[00:00]
which is going to challenge the woman in her family situation, but also in her professional life.
[00:06]
And so it's going to be really hard for her to manage and also feel listened to,
[00:10]
because there's just no real solution aside of medication.
[00:14]
And so that's going to make the woman feel very isolated.
[00:17]
And so she's going to start to learn to fake that she's fine.
[00:21]
Hello and welcome to another episode.
[00:24]
I'm so glad that we get to hang out today and chat about migraines.
[00:28]
So, so many of you have told me that migraines are a challenge for you.
[00:32]
I myself personally deal with them when I'm structurally not okay,
[00:36]
and we chat about the differences.
[00:38]
In the episode today, we're talking about how migraines feel,
[00:41]
the symptoms of migraines, the sign that a migraine is going to hit,
[00:45]
and the anxiety that happens in anticipation of the migraine,
[00:50]
triggers, root causes, and a couple of things you may not have assessed or thought of
[00:56]
when it comes to the root causes behind migraines.
[01:00]
Our guest today's name is Diane Ducarme.
[01:04]
She hosts the podcast Migraine Heroes.
[01:08]
So if after today's episode you're like, darn, I want to learn from Diane.
[01:12]
She sounds awesome.
[01:14]
And you can find her there.
[01:16]
Diane comes from a very large family of ladies, and she is Belgian of origin.
[01:22]
Her mother tongue is French.
[01:24]
In the last 15 years, Diane has lived in South Africa, the U.S., China,
[01:29]
and now New Zealand.
[01:31]
She brings so much understanding of root causes behind migraines to the platform
[01:37]
that we haven't discussed before.
[01:39]
So I'm really excited to go through this with her understanding of healing
[01:45]
nutrition and roots in Chinese medicine.
[01:48]
It's just a really great conversation overall.
[01:51]
Let's cut over to our time with Diane.
[01:57]
Hey, my name is Leanne, and I'm fascinated with helping women navigate
[02:01]
how to eat, move, and care for their bodies.
[02:03]
This has taken me on a journey from vegan, keto, high protein,
[02:07]
to everything in between.
[02:09]
I'm a small-town, holistic nutritionist, turned three-time international
[02:12]
best-selling author, turned functional medicine practitioner,
[02:16]
offering telemedicine services around the globe to women looking to better
[02:20]
their health and stop second-guessing themselves.
[02:22]
I'm here to teach you how to wade through the wellness noise to get to the good
[02:26]
stuff that will help you achieve your goals.
[02:28]
Whether you're seeking relief from chronic ailments, striving for peak
[02:31]
performance, or simply eager to live a more vibrant life, this podcast is your
[02:35]
go-to resource for actionable advice and inspiration.
[02:39]
Together, we'll uncover the interconnectedness of nutrition, movement,
[02:43]
sleep, stress management, and mindset, empowering you to make informed choices
[02:48]
that support your unique health journey.
[02:51]
Think of it as quality time with your bestie mixed with a little med school,
[02:55]
so you're empowered at your next doctor visit.
[02:57]
Get ready to be challenged and encouraged while you learn about your body
[03:01]
and how to care for it healthfully.
[03:03]
Join me as we embrace vitality, reclaim our innate potential,
[03:07]
and discover what it truly means to pursue healthfulness.
[03:13]
Hey, Diane, how's it going?
[03:23]
So good to be with you, Leanne.
[03:26]
Thanks for being here.
[03:27]
I like to ask all of my guests why you do what you do and what lights you up
[03:33]
on a daily basis with your work.
[03:35]
You know, because I can change, transform people's lives.
[03:40]
When I was 17, I had a skiing accident.
[03:42]
I lost half of my blood.
[03:44]
I shrunk a kidney.
[03:45]
And for the subsequent 12 years, I've been in quest of my old self,
[03:49]
just having my body work.
[03:51]
And work took me to South Africa, the U.S., China.
[03:55]
And in China, by coincidence, there's a doctor who put me back on my feet,
[03:59]
not using acupuncture, not using herbs, just using food.
[04:03]
And that took three weeks.
[04:04]
After three weeks, I was my old self.
[04:07]
And this was the biggest gift.
[04:08]
I had ever received from any human beings.
[04:11]
And I really dreamed.
[04:14]
And I dreamed, how can I give that to other people?
[04:17]
And I thought, oh, you know, who's losing their blood so much?
[04:21]
It's not very frequent.
[04:23]
But then because I gravitated towards people who were struggling with their
[04:27]
health when I was in business, I was listening a bit more when people were
[04:31]
saying I have problems physically.
[04:33]
And I helped my sister and then the daughter of a neurologist
[04:37]
with their migraines.
[04:38]
And I made a huge difference in their life,
[04:41]
a difference that was way bigger than even I had received.
[04:45]
And so what lights me in my day is when I have someone who's battling with
[04:49]
migraine disease for 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 years, has seen doctors,
[04:55]
neurologists, the people who wrote the books, you know, who did everything.
[04:59]
And, yes, they say the only person who fixed it was you.
[05:03]
And that just fills my heart with joy because then they see their husband and
[05:07]
they have time with their family and they can work, earn their life,
[05:10]
and just live again.
[05:12]
And so that's what lights me up, as you can tell.
[05:14]
Yeah, your whole continent's just, like, changed.
[05:17]
You're just, like, a different person when I asked you that question.
[05:20]
You look just, like, so lit up.
[05:21]
And that is so true.
[05:23]
And what lights me up every day, too, is just those,
[05:26]
it seems like a small suggestion.
[05:28]
And when people implement your recommendations and they see change,
[05:32]
it's just so cool that you get that opportunity to work alongside somebody
[05:37]
and make that difference.
[05:38]
And especially when it comes to migraines, I think, like, migraines and pain,
[05:43]
they really go side by side, whether it's, like,
[05:45]
full body pains or joint aches.
[05:47]
It's just debilitating.
[05:49]
Like, I had a friend growing up whose mom had migraines, and I saw her once.
[05:54]
I knew this girl for probably a decade, and I saw her mom once because she was
[06:00]
always in her bedroom, always with the door closed.
[06:03]
Like, we weren't allowed to make noises upstairs because mom was sleeping.
[06:08]
Like, that was her life.
[06:09]
What sorts of, like, I'm sure there's severity to migraines.
[06:14]
What do you see as, like, the small baby issues to, like,
[06:18]
the full-blown crazy migraine issues?
[06:22]
Well, let's start by the mother of your friend.
[06:25]
I love that example because this is so, so true.
[06:29]
So a migraine attack will be anywhere lasting from three hours to three,
[06:34]
four days on paper.
[06:35]
In practice, like the mom of your friend, they can last sort of almost forever.
[06:40]
Like, the person is a constant state of pain.
[06:44]
And the head pain is just one aspect of it, which is there most of the time,
[06:50]
It can be excruciating, more labor-like in intensity.
[06:54]
Then it will come accompanied by a ton of other symptoms such as dizziness,
[06:59]
vertigo, willingness and sensation to vomit and actual vomiting.
[07:03]
It can come with nausea, sensitivity to light, sensitivity to sound,
[07:07]
exactly like you explained, but also sensitivity to smell sometimes.
[07:10]
It can come with half paralysis of the body or especially on one side.
[07:15]
It can come with tingling sensations, trembling sensations.
[07:18]
And women will usually experience this in sort of three phases,
[07:21]
a phase where they know it's going to hit them.
[07:24]
So they might be yawning uncontrollably or they might experience really immense
[07:29]
fatigue or they might start to lose their eyesight and they know it's coming.
[07:34]
And so can come a lot of anxiety because they know they're going to be in
[07:38]
A bit like, you know,
[07:39]
before you give birth and you're like, Oh, I've done this once.
[07:41]
This is not going to be, this is not going to be pleasant.
[07:43]
And then they go into that massive phase of migraine attack.
[07:46]
And then they have, after that migraine attack,
[07:48]
they can still have lots of sensations where their body is completely groggy and
[07:52]
trying to recover from like a massive sort of,
[07:56]
that would be a sort of almost hangover phase.
[07:58]
That would be the third part.
[08:00]
And so, and so if we go back to your question,
[08:03]
which is what is light all the way to strong, the light version would be,
[08:07]
Hey, this happens to me once a month before my menstruation.
[08:10]
Usually I think I've tracked it like that.
[08:13]
I think wine might be a trigger or chocolate or cheese, I think,
[08:18]
It's also not always the case, but it's just comes and goes.
[08:22]
It can come at puberty and then all the way to,
[08:26]
I'm in pain every single day.
[08:27]
I had a traumatic brain injury.
[08:29]
I had a burnout at work.
[08:31]
I started a new medication or pill, birth control,
[08:35]
and I started pyramidopause and I've been in pain ever since.
[08:39]
And so everything in between.
[08:44]
There, there were a couple of triggers in there and I definitely want to go
[08:47]
But one thing that you said was the anxiety and the anticipation of it
[08:51]
coming on can sometimes make it worse.
[08:53]
And I can relate to that.
[08:55]
I have like this chronic neck pain issue that comes on when I'm stressed.
[09:00]
And when I feel it coming on,
[09:02]
it can flare like really bad to the point where I'll have nodules all over
[09:07]
the back of my head.
[09:08]
And I know, I know when it's coming on,
[09:11]
I know when it's going to get really bad and the anxiety will make me stress
[09:15]
more, which makes it worse.
[09:16]
So you're saying that migraines kind of have that same thing for many people
[09:20]
where we know what's coming on.
[09:22]
And then does the anxiety make the reaction come on quicker or worse in its
[09:28]
severity sometimes?
[09:29]
That is going to depend.
[09:31]
So yes, it can make it worse.
[09:33]
I think what makes it really sad is let's imagine that mother you were talking
[09:38]
about, she was on that one day where she was standing up in her kitchen,
[09:42]
the anxiety and anticipation of the next migraine attack takes away the joy that
[09:47]
she can have in that given moment.
[09:49]
And that's really,
[09:50]
that's quite terrible because it means you live in constant pain.
[09:54]
constant fear of your next migraine attack.
[09:58]
stress itself and anxiety for even external factor can and are triggers for a
[10:05]
For some people in that zone of stress,
[10:07]
they would have the migraine.
[10:09]
And for some others,
[10:10]
it's as soon as they have a relief.
[10:12]
So it's the weekend,
[10:13]
it's Friday night,
[10:14]
it's the holidays,
[10:16]
they have massive migraines.
[10:21]
go in that stress phase.
[10:22]
And it's the release that brings the pain.
[10:23]
So there's variation,
[10:24]
but definitely correlation for most.
[10:27]
So you mentioned PMS and other,
[10:31]
smells making things worse.
[10:32]
Are there different types of migraines?
[10:35]
Like certain people will be triggered by XYZ.
[10:39]
what are the triggers?
[10:40]
What's happening with all of that?
[10:44]
So there are a lot of different types of migraines.
[10:45]
So from a Western science perspective,
[10:47]
there's a lot of different name.
[10:49]
You can have hemiplegic migraines or cluster migraines or migraines with aura
[10:54]
or migraines without aura.
[10:56]
So there's a lot of names,
[10:57]
probably around 10,
[10:59]
12 names of different types of migraines.
[11:01]
Because we start to appreciate in the West,
[11:03]
how different people's experiences are.
[11:08]
language does give us one word,
[11:09]
but that one word means so many things to people who suffer from migraines.
[11:13]
And for the rest of the ones that don't have them,
[11:16]
it means a headache.
[11:17]
So it's quite an unfortunate word and a word quite hard to use.
[11:22]
you have a lot of different types and then a lot of different triggers.
[11:25]
So for some people,
[11:27]
it might look like this.
[11:29]
it might look like,
[11:30]
let's take a child.
[11:31]
They're going to have maybe a migraine that they would then refer more as a
[11:36]
headache because the intensity of the pain of what they've experienced later in
[11:39]
their life was a lot more.
[11:40]
But so they will put something cold on their forehead and it's mainly on the
[11:45]
And then they will lie down in the dark and the mother or the grandmother who
[11:49]
or may have migraine themselves,
[11:51]
have a sense of what to do in those circumstances,
[11:53]
might medicate the child.
[11:55]
And then through puberty,
[11:58]
the person can have sort of more violent migraines.
[12:00]
Then you can have some people who go for the exams and then they kind of lose
[12:06]
And in that moment,
[12:07]
it looks like a stroke.
[12:08]
So the person's going to have a lot of stroke,
[12:11]
similar to symptoms.
[12:14]
They will end up at the emergency room.
[12:16]
And after three days and a lot of medications,
[12:19]
the doctor will come and say,
[12:21]
what you had was a migraine.
[12:22]
And people are usually very surprised.
[12:27]
And they're left with that diagnosis a little bit.
[12:30]
Without much answers.
[12:32]
a lot of different variations.
[12:34]
So when it comes to our audience,
[12:36]
many of us are women between the ages of like 40 to 55 ish.
[12:41]
Some of us are experiencing challenges with PMS where I'm sure migraines are
[12:48]
or even menopause where migraines are coming and going.
[12:50]
What are the common issues like plaguing women in those kinds of groups when it
[12:56]
comes to migraines?
[13:00]
So when you look at the stats,
[13:02]
because migraine is genetic,
[13:04]
it's 5% of boys and girls.
[13:05]
The incidence triples for women to quadruples for women at puberty.
[13:10]
So once the hormones change and go upwards towards fertility,
[13:15]
we start to reshuffle the cards on who gets them.
[13:19]
Once you get to 40 to 55,
[13:22]
suddenly everything changes yet again.
[13:25]
And so in that phase,
[13:27]
a lot of women may,
[13:30]
lessen their migraine.
[13:32]
they start to have some.
[13:35]
they just change in nature.
[13:38]
So it's a crossroad where,
[13:42]
the intensity of the pain that people experience is going to vary.
[13:46]
And so what you're going to see a lot around that age is that women will feel a
[13:50]
lot more dizziness,
[13:55]
sometimes if they have sensitivity to light or eye issues,
[13:58]
such as glaucoma or lesions behind the eyes,
[14:03]
it's going to start to be accentuated.
[14:05]
And it's really difficult because it comes with all of the pyramid opposal
[14:12]
they might have hot flushes,
[14:13]
not sleep really well at night,
[14:18]
chocolate as much,
[14:19]
not be able to handle as much stress.
[14:20]
So it comes in addition to all of the rest.
[14:25]
And one of the things that women in that category have more is also something
[14:29]
called Meniere's disease,
[14:32]
a variation of migraines and is manifested by a lot of dizziness,
[14:37]
which is going to challenge the woman in her family situation,
[14:41]
but also in her professional life.
[14:43]
And so it's going to be really hard for her to manage and also feel listened to
[14:47]
because there's just no real solutions aside of medication.
[14:51]
And so that's going to make the woman feel very isolated.
[14:54]
And so she's going to start to learn to fake that she's fine.
[14:58]
She's going to try to fake as much as possible.
[15:01]
Her husband and children,
[15:02]
we know because they know her intimately,
[15:04]
but with her friends and coworkers,
[15:07]
she might get away with it if,
[15:10]
if they don't have too much empathy.
[15:13]
when do we learn to fake how we're feeling?
[15:16]
I feel like I learned that really early on in life.
[15:19]
suck it up and get her done.
[15:23]
So is it hormone fluctuations that are causing these issues?
[15:28]
I know that this is such a loaded question because root causes are vast
[15:33]
depending on the circumstance.
[15:35]
But when it comes to the ladies that you've connected with,
[15:41]
what do you feel are the top root cause issues around these migraines?
[15:48]
So in order to understand them,
[15:50]
I always go east and west and I start with the west.
[15:54]
there's an organ like that has been identified quite recently.
[15:58]
I don't know if you've ever heard of the interstitium.
[16:02]
So this is a really recent find and it finds that the west is not really
[16:06]
owning completely yet because it's really disturbing.
[16:09]
So about a couple of years ago in 2015 and then 17,
[16:15]
it accelerated two doctors,
[16:18]
one in the US made an accidental discovery.
[16:22]
the German one was looking at how to explain how some cancers infiltrate very
[16:28]
The other one was just desiccating bile duct.
[16:32]
what they found was that there was an additional full network inside the
[16:38]
body that is in charge of 25% of the liquids of the body that had gone
[16:45]
untouched and found and unseen.
[16:49]
And they called that organ like system,
[16:54]
And the interstitium looks like you need to imagine spaghettis that are
[16:57]
surrounding all of your organs and regulate your digestion as well as your
[17:03]
internal temperature.
[17:04]
Does that make sense?
[17:05]
I'll just take a pause there.
[17:08]
So it's sort of like a lymphatic system,
[17:10]
but more so around organs.
[17:14]
That's exactly right.
[17:17]
I'm following you.
[17:18]
And it regulates your temperature almost like your thyroid would.
[17:27]
it aids digestion.
[17:28]
And if you think of your body,
[17:30]
it helps with deep hydration.
[17:33]
at the core of it,
[17:34]
this is deep hydration.
[17:35]
And what they discovered,
[17:37]
I'm still in the West for a minute here.
[17:39]
They discovered that it's really exciting.
[17:41]
They discovered that it had hormones circulating in there.
[17:45]
There was also a lot of collagen and hyaluronic acid.
[17:51]
And hyaluronic acid.
[17:55]
they were sticky and yellow.
[17:57]
this is where we are now,
[17:58]
where we've discovered the system and we know the system must play a lot of
[18:04]
but we're not sure which ones.
[18:05]
And we know that this is the way cancers can infiltrate the body and take
[18:11]
control over the body very fast.
[18:14]
so now this is what we've discovered in the West.
[18:16]
we've known this for thousands of years.
[18:18]
The system is what is regulating the yin.
[18:21]
When I go through perimenopause,
[18:26]
It's fascinating because basically this research validates it.
[18:30]
That's why it's currently not overly talked about.
[18:33]
And so the yin in traditional Chinese medicine,
[18:36]
Eastern concept is a concept of inside of your body.
[18:40]
And in order for your body to perform,
[18:42]
you need to have really fine liquids that will irrigate your bowel movements
[18:47]
that will be part of your menstruation.
[18:49]
And that will irrigate your brain.
[18:51]
So now if you think of the gut brain axis,
[18:53]
and if you go to the vagus nerve and imagine the vagus nerve,
[18:57]
such as a big tree that plants its roots around your small,
[19:00]
large intestine, around your stomach, around your heart, around your lungs,
[19:03]
then form larger roots along your spine and sort of plugs in like a test line,
[19:08]
your brain in a way that we don't fully comprehend yet.
[19:11]
I would like to think, and we describe a lot in the West,
[19:14]
the vagus nerve neck and below,
[19:16]
but not so much that interconnection with the brain and which organ corresponds
[19:21]
to what part of the brain, because it's so complex.
[19:23]
If you think of that as a tree with a really dense foliage,
[19:27]
then the roots need irrigation that are linked to that system.
[19:32]
And when that system dries, then the brain complains.
[19:37]
And if you have a genetic predisposition for migraines and that you have that
[19:41]
dryness, your genes,
[19:43]
and there's a brilliant paper written by Elizabeth Loader from Harvard Medical
[19:48]
School who says the genetic advantage of migraine is an evolutionary advantage
[19:54]
sort of that functions like a filer. I mean, I completely agree with her.
[19:57]
The filer is going to kick in to say, hey, dryness, dryness,
[20:00]
it's going to manifest in dizziness, vertigo, et cetera.
[20:03]
And so that will come really strong in that stage of life.
[20:07]
Now, if you have more inflammation, the yin will be less as well.
[20:11]
If you bleed a lot and you have a physical blood volume deficiency,
[20:15]
the yin will be less as well and the brain will complain.
[20:18]
And so what you see is a lot of women who suffer from these symptoms,
[20:23]
just have those liquids not enough. Now, when you replenish them,
[20:28]
you achieve a couple of things. Number one, you achieve mental clarity,
[20:33]
peace and love with your brain again. That's spectacular.
[20:38]
you also achieve a much better digestion again and not so much bloating.
[20:43]
When women in that age category feel bloated,
[20:46]
they often attribute to something they do too much of or they have too much of.
[20:50]
This usually actually a sign of deficiency.
[20:53]
So when you were asking what are some of the reasons why women experience
[20:58]
migraines in that age bracket, this is a huge one.
[21:04]
what they will do is they will be aiming to kill the pain,
[21:09]
but they will add toxicity on the liver that then the yin system needs to help
[21:15]
rid of with the liver. And so you're consuming your energy.
[21:19]
So if you arrive in perimenopause, you've taken a lot of medications,
[21:22]
chances are your migraines are just going to be more and more and more,
[21:26]
and they will be correlated by a chronic constipation that no fiber,
[21:30]
no medication can get rid of it.
[21:32]
And that leaves the woman in a state where her vagus nerve,
[21:36]
her gut brain axis is no longer performing because it's no longer hydrated and
[21:41]
she will feel that the medication is actually not helping that much.
[21:45]
I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me. It has my two thumbs up.
[21:48]
Just like as you were talking,
[21:50]
I'm kind of going through the Western to Eastern also in my brain,
[21:54]
just thinking about when we are experiencing menopause,
[21:58]
we are required to have a balanced liver and balanced adrenals.
[22:03]
That's a big part of it.
[22:04]
And we live in a yang dominant world where it's like,
[22:09]
go, go, go, push, push, push.
[22:11]
Like we don't do a lot of natural yin activities.
[22:14]
Would that be part of it too of like as we reach menopause,
[22:18]
our adrenals are burnt out.
[22:21]
They're requiring to be more online because they're going to start,
[22:25]
doing all the hormone stuff that your ovaries did at one point and coming from
[22:30]
that yang existence that we have of the go, go, go, push, push, push.
[22:35]
We're already depleted in our yin energy because the yang is just so
[22:40]
So a hundred percent and you touched on exactly another two root causes of
[22:46]
You talked about the importance of the balance of the liver massive.
[22:49]
So in that phase of life,
[22:51]
the liver organ is going to reduce in size.
[22:53]
Now when you say liver in a Western languages,
[22:56]
you always designate the piece of flesh below your right rib cage.
[22:59]
When you say liver in Mandarin,
[23:00]
you see gun gun means liver gallbladder,
[23:03]
all of the irrigation of your tendons ability to detox a lot of your brain,
[23:08]
your temples, your eyebrows, the top of your brain,
[23:10]
your eyes ability to see well breast and female hormones,
[23:14]
mood hormones and uterus.
[23:16]
And so when they say gun,
[23:17]
they mean all of that.
[23:18]
And so that system is in transition in that phase.
[23:22]
And from a Western perspective,
[23:24]
the liver organ reduces in size.
[23:28]
And so all of these abilities,
[23:29]
ability to detox ability to produce that in ability to produce hormones,
[23:35]
everything goes down.
[23:37]
if you overly medicate on top of that,
[23:39]
the level of inflammation of your liver is higher.
[23:42]
And so your ability to balance is lower.
[23:44]
It's exactly what you see because it's exactly,
[23:47]
you can't prevent your liver function from sort of aging.
[23:52]
that's just a normal process,
[23:53]
but you can have it age gracefully and imbalance.
[23:57]
Then you keep it happy.
[23:59]
If you hammer it with a lot of substance,
[24:02]
it's just a lot harder.
[24:04]
It has a lot more work.
[24:06]
So that's a cause of migraines.
[24:08]
Then you talked about the kidney system.
[24:10]
The kidney system will also go through change.
[24:13]
And as it goes through change,
[24:15]
its capacity to deal with stress,
[24:17]
which is one of its function with the adrenals will indeed be reduced.
[24:23]
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[25:54]
and if you think of the common medications that individuals are prescribed
[26:03]
that's going to affect our kidney function.
[26:06]
And then any sort of statin,
[26:09]
which is going to affect liver function.
[26:11]
And so you're coming into this like go,
[26:15]
lifestyle with two of these top medications affecting two of the top organs
[26:19]
that are required.
[26:20]
You know what you were talking about in,
[26:22]
in the system of liquids and regulating migraines.
[26:27]
And you're already coming into it with a dysregulation of these two essential
[26:31]
organs is what I'm hearing.
[26:34]
and beta blockers can be prescribed actually,
[26:36]
even for migraines,
[26:37]
migraine medication.
[26:42]
And when you have an acute problem,
[26:44]
you should support your,
[26:45]
your body the best you can in that given moment.
[26:48]
And that's always true.
[26:50]
You always need a doctor to validate that,
[26:53]
you do an MRI and you do your blood work and everything is sort of clean and,
[26:57]
and not problematic in the case of migraines,
[26:59]
a lot of different medications that belongs to a lot of different diseases and,
[27:03]
and conditions were administered in the context of migraines because they would
[27:08]
Beta blockers is one of them.
[27:10]
Triptans is another one that will contract the blood vessels,
[27:13]
but then antidepressants as well.
[27:16]
and sort of a whole plethora of,
[27:18]
of medications that yeah,
[27:20]
are prescribed with that effect.
[27:23]
So as a fair next question,
[27:27]
how do we fix all this?
[27:31]
I don't want the woman listening to be like,
[27:36]
My body's a mess now.
[27:38]
what do I do with all this?
[27:39]
Or even how do I age gracefully with my liver?
[27:42]
How do I get the more hydration and replenish these liquids?
[27:47]
where do I go from here?
[27:53]
the first part of cold is you need to rule out,
[27:54]
you need to confirm these are migraines.
[27:56]
And when you do that,
[27:57]
you go to a proper doctor and you do your,
[28:00]
you do your thing,
[28:03]
you rule out of this and anything else going on.
[28:05]
It's very rare that there is,
[28:07]
you want to know and you want to have that reassurance.
[28:09]
The second thing is then you do things a lot more holistically.
[28:13]
So we talk about the liver system and the kidney system.
[28:18]
the kidney system,
[28:21]
having more yin activities.
[28:24]
having a bit of downtime,
[28:26]
less sort of young,
[28:28]
but also sometimes less stress,
[28:29]
which is one way the liver,
[28:33]
I'm going to have less sort of liver stimulating foods and you can,
[28:36]
you can decide to say,
[28:38]
if my liver and my kidney can work less,
[28:40]
I'm going to give them less work.
[28:41]
Or you can say through,
[28:43]
and I do that through foods.
[28:47]
stimulate these systems so that they work a lot more and say,
[28:52]
I really love you.
[28:54]
like it's for a long time.
[28:55]
I'm going to really give you a lot of energy.
[28:58]
I'm not just going to detox you.
[29:00]
I'm going to give you foods and nourishments that will increase your power.
[29:04]
And same for the kidney system and then same for the yin.
[29:07]
You can reincrease all of these things.
[29:10]
I think you have to fundamentally trust two things that number one,
[29:14]
your body is sound.
[29:18]
it wants to be healthy.
[29:19]
And I really want to explain that for a minute,
[29:22]
because I think that a lot of people,
[29:23]
they receive strong diagnostics and they also have a lot of things that are
[29:28]
popping up as problems here and there.
[29:31]
And they see them as disjointed when they really belong together.
[29:34]
When the body has an issue,
[29:36]
let's imagine your kidney system is really weakened and you can't take too
[29:41]
The kidney system has a lot of functions in the east.
[29:44]
If we go back to the east for a minute,
[29:46]
it's your biggest immune system is the defender against cancer.
[29:50]
So the body is going to see,
[29:52]
but also it has a lot of other things.
[29:54]
It has the sense of smell,
[29:55]
the sense of hearing,
[29:59]
So it can make a lot of compromises before it has to go all the way to a low
[30:05]
And so when these things are,
[30:08]
you have sensitive to sound,
[30:09]
I have sensitive to smell.
[30:10]
Suddenly my hair turned gray or I lose a lot of my hair.
[30:13]
You can also trust that your body is not frenetically having symptoms and
[30:18]
frenetically doing random stuff.
[30:20]
What it's actually trying to do is instead of having one single big mess in
[30:25]
which would be really hard to fix,
[30:27]
it's going to make a lot of small messes in a lot of places because if you
[30:32]
suddenly meet Leanne and go through something holistic,
[30:35]
you can still fix it all.
[30:38]
And the body knows that,
[30:39]
but it knows that if it does,
[30:41]
if it takes the shortcut,
[30:42]
things get out of control and then they have something major and big,
[30:46]
and then you really need to go Western and,
[30:48]
and do the right thing yet again for your body,
[30:50]
but in a very different style.
[30:52]
Does that make sense?
[30:53]
It absolutely does.
[30:54]
It absolutely does.
[30:55]
I have started doing more Yin based activities to try to regulate my nervous
[31:02]
I recently went through a pretty epic,
[31:04]
like mold sickness situation personally.
[31:08]
And when that happens,
[31:09]
my nervous system gets dysregulated and I massively go into overdrive.
[31:13]
And I find like as simple as like sitting in a quiet corner and breathing.
[31:20]
It's a great Yin based activity.
[31:26]
I'll like 45 minutes before bed.
[31:28]
I'll just go into my bedroom,
[31:30]
lay out my yoga mat usually on the floor just so it's comfortable.
[31:34]
And I'll bring like pillows and I'll just like stretch and listen to music.
[31:40]
my sleep has been so much better that now that my nervous system is
[31:45]
I'm going to keep this because this is fantastic.
[31:49]
Like this is just such a great way to wind down the day.
[31:52]
Other type of Yin based activities is I'll listen to,
[31:57]
Beta wave playlist on Spotify and I'll go for a walk with my dog who,
[32:04]
this only works if you have like a really good dog who doesn't pull on the
[32:07]
leash and it's not stressful.
[32:09]
Like walking with my dog is super chill,
[32:11]
but there are other dogs in the neighborhood,
[32:13]
which this would not be a chill activity with.
[32:15]
But we just go for about an hour long walk before we start the day,
[32:19]
before we do anything.
[32:20]
Like that's the first thing we do together.
[32:22]
Her and I is go for a walk and those little things,
[32:26]
like maybe you don't have an hour,
[32:29]
Maybe you have five minutes,
[32:30]
but it really does make a difference of like the stillness aspect.
[32:34]
I know for myself personally,
[32:36]
because there are a lot of things we can't change in our lives that are more
[32:41]
Would you agree that those are some like good examples of like Yin based
[32:44]
activities that people are just like,
[32:46]
I don't even know what that means.
[32:51]
these are terrific.
[32:52]
I hear also some people sort of cutting wifi and trying to have just less
[32:55]
electricity surrounding them and definitely mold will put a lot of stress on
[33:03]
Mold will mold for people who have the genetic predisposition for migraines
[33:08]
will usually translate into fogginess,
[33:11]
which is quite different.
[33:12]
And they might say,
[33:14]
I'm not in pain every single day.
[33:15]
I don't have a migraine attack every single day,
[33:17]
but I have just that constant fogginess.
[33:19]
And this is so unpleasant.
[33:22]
when you go in a meditative state,
[33:24]
you allow for your body to do its other jobs.
[33:27]
let's imagine you have a team of coworkers and they're doing their daily tasks,
[33:31]
their operational work.
[33:32]
And every day you come back and say,
[33:39]
and you constantly disrupt.
[33:44]
We take care of your urgency.
[33:46]
And then the daily to do's get slipped.
[33:48]
So you want to allow your body to prioritize and do what it thinks it should,
[33:53]
that should be done.
[33:56]
I find that when you do sort of softer things,
[33:58]
you allow for your body to keep control and,
[34:01]
and reset quite nicely.
[34:03]
I love that picture of just like giving your body the space to like,
[34:08]
not be on that urgent lookout for the next thing and just allow it to do what
[34:14]
Cause you're right.
[34:17]
I have seen some crazy stuff in my practice with clients where they're like
[34:22]
not in a good place at all physically.
[34:25]
And the body is so resilient and it,
[34:30]
It does want to be balanced.
[34:31]
And oftentimes we need to get out of our own way.
[34:33]
And sometimes that's doing less.
[34:37]
Now that being said,
[34:38]
I just add a caveat because women who suffer from migraines,
[34:42]
they will have that alert system.
[34:45]
if I go out too much,
[34:46]
I have a migraine.
[34:47]
If I drink alcohol,
[34:48]
I have a migraine.
[34:50]
I have a migraine.
[34:51]
If I watch too much of my screen time,
[34:54]
And so little by little,
[34:55]
they make their lives smaller.
[34:57]
And so they start to control their environment in a hyper strong way.
[35:01]
And in spite of that,
[35:03]
they are still in pain and it's very frustrating.
[35:08]
I really want to acknowledge them as well because they're probably listening
[35:12]
but wait a minute.
[35:13]
I have all of the above and still I'm in pain.
[35:16]
The body is an incredibly complex system.
[35:19]
We've just covered three of them,
[35:22]
50,000 root causes and their combinations that can happen.
[35:24]
And so sometimes when the body got out of balance and in a vicious circle,
[35:29]
it really will struggle to resurface on its own.
[35:33]
Although with a lot of patients,
[35:35]
it ultimately would.
[35:36]
But sometimes with years of medications and years of pain,
[35:40]
a few things need to be reprogrammed,
[35:42]
to become what I call the migraine hero,
[35:44]
like someone who has acquired a mastery of their genetics and,
[35:51]
really happy and able to live a life free of pain.
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[37:47]
With those ladies that you just mentioned,
[37:50]
are there areas that you could kind of lead them down a little bit to kind of
[37:56]
give them a clue as to what they should look at next?
[37:59]
I know it's so hard.
[38:01]
with proper root cause work,
[38:03]
it's sort of like,
[38:05]
50,000 different options.
[38:06]
But as practitioners,
[38:08]
we start to see patterns in certain things.
[38:13]
when women experience so much migraine,
[38:17]
this is what conditions their life.
[38:18]
A better attention to focus is on their bowel movements and trying to fix that.
[38:23]
Once your bowel movements are really good,
[38:25]
then usually your brain follows.
[38:27]
And so if they're chronically constipated or they have sort of constipation,
[38:34]
Good bowel movement is one that comes in the morning,
[38:37]
ideally before breakfast in one go as what is called from a Bristol chart
[38:44]
which is banana like doesn't require any wiping.
[38:48]
we don't like to talk about poop.
[38:49]
Poop is an important topic.
[38:51]
It is really important in the East.
[38:54]
everyone talks about it.
[39:00]
explain to you why they're not coming for work.
[39:05]
great details and,
[39:10]
I'm always talking about poop.
[39:11]
My husband hates it so much.
[39:13]
I love you do that.
[39:16]
My husband really hates it too.
[39:18]
like we have these whispers and like,
[39:26]
was your gut brain access,
[39:27]
was your vagus nerve today capable of doing its basic function?
[39:28]
When you have a baby,
[39:29]
if they eat and they poop,
[39:30]
it was a great day.
[39:32]
it was a great day.
[39:33]
It's really hard to have a baby who's constipated,
[39:35]
And so really watching that.
[39:41]
Colleagues mentioning,
[39:43]
in a lot of details,
[39:44]
why they were not coming to work.
[39:50]
but it's very cultural.
[39:52]
and so that's the ideal.
[39:53]
And so trying to refine that is really important.
[40:00]
if you try to observe a lot,
[40:09]
Also as a spoiler alert,
[40:10]
if you're really constipated,
[40:11]
having more fiber will in the long run,
[40:14]
make you even more constipated.
[40:18]
it's really trying to understand,
[40:19]
trying to have a really balanced diet and,
[40:22]
and not too much fiber.
[40:23]
I don't know if you want to extend on that or not,
[40:28]
I find for me and I find everyone's just a little bit different.
[40:31]
I need at least 50 grams of fiber in a day to like have good bowel movements,
[40:36]
but the type of fiber makes a big difference.
[40:40]
Like if all I had was like broccoli and cabbage and rough things,
[40:45]
I would never poop.
[40:46]
Like I would be constipated all the time,
[40:48]
but I can hit 50 grams of fiber.
[40:50]
No problem with like oats and beans and Kiwi and berries and coconut flour.
[40:57]
Totally different.
[40:58]
So like fiber isn't always just fiber.
[41:03]
when I was doing the mold illness stuff,
[41:05]
I really ramped up all those foods that I know my body just doesn't do well with,
[41:11]
but I knew I needed for mold.
[41:13]
And after about two weeks I was like,
[41:15]
I'm not doing this anymore.
[41:16]
This is not working for my bowel movements because you need proper bowel movements
[41:20]
to get rid of mycotoxins and to move around estrogen.
[41:24]
If you have excess estrogen and all of those issues can be at the root cause of
[41:30]
So there are individuals who do better on like low fiber.
[41:34]
They can't do fiber.
[41:36]
my goal is always 50 grams and it's the type of fibers for me that really make
[41:42]
the big difference.
[41:43]
Like raw kale would ruin me.
[41:47]
And I think you nailed it.
[41:48]
That's exactly right.
[41:49]
That's exactly right.
[41:51]
Like some people would say,
[41:53]
because I'm going to be,
[41:54]
I'm going to take like cubes of sort of fabricated fiber and it may get the job
[42:00]
but you see what you gain.
[42:02]
You don't see what you lose.
[42:03]
And essentially those types of fibers are not digested by gastric juices.
[42:09]
And so they make gastric juices redundant.
[42:11]
And the less you have those,
[42:12]
the less you digest next.
[42:18]
Exactly the way you do that.
[42:20]
So looking at your bowel movement,
[42:21]
I think that would be,
[42:22]
that would be a good activity and just,
[42:24]
taking the time for these things to happen.
[42:28]
Is there anything that you feel like we didn't touch on when it comes to
[42:32]
migraines that you feel you want to leave the listener with that you feel like
[42:39]
we've covered pretty much everything.
[42:40]
I think that the one thing I want to say is it's complicated.
[42:43]
We take care of doctors,
[42:52]
We've had really all professions.
[42:54]
And the reason why that happened is because it's just so complicated.
[42:58]
So never be ashamed to struggle to read your brain.
[43:02]
It is a complicated dashboard.
[43:04]
Don't feel ashamed.
[43:07]
This is hard work.
[43:10]
do you see what I mean?
[43:11]
I really want to see that.
[43:14]
It's so different.
[43:15]
I can think of just a couple of clients as well as myself with the pain.
[43:19]
Like my migraines come on due to stress because of an issue in my neck and
[43:25]
they can flare and it's terrible.
[43:28]
And so all my stuff is more structural,
[43:31]
like making sure that even when I'm sitting on this podcast,
[43:34]
the camera is directly straight.
[43:36]
I'm not bending my neck when I'm doing pull-ups.
[43:39]
I always have to make sure that my neck is in the right position like my
[43:43]
pillow and everything is more structural around my neck.
[43:46]
And as long as I keep everything structurally good and I keep stress low,
[43:52]
Whereas I have a client that she had significant metal toxicity.
[43:57]
Her liver was totally sideways and we overcame her debilitating migraines by
[44:05]
getting the metals out of her day-to-day,
[44:08]
getting them out of her mouth,
[44:09]
getting her liver moving and working and now she doesn't have migraines
[44:14]
Like two very similar,
[44:15]
like the way we presented was very similar,
[44:18]
very similar type of migraine.
[44:20]
Absolutely world's difference in how you address it.
[44:26]
I love that you bring those two examples.
[44:28]
That's exactly right.
[44:30]
that's it completely.
[44:32]
that's why the one word feels absurd.
[44:34]
It's like yours should be called something different to hers.
[44:39]
Doesn't make sense.
[44:40]
And the reality is the medication you'd receive or you'd be suggested would be
[44:48]
And that would not help at all.
[44:52]
You really got to dig deep and have patience just like you were saying.
[44:55]
And I know that you have a podcast dedicated to migraines where you just go.
[45:00]
through all of this, can you tell us a little bit about
[45:02]
what that structure is like and what your intention is
[45:06]
Yes, so it's called the Migrant Heroes Podcast
[45:08]
and there's three types of heroes that we interview.
[45:12]
One is health heroes, so people who've had amazing journeys
[45:16]
and the intent is exactly to illustrate what you've said
[45:18]
is it's one word, yes, it's very, very different situations
[45:23]
but when you listen to that, you have a couple of feelings.
[45:25]
The first one is, wow, I'm not alone.
[45:28]
Like this is an un-Instagrammable life
[45:30]
and this person went through hell
[45:32]
and it's such a beautiful ending.
[45:34]
The second one is, it gives hope.
[45:36]
And the third one is, I think it helps me convey
[45:40]
how different we take care of everyone else.
[45:43]
Like the same way, it's not like that woman
[45:45]
you took care of, you said, oh, here's how I do it
[45:48]
and that works, so if it works for me, it must work for you.
[45:51]
The second type of hero I interview are community heroes,
[45:56]
people who suffer themselves
[45:57]
and have dedicated their entire life to forming communities,
[46:01]
helping people navigate the disease.
[46:04]
And the third type of heroes are artists
[46:07]
who use art as a therapy to help them cope with pain.
[46:11]
Yes, it's this beautiful, beautiful show
[46:14]
of incredible lives.
[46:15]
That's incredible.
[46:16]
Where can people connect with you,
[46:18]
learn more about your show, like all the places
[46:21]
that they can make sure that they interact with you?
[46:24]
So on two things, the first is we have a brand new app
[46:29]
on the App Store, which is called Migraine Heroes.
[46:32]
And there's a freemium and it's just to track.
[46:35]
And then we have an automated service where if you track
[46:38]
and we can start to orientate you
[46:41]
to what you should be doing for your migraines
[46:44]
and say, hey, based on everything we've seen in the world
[46:46]
in the last five years, this is how you might get luckier.
[46:50]
And if it's incredibly debilitating
[46:53]
and it's really taking over your life
[46:55]
and your relationships and your work,
[46:56]
then we have services still in app,
[46:58]
but with human interactions, et cetera.
[47:01]
And so this is the Migraine Heroes app.
[47:03]
We also have a website, which is called mynectarhealth.com
[47:07]
where you have all of that and you can take a test.
[47:10]
That test is about 100 questions.
[47:11]
And I think when you take that test,
[47:14]
it really starts to highlight and help you make connections.
[47:17]
You can take the test from the app as well.
[47:19]
It starts to help you see, oh, wait a minute,
[47:22]
I have migraines and I also have PCOS.
[47:25]
Oh, I have migraines and I also have endometriosis.
[47:26]
Oh, I have migraines and I also have anxiety.
[47:30]
I have migraines and I have ADHD.
[47:31]
I have migraines and I have a leaky gut.
[47:33]
You start to notice,
[47:34]
what if my migraine issue was my gut issue
[47:37]
when my migraine was just a dashboard
[47:39]
signaling the gut issue?
[47:41]
And so as you start to form these connections
[47:43]
and understand intellectually,
[47:45]
then this can be done with you and not done to you.
[47:48]
So along each step of the process,
[47:50]
you can understand what's happening and correct it.
[47:53]
And once you do that,
[47:54]
then the anxiety you were referring to disappears.
[47:58]
And this is where, you know,
[47:59]
then you're super happy and we're super happy
[48:02]
just the same way as Leanne.
[48:03]
You're happy every day because of the job that you do.
[48:06]
Oh, this was so good.
[48:08]
I am so glad we connected.
[48:10]
As you were speaking, I was like nodding my head.
[48:13]
Like, yes, I agree.
[48:14]
It's so good to have individuals on the show
[48:17]
that I get to learn from too.
[48:19]
So thank you so much for coming on today.
[48:21]
Thank you so much for having me
[48:23]
and thank you for guiding women, you know,
[48:25]
in the right direction.
[48:26]
I think this is much, much, much needed by society.
[48:30]
If you enjoyed our time with Diane,
[48:32]
you can find her by going to your favorite podcast player,
[48:36]
wherever you are right now,
[48:37]
and look for Migraine Heroes.
[48:39]
That's her website.
[48:40]
You can also find her at Migraine Heroes app
[48:44]
on your Play Store.
[48:45]
And I'm excited to chat with you next week
[48:48]
for another episode.
[48:49]
We'll see you then.
[48:52]
Thanks for listening to the Healthful Pursuit podcast.
[48:55]
Join us next Tuesday for another episode of the show.
[48:58]
If you're looking for free resources,
[49:00]
there are a couple of places you can go.
[49:01]
The first to my blog, healthfulpursuit.com,
[49:04]
where you're gonna find loads of recipes.
[49:06]
The second is a free parasite protocol
[49:09]
that I've put together for you
[49:10]
that outlines symptoms, testing, and resources
[49:13]
to determine whether or not you have a parasite,
[49:15]
plus a full protocol to follow to eradicate them from you.
[49:19]
And last but certainly not least,
[49:21]
a full list of blood work markers to ask your doctor for
[49:25]
so that you can get a full picture of your health.
[49:27]
You can grab that free resource
[49:29]
by going to healthfulpursuit.com slash labs.
[49:33]
The Healthful Pursuit podcast,
[49:34]
including show notes and links,
[49:36]
provides information in respect to healthy living,
[49:38]
recipes, nutrition, and diet,
[49:40]
and is intended to help you get the most out of your life.
[49:43]
So if you're looking for free resources,
[49:45]
you can go to healthfulpursuit.com slash labs.
[49:48]
And is intended for informational purposes only.
[49:51]
The information provided is not a substitute
[49:53]
for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment,
[49:56]
nor is it to be construed as such.
[49:58]
We cannot guarantee that the information provided
[50:00]
on the Healthful Pursuit podcast
[50:02]
reflects the most up-to-date medical research.
[50:05]
Information is provided without any representation
[50:07]
or warranties of any kind.
[50:09]
Please consult a qualified health practitioner
[50:11]
with any questions you may have
[50:13]
regarding your health and nutrition program.
