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Can love survive migraine?
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When pain changes how you show up, how do you believe you're still lovable?
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Migraine Heroes is a podcast for chronic migraine sufferers who've seen countless doctors with
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Learn how to reduce your migraine attacks without endless medications or constant sacrifices.
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Hello, I'm Diane Ducarme.
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I've helped over 500 people break free from migraine, even after suffering for up to 60 years.
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My mission in life?
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To bring this relief to a million people using a unique blend of Eastern medicine and Western science.
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In this episode, you will learn what research reveals about how migraine reshapes love from canceled
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dates to lost intimacy, and how to gently reclaim your power within it.
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How to rebuild connection when migraine has left cracks in your relationship, and when
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you're too tired to explain or too hurt to reach out.
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And five deeply human ways to express love, even on your toughest days, so that illness
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no longer means isolation, but a deeper kind of closeness.
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I just returned from Port Douglas in Australia, literally two days ago,
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and the last time I was there was in 1999.
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And back then, I had just lost my boyfriend in a car accident.
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And Australia back then had been a place of evasion after that profoundly difficult loss.
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And at the time, I could not spend more than two minutes without thinking about him.
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And it was heartbroken that I left for Australia for the first time.
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It was my first time seeing that place again after so many years.
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And I stood there in the jungle, and I noticed how my thoughts always meandered back to him.
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My mind had associated deep down the Australian jungle with that beautiful love.
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At the time, I was devastated, and how being far from home had given me space to slowly
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Back then, I was lost in tears. Our mothers
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thought we may end up together.
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From the moment he passed away, I had to get rid of that thought.
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Life had to go on, and there would be someone else.
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That was my rational self.
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The other one, for 98% of the time, would just cry.
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And so I took a moment to contemplate my walk on the road, and how happy I am with my husband
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That trip gave me a profound sense of gratitude. My husband is the man who stands behind me to support me in supporting you, all of you. And today,
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I want to dedicate this episode to love and to relationships when you live with migraine
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This episode is for you.
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If you've watched someone you love walk away, not because they didn't care, but because
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they could not understand.
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If you're in a relationship where guilt has taken up more space than laughter. If you've
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ever whispered, not tonight, I have a migraine, and meant it with both pain and heartbreak.
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If you're single and secretly terrified that no one will want you once they know the truth.
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If you've grieved a love that couldn't survive the weight of your illness.
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If you've stayed silent to avoid disappointing someone you adore.
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If you've questioned whether your needs are too much, or your flare-ups too frequent.
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If you fake being okay to the world, but break the moment you see their face.
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If you've felt unworthy of touch, of intimacy, of being wanted, because your body hurts just
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If you've lost yourself inside the pain, and wonder if anyone will ever truly see you again.
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If you've found a partner who tries, and you're scared they will one day stop trying.
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If you're holding on to hope that love and migraine can live in the same house.
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Or if you're already in that kind of love, and you're learning how to make it last.
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So let me ask that initial question again, and expand on it.
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When pain changes, how I show up?
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How do I believe I'm still lovable?
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When I'm too exhausted to give, can my partner still feel my love?
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When every plan gets cancelled, and every kiss comes with guilt, how do I stay connected?
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When I can fake to the world that I'm okay, but my loved one instantly knows,
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how do I show up then?
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When my body hurts, can my heart still feel reachable?
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If I cancel again, will they stop inviting me altogether?
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Can someone still fall in love with me, if I'm not always at my best?
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When my silence isn't distance, but pain, how do I explain that?
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If I push someone away to protect them from my pain, will they come back?
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Will I ever feel light enough to fall in love again?
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Those questions are real, they are reality, and I want to acknowledge them
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with a little bit of data, just a little bit, to show you that you're not alone.
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In 2019, there was a study led by Buse and Kelis,
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and researchers explored how migraine affects more than just the brain.
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It deeply impacts romantic and family relationships,
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and among the 13,000 plus participants, many reported that their headaches
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caused strained miscommunication and emotional distance with their partnerships.
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For those living with a partner, migraine was often linked to relational tension
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and feelings of being misunderstood or underreported.
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Perhaps most striking, over 3% of couples reporting delaying
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or entirely avoiding having children due to the unpredictability and severity of migraine,
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with the rate even higher among those with chronic migraine.
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And these findings echo what so many of us have felt, but have never validated in research.
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Migraine doesn't just affect your health, it touches your love life,
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your future plans, and your sense of connection.
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Now what I want to do, is I want to take the framework of the five love languages.
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It's a simple but powerful framework that has been created by a counsellor called Gary Chapman,
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and the idea is this. People give and receive love in different ways,
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through five means, five different languages.
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Words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, physical touch, and receiving gifts.
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But what happens when migraine enters the room?
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He doesn't talk about that, and that's where I would like to deep dive today.
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Because when your body feels like the enemy,
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how do you give and receive love, may completely shift.
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So today, we're going to explore each love language, and how to navigate them with tenderness,
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flexibility, and care, when you live with chronic pain.
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So the first language of love is words of affirmation.
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And when your body feels limited, your words can still carry immense love.
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And so here are my three topics.
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You can have migraine-time thank-you note.
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So leaving sticky notes or text after an episode,
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thanking your partner for something they did while you were down.
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For example, you could say, thank you for staying, that meant the world.
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Or my favourite way is you go on Pinterest, and you type a hobby of your partner,
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and then you let them come up with little cards and jokes and drawings,
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and those are just exquisite.
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A second one can be voice memo love drops,
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like recording a few 10 to 20 second voice notes when you're feeling okay.
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Simple affirmations like, I'm so grateful for you, or you're my anchor, or things like that.
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And your partner can play them on tough days,
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especially when those days can last for quite a couple.
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A third idea is a daily one-line love text,
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sending one loving sentence each day.
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No pressure, just connection, like thinking of your love,
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or something like, you make everything feel safer.
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So that's really using your words to affirm your love.
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A second way to express love in terms of language is quality time.
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You don't need full dates.
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Presence can be powerful, even in stillness.
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So the first idea is connection slots, like a low-pressure moment.
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If you can choose regular 30-minute slots, it can be each week, or each month,
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or at a specific time of the day, when you tend to feel well enough to connect.
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And then you can choose an activity in that time.
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So really defining the time ahead of time.
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The second idea is to have a migraine-friendly environment.
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A personal routine, a dual routine, that would be untriggering.
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So for example, if you're sensitive to smell or sound, then
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there are a lot of places that will not work for you.
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So trying to find a routine place and activity
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where you feel good most of the time, and so places that don't trigger.
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The third idea is how to spend silence time together,
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inviting them to sit beside you in silence.
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Just spooning on a bed to rest,
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just hand-holding or sharing the same space very intentionally.
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I have a family of spooners, trust me,
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especially my boys, my son, and my husband.
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The third one is acts of service.
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And sometimes you can't do much, but love can still show up in service.
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Number one, you can organize with love. On better days,
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you can pre-pack your partner's lunch, refill their supplements, prep
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their favorite tea.
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I personally always fill up a bottle of water on my husband's desk.
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It's a very small act of love,
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but then as he drinks throughout the day, he thinks of me.
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The second are migraine recovery gifts,
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making a little post-migraine ritual for them.
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Now that I'm upright, I want to celebrate you being my rock.
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And even a small coffee or a shared walk can count.
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And then ask what you need.
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On good days, just ask,
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what is something I can do this week that would make you feel more cared for?
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My husband asks me and the children often that question,
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and after 20 years, it still takes me by surprise,
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always is welcome.
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And it's like these small tasks that for him might feel small,
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and for me in the moment might feel clumbless or just too much on that day.
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It's really nice to just have a hand at that moment.
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The fourth language of love is physical touch.
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And pain changes touch, but it doesn't have to erase it.
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So you can maybe create a touch menu.
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On good days, you can tell your partner the kind of touch that feels safe.
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And then you can have a migraine-safe touch signal,
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using a color-coded sign or hand sign for the part that are more difficult or more painful.
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And then you can also think about something
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that you'll see a lot in rom-coms, is non-touch intimacy.
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On days when touch is too much,
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soft eye contact, breath, sinking breath, smell, kindness,
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just neck, gentle touching, sitting knee-to-knee,
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staying just physically connected without pressure.
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I know this one may sound weird,
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but really, if you watch attentively a beautiful love movie,
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you will see those moments.
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And when you think back at your love life, you will feel those moments too.
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The last one is receiving or giving gifts.
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Gifts can be very small gestures to just say,
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I see you, I thank you.
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You can have love tokens on migraine days,
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having a tiny box of sample gifts ready,
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a saved photo, a favorite snack,
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to hand to your partner when your words or energy are gone.
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My husband loves peaches as a sweet, you know,
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the small peaches, like sort of two or three cutted peaches.
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And so while I'm, of course, not a fan of him eating sweets,
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I like to buy them from time to time.
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And he loved receiving them from me.
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It's a very, very small gesture.
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Another thing that you can do is memory gifts,
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framing a city photo of you
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and creating a shared journal to document moments of strength and love.
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Behind my bed, we have this little album,
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and these are all pictures just of the two of us,
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just selfies we've taken throughout time.
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And I like, it's just there.
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It doesn't mean we watch it too often,
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but by just seeing it,
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just all of these beautiful shared memories and moments of beauty.
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And then digital gifts,
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creating a playlist, for example, or a text poem.
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And sometimes, you know, LGBT
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can be very, very useful.
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Or a quote that reminds you of them,
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that can happen even if you're stuck in bed.
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Now, I want to insist,
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there are no words I could ever say
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that would make up for the losses you've carried,
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the anniversaries spent in bed,
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the holidays quietly wound,
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the touches that felt like too much,
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the love you lost,
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or the relationships that never had a chance to begin
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because of your migraine.
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Only you know that pain,
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and only you have to carry that burden.
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And I want to honor it.
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I want to make the world stop for a second,
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and acknowledge that grief.
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Let the heartbeats of everything around you pause just for a moment,
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and let those tears come out,
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the ones you've been holding back,
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the ones you've never felt allowed to cry.
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What I want to say,
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what I need you to hear, is
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it doesn't have to stay this way.
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Youth, as someone said,
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is that moment when your dreams exceed your memories.
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And what I want for you is just that.
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I want your migraine dreams,
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your hopes for love,
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to exceed the memories of your pain and of your loneliness.
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Whenever you are in your love story,
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I want the rest to be more beautiful than you imagined,
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because you deserve that.
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Every day I meet people around the world,
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and together we make that possible.
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one relationship at a time.
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It's not a huge deal in the scheme of things
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and where it goes today,
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but it makes a hell of a difference for that person,
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when I do the 90 minutes call
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after someone takes the migraine assessment,
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they show up together,
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they show up with their partner,
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and it moves me every single time.
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I love to see it there.
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Also okay to come alone, of course,
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but it's nice to come together,
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even with a parent.
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We're not perfect,
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we've been showing up,
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starting to rock at this,
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and rock at bringing love again.
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So come love more,
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every small step you take
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moves you closer to freedom.
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you are resilient,
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and you are no longer alone.
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Migraine Hero. MigraineHero.com
