[20:50]

another friend of mine whose father was a neurologist.

[20:53]

And I think that was the trigger because helping her, I thought, Hey, that's really bizarre.

[20:57]

Like her dad is advocating for a lifetime of injections, um, injected in her body and

[21:03]

her brain is saying for it's for 50 years, barely 36.

[21:08]

Even for her migraines.

[21:09]

And I thought that doesn't make any sense.

[21:11]

And so I helped her and within four months, she had no migraines and I thought, hold on,

[21:14]

like why?

[21:16]

Why would he tell her to take medications?

[21:19]

And I knew nothing about migraines back then and tried to investigate it.

[21:24]

I tried to discover you need a genetic predisposition to have migraines.

[21:28]

Just one 40 was lucky that we give migraine.

[21:31]

I started to find out that women had them three to four times more than men.

[21:35]

So 18% of women have migraines.

[21:37]

Whereas boys and girls have 5% chance to have them.

[21:39]

It triples to quadruples for women.

[21:41]

Um, but I also, and yeah, there's close to zero research on it and, um, in our next podcast,

[21:50]

we're going to talk with, um, uh, uh, Grace who, um, works with me and is in her last

[21:56]

year studying, uh, biomedicine and neuroscience, no teaching on that whatsoever as the first

[22:03]

cause of disability worldwide.

[22:05]

And so I really started to dig out the papers.

[22:07]

I found really old papers dating from 1985.

[22:10]

We're going to do a podcast on that way on, um, on foods and things that have been proven

[22:17]

in Western science, um, in the last, you know, four years.

[22:21]

Um, and I tried to dig out proof of what I had done.

[22:25]

Um, and, and I thought, why did her dad, like her dad not tell her?

[22:31]

Um, and I think it's the naive day was great because I thought, Oh, I can do now this missing

[22:36]

AI on migraines.

[22:37]

What a great answer.

[22:39]

I had no idea of the level of complexity I was getting.

[22:41]

I had repaired two out of two and I thought therefore there was three or four reasons

[22:46]

why a woman might have migraines.

[22:49]

And I started to pull together things in Excel and had a list of 30 questions and this is

[22:54]

of about 30 foods.

[22:57]

I remember my first assessment was on WhatsApp.

[23:01]

You remember you sent me this, I think it was 36, 39 questions.

[23:05]

And so this is where we meet again.

[23:08]

We meet on my way back to New Zealand from Europe.

[23:12]

So I'm from Belgium.

[23:13]

And so on my way back, we go through Singapore and we come and visit you at your place.

[23:21]

And your husband came.

[23:25]

My husband came to you and, uh, and we're talking about it and I think you stopped him

[23:30]

and say, hold on.

[23:31]

Your wife has migraines.

[23:32]

It's like, I was like, well, it's like everything you're describing is like, it was so funny

[23:39]

because I, at this, at that stage I was still, you know, like in my family come from a family

[23:43]

of doctors.

[23:44]

So they were like, really, are you really doing this full time?

[23:47]

You need to go back and stuff.

[23:48]

And I'm like, what I want to do does not exist in school books.

[23:51]

I think there's a big problem.

[23:53]

I think a lot of women are led to believe they need to lead a medicated life, but there's

[23:57]

a way.

[23:58]

And so my parents were really pushing, it's like, okay, so you're going back to medical

[24:02]

school.

[24:03]

And I'm like, no, cause I'm not going to learn that.

[24:05]

It doesn't exist.

[24:06]

And so it was really hard.

[24:07]

So when your husband asked for my job, I was like, ah, you know, let me help you explain.

[24:13]

Plus my husband found I was explaining it really bad.

[24:16]

So I'm like, okay, I'm just listening for, you know, sort of reaching the eye for migraines.

[24:22]

And because he's in tech and he studied traditional Chinese medicine himself, he got it instantly.

[24:29]

And it was the first time I met someone who actually got it within a minute.

[24:35]

He's like, yeah, I'm absolutely familiar with what you're saying.

[24:39]

And then he also got the third dimension, which is debilitating.

[24:44]

And so this was a really fruitful conversation.

[24:48]

And I was shying away a bit from him, but he took me out and said, look, no, no, just

[24:52]

let's talk about this.

[24:54]

And he said, Marine has migraines and I'm like, I was in your sofa, I was three meters

[24:59]

from you.

[25:00]

And I said, I would remember, like she would have mentioned, and I didn't know back then

[25:03]

what a migraine was, but I would remember.

[25:06]

I know.

[25:07]

He doesn't know what she does.

[25:08]

And I'm like, there's no way she doesn't.

[25:11]

And then, and he, she, she calls you out and says, Marine.

[25:16]

Can you explain?

[25:17]

Yeah.

[25:18]

Indeed.

[25:19]

Indeed.

[25:20]

And then I remember you sent me on WhatsApp these questions and we went through it and

[25:23]

that was the beginning of a, yeah, of a remission, really.

[25:26]

I mean, it's, it was mind blowing.

[25:28]

Yeah.

[25:29]

Mind blowing.

[25:30]

I remember reading the question, I was like, really, am I telling you this?

[25:33]

It's a question I'm just so out of it, you know, and also, you know, irregular when you're

[25:41]

thinking about, I mean, even being used to Chinese, traditional Chinese medicine, some

[25:46]

of them, you're like, really, am I sharing this with you as my friend too, you know?

[25:51]

It was really strange, but, you know, proof is, it worked and it was definitely the right

[25:56]

questions.

[25:57]

And it was only, what, half of what you're asking today, maybe?

[26:00]

Yeah.

[26:01]

Yeah.

[26:02]

So it was about 36 questions, now I asked 94.

[26:07]

And I remember before helping you out, I had sworn myself in that flight.

[26:12]

I am no longer taking anyone outside of the continent, I'm going to focus the geography.

[26:19]

And then, and I was like, okay, there's no way I can leave Marine in this level of pain.

[26:24]

That's really unkind, ungiving, let me help her out.

[26:28]

And then I stopped, you know, like helping people worldwide, I focused on her new universe.

[26:35]

And yeah, and so 36 questions, I think the reason why I increased them is because there's

[26:41]

so many additional reasons I have fonts and other things.

[26:45]

And dimensions, absolutely.

[26:48]

You see cases and it gives another light into it and you're like, okay, that could trigger

[26:53]

it.

[26:54]

Yeah.

[26:55]

I have the, you know, thanks to these years together and now I hear my friends and, you

[26:59]

know, you can socially meet people for years and then you're like, okay, well, are you

[27:03]

suffering from this?

[27:04]

Well, hold on, let me introduce you to Diane.

[27:07]

And yeah, it's very, it's such a big realization that, you know, even when I, I mean, we'll

[27:15]

get back into that, I'm sure in a minute, but when I had my OB-GYN issues, I was very

[27:23]

surprised about the lack of talk around it and like, well, this is something that touches

[27:27]

everyone that can become pretty catastrophic if you don't take care of it.

[27:32]

Yeah.

[27:33]

It's not necessarily diagnosed on a yearly basis or, you know, checked for and, and it's,

[27:39]

you know, if I didn't have that doctor or I don't know, in some sort of intuition about

[27:43]

getting rid of it, I wouldn't have, you know, I wouldn't have a uterus today, basically.

[27:49]

And so, you know, it's, it's very, it's very strange how, I don't know how you say in English,

[27:57]

you know, you, you won't share such personal things, even amongst women, sometimes it's,

[28:03]

I don't know, I'm not sure men talk about this either, obviously, but I know we treat

[28:08]

women like there's certain things that you, you wouldn't think about sharing with your

[28:12]

best friends.

[28:13]

None.

[28:14]

Where really you should.

[28:15]

And even with your, with your children, like asking your children questions, yeah, we,

[28:22]

we don't as a society, we don't.

[28:24]

Yeah.

[28:25]

It became, I don't know if it became or always has been, but very taboo to speak about.

[28:30]

I mean, it was a lot of the time it was feelings and, but I think health is another taboo as

[28:35]

well out there where I'm speaking about how you're feeling.

[28:41]

And as you become aware of it, I think for me, I'm after close to 15 years in Asia, you

[28:46]

become very aware of, and thanks to the work we did together of the signs and the signals

[28:52]

that your body is saying, like, oh, I'm craving bad quality chocolate and junk food.

[28:57]

What does it mean?

[28:58]

Like, it's not, it's not a natural behavior.

[29:00]

It's not a natural craving.

[29:01]

I should not be craving Nutella.

[29:04]

Like it does not, you know, I'm not made for this.

[29:09]

I love it, but it's not healthy.

[29:11]

It's not natural.

[29:12]

So what is going on with me that I'm craving very, very much this type of food or suddenly

[29:17]

spicy food or that I'm actually looking for only fresh fruits and veggies right now, or

[29:23]

I just want grilled meat.

[29:24]

It's like, how are you, you know, leaving space for this craving, looking at them with

[29:30]

two step backs as well and say, okay, I've seen this before.

[29:34]

I'm probably in a, you know, low blood deficiency.

[29:38]

I might be in, you know, you know, in another situation or maybe my periods are coming.

[29:45]

So I need to get a bit more iron, things like this.

[29:48]

So your body is literally sending signal and say, hey, you need this right now.

[29:53]

Yeah.

[29:54]

You need, I don't know, oranges and lemon.

[29:57]

You need apples and dates, you know, things like this.

[30:00]

So, and it's hard to make the difference between what your body signals that are sending that

[30:05]

are correct and the ones that are like, not like, oh, I want to go to McDonald's.

[30:10]

No, no, not correct.

[30:12]

Yeah, yeah.

[30:13]

But if you want to go to McDonald's every time in the month at the same time, like,

[30:18]

ha, okay, now I have a, you know, a light blinking saying, oh, imbalance, something's

[30:24]

wrong and there's something to fix here because that's not natural.

[30:28]

Yeah, yeah.

[30:29]

So do you want to talk about, like, did we remove foods for you?

[30:32]

Did we add?

[30:33]

Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

[30:34]

We added, we added in yummy food that was very, it was so easy to implement, honestly.

[30:40]

I think the ones that were essential in this list were raspberries, almonds, and goji berries.

[30:48]

So, I mean, in places like Singapore, pretty easy to find.

[30:54]

And we really had easily access to that.

[30:57]

I think we had chamomile tea as well, and I'm still drinking some with my goji berries now.

[31:01]

So it's part of my habit.

[31:04]

And yeah, very easy.

[31:07]

Yeah.

[31:07]

And it was striking to see the effect within just a few weeks.

[31:11]

I think for me, it was six to eight weeks.

[31:13]

Yeah.

[31:15]

And it was really, really striking.

[31:18]

Absolutely.

[31:18]

And there was a lot of underlying.

[31:21]

And if you recall, I had quite a lot of blood tests along the months leading to our meetup.

[31:27]

So I had quite a lot of records of where I was.

[31:31]

And when I saw the doctor two months later, it's like, what happened?

[31:37]

And so I started telling you about what you were doing and what we did together

[31:40]

and the scrutiny around it was like, how can that be?

[31:44]

Like, you almost doubled your blood volume.

[31:46]

And I was like, literally borderline, you know,

[31:50]

needing a transfusion because my blood volume was so low.

[31:53]

And I was at the end of my rope, I was exhausted.

[31:57]

And that's exactly when we met.

[32:00]

And yeah, literally two months later, after we started,

[32:04]

my blood volume was just back to healthy levels and iron and everything.

[32:09]

It's like, what happened?

[32:11]

Like, what did you do?

[32:12]

Like, I just ate raspberry almonds and goji berries.

[32:16]

That's it.

[32:19]

Yeah.

[32:19]

And it's funny how, yeah, your doctor called me.

[32:23]

Yes.

[32:24]

Because he said, what supplements do you use?

[32:26]

And he meant your supplements, what brand, what...

[32:30]

I'm like, oh, just foods, just foods, like seriously.

[32:34]

And so she couldn't believe it because she's like, even with supplements,

[32:37]

she told me, even with supplements, I can't have results like that and I can't do it.

[32:43]

And I love that you mentioned blood volume because it's that accident that I had had

[32:49]

where it dropped and that list of food and that massive empathy while I don't have migraines,

[32:55]

I know exactly what it is like to have these massive cravings where you're out of control.

[33:01]

And in spite, you try to look nice to be in your tight suits and have it all.

[33:09]

You're like, I am courageous.

[33:12]

I'm in a meeting and I'm like, I'm just...

[33:16]

I'm just, yeah, I can intervene also when I'm like binge, you know,

[33:20]

eating after I remember it, you know, or before.

[33:24]

And for me, it was the same, you know, it was like that.

[33:26]

I had this sterility, this IUD, the copper one.

[33:34]

And because I had HPV and so I needed to have it removed.

[33:41]

And then after this, I was like, I don't want to take hormones anymore

[33:45]

because the cancer thing scared me.

[33:47]

And I'm like, okay, let's just stop and I'll do something a bit more natural.

[33:51]

So I went with the copper IUD.

[33:53]

And I mean, I really love my OB, but it didn't let me bleed out for 18 months.

[33:59]

And I didn't know any better.

[34:02]

And similarly, one more thing that we don't share among girlfriend.

[34:06]

Remember, I was using these caps at the time to avoid tampons and stuff like this.

[34:12]

And my friend was like, oh, this is so great.

[34:13]

You put it in the morning and then, you know, by the end of the day,

[34:16]

you remove it and it's great.

[34:18]

I have to change it every hour and a half.

[34:21]

The blood I was losing on a monthly basis was crazy.

[34:24]

I was literally losing almost a year full of blood every month.

[34:28]

And I just did not have anything in my diet or lifestyle

[34:32]

or whatever to just recreate this again.

[34:34]

And it happened for so long.

[34:37]

And at the moment where I removed it, I was actually bleeding out, literally.

[34:43]

So no wonder my blood volume was out.

[34:45]

So not an accident.

[34:47]

Just a simple, I want to be more responsible with my health attitude

[34:51]

and remove the hormones, which, you know, were both very damaging.

[34:56]

Like, let's just stop that.

[34:57]

And I did even worse.

[34:59]

And how would you know?

[35:01]

How would you know what you're losing is not normal?

[35:03]

How would, there's no, very little talk about this outside

[35:08]

and or in, you know, amongst friends.

[35:11]

Yeah, 100%.

[35:13]

And I really want to take the time to pause here and explain to the audience

[35:19]

the migraine pattern that you were having.

[35:23]

This is not, this is one of the many ways in which the body can find balances.

[35:28]

And throughout the podcast, when you talk about different ways,

[35:30]

I want to explain in a case like Marine,

[35:33]

how does the domino effect play out from a lot of bleeding?

[35:37]

The bleeding can come, like for people like Marine, from a copper IUD.

[35:41]

It can also come from just a heavy menstruation,

[35:45]

which has other root causes.

[35:47]

We talk about that.

[35:48]

Why is the body bleeding so much?

[35:51]

Or it can come from blood donation.

[35:54]

I've met people who were, yeah, giving a passylator,

[36:01]

I think, four times a year.

[36:03]

So it adds up quite fast.

[36:06]

And so regardless of the root cause, or like a skiing accident like I had,

[36:10]

regardless of the reason why you're losing blood,

[36:13]

now let's imagine, so the body is four to five liters of blood

[36:20]

and you need a lot of blood to irrigate your brain.

[36:23]

So your brain is only 6% of your weight.

[36:26]

It's 20% of your energy consumption.

[36:28]

And so it requires a lot of blood to perform.

[36:32]

And now if you don't have enough, you can either digest,

[36:37]

in particular, wine, cheese, chocolate in your liver, for example,

[36:41]

or sink, or run, or digest.

[36:45]

But there's not enough blood.

[36:47]

So if you think of factory workers, instead of having 100 factory workers,

[36:51]

you only had 50 factory workers.

[36:54]

And so you were about to be transfused.

[36:56]

Now this is going to cause migraines.

[36:59]

Now, these women in particular,

[37:01]

we respond when you were taking exedrine and stuff like that,

[37:04]

I think, in the time, Esmé?

[37:06]

I was taking ketones, yeah, to keep...

[37:09]

It was really hiding the exhaustion.

[37:12]

I was taking ketones to bring my levels of energy up,

[37:17]

to keep my weight down.

[37:18]

I was not drinking coffee or anything, so I had no caffeine input.

[37:22]

And at a certain age with two children,

[37:24]

and the lifestyle that we had, it was tough.

[37:27]

So I just needed to be held with something.

[37:30]

I just couldn't go on on my own.

[37:32]

And that was really hiding a lot of my symptoms.

[37:35]

Because you take this, and within 30 minutes,

[37:37]

you're just high as a kite,

[37:38]

and you just go and take on the world,

[37:39]

which is what I was doing on a daily basis,

[37:41]

even on the weekend,

[37:42]

because you don't want to be like, you know,

[37:44]

1,000% on the weekend,

[37:46]

and then just be, you know,

[37:47]

off on the floor for your family in the weekend.

[37:50]

So yes, I was really just fighting it all.

[37:52]

Other women, what they do in the Netherlands,

[37:55]

they take triptals,

[37:56]

and triptals will contract the blood vessel

[37:59]

to force the blood back up.

[38:02]

So now let's imagine having a glass of wine,

[38:05]

or I'm eating chocolate or cheese,

[38:07]

my blood will concentrate in my liver in order to detox.

[38:11]

Now, if my brain isn't happy and manifesting that migraine,

[38:16]

because genetically, I have a fire alarm

[38:19]

that's going to fire up message

[38:21]

just to signal that there's a problem.

[38:23]

I take a triptal, the blood is sent back to my brain.

[38:27]

But it's also a bit intoxicated,

[38:29]

that blood is not supposed to be there.

[38:31]

It's not ready.

[38:32]

And so the more I'm going to do that,

[38:34]

the more it's going to be hard for my body

[38:37]

to reproduce my blood effectively.

[38:39]

And so the more that's going to happen,

[38:41]

the more my liver is not able to perform.

[38:45]

So it's going to start to be sluggish.

[38:46]

I'm going to feel a bloating,

[38:48]

numbness in the arms and the legs,

[38:50]

migraines on the temple, on the top of the head.

[38:53]

I'm going to feel my breasts sore.

[38:55]

I'm going to have more PMS, et cetera.

[38:57]

And so over time, as my liver is not fully functioning

[38:59]

because it's not benefiting that blood

[39:02]

as it needs to function properly,

[39:04]

then I'm going to have more intoxication of my liver.

[39:08]

And I'm going to feel more angry inside or outside

[39:12]

to express or repress anger.

[39:14]

Maybe at my children, I'm going to have more migraines,

[39:16]

especially before menstruation.

[39:21]

But then over time,

[39:22]

I'm going to start to develop light sensitivity

[39:24]

because the liver system needs to take care of,

[39:28]

you know, dealing with light, et cetera, et cetera.

[39:30]

And so here you have a case, it spirals down.

[39:34]

And the problem is the medication

[39:37]

will add to the load of toxicity.

[39:39]

Hence the fact that in Western science,

[39:44]

we talk about migraine overuse,

[39:47]

medication overuse of headaches,

[39:49]

MOH, or migraine rebounds.

[39:52]

Just the migraines that result from an overuse of medication,

[39:57]

which happens fast.

[39:58]

You don't need to take that many to be in that category.

[40:02]

And so it does, you know, it brings out new imbalances.

[40:07]

And so I just wanted to illustrate,

[40:09]

yeah, you were lacking blood volume.

[40:14]

And it can be C-sections.

[40:16]

I think you've seen lots of cases

[40:19]

with women in the past few years,

[40:21]

but if you start adding up everything you've been through,

[40:25]

I was donating my blood when I was 18 in France

[40:28]

and then in China.

[40:29]

And then I had to stop in Singapore

[40:31]

because they were not accepting European blood.

[40:35]

And thank God I stopped

[40:37]

because I was already not at capacity.

[40:41]

You had two C-sections

[40:43]

and I mean, I didn't have anything else serious,

[40:45]

but it just adds up.

[40:48]

And so, yeah, it can really shift in a year

[40:51]

and you enter the world of migraines

[40:55]

and you're like, okay, what is this?

[40:57]

It's horrible.

[40:58]

And it's like, okay, maybe I'm just stressed.

[40:59]

Maybe I'm just tired.

[41:00]

And you're like, no, I'm not.

[41:01]

Okay, it's just, it's more than this.

[41:04]

And then you start everything and anything to get rid of it.

[41:07]

And there's so many scams out there.

[41:10]

You go to some chiropractors and things

[41:13]

and I have great ones that I, or a theopath.

[41:16]

But sometimes there's just scammers out there as well.

[41:18]

And you get there, they're like,

[41:19]

oh yeah, you look your spine here.

[41:21]

So we're gonna do this

[41:22]

and have to pay thousands of dollars.

[41:24]

And you're educated woman.

[41:27]

But at some point, the pain talks for you.

[41:30]

And you're like, should I?

[41:31]

Let's just give it a try.

[41:32]

What if this works?

[41:33]

What if this frees me from pain?

[41:35]

What if it could make a difference?

[41:37]

And you're ready to do anything.

[41:40]

Ready to do anything.

[41:41]

So when I met you, I had given up.

[41:44]

I had tried so many things.

[41:45]

I had seen any type of doctors.

[41:50]

Indian, Chinese, you know, foreigners,

[41:53]

Westerners and everything.

[41:55]

And you're like, I don't think anybody gets it.

[41:58]

So yeah, you really came at a time when I was like,

[42:00]

well, I'm just gonna keep my stock of medicine.

[42:04]

When this one doesn't work anymore,

[42:05]

I'll go to the higher level.

[42:07]

And that's how you get to something really damaging.

[42:11]

It's quite early in your life.

[42:12]

It's just so true.

[42:13]

Yeah, yeah.

[42:16]

But yeah, the lack of understanding,

[42:18]

I see it even here and around me on some girlfriends

[42:21]

and I keep sending them to you.

[42:22]

You know, one thing happened is I remember you.

[42:26]

So we go through that and you're doing so much better

[42:28]

and you're just immensely grateful.

[42:32]

And so two things happen usually is,

[42:34]

number one, women are immensely grateful.

[42:36]

Number two, they suddenly have more time.

[42:38]

Because you forecast migraines and it's not coming

[42:41]

and you're suddenly like,

[42:42]

whoop, I have that extra time and extra energy

[42:46]

and plenty of love.

[42:47]

And I remember I put my website together

[42:52]

and I had just finished it.

[42:53]

And I go to bed and I'm thinking,

[42:56]

oh, fudge, and tomorrow I have to go on social media,

[42:59]

which is really for me hard.

[43:00]

Now we're going hard at it

[43:01]

because I think it comes from an absolute place of love.

[43:06]

But I was like, oh gosh, you know,

[43:08]

I have to do this.

[43:09]

And then I wake up and the next day,

[43:12]

I have a hundred women on the website

[43:15]

with like 20 passing the test.

[43:18]

And I had no idea where it came from

[43:20]

because it had come from all over the world.

[43:23]

It wasn't created in Singapore.

[43:25]

Do you want to comment on what you had?

[43:29]

I think I've seen, it was that post on Facebook.

[43:33]

I was in this group of women in Singapore, a French group.

[43:37]

And quite tight.

[43:39]

I mean, you know, when you've lived abroad,

[43:41]

you really see people coming together

[43:44]

and helping each other out.

[43:45]

And people, you would not necessarily do this

[43:47]

in your home country,

[43:49]

but there you really, people really come together.

[43:51]

And the women have a lot of power for that.

[43:53]

They're very, we're very strong with this.

[43:56]

And so I had commented on the,

[43:58]

I don't remember if I did a post or if I commented.

[44:01]

And yeah, the input like from women all over the place,

[44:05]

because these women in Singapore,

[44:07]

they tend to go out, right?

[44:08]

I mean, we all spend a couple of years

[44:09]

and at some point you change countries.

[44:11]

So, and I'm still on that group today,

[44:13]

even though I left Singapore a few years ago.

[44:15]

So anything that goes up there,

[44:17]

I would still see it from Dubai today.

[44:19]

And yeah, it really snowballed

[44:22]

and people were just talking to each other.

[44:23]

And it's such a personal yet shared problem

[44:27]

that we all have and we don't talk about.

[44:29]

And at some point, some, one of them,

[44:31]

you know, one of us is like,

[44:32]

okay, I want to just say something.

[44:35]

And then people are like,

[44:36]

yes, me too, me too, me too from everywhere.

[44:38]

And it poured in, but you know,

[44:40]

I had the exact same effect in my own family.

[44:43]

I started talking about it

[44:44]

because you're so liberated

[44:46]

and I just wanted to scream, I'm free.

[44:50]

I'm healthy again.

[44:51]

Like I don't have to,

[44:53]

I'm not in pain and I'm not frightened anymore.

[44:57]

You know, you talk about the solitude and the pain,

[45:00]

the fear that you have that maybe tomorrow you're not going to be able to do this.

[45:05]

Which other, you know, Parkinson's have the same thing and a lot of other diseases have.

[45:10]

But for something that looks so simple as a migraine, which people call wrongfully headaches,

[45:18]

and you're like, well, actually, maybe tomorrow I'm not going to be able to do this. So I always

[45:21]

also had this sense of urgency to do things all the time right now, because I don't know if I'm

[45:26]

going to be able to do that tomorrow. I might just not be capable to get out of my bed.

[45:30]

And now it's more relaxed. But even in my own family, I remember telling my grandma,

[45:37]

it's like, oh, yeah, I had migraines when I was young. Like what? New slash?

[45:42]

Yeah, I was not on my medical history, grandma. Yeah. And yeah, and my dad, like, yeah,

[45:47]

I remember your grandma. She was in a room and and in a lot of pain. And I had no idea.

[45:52]

No idea. Yeah, it's it's it has a bit of a stigma. I have seen my family, my grandmother

[45:59]

at the end too. And it took me to do this to realize what people meant when we were saying

[46:05]

grandma is having a nap. You know, with not poorly intended, but thinking she's just, you know,

[46:12]

having a nice roll. They're not keen to prepare a Christmas dinner or contribute. But no,

[46:19]

what's that level of pain? Yeah. And I also remember vividly your husband,

[46:27]

he was starting to really he was observing you with a distance. And I have since then

[46:32]

connected with a lot of husbands who observes the movie because they see the movie. They see

[46:38]

the emotion is like, OK, hold on. She's medicating now every day and she's never leaving house

[46:45]

without her medication. So it's part of her purse, her phone and her medication

[46:52]

anywhere she goes. And so he was really concerned about that, because and I see

[46:57]

other husbands in particular, they see the pain, but they see, oh, my God, it's actually going

[47:03]

worse. It's not improving. Hiding them, because then you're ashamed and you're like, you don't

[47:08]

want to get caught. And so you're hiding the fact that you're taking. So I had this, you know,

[47:13]

another tablet, like that thing, and I was hiding it somewhere else so he wouldn't see that I would

[47:18]

take from the main one, but I would take from the backup one that he was not seeing and like

[47:22]

throwing it in the garbage outside the home so that the nanny wouldn't find it in our trash.

[47:27]

And like, you're really a junkie. And it's it was nothing. It was Neurofen and hydroprofen.

[47:34]

I didn't go very high. But then you take the 200 and then you move to the 400 and then you take

[47:39]

two. And it's just it escalates like this. And you don't see it because you're just so afraid.

[47:45]

You're so afraid of the pain and you don't want to cut off yourself from your family and from,

[47:51]

you know, anything social or your life with your spouse or anything. But at some point,

[47:58]

so you just have to hide to make sure that you can hold it, you can keep it together. And yeah,

[48:06]

I really, you know, and when I think about it and I understand he was worried. I could not

[48:11]

understand when he brought it to me, though, because for me, he could not understand the pain.

[48:15]

And so he didn't have much to say about how I was managing it, especially because I had done

[48:20]

so much to fix it and nothing was working. Literally anything around my head, I think my jaw,

[48:27]

my eyes, my ears, my spine, everything, everything. And then you start talking, looking about,

[48:34]

you know, your gut and your and your back and, you know, your feet like, OK, maybe I don't know,

[48:40]

something is unbalanced and it's causing tension and it's like creating this.

[48:44]

Yeah. And everything is chemical. And that's the thing is people will tell me I'm seeing an

[48:49]

acupuncturist and I'm like, it's great. And I do encourage and recommend them, you know,

[48:54]

and on heart. If you have half of your blood volume, nothing physical can change that.

[49:01]

Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes I find it's misinterpreted for iron deficiency, for anemia.

[49:08]

And they would say, oh, yeah, right. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, sometimes it's a lot more than I need.

[49:11]

I learned the difference with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's not the same.

[49:16]

It's not the same. It's a proxy, but it's not. Yeah. A woman will lose 23 to 28 litres of

[49:22]

menstruation in her ears and not all menstruation is blood, but it's a large component. So it's a

[49:29]

huge amount that a woman needs to constantly reproduce.

[49:33]

Absolutely. Absolutely. And especially as we evolve into lifestyle,

[49:38]

when we eat less meat and we have, you know, and no more also milk, which I think is healthy,

[49:43]

right? In many ways, but also it's finding, you know, sources to still find these nutrients

[49:51]

somewhere. Also being able to absorb them because one of the big learnings as well on our journey

[49:56]

was to learn that you can load yourself with this, but if you don't have the other routine

[50:00]

to fix it, it's just going to go out and you're just going to keep on filling a bucket that's,

[50:06]

you know, five holes into it. And so it's plucking the holes first and then focusing

[50:12]

on bringing the right nutrients. So, you know, I think, you know, for me, this awareness was

[50:17]

so precious. And the foods I find, I rarely talk about foods that are sad because it's all of the

[50:22]

foods in the supermarket really. And it's going to differ so much woman by woman, right? Because

[50:28]

some interact with medications, some are not in their binders, some... We also have, for example,

[50:34]

raspberries, we have other ramifications. For example, someone who is close to perimenopause,

[50:41]

raspberries on their own is not going to suit them because it's too warm in nature. And so

[50:44]

eats a lot of yin to make evening migraines worse. And so there's lots of foods that are

[50:50]

end reliever, end triggers at the same time. And so it depends on everyone's imbalances. And so

[50:58]

by now it's 94 questions, it's also 150 foods, it's also 1,500 medications and their interactions

[51:05]

with groups to make sure that we respect the integrity of medication. Because while we were

[51:10]

working together, we were still allowed medication, right? Right. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's like,

[51:16]

because it's really a crutch, right? So it's very scary to say, I can't do that anymore.

[51:22]

And you don't want to go into a relationship where I'm not a hide from you that I've taken one or

[51:28]

not. And for you, it's also very important to know what's going on and what's interacting

[51:34]

with what and what are the levels of pain that I'm expecting or fear, fearing. And so, yeah,

[51:40]

so I think this relationship of trust was also very important. And feeling that you got it,

[51:46]

that you had somebody who had your back, that was like,

[51:50]

they see me emotional, just talking about it. So yeah, it's, yeah, it's really something. It's,

[51:57]

and you know, I've, I was seeing functional doctors and things and, you know, have a holistic

[52:03]

view of what, what happens. I think one of the image that you have that, that speaks the most

[52:09]

to me is that when you have this alarm going, taking a medication will just like smash the

[52:14]

alarm, but it's just not going to stop the fire. And so now it's really all about where is the

[52:19]

fire? What do I need to know? It's like, when your bath is overflowing, you stop the tap,

[52:26]

don't bring in more towels. And it's a bit like that. It's really that. So yeah, that's,

[52:31]

that's still an image that sticks in my mind and that I use when I, when I meet people.

[52:37]

And I tend to talk about it a lot. And I mean, I mean, I'm bringing you people all the time.

[52:42]

Um, but also because, um, I think the awareness is really a big part of it. And even sometimes

[52:48]

stranger, I literally had the lunch with a woman I, I met in line of work and she came to Dubai

[52:54]

and say, shall we have lunch? Sure. And within 40 minutes, we're talking about health and migraines

[52:59]

and, and how amazing is, you know, uh, nectar health and what you're doing. So for me, it's,

[53:05]

it's almost, I'm on, I'm on a mission as well to help more women, uh, to not fall into the traps

[53:10]

that I fell in. And, um, yeah, to, to, I think collectively, you know, the, the approach itself.

[53:17]

And it's funny because, you know, we keep, um, trying to prove, uh, what has been there.

[53:24]

Let food be your medicine. I mean, how old is this foot literally, uh, and traditional Chinese

[53:30]

medicine and what you've done to, to make it accessible to the world with AI. For me,

[53:36]

it's mind blowing. It's like, should be funded by governments.

[53:42]

I'm honestly, I'm thinking about it with Singapore because it's so costly society,

[53:46]

but, you know, I think governments would be open, but I think it's so costly. Um,

[53:52]

and so I, uh, yeah, I think that's something I would love a couple of years.

[53:58]

Um, as, as a few words of closing, um, what advice would you have for women who suffer from

[54:05]

migraines, women, men, and children? Yeah, I'm happy you, you mentioned, uh,

[54:12]

men and children because whereas, you know, we're, you know, the biggest bulk, uh, I see it in

[54:16]

children too, and that they can be really, really tough, obviously for them to experience things so

[54:21]

young, uh, for parents who don't know how to handle it. Honestly, the, the number one advice

[54:26]

that I have is to talk about it. Um, and maybe the person, the first person you're talking to

[54:32]

is not going to understand, but hopefully if that person knows the person that I know,

[54:36]

then maybe you will get referred to a better, to you, uh, and that will really make such a

[54:42]

difference. Um, so yeah, for me, it's really awareness and talking about it and, uh, about

[54:48]

migraines, uh, and any other things. I had a couple of other things that I, I, I keep talking

[54:53]

to about with women. I was on a trek in Sri Lanka two months ago, and I talked to about this to the

[54:58]

guide. Uh, she's a woman, she's working, you know, in this village in Sri Lanka. And I'm like,

[55:03]

well, you know, this, this, and that's like, yeah, actually I've seen this. You're right.

[55:07]

Like, yeah, I know. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I think the most frustrating part is not to be able to,

[55:14]

to help on the wider scale and go faster. And, uh, because the urgency when you're in pain is real

[55:22]

and, you know, it's, uh, I can feel how restless you are sometimes because you want to go faster.

[55:28]

Yeah. And, uh, and yeah, I think once you stop helping people and changing lives this way,

[55:35]

I mean, I love your job. The app is in the app store and it's in the Google play in a couple

[55:43]

of days. So amazing. We're ready to, uh, we're ready to, um, you know, bring this to the world,

[55:50]

bring to, you know, let mothers being mothers and leaders be leaders and children and be children.

[55:56]

Yeah. And then hiding, not hiding, right. It's really a, and it's a complex that a lot of women

[56:01]

have from the start is just hiding the pain away and the exhaustion and everything. And you don't

[56:08]

have to, because you don't have to be exhausted. You don't have to be in pain. Um, it's not

[56:14]

something we have to carry. It can be, you know, you can go through life differently.

[56:19]

So a lot of, and we all, I think you're being told explicitly to accept, right. I think at some

[56:28]

point the doctor told you, yeah, it's also, yeah. It's like, well, you know, kind of like you're a

[56:33]

woman come to the territory. It's awful. Yeah. It's awful. But, uh, yeah, it's like you said,

[56:40]

I mean, you, you know, the example you had from your friend back in Belgium, whose dad was in

[56:45]

Europe, uh, you know, and you're like, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. It's funny. Like I had

[56:52]

a friend yesterday and she was saying, um, that she was told she had migraines because she's a

[56:59]

woman. It's like, but she's like, but we had, I'm 22 and I've had 21 years without migraines and

[57:05]

one year without, but yeah, but moving forward, it's only going to be like that. So you have to

[57:09]

accept, move forward. And here's the medication. By the way, it's a thousand dollars per month.

[57:15]

Um, you know, and that's, that's the worst award. And she was like, that doesn't make any sense.

[57:21]

But if, if there's so many cookie-cutter protocols out there, right. So you start with that and then

[57:26]

we'll see. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you're bleeding out with a copper IUD. Well, let's just give it six

[57:32]

months. Really? Yeah. No, let's wait a little bit. Another six months. Sure. And a year later,

[57:40]

you're, you know, a borderline needed for transfusion. Like, well, thank you. Yeah. But

[57:46]

then you can't measure it as nothing. Yeah. Yeah. So now we're a long way to go, but I'm so glad

[57:53]

you're leading the way. It's, uh, it's, um, it's great to know that, you know, women have someone

[57:57]

in their corner who gets it. You've lived it firsthand with your sister, with friends first,

[58:03]

and then the more strangers, you know, we start as strangers and become much more. Yeah. And you

[58:09]

meet and you help. That's very true. The bond I have with these women is quite extraordinary.

[58:16]

Yeah. Imagine if we gather someone, all of them at some point. Yeah. Yeah.

[58:20]

Yeah. I love it. I think we should just, we do that, you know, like a migraine alum club,

[58:28]

you know, a physical, where you can meet, you know, people who used to suffer and no longer

[58:32]

suffer. And she, I know there'll be a lot of tears and hugs. Yeah, exactly. And she's actually,

[58:37]

and laughs and love weekend. Well, thank you so much for your time. Um, you know,

[58:45]

part of the journey, it's been an incredible journey and I've been really honored and

[58:51]

I don't know, brought to joy to do, um, a part of that walk with you. It's been wonderful.

[58:57]

Well, I'm very, I'm very humbled and very blessed that, you know, you literally came at the right

[59:02]

place at the right time back in 2020. And, uh, I'm very, uh, very humbled to do, you know,

[59:08]

anything I can to help, uh, spread the word and, um, and, and also this message of, uh,

[59:15]

of hope, uh, for women that, you know, it does not have to stay in these cycles and, um, and we

[59:22]

can, we can do better. We have to do better for ourselves first. Uh, and so, yeah, let's put

[59:27]

ourselves first. So thank you for doing that. Thank you, Marine. Bye-bye. My pleasure. See you soon.

[59:39]

Sharing is caring. So share this podcast with your loved ones or whomever it may help.

[59:46]

Follow us on social media to stay updated on our content. And if you yourself suffer from migraines,

[59:53]

then visit our website, uh, miningtownhouse.com in order to take our free tests and be assessed

[59:58]

on your migraines. All the best. Stay well, stay healthy, and stay happy. Yours, Diane.

Originally published August 2023

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