Migraine Heroes
Ep. 148: Migraines vs. Headaches: Root Causes, Hormones & Healing with Diane Ducarme
Migraine TypesHormonesGut-BrainAnxietyGut HealthTriggersMind Body
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Ep. 148: Migraines vs. Headaches: Root Causes, Hormones & Healing with Diane Ducarme

33 min

00:00
-33:00

Migraines aren’t “just bad headaches.” They’re full-body experiences that can bring nausea, vomiting, visual disturbances, and days of pain. In this episode of the She Talks Health Podcast, host Sophie Shepherd interviews Diane Ducarme — migraine expert, founder of the Migraine Heroes app, and host of the Migraine Heroes podcast.

Together, they unpack the differences between migraines and headaches, explore the root causes behind recurring migraines, and share practical tips for relief. Diane also reveals how liver health, hormonal balance, stress resilience, and the gut-brain connection all play critical roles in migraine management.

You’ll learn:

  • Why migraines are more than just head pain
  • How stress, trauma, and perimenopause can worsen symptoms
  • The importance of liver and kidney health in both Eastern and Western medicine approaches
  • Practical strategies for tracking your symptoms and finding personalized solutions
  • How the Migraine Heroes app can help you understand and manage your unique migraine patterns

✨ Whether you suffer from migraines or support someone who does, this episode will give you tools, perspective, and hope.

Transcript

[00:00]

Welcome to the She Talks Health Podcast, dedicated to guiding and supporting women on their journey

[00:11]

to optimal thyroid health.

[00:13]

I'm Sophie Shepard, your host and mind-body wellness coach, here to bring you inspiring

[00:17]

stories of resilience, education, and transformation.

[00:21]

Do you want to stop walking through life feeling like a zombie and start being present?

[00:27]

Are you sick of struggling with depression, constipation, hair loss, crippling fatigue,

[00:32]

weight gain, cold intolerance, and irregular periods?

[00:35]

Do you wish that you had a direct pathway to taking back your mental and physical well-being?

[00:39]

Well, my friend, you are in the right place.

[00:43]

As a functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner, I help women transform their thyroid health

[00:48]

through physical, mental, and emotional healing.

[00:52]

I am so excited to be your guide on this health adventure.

[00:55]

Let's embark together on a path that leads to release, joy, empowerment, and normalcy

[01:00]

that you've been seeking.

[01:01]

Get ready to feel the strength of shared experiences and the power of possibility.

[01:06]

Welcome to the She Talks Health Podcast.

[01:12]

As always, ladies, this podcast and the information being provided to you is for educational and

[01:17]

informational purposes only, and it should not be taken as medical advice.

[01:23]

This is not intended to treat or cure any specific illness, and it is not to replace

[01:27]

the guidance provided by your own medical practitioner.

[01:33]

This information is to be used at your own risk based on your own judgment.

[01:38]

And if you suspect you have a medical problem, we urge you to take appropriate action by

[01:41]

seeking medical attention.

[01:43]

Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the She Talks Health Podcast.

[01:47]

I'm your host, Sophie Shepard.

[01:49]

And today I am joined by Diane Ducarnay, who is a migraine expert.

[01:54]

In this episode, I interviewed her about what a migraine actually is, how it's different

[01:58]

than a headache, what are the root causes, and how the migraines are connected to the

[02:04]

gut, the nervous system, and hormones, and how hormonal migraines are not what you think

[02:09]

and may not be the root of the actual migraine.

[02:12]

We also talk about how to uncover what's going on beneath the surface and some practical

[02:16]

tips for supporting yourself if you're dealing with migraines.

[02:19]

Now, Diane is the host of the Migraine Heroes podcast and the founder and CEO of the Migraine

[02:25]

Heroes app.

[02:26]

She's a Harvard Business School alum with neuroscience training from HarvardX, and she

[02:31]

blends Eastern medicine, engineering, and modern science to uncover the true roots of

[02:37]

migraines.

[02:38]

Her podcast shares breakthrough insights, practical tools, and real stories to help

[02:42]

you heal deeply and sustainably.

[02:45]

I really enjoyed this podcast.

[02:46]

We've had other people on to talk about migraines, but no one from this perspective, and it's

[02:51]

absolutely incredible.

[02:52]

Thanks, as always, for listening, and I hope you enjoy this episode.

[02:56]

I'm super excited to be joined by Diane Ducarm today, who is a migraine expert.

[03:01]

Welcome to the podcast.

[03:02]

Thank you so much, Sophie, for having me.

[03:05]

Yeah, I'm really honored, especially because I know it's very early for you in New Zealand

[03:09]

right now.

[03:10]

Yes, it's a special morning.

[03:12]

It's 5.30, and the city is still very quiet.

[03:15]

Kind of nice when we get to get work done first thing in the morning when everyone else

[03:19]

is asleep, right?

[03:20]

Absolutely.

[03:21]

Absolutely.

[03:22]

Well, this is actually, I think, the third podcast we've had about migraines and headaches,

[03:27]

and I just love getting your perspective because I know you just, this is your specialty.

[03:32]

And I actually, it's interesting, this past weekend, someone asked me, well, what is a

[03:36]

migraine?

[03:37]

And so I want to start there because maybe some people don't actually know.

[03:40]

I think if you know, you know, you've been dealing with it for a while, but like, what

[03:44]

is a migraine and maybe how is it different than a headache?

[03:46]

Yes, absolutely.

[03:48]

Because it is indeed not a headache and it's profoundly different.

[03:51]

So migraine is a full body experience.

[03:54]

So it may involve usually head pain, but not always.

[03:57]

And we involve all other types of symptoms inside of the body, such as nausea, it can

[04:02]

be vomiting, can be tingling sensation in the arms and the legs, trembling sensations,

[04:08]

can be half paralysis of the body, can be aura.

[04:11]

So visual disturbances, seeing double, seeing very blurred, blurred at night.

[04:16]

And so it's going to last, it's an episode that's going to last anywhere between three

[04:20]

to four hours to three to four days, but sometimes can start one day, for example, with a traumatic

[04:25]

brain injury and sort of never stop and the person is in constant pain.

[04:29]

And so what is really difficult for people who suffer from migraine disease is that most

[04:34]

other people they share this with will associate it with a headache because that's what they

[04:39]

can relate to.

[04:40]

Because it's genetic, it's sort of unrelatable unless you've experienced them.

[04:45]

And sounds so much more painful and complicated than a headache as well.

[04:50]

Yes.

[04:51]

Sometimes I tell people more labor than headache.

[04:54]

Well, and the double vision and the aura and the length of time is certainly different

[05:01]

as well.

[05:02]

And this is kind of a question that just popped into my head.

[05:05]

Do you find also that I think with a headache, a lot of people kind of know if you take Tylenol

[05:10]

or Advil, it'll mute the pain.

[05:12]

But my understanding is with a migraine, that might not always be the case or definitely

[05:15]

isn't the case.

[05:17]

Definitely isn't.

[05:18]

I think sometimes early days, it can be.

[05:21]

So if the headaches involve into becoming migraine, then initially over-the-counter

[05:27]

medication use works.

[05:29]

And then over time, people are going to start to combine them sometimes and then start to

[05:34]

go to the doctor for prescription medication.

[05:37]

And we usually step up and step up and take stronger things over time, realizing that

[05:42]

they never leave the home without medication anymore because they have that anxiety of

[05:46]

having a migraine attack taking them by surprise and not being able to function in social settings

[05:52]

and work settings and family settings, which makes it incredibly hard because it's also

[05:56]

completely invisible.

[05:57]

And so they take these medications with them.

[05:59]

And over the years, they start to wonder, what's next for me?

[06:03]

And over time, you can have what is called rebound effects of migraine.

[06:07]

So it means you start to have migraine from the medication itself, which is really disheartening.

[06:12]

Oh, my goodness.

[06:13]

It just sounds like kind of a big hole that people can find themselves in and not know

[06:17]

how to get out of.

[06:18]

Absolutely.

[06:19]

Yesterday, I was onboarding on Migraine Heroes inside the app, a woman in London.

[06:24]

And she was expressing, she's like, I'm a pastry chef and I work with a lot of men and

[06:28]

I work under a lot of stress and I feel so misunderstood.

[06:33]

I take my migraine log to my doctor as they completely don't look at it.

[06:37]

They slice it.

[06:38]

They give me just more pills and I feel so isolated in my daily life because I have them

[06:44]

more often and sort of every day and I'm accused of being moody with jokes by my colleagues

[06:50]

and it's just really not pleasant.

[06:52]

Oh, my goodness.

[06:53]

Yeah, it really impacts lives at work.

[06:56]

I would imagine it impacts work, your family life, your ability to even enjoy certain things

[07:01]

kind of goes out the window when you're in that much pain, huh?

[07:04]

Yes, absolutely.

[07:05]

So it can be, for example, I remember a woman named Wendy in Arizona and they had twins,

[07:12]

Wendy and Patrick, and her and her husband had a special code that if she started to

[07:17]

lose her eyesight and couldn't take care of their twins anymore, she'd have a special

[07:22]

text to say, hey, no, I need you to come back home from work.

[07:25]

And so basically Patrick would come back from work and take care of the twins and she'd

[07:30]

spend a couple of days in bed.

[07:32]

And it was really interesting.

[07:33]

It was beautiful in the Migraine Heroes podcast how he was sharing for the first time with

[07:37]

her what it felt like at home when she wasn't able to be there and how the twins wanted

[07:44]

their mother and how the house was full of silence because there was this cloud of we're

[07:48]

not sure.

[07:49]

We're not sure what's going on and we're not sure if it's ever going to go away and we're

[07:53]

not sure of what's the future.

[07:55]

And so, yes, it's very debilitating.

[07:58]

It's very taxing on families, extremely intense, intense disease and very invisible.

[08:03]

Wow.

[08:04]

Yeah, absolutely.

[08:05]

An invisible illness that's just impacting everyone in the family, including the person

[08:09]

who's having the migraine.

[08:11]

Well, we love on this podcast to talk about some of the hope and some of the things that

[08:15]

we can do for ourselves.

[08:16]

And I know that you are also someone who thinks about the upstream issues that could

[08:21]

be triggering symptoms.

[08:23]

And so in this case, migraines, what are some of the most common root causes that you've

[08:27]

seen with all the women that you've supported with chronic migraines?

[08:30]

Yes.

[08:31]

So like one very strong thing that happens for a lot of people is migraines just before

[08:37]

menstruation.

[08:38]

Not always.

[08:39]

Okay.

[08:40]

So it's going to be random.

[08:41]

And here it's really important.

[08:42]

So if you log your migraines in a tracker, which is important, you'll see that you have

[08:47]

a tendency and that your intuition is right.

[08:50]

It tends to be before your menstruation, tends to be before certain triggers, but not always.

[08:54]

And still follow your intuition.

[08:56]

It still is a pattern, even though your data is not sort of rocket clock, like the one

[09:02]

of a man.

[09:03]

Okay.

[09:04]

So as a woman, we have cycles.

[09:05]

And so what is really interesting is in spite migraines are genetic, it's five percent of

[09:09]

boys and girls because it's genetic.

[09:11]

The incidence is going to triple to quadruple for women only at puberty.

[09:15]

So leaving 18 to 21 percent of women with migraines.

[09:18]

So one in five, you're not alone, you're surrounded.

[09:22]

One in five women is like that.

[09:24]

And oftentimes it's going to start with migraines just before the menstruation.

[09:30]

And from a Western lens, we're going to have a tendency to jump to hormones.

[09:34]

From an Eastern perspective, you might take the time to look at the liver as a system.

[09:40]

And so having the liver as a system, well-regulated and well-operating is going to help us prevent

[09:46]

these sort of monthly migraines that look hormonal migraine together.

[09:50]

Yeah.

[09:51]

Shall I expand maybe a little bit on that?

[09:53]

Yeah, well, I would love to, because, you know, it's interesting in this field.

[09:57]

Obviously, I work mostly with Hashimoto's and hypothyroid people, but I also get quite

[10:01]

a lot of people who are looking for support with their cycle, whether it's period pain

[10:05]

or regulating their hormones or maybe they're bleeding throughout the month.

[10:09]

But a lot of them, you know, we have a lot of smart listeners and a lot of smart clients

[10:13]

who say, well, can we run a Dutch hormone?

[10:16]

You know, do you run hormone testing?

[10:18]

And I always have to say, well, I do, but I don't find that hormones are really the

[10:21]

root of the problem ever.

[10:23]

I mean, they might be triggering the actual symptoms, but it's not that they don't they

[10:28]

go out of whack for other reasons.

[10:29]

And then I try to redirect people to the liver, to the gut, to stress, to nutrition.

[10:34]

So I would love to expand a little bit more about how you're linking the liver with hormonal

[10:39]

migraine.

[10:40]

Absolutely.

[10:41]

So I completely agree with you.

[10:42]

The hormone is almost the tip of the iceberg.

[10:44]

It's the symptom under the symptom, but it still is a symptom in my view.

[10:49]

So when you lead your cycle, basically you're going to have, every day is different.

[10:53]

So let's imagine I speak seven languages.

[10:56]

You can hear from my mother tongue.

[10:58]

I'm a French speaker.

[10:59]

I come from Belgium.

[11:00]

And in Belgium, you have to speak at least French and Flemish, otherwise you can't have

[11:02]

a job.

[11:03]

And then you have to talk with English.

[11:04]

Otherwise you don't go anywhere.

[11:05]

And then I went overboard.

[11:06]

Yeah, I went overboard.

[11:07]

I was just, you know, I was just curious about the world and I wanted to understand more.

[11:13]

And so I learned seven, but it's almost, I only speak two.

[11:17]

I speak West and Mandarin and in West, when you say liver, it means the largest piece

[11:22]

of organ in your body.

[11:23]

It means what is the organ just below your right rib cage.

[11:26]

It doesn't have any other meaning regardless of the language.

[11:29]

In Mandarin, when you say gan, it does not mean that they managed to take it to a whole

[11:34]

other level.

[11:35]

In China, it means liver and gallbladder and all of your female hormones and all of your

[11:41]

mood hormones and a lot of your brain, your temples, your eyebrows, the top of your head.

[11:47]

It means your eyes and your vision.

[11:50]

It means your tendons, your ability to detox your breast and your uterus.

[11:55]

So when they say gan, they say all of that.

[11:57]

And why?

[11:58]

Because they say, well, if you cut Sophie's liver and you put it to the side, it doesn't

[12:02]

do anything.

[12:03]

It's like almost like a team of football of one.

[12:05]

Okay.

[12:06]

It can't shoot and defend and pass.

[12:08]

You need the whole team for the liver to actually make sense and to be able to pull its magic.

[12:14]

And so in the magic of the liver, we do have the hormones in traditional Chinese medicine,

[12:19]

a lot of them.

[12:20]

And so when a man wakes up, he has one sex hormone every day.

[12:25]

His liver system to-do list is roughly the same.

[12:29]

Okay.

[12:30]

When a woman wakes up, the to-do list varies.

[12:32]

Some days produce oestrogen, some days LH, some days progesterone, some days detox from

[12:37]

a bit of makeup, some days a bit from inorganic food.

[12:40]

Some days have so much toxicity that the kidney system, the stress system, we're going to come

[12:45]

back to him in a minute, needs to also take a bit of the burden.

[12:48]

And so it's hard to predict when your liver system is in overload and has so much inflammation

[12:56]

that your vagus nerve, which imagine it's like this really big tree that plants its

[13:01]

roots around different organs inside of your body, collects a hundred billion nerve cells

[13:06]

of your body, is a bit like a trunk in your neck and like beautiful leaves in your brain.

[13:11]

He's going to pick up the signal of inflammation in your liver and send it to your brain like

[13:15]

a firearm.

[13:16]

And so when your liver has too much toxicity overload, either because you didn't have a

[13:23]

really good hygiene of life, which is really there for migraine sufferers, migraine sufferers

[13:27]

are angels with their foods, they're saints, like saints on this planet.

[13:32]

And in spite of that, they're in pain.

[13:34]

Or because your liver is sluggish, meaning every day it wakes up and says, Hey, good

[13:40]

morning, Sophie.

[13:41]

I see we have an order for 20.

[13:44]

I'm sorry.

[13:45]

I'm just going to be able to do 15 or 16 today.

[13:47]

So we're going to have to prioritize.

[13:49]

And rightfully so is going to prioritize what is most important today.

[13:54]

But tomorrow that order of importance might change again.

[13:58]

And so before you have your menstruation, which is in traditional Chinese medicine,

[14:02]

a way to flush your toxins.

[14:04]

So imagine you are cooking in your kitchen, which is your liver, and you have your garbage,

[14:09]

which you put in the rubbish bin outside.

[14:12]

And then the garbage truck comes, that's your menstruation, and the menstruation, you

[14:16]

lose 23 to 28 liters of menstruation in your lifetime, it's going to allow to keep your

[14:22]

blood clean to produce life.

[14:25]

And so if you have too much toxicity in your liver, it's going to overflow.

[14:29]

The birds come, the cats, the dogs, and everyone's just pulling apart your rubbish bin and it

[14:36]

creates a big mess.

[14:37]

That big mess is going to be the migraine and you're going to be more felt before your

[14:41]

menstruation when all of the toxicity is collated inside of your liver and it's going to translate

[14:47]

into a migraine.

[14:48]

Now, the solution is not harsh detox because that would have other implications on the

[14:52]

gut.

[14:53]

Things are interdependent.

[14:54]

You can't harshly cool down the liver without damaging the gut, your small and large intestine.

[15:00]

However, having it well stimulated and well functioning is absolutely essential when you

[15:06]

have a genetic predisposition for migraine.

[15:08]

Oh, I love the analogies of the rubbish bin.

[15:11]

That's really interesting.

[15:13]

That is pretty...

[15:14]

It's interesting to me because it's from TCM, traditional Chinese medicine, but it's definitely

[15:20]

how I think about it as well in terms of just like the overload and the accumulation of

[15:25]

toxins and needing to support that.

[15:27]

Whether it's...

[15:28]

Yeah, there's so many ways to support that.

[15:29]

As you mentioned, like not doing a harsh detox, I'm a big fan of, but supporting the way that

[15:34]

it is necessary to be stimulated to function optimally, even just to give it the right

[15:38]

nutrients that it needs to function optimally, the liver is like such a nutrient hog.

[15:43]

So I just love this.

[15:44]

And then it makes sense too that if, yeah, the liver, it's backed up essentially or is

[15:49]

struggling that there would be before the release every month of those toxins, there

[15:55]

would be a potential trigger for that migraine.

[16:00]

And so liver congestion or toxicity or stagnation is one of your root causes that you see with

[16:08]

women with chronic migraines.

[16:09]

Yes, absolutely.

[16:10]

And again, back to your point, they might go for a full hormonal test and feel, hey,

[16:18]

looks like sometimes they don't even have the date and how it relates to their cycle,

[16:21]

in which case the data in any way cannot be interpreted.

[16:25]

So if you do that, please ask your practitioner to ask for the date.

[16:28]

But even then, just with that information, it's too, it's too precise and at the same

[16:33]

time too wrong, like it has a lot of correct precision, but big picture inaccuracy, if

[16:41]

that makes sense.

[16:42]

Yeah.

[16:43]

Another massive root cause is stress.

[16:45]

You can have stress because of life, because of work, because of work life situations,

[16:51]

but you can also have the anxiety of the next migraine attack.

[16:56]

If you know every single day you get hit by a migraine in the morning, of course you're

[17:01]

going to be very stressed going to sleep.

[17:03]

If every day you know that at 8 p.m. the migraine, the evening migraine is going to hit you,

[17:08]

you're going to live all of your day thinking about what's going to happen in the evening.

[17:13]

And it's incredibly stressful.

[17:15]

And so anxiety and stress is going to conduce to more migraines.

[17:19]

Now, where is the anxiety and the stress coming from?

[17:22]

It depends.

[17:23]

Sometimes it can be a weak kidney system, but sometimes it can be also the kidney system.

[17:27]

Say to the liver system, hey, I can see you struggling with your toxins.

[17:29]

You can flush some of them through my system, in which case it makes the kidney system weaker.

[17:34]

And we're going to start to have in my kidney system, I have my kidney, my bladder, my adrenals,

[17:39]

behind my neck, shoulder tension.

[17:41]

I'm going to have my hair.

[17:43]

I'm going to have my ovulation, my ovaries.

[17:46]

And because I have my adrenals, I have my resilience to stress.

[17:49]

And so it's going to start to impact negatively my resilience to stress.

[17:52]

It means that the situation does warrant attention, but not necessarily does it warrant stress.

[18:00]

And so I start to struggle to make decisions faster and better.

[18:04]

Now, the complication is also as we move into perimenopause as women, the liver organ, according

[18:09]

to the West, can shrink and lose up to 44% of its volume.

[18:13]

And so the beautiful abilities of the liver and the kidney is going to also decrease in

[18:19]

ability are going to start to decrease.

[18:22]

So my ability to be resilient to stress and to deal with toxins is going to be reduced.

[18:26]

And so the amount of migraines and headaches and dizziness, vertigo, fogginess, speech

[18:32]

impairments that I can have is just going to be more.

[18:35]

And I'm going to feel really lost because most of what I'm going to be told to do is

[18:39]

to add medication.

[18:40]

What that medication is going to do is going to be a painkiller, which momentarily may

[18:45]

work, but then it's going to add to the toxicity of the liver.

[18:50]

That's how you can explain beautifully rebound migraines from a TCM perspective.

[18:54]

Both medicine will say that more toxins will lead to more migraines.

[18:58]

And so these become lives where you are doomed if you don't and you are doomed if you do.

[19:03]

And no one wants to hear your story anymore after a decade or two or three or four or

[19:08]

five or six.

[19:09]

I mean, sometimes people at 66, they've had 60 years of migraines and the life has been

[19:13]

really difficult.

[19:14]

And all along the life, you wonder, is this me forever?

[19:17]

And the answer is no, it is not you and it is not forever.

[19:20]

Okay.

[19:21]

So, so kidneys can get overloaded to the kidney system.

[19:26]

It can sometimes get overloaded because of the liver, can also get overloaded because

[19:31]

of perimenopause.

[19:33]

And so we have all of these things kind of accumulating together that could be putting

[19:37]

strain on the body and triggering these migraines over and over again.

[19:41]

Yeah.

[19:42]

So the kidney system can also be overloaded if you've had a traumatic childhood or abuse.

[19:48]

Now in Western science, we've realized that this would trigger the vagus nerve in a very

[19:53]

visible way.

[19:54]

And so that's therefore in extreme cases, emotions are translated physically, which

[19:59]

in the Eastern philosophies have always been the case.

[20:03]

So if someone has had, um, is under chronic stress, it's going to chronically impact the

[20:08]

vagus nerve.

[20:09]

And instead of being able to rest and digest or constantly between going to be in a mode

[20:14]

of right flight fight.

[20:16]

And so that nervous system is always on alert mode and therefore depleting the kidney system

[20:22]

itself.

[20:23]

So it's when my kidney system is weak, I'm going to have more stress.

[20:29]

But when I'm more stressed, I'm also willing to deplete my kidney system.

[20:34]

So it goes two ways.

[20:35]

So I start to enter a very vicious circle where if I have more stress, I'm going to

[20:40]

start to have more migraines.

[20:42]

And so this is also a very big door for migraine.

[20:45]

Yeah.

[20:46]

Yeah.

[20:47]

Migraine disease and migraine attacks.

[20:49]

This is so good because I mean, this is like so connected to what I have learned and what

[20:54]

I, and a lot of what I've learned has been through experience and working with like 300

[20:59]

women at this point with a variety of health concerns.

[21:02]

But with the thriving thyroid method that I teach, I always say, you know, we have to

[21:07]

nourish first.

[21:08]

And what I mean by that is we have to find ways to regulate the nervous system, to support

[21:12]

the vagus nerve, to also support like nutrients and sleep and rest and like stress regulation,

[21:19]

because I find it, you know, bi-directional for the thyroid as well.

[21:23]

And that we can get really depleted.

[21:25]

And people who have a lot, a high ACE score, for example, adverse childhood issues, you

[21:29]

know, traumas, things like that, they tend to be more susceptible.

[21:33]

So it's, it sounds like there's this bi-directional system that you're also noticing with it when

[21:37]

it comes to migraines with stress.

[21:39]

And so is that what you mean when you say that migraines are not just in the head, but

[21:43]

they're in the gut, the hormones and the nervous system?

[21:46]

Yes, absolutely.

[21:47]

Now it is a completely 100%.

[21:51]

Also in traditional, the brain is not an organ, it's the, it's a dashboard.

[21:56]

It's the result of multiple organs that are in the thorax.

[21:59]

And so it's a different lens to look at it.

[22:02]

Women have three to four times more migraine than men.

[22:05]

If you compare a man to a woman, a woman is going to produce in her lifetime 23 to 28

[22:10]

liters of blood and a child, like a child, a pair of eyes, a brain, a set of collagen,

[22:16]

a set of bones, nails, a stomach, a heart, blood.

[22:21]

She's going to fabricate all of that.

[22:23]

Meanwhile, she has received from her partner, a cell, okay?

[22:28]

So the man produces a cell, that's his output for life.

[22:32]

A bunch of cells, not 23 liters of them, just a bunch of cells.

[22:37]

The woman's going to produce children.

[22:38]

So if you had to compare the female body to the male body, they're two factories, they're

[22:43]

very different factories.

[22:44]

Maybe men produce envelopes and women produce cars.

[22:48]

It's a very different machine.

[22:49]

So the dashboard of the factory can indicate more things that went wrong.

[22:55]

It's normal.

[22:56]

There's more places where things can go glitchy.

[22:58]

And that's really how to look at migraine disease.

[23:02]

It is not a curse that you're not dysfunctional.

[23:06]

Oftentimes it is positioned as a neurological disorder.

[23:10]

If you put things together, migraine is a genetic predisposition of a fifth of women.

[23:15]

No, not a fifth of women are cuckoo.

[23:18]

So you are making sense.

[23:20]

It's not just because people cannot make sense.

[23:23]

You just need a bit of help to decrypt.

[23:26]

What does it mean?

[23:27]

What does it relate to?

[23:28]

What does it correspond to?

[23:29]

That's what we do with the Migraine Heroes app.

[23:31]

We try to teach you, you teach you what is your brain trying to see right now.

[23:37]

And once you do that and you are able to not just understand the foods that trigger you,

[23:42]

but the foods that untrigger you, then you feel you come from a place of power and joy

[23:49]

and you're like, oh wow, this body does work and it is a boss voice and I am fertile and

[23:53]

I am, you know, I do have a glow and I have a lot of hair and I actually have a lot of

[23:58]

energy and I'm actually very zesty and I actually don't have any depression and I'm actually

[24:02]

not an anxious person.

[24:03]

You just rediscover who you truly are.

[24:06]

But in the absence of that, it's a lot.

[24:08]

And if you have thyroid issues, there's going to be a tendency to medicate, please always

[24:12]

follow your doctor.

[24:14]

However, is this the plan for the long run?

[24:17]

And is that not a medication as well?

[24:19]

And then what does it do to other systems?

[24:22]

Yeah.

[24:23]

You have to take those for a lifetime.

[24:25]

So these are things for you to think about.

[24:27]

You have one life and one body.

[24:30]

One life, one body.

[24:31]

I love the similarities in our work is so, so similar.

[24:37]

Like you know, when you learn about your body, you understand your body, you decode the body,

[24:41]

you all of a sudden realize, oh, I like, I love what you said.

[24:43]

I'm not an anxious person.

[24:44]

I hear this all the time.

[24:45]

Oh, I'm just an anxious person.

[24:47]

This is just how I am.

[24:48]

All these like beliefs we have, because that's like what we think our body is trying to tell

[24:52]

us.

[24:53]

But actually, when we are able to be empowered to help our body to be optimized and be in

[24:58]

optimal health, we realize that those things are just the stories that we were told or

[25:02]

believe.

[25:03]

Yes, completely.

[25:04]

Completely.

[25:05]

It makes me so much think of the story of Jade, a gorgeous woman, young woman in Melbourne

[25:09]

around 28.

[25:10]

And I meet with Jade and Jade had episodes of migraines where she would fall on the floor,

[25:15]

half paralyzed.

[25:16]

And so they have to call the ambulance.

[25:18]

They couldn't even sit her in a chair, so it has to be a bed to get to the ambulance.

[25:23]

And when you go to the emergency room, which is a big decision to take when you have a

[25:26]

migraine attack, because you're surrounded with more light, like the light is in your

[25:31]

face because you're on a bed, more sound, truckload of medication.

[25:36]

So here she receives what is called the green thistle, the highest level dose of morphine

[25:40]

to make the pain go away.

[25:42]

And wakes up three days later to just be told, you have a migraine, go home, there's nothing

[25:46]

we can do.

[25:47]

And so when we met, she was quite desperate and we corrected it.

[25:51]

It's interesting.

[25:52]

She even had been fired.

[25:53]

So two weeks into the work, she calls me and says, I've been fired.

[25:56]

I won't be able to continue with you.

[25:58]

And I said, look, we're not an organization that is about money, we're about health.

[26:02]

So you can stop paying me.

[26:04]

You're going to stop having migraines, then you're going to have a job back and then you

[26:07]

pay me later, which is what happened.

[26:09]

But what was really interesting with Jade is she said, at some point, I remember I was

[26:13]

out of migraine and you said, what's with that five out of 10 of energy on your tracker?

[26:18]

And she replied, Jade replied, this is just my personality.

[26:21]

I'm a lethargic person by personality.

[26:23]

And I said, Jade, there is no such personality.

[26:27]

Let's just work on it.

[26:29]

And we worked on it.

[26:30]

And she said, the day I clicked 10 out of 10 stars, this is in a podcast, in the Migraine

[26:34]

Healers podcast, I felt like, oh, wow, I am an energetic person and I am not lethargic.

[26:39]

And yeah, she got back to work and she was so happy.

[26:43]

She went on holidays for the first time without migraines and she was really thriving.

[26:47]

But she didn't say, I thought I had a lethargic personality.

[26:50]

Oh, yeah.

[26:51]

Oh, my gosh.

[26:52]

Yeah.

[26:53]

I have everyone do an assessment in the beginning, too.

[26:55]

And it's always low energy at the beginning.

[26:57]

But then you, yeah, you work on it and not such a not a thing, which is hard for some

[27:01]

people listening properly to understand because you might have been low energy for many years.

[27:06]

But there's always a reason for low energy.

[27:09]

And once you get to the lat route, then you can start energizing your whole body and reducing

[27:13]

other issues like migraines, like thyroid issues.

[27:16]

So many things.

[27:17]

Yeah.

[27:18]

Completely.

[27:19]

And, you know, you know, one thing that is really important is why it matters is because

[27:23]

you have circadian rhythms.

[27:25]

And if you are in pain every single day, chances are you're in your bed every single day.

[27:31]

So every single day, you don't even bother waking up anymore because you think at some

[27:36]

point your life is not worth it or that you're just in so much excruciating pain that you

[27:41]

start to stay in bed.

[27:42]

And so little by little, your body clock starts to be different to the moon and the sun clock.

[27:50]

And it might seem a small deal, but it means that all of your system starts to be dysregulated.

[27:55]

And then that in itself can start to prolong the duration of your migraine.

[28:01]

Circadian rhythm, such an important other topic, and definitely people can delay getting

[28:06]

up and it can kind of shift their whole body clock.

[28:08]

OK, so you feel like we've talked about the root causes, we've talked about these success

[28:12]

stories.

[28:13]

And I know that you also have a model and a system that works.

[28:16]

And you've mentioned this app a couple of times, but you've also mentioned one to one

[28:20]

work.

[28:21]

So I would love to hear from you, like how, you know, if someone was coming to you or

[28:25]

how does this work?

[28:26]

Do they go through the app?

[28:27]

Do they work with you one to one?

[28:28]

Like, what's your process like for people?

[28:31]

So you go on the MigraineHeroes.com website and take the migraine assessment.

[28:36]

It allows to understand what are the underlying root causes of your migraine on top of your

[28:41]

genetics.

[28:42]

And then we meet one on one and I explain to you those, that conversation takes usually

[28:47]

about 90 minutes.

[28:48]

It's only $30 and sometimes it's even free on the website.

[28:51]

I think understanding the root cause of your imbalances and understanding that you actually

[28:56]

make sense.

[28:57]

It's such a moment of relief.

[28:59]

It's an incredible moment.

[29:00]

I really enjoy it.

[29:01]

It doesn't take me energy.

[29:02]

It gives me a lot of energy.

[29:04]

And then from there we work on the app.

[29:06]

We add foods to your diet.

[29:08]

It's very different.

[29:09]

We add food to diet.

[29:10]

We don't remove anything.

[29:12]

We let you know of your triggers in case you take them every single day for health reasons.

[29:16]

Sometimes it can happen.

[29:17]

And then we monitor your migraine, your energy, your bowel movement until little by little

[29:22]

they decrease intensity and frequency and they disappear.

[29:26]

And so that's where we are happy as a team because that's the joy, like that's the massive

[29:32]

joy it just gives us.

[29:33]

It's just amazing for us.

[29:35]

It always feels like the first time when we have, yeah, hashtag team victory.

[29:40]

I love it.

[29:41]

Yeah.

[29:42]

It's like the team.

[29:43]

Yeah.

[29:44]

This is a great system.

[29:45]

Yeah.

[29:46]

Thank you so much for sharing that.

[29:47]

Well, I think the last question I have for you is, I know you mentioned, you know, tracking

[29:51]

your symptoms and like a migraine log.

[29:54]

And obviously we talked about some root causes, but if there was just someone who was looking

[29:58]

for some, like maybe one to two or maybe even three tips when it comes to their migraines,

[30:04]

what would you tell them for their health?

[30:06]

What are some of the most important things?

[30:07]

You mentioned sleep and circuiting rhythm, but is there anything else that you think

[30:10]

is important?

[30:11]

Yes, absolutely.

[30:12]

Yes.

[30:13]

So you need to measure your pain location, the intensity, the timing matters, your energy

[30:19]

level, your bowel movement, like along a Bristol chart, like the different types of

[30:23]

bowel movement.

[30:24]

They really, that's your gut brain axis and your symptoms and your menstruation.

[30:28]

And you can actually do all of that free of charge and download reports that you can take

[30:32]

to your doctor on the Migraine Heroes app.

[30:34]

You can do that.

[30:35]

It's work is love made visible.

[30:37]

I can see the love you give to all of your customers and you know, and it's the same

[30:43]

here.

[30:44]

It's just, you know, it's just helping you make sense because you do.

[30:48]

And just, you know, that is there to help you make sense of all of these things that

[30:51]

seem random and some are louder than others.

[30:55]

If you have a lot of migraines, it's really loud, but you know, try to listen to what

[31:00]

else is causing migraines and what else is making noise.

[31:04]

What else is your body asking for?

[31:05]

Because it's in those ones you find gems.

[31:09]

Absolutely listening, listening to the wisdom of our bodies.

[31:13]

Exactly.

[31:14]

Amazing.

[31:15]

Okay.

[31:16]

So if people want to find you, they can go to MigraineHeroes.com.

[31:19]

And then you also have the Migraine Heroes podcast.

[31:22]

Is there any other places you want to send people?

[31:25]

No, they're perfect.

[31:26]

And actually the podcast is bite-sized advice, like concrete advice, things you can do every

[31:30]

single day.

[31:32]

It's twice a week.

[31:33]

It's loved by people.

[31:35]

And yeah, it's a really special time.

[31:37]

It's a really special time because, you know, every day for 15 minutes or twice a week for

[31:40]

15 minutes, we give you actionable things you can do from your home, from your kitchen.

[31:45]

Absolutely amazing.

[31:46]

Oh, I'm so excited to plug into the podcast now.

[31:49]

And thank you for being on my podcast and sharing all your amazing wisdom.

[31:52]

It's a totally different approach than what we had previous.

[31:55]

And I'm just super excited for people to have you and have the resources you're providing.

[31:59]

Thank you so much.

[32:00]

Thank you so much for the integrity of your work, Sophie.

[32:02]

It's amazing to find souls that genuinely care.

[32:05]

Yes.

[32:06]

Oh my gosh.

[32:07]

Wow.

[32:08]

And I hope everyone has enjoyed this podcast.

[32:09]

Thanks for listening.

[32:10]

And don't forget to check out MigraineHeroes.com.

[32:12]

Thank you.

[32:16]

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of the She Talks Health podcast.

[32:21]

If you enjoyed the show, please remember to leave us a five-star review on iTunes and

[32:26]

share this with a girlfriend.

[32:27]

This is how we get the podcast into the hands of women all over the world.

[32:31]

If you'd like to connect with me directly, be sure to shoot me a DM on Instagram at She

[32:35]

Talks Health to start a conversation.

[32:37]

I'd love to hear from you.

[32:39]

Or you may always visit our website, SheTalksHealth.com if you're interested in joining a program

[32:44]

or scheduling a future call with me or even taking advantage of our thyroid and other

[32:49]

free resources.

Originally published October 2025

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Ep. 148: Migraines vs. Headaches: Root | Migraine Heroes