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As a margarine warrior, you're probably at times facing life's curveballs, carrying
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real responsibilities all while navigating intense head pain.
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And sometimes there simply isn't a choice.
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You have to push through.
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And in those moments, you may find yourself wondering, is this helping me or hurting me?
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Let's take a deep look together at the benefits and consequences of pushing through.
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Welcome to Margarine Heroes, a podcast for people living with chronic migraines with
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years of pain, misunderstanding, and lack of answers.
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I'm Diane Ducarme.
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I've helped more than a thousand people reduce the burden of migraines and feel more in control.
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My mission in life?
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To help a million people.
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Each episode brings you grounded insight into what your body might be asking for and what
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Just to keep you fully supported, this podcast is educational.
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For diagnosis or medication, always work with your doctor.
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Now take a breath and let's dive in.
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In this episode, you will learn how pushing through while needed at times can have a domino
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effect in your brain and body.
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How to spot the early signs that your body is asking for adaptation, not force.
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And how to make a simple decision in the moment so you know when to keep going gently, when
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to scale back, and when to stop and recover.
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Stay with me till the end, because at the end of this episode, you will have a simple
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at-home rule you can use today to decide whether to rest, to reduce, or to continue.
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So look, if you live with migraines, you probably know this inner conflict so well, all too
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You do not want your life ruled by migraine.
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You do not want to cancel again.
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You do not want to look unreliable, weak, dramatic, or incapable.
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So you keep going.
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You answer the message, you finish the meeting, you pick up the child, you push through the
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shopping trip, you force the work hard, you power past the warning signs.
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And sometimes you can, but sometimes that very act of overriding what your system is
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asking for becomes part of why the whole episode deepens.
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That is not a character flaw.
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It's not a lack of discipline.
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It is something I hear so often in the stories people share with me, especially from young
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women or mothers who, in the middle of exams or overwhelming responsibility, experience
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intense migraines and still choose to push through.
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There's a kind of radical acceptance in those moments, a full presence with the pain alongside
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the reality that life doesn't pause and certain things simply have to be done.
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And over time, this repeated experience can start to build an outer shell, a way of living
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alongside pain that feels both necessary and deeply ingrained.
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And I remember this woman, Wendy.
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Wendy would push through most of the time and she had twin boys, Patrick and her.
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They had a code whenever the twins were no longer safe with her, when her vision was
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so debilitated that she couldn't no longer watch them.
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And in those moments that she would really hesitate where to pull the trigger, she'd
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send the sign to Patrick, the text, specific text, and he would interrupt all of his days.
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So he was having his own company.
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So he'd stop and interrupt and would know that for three days he'd be with the twin
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boys at home running the place while the home would be super silent because mommy was in
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her bedroom and was in pain and no one knew what was happening.
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And so there was the push through, push through, push through until it was no longer possible.
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From a Western medical perspective, margarine is not just a headache.
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It's a complex phenomenon.
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It involves altered sensory processing, brain network changes, activation of pain pathways,
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and often a cascade that can include a full prodrome, aura, headache, and prodrome.
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And so modern reviews in Nature Reviews, Disease Primers, and the Journal of Neurology describe
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margarine as a disorder involving both the brain and the trigeminal pain system with
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symptoms extending far beyond pain to light sensitivity, sound sensitivity, nausea, cognitive
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slowing, fatigue, and skin sensitivity.
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It really matters because the question is not simply, can you physically force yourself
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A better question is, what stage is the attack in and what is my brain already doing?
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And in many people, the earliest phase begins before the pain peaks.
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You may feel uncontrollable yawning, food cravings, neck discomfort, mood changes, increased
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frustration, brain fog, or unusual fatigue.
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And by the time you're debating whether to push through, the attack may already be unfolding
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That is one of the reasons why waiting until it gets really bad is often not the most nervous
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system friendly strategy, is the idea of central sensitization.
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And so it concretely means that your nervous system is becoming more reactive and is going
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to amplify incoming signals.
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In migraine, it can show up as something, for example, not for everyone, called cutaneous
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And I'm curious if it's going to resonate with you in your home today.
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It's not for everyone, but in this instance, it's when normal sensations like brushing
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your hair, touching your scalp, or wearing glasses, or even a light touch can feel painful.
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And so research in annals of neurology found that cutaneous allergy develops during many
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And later, there were some reviews in Frontiers in Neurology that described it as a clinically
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important sign that the nervous system has shifted into a more sensitized state.
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So why does that matter for pushing through?
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Well, because once the system is more sensitized, extrasensory load can be harder and harsher
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The bright lights, the noise, the screen exposure, the intense exercise, the emotional stress,
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the time pressure, the commuting, the missed meals.
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It may feel merely annoying on a normal day, but during a sensitizing migraine
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attack, they can become the equivalent of pouring fuel on your fire.
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That doesn't mean every activity worsens every migraine.
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It means that the more signs you have of rising sensitization, the less wise it usually is
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to interpret endurance as a success.
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Another layer is productivity.
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Research on migraine and work consistently shows that a large share of migraine-related
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work loss comes from not staying at home, but from presentism.
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So from the fact of being physically present while functioning far below your own normal
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And reviews in the Journal of Headache and Pain, in Brain Sciences, and recent work in
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Cephalalgia note that migraine can substantially reduce efficiency, concentration, and performance
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And that presentism often outweighs absenteeism in economic impact.
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So when people say, I push through, science is going to ask, at what cost?
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And this is where the nuance comes in.
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Keeping going away is not always wrong.
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If symptoms are mild, stable, they're not escalating.
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If you can reduce sensory load, hydrate, eat lower intensity, use your doctor-approved
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acute plan early, and choose a low-risk activity, continuing in a modified way, it may be completely
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But if you're moving from discomfort into neurological overload, more light sensitivity,
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mild agnosia, spreading pain, rising irritability, brain fog, skin sensitivity, or the sense
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that every input feels too much, then continuing to force performance is often less like resilience
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and more like ignoring a warning light on the dashboard.
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And when I say that, I really want to acknowledge sometimes you have no choice, right?
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But there's also a safety issue.
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Some migraine symptoms affect your attention, they affect your reaction time, they affect
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your reading, your vision, your speech, your coordination.
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And in those moments, pushing through high-stakes tasks like driving, supervising others, operating
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machinery, or making critical decisions may not be brave.
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It may be unsafe, unsafe for you.
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And that's especially true when the attack includes aura, marked cognitive changes, or
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severe sleep deprivation and exhaustion.
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The nervous system is already allocating energy towards survival and symptom management, not
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So the Western view is this, the right answer is rarely total avoidance and rarely total
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It's sort of a load matching.
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You look at the level of symptoms, the direction they're moving, the sensory environment, the
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importance and risk of the task, and the tools available to support the attack early.
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The more your symptoms are building and spreading, the less likely push through is going to help.
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And this is something that only you can really measure, only you can really evaluate, only
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The goal of this podcast is to raise your awareness so that you can make better choices,
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even though those can be very difficult ones.
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Now if we go East for a minute, from an Eastern perspective, the idea of pushing through invites
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a much more nuanced and compassionate reflection.
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Life is not lived in perfect conditions and Eastern philosophy fully acknowledges this.
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There are seasons where responsibility, duty, and circumstances leave very little room to
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You may be caring for children, sitting exams, meeting deadlines, or simply holding together
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the many threads of daily life.
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And in those moments, pushing through is not a failure of awareness, it is often an act
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of devotion, of courage, of doing what must be done.
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There is dignity in that.
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And yet alongside that dignity, there is also a quiet question.
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What is the cost to the body, to the mind, to the deeper rhythms within you?
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Eastern philosophy does not ask you to abandon your life and your responsibilities, instead
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it offers a subtle shift in posture.
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There is a concept in Taoism called Wu Wei, often translated as non-forcing or effortless
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Sounds surreal, right?
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And it does not mean inaction.
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It actually means acting in accordance with the moment, with the body, with what is truly
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It is the difference between bracing against the pain and gently adjusting around it, between
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overriding and responding, between tightening and softening, even if only slightly.
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In Buddhist teaching, there is also the idea that suffering is amplified not only by the
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pain itself, but by the resistance to it.
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When you push through with tension, with urgency, with the sense that this should not
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be happening, the experience can become heavier, more contracted.
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But when there is even a small degree of acceptance, this is here, and I will move through this
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moment as wisely as I can, something shifts.
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Not necessarily the pain itself, but your relationship to it.
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There can be a little more space, a little more breath.
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And I want to really invite you to reflect on that.
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I remember vividly doing some group calls and one of the women based in New Zealand
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saying, I'm no longer afraid of pain.
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And I just sit and expect it as a friend that passes by, that is expected.
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It's not a friend I really like, but it's a friend that is part of my life.
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And I contemplate and I just go by my day, ignoring it a little, like paying attention
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to it and knowing it's in the background, not annoying it, but letting go of its presence.
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And she found it incredibly powerful for her.
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So perhaps the invitation is not necessarily to judge the act of pushing through, but to
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bring awareness to how it's done.
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Can there be moments even within the push where you soften your shoulders, you dim the
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lights, you take an action, or pause for a few breaths?
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Can pushing become less about force and more about conscious navigation?
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Over time, this shift from force to responsiveness can begin to unwind some of the deeper patterns
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And you're not wrong for pushing through. You're human, meeting life as it comes.
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But Eastern wisdom gently reminds us that there is another way emerging within the same
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life, a way that honors both your responsibilities and your inner balance, a way that asks not
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how can I override this, but how can I move with this?
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And in that question, there's both compassion and the possibility of profound change.
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My personal go-to is I imagine I'm water and I'm navigating as a river.
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And when the river, the water comes across a rock, it doesn't suddenly erupt and says,
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oh, dear rock, why are you here?
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It just flows around it.
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If there's a hole, it fills it until it's full and goes through.
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It doesn't ask the question of why is it there?
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It sort of expects it's going to be on its way and it circumvents it with grace.
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And in those moments when I'm frustrated because I need to do something and it's not going
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the way I'd like and I'd like to just do it forcefully, I'm still going to take the action,
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but the mindset with which I'm going to take it shifts slightly towards not just trying
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to ask myself why it's there, but say, it doesn't matter.
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I'm just going to deal with it now. Yeah. Peacefully.
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So here's your actionable practice for today in your home.
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You can use the reduce, modify, or stop checking.
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So the moment you feel migraine symptoms building, you can ask yourself three things.
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One, are my symptoms mild and steady or are they clearly escalating?
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Two, can I make the activity gentler by lowering lights, noise, speed screens, or effort and
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Three, is this task safe in my focus, vision, or reaction time gets worse?
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If symptoms are mild and stable, continue in a reduced version.
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If symptoms are rising, but you can make the task smaller, modify it immediately.
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And if symptoms are escalating, sensory load feels unbearable or safety is involved, stop
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and shift into recovery mode without guilt.
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That decision is not weakness, it's skilled self-leadership.
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And remember, every small step you take moves you closer to freedom. You are powerful, you're
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resilient, and you're not alone.
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Keep rising, migraine hero.
