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Ever felt like the world is spinning, even when you're just standing still?
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That dizzy, off-balance feeling could be more than just dizziness.
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It could be your migraine talking.
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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 why dizziness and migraine are often connected.
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How your brain chemistry, circulation, and sensory processing all play a role in that
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spinning sensation.
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And how Eastern medicine helps you ground your energy to stop that dizzy storm before
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Stay with me till the end, because the way the East explains dizziness will completely
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change how you think about your own body's balance.
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So let's start with what the science says.
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When most people think of migraine, they think of pain.
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But dizziness, what neurologists call migraine-associated vertigo or vestibular migraine, can occur even
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without headache pain.
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According to a 2022 analysis in Frontiers in Neurology, nearly half of all migraine
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sufferers report dizziness or imbalance at some point in their lives.
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That means 1 in 2 migraine patients may experience this unsettling, spinning, or swaying sensation.
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So what's really happening inside of your body?
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During a migraine episode, your brain's blood vessels dilate and constrict erratically,
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disrupting blood flow to areas that control balance, particularly the vestibular nuclei
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in the brainstem and cerebellum, which fine-tune spatial orientation and coordination.
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Research published in the Journal of Neurology found that patients with vestibular migraine
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show hyperactivity in brainstem and cerebral regions that regulate posture and eye movement.
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So this means that from a Western perspective, dizziness isn't in your head metaphorically.
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It's a neurological reality rooted in overexcited sensory circuits.
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A 2016 review by Dr. Michael Van Breven in the Handbook of Clinical Neurology described
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vestibular migraine as a multi-sensory mismatch.
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Your eyes, inner ear, and body send conflicting messages about where you are in space.
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Your brain can't reconcile the data, and you feel like the world is tilting, floating,
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And in serotonin, the same neurotransmitter heavily involved in migraine, and things get
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even more tangled.
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A 2020 paper in Cephalalgia highlighted how serotonin fluctuations can alter blood flow
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to the inner ear and disturb the eye and channel function, amplifying balance problems.
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In my Studies Deepen the Story, Dr. Russo and colleagues, writing in Neurology in 2014,
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found that migraine patients with dizziness showed abdominal thalamic activity, which
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affects how the brain filters sensory input.
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So the dizziness isn't random.
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It's part of the same neural storm that drives migraine pain, light sensitivity, and nausea.
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Unfortunately, standard migraine drugs often target pain pathways, not balance circuits,
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leaving many patients feeling better, but still unsteady.
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Western medicine is getting closer to connecting these dots, but it often treats the pain and
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the dizziness as separate problems.
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That's where Eastern medicine offers something refreshingly holistic.
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In traditional Chinese medicine, dizziness isn't just about your head, it's about
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your qi, energy not anchoring properly.
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If you think of your vagus nerve as a tree, dizziness is like your leaves are drying up,
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as if autumn is inside of your body.
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You can spray those leaves with all sorts of fertilizers, medications, supplements,
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temporary fixes, but they won't truly green again until you nourish the roots.
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And where are these roots?
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In your gut, in your digestive tract.
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Is that area dry, sluggish, or inflamed?
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Do you experience constipation alongside your dizziness?
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That's not a coincidence.
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That's the root of the imbalance.
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So in the East, dizziness isn't treated by suppressing it.
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It's treated by grounding it.
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Both traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda teach that dizziness isn't a disease.
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It's a sign of your roots having lifted.
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Just like a tree that sways wildly in the wind and loses its leaves because the soil
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has dried up, your energy rises to the head when your foundation, digestion, hydration,
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and rest weakens below.
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This is deeply important.
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Because your intelligent, sensitive brain isn't betraying you.
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It's calling for your attention.
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It's asking for nourishment, rhythm, rest, longevity.
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It's asking to be understood.
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No one should ever tell you to dismiss these signals, to silence them with medication alone,
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or to believe it's just in your head.
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Your brain is not broken, it's communicating.
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Each dizzy spell, each wave of discomfort is your body saying, please help me.
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Please help me help you.
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When you start listening instead of fighting, you turn frustration into self-advocacy and
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pain into partnership.
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You begin to put your brilliant mind at the service of your healing, using curiosity instead
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of fear and compassion instead of blame.
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Now, that's how healing begins, not by overriding your body's messages, but by decoding them.
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By working with your brain, not against it, you start to restore the clarity and steadiness
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that have been waiting underneath the noise.
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So let me share a quick story.
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When I met Olivia, she was dizzy.
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When I say dizzy, I mean dizzy every single day.
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On a scale of 1 to 10, she was at 8 every single day.
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And she had seen numerous neurologists, done MRI and CT scans, and had very conflicting
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conversations with them.
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Because she would say, I feel dizzy.
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And the neurologist would reply, but you are healthy.
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And she would reply, but I feel dizzy.
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And the professional would reply, but you're healthy, there's no problem with your brain.
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And so she would go insane.
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And so I met her parents and her parents really begged me for help, because they were tired
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of their daughter complaining about her dizziness so much.
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And I thought, you know, even as parents, this surprised me a little bit, because, oh
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my God, of course, she would be infuriated.
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And of course, she would be advocating for herself.
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And so anyway, we worked together, and we'd been tracking her progress.
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And she was really getting way better, very fast at first.
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And so she went from 8 out of 10 to 1 out of 10.
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And she just couldn't seem to cross that last threshold.
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So I picked up the phone, and I met with her on Zoom, and I said, something's missing.
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You shouldn't be done by now.
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Like it had been three months, four months, and I just could see her stalled at that 1
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She'd been taking daily medication since her childhood. One that was silently feeding
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One that had dizziness as a side effect.
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And she'd never thought of mentioning it when we first met, because for her, it had become
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a vitamin, like something that she'd take mindlessly every day.
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So we corrected the imbalance.
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She went back to the doctor, stopped that medication together with him.
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And then we were able to finish the work.
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And so here's the unexpected insight.
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In the East, dizziness isn't treated only when it happens.
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It's prevented long before it first spins.
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Remember, in the West, you're going to pay your doctor while you're sick.
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So in the East, you pay them as long as you're healthy.
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So the moment you had your first migraine, or a dizzy spell, or a series of migraines, or a series
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of dizzy spells, your doctor's paycheck would have stopped, until they restored that balance
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And just last week, I welcomed a woman, and that woman told me that her neurologist predicted
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that her current weekly migraine attacks would soon become daily dizziness.
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And in a way, that man was right.
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This is the next part that's going to unfold as she goes through perimenopause and menopause,
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until, or unless, she actually fixes the root cause.
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Now, what can you do at home if you're experiencing dizziness?
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Because while this condition is delicate to treat, because it comes interdependent of other
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conditions, it is vital that it doesn't get aggravated further.
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That's with the anticipation of further dizziness.
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So here's what to avoid in your home today, if you have dizziness.
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Number one, ginger.
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Yes, it's widely recommended in migraine diets and helps some people, but not you.
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Number two, garlic.
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Number three, spicy foods.
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Just refuse that peptide.
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It's just deserving you. And
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number four, dry nuts.
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Nuts that haven't been soaked overnight or rehydrated properly.
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And the reason for that is that these all generate internal heat and dryness, which
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can worsen that unencouraged floating feeling.
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So instead, focus on grounding foods, warm soups, gentle stews, and hydration with a
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touch of mineral-rich salt.
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Because when your digestion hums, your brain calms.
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When your roots are fed, your leaves, your senses, your balance, your clarity come alive
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And remember, every small step you take moves you closer to freedom.
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You are powerful, you are resilient, and you are no longer alone.
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Keep rising, Migraine Hero.
