Migraine Heroes
The migraine and fertility connection with Diane Ducarme
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The migraine and fertility connection with Diane Ducarme

66 min

00:00
-66:00

In today’s episode I interview Diane Ducarme who shares her expertise on migraines, including a holistic approach that combines Western science and Eastern medicine to understand and treat this complex condition. She explores the intricate connections between hormones, stress, gut health, and migraines, emphasizing the body's logical nature and its ability to heal when given the right support. Through personalized nutrition and comprehensive tracking, Diane has helped numerous women not only manage their migraines but also improve their overall health and fertility. Her approach highlights the importance of listening to one's body and addressing root causes rather than just treating symptoms. Episode Highlights:

  • Diane's skiing accident that significantly impacted her health which was catalyst that pushed her to work in health and wellness.
  • A comprehensive overview of migraines, explaining their duration, location, and accompanying symptom.
  • The connection between hormonal fluctuations and migraines.
  • How hormonal changes can trigger migraine attacks and the relationship between estrogen drops and liver toxin processing.
  • How stress impacts migraines along with cortisol and its role in triggering migraine attacks.
  • Vagus nerve and gut-brain axis, how digestive issues and gut health can directly impact migraine occurrence.
  • Diane's holistic approach to treating migraines and helping improve fertility outcomes.
Transcript

[00:00]

You are listening to The Ultimate Pregnancy Prep Podcast, episode number 136.

[00:06]

In today's episode, I interview Diane Ducarme, who shares her expertise on migraines, including

[00:12]

a holistic approach that combines Western science and Eastern medicine to understand

[00:17]

and treat this very complex condition.

[00:21]

She explores the intricate connection between hormones, stress, gut health, and migraines,

[00:27]

recognizing the body's logical nature and its ability to heal when given the right support.

[00:32]

Through personalized nutrition and comprehensive tracking, Diane helped numerous women not

[00:37]

only manage their migraines, but also improve their overall health and fertility.

[00:41]

Her approach highlights the importance of listening to one's body and addressing root

[00:46]

causes rather than just treating symptoms.

[00:50]

Enjoy!

[00:52]

Welcome to The Ultimate Pregnancy Prep Podcast.

[00:55]

I'm Nora, a Preconception Health Coach, Holistic Nutritionist, and Fertility Awareness Practitioner

[01:01]

who's on a mission to help and empower you to get pregnant.

[01:04]

My goal is to normalize conversations on the menstrual cycle, women's hormones, and how

[01:09]

you can optimize fertility naturally.

[01:12]

This show will encourage you to become the healthiest version of yourself, to help you

[01:16]

become body literate, learn how to advocate for yourself, and improve your fertility outcomes

[01:23]

no matter where you are on the trying-to-conceive journey.

[01:26]

By tuning into this podcast with interviews from holistic practitioners, fertility doctors,

[01:32]

spiritual teachers, and pregnancy success stories, you're getting one step closer to

[01:37]

getting pregnant.

[01:38]

Hello, my friends.

[01:39]

Today, we have Diane Ducarmes on the show.

[01:43]

She is the CEO of Nectar Health, which leads groundbreaking migraine research combining

[01:48]

Eastern medicine, Western science, and advanced tech to reveal migraine's origins.

[01:54]

With an MBA from Harvard, a background in science and in engineering, and fluency in

[01:59]

seven languages, this is a smart cookie, my friends, Diane's journey spans from engineering

[02:05]

to Chinese medicine and neuroscience at HarvardX.

[02:09]

Her unique approach promotes adding functional foods to nourish rather than restrict.

[02:14]

As a host of her own podcast, the Migraine Heroes Podcast, she shares insight that resonates

[02:20]

with migraine sufferers globally.

[02:22]

Through Nectar Health, Diane transforms lives, offering a holistic, empowering path to migraine

[02:27]

relief and wellness.

[02:29]

Today, we have Diane on the show, and she's going to talk all about the migraine and fertility

[02:34]

connection.

[02:35]

I know a lot of my clients, a lot of you listening, a lot of us out there suffer from chronic

[02:40]

migraines.

[02:41]

And a huge, huge part of that, and we're going to dive into this today, has to do with

[02:46]

our hormones and our hormone health.

[02:47]

So I can't wait to get into today's interview.

[02:51]

But first, I want to make a very special announcement.

[02:54]

If you've been listening to the podcast over the last couple of interviews, or over the

[02:58]

last couple of episodes, I should say, you probably already know that the bronze package

[03:02]

is coming back.

[03:04]

And I am currently accepting applicants on the waitlist for my March 6th, that's next

[03:09]

week, enrollment.

[03:11]

But it's only open for a limited time.

[03:14]

If you are new here, I have three packages that I offer for my one-on-one fertility coaching,

[03:18]

the bronze, the silver, and the gold packages.

[03:21]

And the bronze is only available three times per year, March, June, and September.

[03:25]

So you might be wondering what's so special about the bronze package that it only gets

[03:30]

offered three times a year.

[03:31]

Well, this is the smallest fertility coaching package that I do offer.

[03:35]

And because of this, I've gotten feedback that it fits better into your budget.

[03:40]

I know a lot of you are looking for personalized coaching and support on your fertility journey,

[03:45]

but you aren't financially able to invest in the silver and gold packages at this particular

[03:49]

moment.

[03:50]

And you're still looking for my support.

[03:52]

Since my client roster keeps growing every month, and let me remind you, we are getting

[03:56]

tons of pregnant success stories every passing month, I only have a limited number of spots

[04:02]

available for my bronze package clients.

[04:05]

Because it seems to be the most popular.

[04:07]

So in a nutshell, just as a quick reminder, here is what you get in the bronze package.

[04:13]

Three and a half hours of fertility coaching with me.

[04:15]

So this includes your 75-minute intake, your 75-minute follow-up session, which gives you

[04:21]

your personalized protocols, plus two additional 30-minute follow-up sessions, which we spend

[04:27]

over a period of about three to four months.

[04:29]

And when we start working together, you get an in-depth analysis of you and your partner's

[04:35]

blood labs, semen analysis, cycle charts, food diaries, intake forms, and much more

[04:41]

so that you can finally have one practitioner look at the full picture of your health and

[04:47]

fertility to see how all the components in your life come together in understanding your

[04:52]

reproductive health.

[04:54]

You also get access to functional lab testing, include in-depth hormone testing through the

[05:00]

Dutch test.

[05:02]

You also get comprehensive stool analysis to understand your gut microbiome and your

[05:06]

gut health.

[05:07]

And you also get access to vaginal microbiome testing to help you finally get some answers

[05:11]

that your doctor cannot provide you with.

[05:15]

In addition to all of this, you also get personalized protocols that take into account your personal

[05:20]

preferences, your hormone health, your health history, and your lab results.

[05:26]

And in addition to this as well, you also get lifetime access to the Get Pregnant program,

[05:30]

which is valued at $600, which is your one-stop shop, including your online portal for all

[05:36]

the things that you need to know on how to optimally prepare you and your partner's body

[05:40]

for pregnancy.

[05:42]

This online Get Pregnant program is an incredible resource that my clients love because it helps

[05:48]

them stay accountable and motivated throughout our entire coaching together, especially outside

[05:53]

of our one-on-one coaching sessions.

[05:55]

When you work one-on-one with me, I promise you the game changes tremendously.

[05:59]

You finally begin to start understanding your body, your hormones, and fertility in a much

[06:04]

more in-depth and empowered way, helping you advocate for yourself at your doctor's office,

[06:09]

at your fertility clinic, or any other practitioner who you might be working with alongside myself.

[06:15]

With an 80% success rate of helping clients conceive within one year of working with me,

[06:20]

I am thrilled to let you know that I am now accepting applicants for the March Bronze

[06:24]

Package enrollment.

[06:26]

So if this is something that you are interested in, I highly recommend you head down to the

[06:30]

link in the show notes and make sure that you apply for the Bronze Package at your earliest

[06:35]

convenience, as I only have a limited number of spots available, and they go quickly.

[06:41]

All right, so the enrollment opens up March 6th.

[06:45]

That's this coming Thursday, so again, head down to the link in the show notes to apply

[06:50]

today.

[06:51]

All right, it is finally time to hear from our guests.

[06:54]

Without further ado, big warm welcome to you, Diane.

[06:57]

How are you doing today?

[06:58]

Very good.

[06:59]

Thank you so much for having me, Nora.

[07:02]

My pleasure.

[07:03]

My pleasure.

[07:04]

Now, I always ask my guests when they come on before we kind of get into the goodness

[07:07]

of the topic of migraine and fertility today.

[07:10]

I always just like to get a little bit of a sense of who you are and how did you come

[07:15]

into this space?

[07:16]

I mean, you've got quite an incredible background and obviously a lot of education, so I'm curious

[07:22]

what sparked your curiosity about migraines and how you fell into this profession.

[07:31]

So probably the fact of becoming a mom.

[07:34]

I think when my daughter landed on my stomach, I kind of received a slap from the universe

[07:40]

thinking, what are you doing with your brain?

[07:43]

Promoting more consumption in China at the time.

[07:46]

I think more fundamentally, I had a skiing accident when I was 17 and I broke my femur,

[07:52]

my right femur.

[07:53]

I lost half of my blood.

[07:55]

I shrunk a kidney and I got a ski in my forehead and I was never transfused.

[08:02]

And the reason why I wasn't transfused was very legitimate, there were contaminated blood

[08:06]

issues in France at the time.

[08:08]

And so there were not enough blood in the bank.

[08:11]

And because I was 17, they thought, well, even if she's borderline, like it's really,

[08:16]

really little that she has left, it's borderline, we're going to leave her like that and she

[08:21]

will make up her, you know, her own blood.

[08:24]

But the problem was I was chronically anemic and so I was left like that.

[08:28]

And so for 12 subsequent years, my body was out of whack.

[08:33]

I was, I gained a lot of weight overnight.

[08:38]

My hormones completely went through the roof.

[08:40]

Then I went on the pill.

[08:42]

I stopped the pill after a couple of years.

[08:43]

I did not have my menstruation for a whole seven months, which freaked me out.

[08:48]

And when I had my menstruation again, there were cycles that were 46 days and 53 and 38

[08:55]

and all over the place.

[08:57]

And so with the method of temperature and stopping the pill and finding my intuition

[09:02]

back in 2011, I found my way.

[09:05]

But these 12 years, my body was not functioning.

[09:09]

I would nap from 2 p.m. to 8 a.m. the next day.

[09:11]

And so you'd see me and you'd think I'm just fine, but I wasn't.

[09:15]

Until for work, I went to live in China and there I met a doctor and she was my teacher.

[09:21]

I was taking, you know, classes on weekends.

[09:23]

I'm a bit of a nerd.

[09:24]

Class on weekends about traditional Chinese medicine.

[09:27]

And I wasn't sure.

[09:28]

I was like, what's this deal?

[09:29]

I'm not sure if I like it or if I don't like it.

[09:31]

There's always never a straightforward answer.

[09:33]

And so I went to see my doctor and I thought, you know, I'm just going to test this thing

[09:36]

just for fun.

[09:38]

And if it works, great.

[09:39]

And if it doesn't, I'm just going to let that thing to rest.

[09:43]

And she transformed my body back to where it was when I was 17.

[09:48]

Wow.

[09:49]

In three weeks, just with food.

[09:51]

Three weeks?

[09:52]

Three weeks.

[09:53]

I was blown away.

[09:56]

So yours, how old were you?

[09:58]

Were you 27 at this point, you said, or 12?

[10:01]

29.

[10:02]

29.

[10:03]

OK.

[10:04]

Wow.

[10:05]

So you had suffered for all those 12 years.

[10:07]

And then here you go and you meet this wonderful person.

[10:09]

And then you're educating, you're learning, and then implement her recommendation.

[10:13]

And in three weeks, everything turns around.

[10:16]

Everything turns around.

[10:17]

And at that time, bizarrely enough, I was pregnant.

[10:21]

And so my had been scolded by my doctor that, you know, I was eating too much sugar and

[10:27]

I was going to, I was really tired.

[10:30]

But anyway, she corrected me within three months being pregnant.

[10:32]

And I thought, the test is still, do my cycles come in order because all of the other symptoms

[10:37]

are gone.

[10:38]

But, you know, my cycles, no way she can pull that off.

[10:42]

And she pulled it off.

[10:43]

And I was like, wow.

[10:44]

I guess you would have.

[10:45]

Yeah, you would have had to wait till you gave birth to then afterwards, get your cycle

[10:48]

back.

[10:49]

And wow.

[10:50]

Wow.

[10:51]

That's an incredible story.

[10:52]

So since then.

[10:53]

So from then till now, that was kind of like the catalyst that was like, what is this magic?

[10:58]

I need to learn more about it.

[11:00]

Exactly.

[11:01]

And I love that you say, I need to learn more about it because that's what happened.

[11:03]

I started to learn, continue to learn on weekends.

[11:06]

I started to also take a lot of my friends to see her.

[11:09]

And she'd always look at the person with a very different angle, come up with a very

[11:13]

different idea and diagnostic, yet nail one case after the other until I had my sister.

[11:20]

My sister had migraines and she had done three MRI without answers and she helped her.

[11:26]

And then remotely, because I was then in New Zealand, fast forward, my neighbor tells

[11:33]

me Diana have a lot of migraines and I say, oh, I'm really sorry to hear that.

[11:37]

My sister used to have them.

[11:40]

And she says, well, my father is telling me that I need to get medicated for life, including

[11:44]

having injections.

[11:45]

I said, what?

[11:46]

For life?

[11:47]

What do you mean for life?

[11:48]

You're 36.

[11:49]

Surely no one does that.

[11:51]

And you need to put yourself in my shoes.

[11:53]

Me not knowing, being complete ignorant of the massive pain and the massive suffering

[11:58]

that people go through.

[12:00]

Not being a normal human or, quote unquote, one of those, one of those that if you say

[12:05]

I have a migraine, I was not evil, I was very kind and empathetic, but I would think you

[12:10]

meant I have a headache.

[12:12]

I would not hear it fully.

[12:15]

And so here, when my friends say that, I hear it partially because I've seen my sister.

[12:21]

I said to her, 36, like you're going to medicate for 50 years.

[12:26]

Surely no one does that.

[12:27]

That's a weird idea.

[12:28]

It turns out everyone does.

[12:30]

But I didn't know.

[12:31]

I said, that sounds unreasonable and understands that you don't want to do that.

[12:35]

You know, let me help you out.

[12:36]

I'll be in touch with Dr.

[12:38]

Zhang. I'll ask you a couple of questions through WhatsApp, WeChat.

[12:41]

Anyway, I tell her what to eat, just like for my sister.

[12:44]

She eats it four months later.

[12:45]

She no longer has migraines.

[12:46]

And then we talk about, you know, why did your dad say 50 years of medication?

[12:50]

And she tells me, my dad is a renowned neurologist based in New York.

[12:54]

And I thought, oh, that doesn't make sense.

[12:56]

Why did her dad not tell her?

[12:59]

And so this is how I started to discover this incredible world of sufferance.

[13:07]

This entire massive number of women who are battling days in and days out, who are migraine

[13:16]

sufferers, meaning they fall and they stand up again and fall and stand up again.

[13:22]

They're praised to a lot of advertising, a lot of medications, a lot of solutions.

[13:27]

They're praised to people's misunderstanding because it's an invisible disease.

[13:32]

You see, your friends might have a migraine and you might not even notice.

[13:38]

And when they share it with their friends and family, the family or the friends,

[13:41]

they don't really understand what they mean.

[13:44]

So there's this gigantic deaf dialogue where the woman is just in massive,

[13:49]

ununderstandable pain.

[13:50]

And it can go anywhere from dizziness, vertigo,

[13:53]

fogginess, all the way to half paralysis of the body, etc.

[13:57]

And so I started to discover that world.

[13:59]

And for me, I had discovered something and I had almost a moral obligation to do something

[14:06]

about it.

[14:06]

That's how you see the shift of Diane just suddenly shifting and saying, you know what?

[14:11]

This is actually not OK.

[14:14]

Wow.

[14:14]

So do you coach clients now on like, do you work one-on-one with clients to help them

[14:19]

with their migraine?

[14:20]

Or do you have a team that does that?

[14:22]

I do.

[14:23]

I do.

[14:23]

Personally, I've done that non-stop for the last five years.

[14:27]

Non-stop for the last five years.

[14:28]

Yes, globally.

[14:30]

Beautiful.

[14:30]

Yeah, I love that.

[14:31]

I love that.

[14:32]

All right.

[14:32]

Can we start with basic understanding about migraines?

[14:36]

Because when we hear migraines, I think different people have different experiences of maybe

[14:40]

what migraines are.

[14:41]

People have different pain in different parts of their head, maybe behind their eyes, maybe

[14:45]

in the back of their head by kind of like their cervical spine, or maybe they have it

[14:50]

in their temples.

[14:51]

Maybe they feel pressure under their sinuses, right?

[14:54]

Like, I mean, if we're thinking about kind of like the map of the human brain and where

[14:59]

people may experience pain, or maybe they just have it, you know, at the top of their

[15:03]

head.

[15:03]

Can you just as a general overview, just give and just let us know a little bit more

[15:10]

information about migraines, what that entails and what that looks like for people?

[15:15]

Yeah, so migraine, a migraine attack, what is called a migraine attack is an episode

[15:22]

that is going to last on paper anywhere between three hours and four days.

[15:26]

But that's on paper.

[15:27]

In practice, it can start one day and never end, never leave the person.

[15:31]

So the person is going to live in a constant state of pain, or it may happen sporadically,

[15:37]

always before the menstruation, or the first day of menstruation, or after the menstruation,

[15:42]

or during ovulation, or sometimes ovulation and stress, or sometimes during the stress,

[15:48]

sometimes after the stress phase.

[15:50]

And so it can last anywhere between three days to three hours to four days.

[15:56]

And it's going to occur exactly like you mentioned in different parts of the brain.

[16:01]

It may occur, and you cited a lot, which are completely relevant and absolutely accurate,

[16:05]

may occur behind the head, on the temples, can be always the right temple or the left temple,

[16:12]

above the ears, so upper sort of upper temple, top of the head, across the eyebrows, on the forehead,

[16:18]

in the sinuses, and it can be otherwise just a full right side or a full left side.

[16:25]

And then it can also move from the back of the brain to the front of the brain,

[16:29]

or it can be in any combinations of these locations at the same time.

[16:33]

Now, in addition to that, and I think this is really important to say,

[16:37]

in addition to that, the woman is going to experience a full body experience,

[16:43]

meaning she's going to have a myriad of other sensations, such as trembling sensation,

[16:48]

cramps, she may have a half paralysis of her body,

[16:52]

and her migraine is more going to look like a stroke,

[16:55]

and she's going to finish in the emergency room.

[16:57]

It can be that she has nausea, vomiting, dizziness,

[17:01]

vertigo, fogginess.

[17:02]

She can also have a lot of aura, so visual disturbances.

[17:08]

She might see dots, prisms in the vision.

[17:11]

She might lose her peripheral vision.

[17:13]

She might see sort of rainbows or foggy parts.

[17:17]

She might see blurry or blurry just at night.

[17:20]

She might have sensitivity to light, sensitivity to screens.

[17:24]

And so all of these symptoms that come with it are part of the migraine attack.

[17:32]

And the migraine attack is going to happen in three phases.

[17:36]

A prodrome, which is a phase where she's going to know it's coming,

[17:40]

which can be incredibly anxious.

[17:43]

She knows the pain is going to come a little bit before labor.

[17:46]

Like, you know, you're like, oh, this is not going to be pleasant.

[17:50]

Except there's no happy ending.

[17:53]

So you go through that phase where, for some people, it's aura.

[17:57]

For some people, it's trembling sensation.

[17:58]

For some people, it can be constant yawning.

[18:01]

For some people, it can be a lot of sighing.

[18:04]

For some people, it can be extreme fatigue.

[18:07]

And they know it's coming.

[18:08]

Or paralysis or tingling sensations in one part of the body.

[18:11]

And they know it's coming.

[18:12]

And they know it's coming.

[18:13]

It's going to hit really hard.

[18:14]

So that's maybe the time at which they start to contact their loved ones, etc.

[18:18]

Start to cancel a lot of meetings.

[18:20]

Then they go in the migraine attack itself,

[18:23]

which can be excruciatingly long and excruciatingly painful.

[18:27]

We're talking about labor painful.

[18:29]

And then the post-traum where she may have what is called a hangover.

[18:34]

And where she's not in pain, but she's also not functional.

[18:39]

Yeah.

[18:39]

And so it's really, it's a very, very hard thing.

[18:42]

Because initially, they're going to explain to their entourage what's happening.

[18:46]

And they're going to complain about it.

[18:48]

But little by little, they're going to close on themselves.

[18:52]

And start to really realize that the external world does not understand.

[18:56]

The external world does not provide the empathy that she needs.

[19:00]

And that unless she opens up too much, I mean, or if she opens up too much,

[19:05]

she will be, it's going to make her very vulnerable.

[19:08]

So she's going to start to learn to fake it.

[19:11]

To fake that she's fine.

[19:13]

That's not good.

[19:15]

No, no, it's really, it's really, it's really hard.

[19:17]

And so she's going to be a bit more depressed.

[19:19]

And so when going to the doctors, it's going to be put on increased medication.

[19:23]

And sometimes depression medication.

[19:25]

Now, that being said, in between parentheses, going to the doctor, doing an MRI, a CT scan,

[19:30]

a blood test are absolutely indispensable to get a proper migraine diagnostic.

[19:36]

Now, having the doctor recommend antidepressants is another topic.

[19:42]

But, you know, getting a beautiful diagnostic is really important.

[19:46]

You know, yeah.

[19:48]

So that can show up on a seat, I guess, depending, do you, I mean.

[19:51]

You exclude.

[19:53]

Okay.

[19:53]

I see.

[19:54]

It's like process of elimination.

[19:55]

Let's do all these tests and then figure out, okay, this is not a tumor growth.

[19:59]

This is not a lesion.

[20:00]

This is not this, that and the other.

[20:02]

Okay.

[20:03]

And then from there, this must be migraine.

[20:06]

Yes, exactly.

[20:07]

Okay.

[20:08]

So for purposes of this podcast and the listeners who are listening, we are obviously on the

[20:14]

Ultimate Pregnancy Prep Podcast talking about fertility and preconception and how, I mean,

[20:18]

as we know, we have the same philosophy, Diane, you and I were kind of having a little chit

[20:22]

chat before we pressed record and align on a lot of our ways of thinking and our holistic

[20:28]

health principles and so on and so forth.

[20:31]

And so I want to dive into kind of three main topics today when we're talking about migraine

[20:36]

and the connection to fertility, because with it being connected to fertility, the

[20:41]

three kind of prongs or pillars that I want to get into is first is kind of the hormone

[20:46]

side of things.

[20:46]

So the hormone imbalance.

[20:48]

Then I want to talk a little bit more about stress and cortisol, which is also a hormone,

[20:52]

but we'll get there.

[20:53]

And then the gut, because these are three topics that I talk about on the podcast a

[20:58]

lot.

[20:59]

And I know, as you mentioned, when we're talking about the different ways that a migraine

[21:05]

can potentially manifest in an individual, you had mentioned it can be cyclical, right,

[21:10]

depending on where you are in your cycle.

[21:11]

So let's start with the hormone component and talk about fluctuating hormones, probably

[21:16]

mainly estrogen and progesterone and how they can trigger migraines or how and why they

[21:22]

can trigger migraines.

[21:24]

Let's just kind of start there.

[21:26]

Yes, absolutely.

[21:27]

That's a huge, huge element.

[21:30]

And the proof is that when you look at the stats, because migraines are genetic, it's

[21:34]

five percent of boys and girls.

[21:37]

However, the incidence is going to triple to quadruple for women at puberty.

[21:42]

So the moment the woman starts to become fertile, her chance to have migraine is one in five.

[21:50]

Yeah, one in five.

[21:51]

That's like one in five.

[21:53]

Wow.

[21:54]

Did you know that's the stat for infertility?

[21:56]

One in five couples struggle with infertility as well.

[22:00]

Wow.

[22:00]

Yes.

[22:01]

Oh, beautiful.

[22:02]

Interesting.

[22:03]

I didn't know that.

[22:04]

Yeah.

[22:05]

Well, it's quite similar, quite similar.

[22:07]

And the amazing news is that while everything's really hard when having a migraine, migraine

[22:15]

is your best tool, your best radar to troubleshoot, your best troubleshoot radar for fertility.

[22:22]

And so hormones do play a really important component in migraine.

[22:28]

And so you have when you look at the cycles with different types of migraines, you have

[22:32]

the ones that are just really premenstruation, right?

[22:37]

And so at that moment, we have a very specific time when the estrogen drops.

[22:41]

Now, you can look at it two ways.

[22:43]

You can look at it with a western lens or an eastern lens.

[22:46]

And I love to blend both because I find it really interesting.

[22:50]

So in the western lens, we're going to see the estrogen drops.

[22:54]

With the eastern lens, you look at the time when your liver system, and I really want to

[23:00]

talk about that, your liver system is the most loaded with toxins, which is your scorecard of

[23:06]

have you been naughty or really good this month, right?

[23:10]

In a lot of your podcasts, you talk about the scorecard and what you've done, and you

[23:14]

talk about some foods and you say, maybe avoid alcohol.

[23:17]

I love it.

[23:18]

Avoid the oil vegetables.

[23:19]

Absolutely.

[23:20]

They're full of toxins.

[23:21]

Avoid the refined sugar.

[23:23]

All of these will load your liver.

[23:24]

So now let's imagine we have been really naughty and not like Nora recommended.

[23:30]

We've been not 80-20, but 20-80, and we've been very bad.

[23:33]

OK, let's imagine for a moment.

[23:35]

Although I have to say that women who suffer from migraine disease will usually be very,

[23:40]

very good.

[23:41]

OK, so of course, this is not for everyone.

[23:46]

However, let's imagine we've been just a bit naughty.

[23:49]

It was a busy month.

[23:50]

What's going to happen is that the liver system is going to have more toxins that month.

[23:56]

Now, the menstruation is an opportunity to also release some of these toxins.

[24:01]

And so the body before the menstruation is going to come together and triage all of that

[24:05]

blood.

[24:06]

And inside the liver is going to gather a lot of the toxins that can go and be flushed

[24:11]

in the menstruation.

[24:12]

And so through the vagus nerve, through the gut brain axis, if my liver has more inflammation,

[24:18]

my brain is also going to indicate more pain.

[24:22]

Yeah.

[24:22]

So when we look, we go back to the West.

[24:25]

What does the West say about the liver and the brain?

[24:27]

Well, we know that if we drink too much alcohol, anyone can have a hangover.

[24:32]

OK, and then it gives me sort of a pain, a headache that's going to be, it feels spread

[24:37]

out throughout the head.

[24:38]

But for example, you mentioned, like behind the head, you don't have really a hangover

[24:42]

behind the head.

[24:43]

It's more across the temple, the eyebrows, the top of the head, more like the casque

[24:48]

feeling of the hangover.

[24:49]

And so from a Western folklore perspective, we know that the liver is connected to the

[24:54]

brain.

[24:55]

From a sleep science perspective, we also know that during the deep sleep, the brain

[24:59]

is going to detox at the same time as the liver.

[25:02]

We see those two connected while the basal temperature decreases.

[25:06]

So kind of everyone sleeps except those two that work hand in hand.

[25:09]

So from that perspective, we are conscious in the West as well of the importance of that

[25:14]

relationship.

[25:15]

And so before my menstruation, I'm going to gather all of these toxins.

[25:18]

So if I've had too much of these foods that you mentioned in some of your podcasts, then

[25:24]

my liver is going to be like, OK, gather, gather, gather flush.

[25:28]

And so that's going to come accompanied by potentially if you have a genetic predisposition

[25:34]

for migraine.

[25:35]

And if you think of it more like a fire alarm, the fire alarm is going to kick in and say

[25:40]

maybe, maybe, you know, can you please pay more attention and be kinder to us?

[25:47]

Yeah.

[25:48]

Now, the toxins may come from there.

[25:50]

They may come also from a lot of different places.

[25:52]

Right.

[25:53]

They may come from medication.

[25:55]

They may come from toxins associated with external factors such as, you know, recently

[26:02]

I had a woman, she realized she was next to an uranium factory.

[26:05]

And while she was a nutritionist that she had a lot of toxins and heavy metals inside

[26:10]

her body.

[26:10]

So it can be of any nature.

[26:12]

Yeah, invariably so.

[26:14]

So this is going to be one part.

[26:15]

And so indeed, the estrogen and the sort of anti-inflammatory response of the body can

[26:21]

help with some of those toxins.

[26:22]

And it may drop too much if there are too many toxins.

[26:26]

Does that make sense?

[26:26]

Yes, absolutely.

[26:28]

Yes.

[26:28]

And so it's two reads of a similar situation.

[26:32]

And it's really interesting to look at both perspectives because it gives us ideas about

[26:37]

how we can use some levers to help out.

[26:39]

And indeed, we have the ability of the levers to remove bad foods in an 80-20 fashion and

[26:45]

to add some really good ones that are going to stimulate the liver and detox it.

[26:50]

Yeah.

[26:51]

Big family of migraines.

[26:52]

If you have those migraines, you are likely to be more irritated at that time.

[26:57]

You are more likely to have numbness in the limbs, more sometimes trembling sensation,

[27:03]

possibly aura from time to time.

[27:06]

Also sore breasts, for example, because the body is going to put the toxins wherever it

[27:11]

can.

[27:12]

It can also, and that's going to lead to the subsequent type of migraine.

[27:15]

You could also have the liver have so many toxins that over time, these toxins may form

[27:21]

cysts that gravitate around your ovaries.

[27:25]

If you have those, you are guaranteed to have massive migraines during menstruation.

[27:31]

Massive.

[27:34]

So the liver can generate the liver.

[27:37]

If you have an overload of toxins in the body, the liver can.

[27:41]

So sorry, you're saying that you can actually generate cysts in your ovaries from the abundance

[27:45]

of toxins, which can then make the menstruation very painful.

[27:50]

Or sorry, migraine around menstruation.

[27:52]

Yes.

[27:53]

Yes.

[27:53]

So in a very Eastern way to think about it.

[27:56]

So in the East, when you see liver, so I speak like you mentioned quite a lot of languages.

[28:01]

When you see liver in French, in English, in Italian, in Spanish, you always designate

[28:05]

the piece of flesh at the right bottom right of your rib cage.

[28:09]

Yes.

[28:10]

But if you see liver in Chinese, which is gun, when you see gun, you mean liver and

[28:15]

gallbladder and ability to detox and a lot of your brain and your breast, your uterus,

[28:21]

your mood hormones and all of your gallbladder, right?

[28:28]

And so it's a pathway.

[28:30]

Got it.

[28:31]

So for them, if the liver has too many toxins on the pathway, it can load off some of it.

[28:41]

And what people really misunderstand in the West is how the body is completely logical.

[28:47]

It's not erratic.

[28:48]

It's very, very logical.

[28:49]

If you remember anything from this podcast is my body is a beautiful machine, which is

[28:53]

very logical.

[28:54]

Yes.

[28:54]

And what it's trying to do is self-protect.

[28:57]

And so put away the toxins in different places in small batches.

[29:02]

So they're inoffensive.

[29:05]

And so one result from the liver system being loaded are cysts in the ovaries.

[29:12]

Now, if you read it very literally in Western science, it may not translate exactly.

[29:18]

But that's the idea.

[29:19]

And so the cysts on the ovaries will themselves create a very acute, very, very strong migraines

[29:26]

during menstruation.

[29:28]

Can be cysts, can be blood clots, fibroids.

[29:31]

If you've gone through trauma, for example, in your childhood, it's very possible that

[29:36]

your body kept the score and formed some tissues that ended up in your uterus or that's a very

[29:42]

Eastern way of looking at life and that those are the ones causing these massive migraines

[29:48]

during menstruation.

[29:51]

And so that way, what we have to do, what we do is we remove them.

[29:55]

It's fascinating.

[29:55]

We help people eat certain foods to expel whatever is in their uterus that we have identified.

[30:03]

Very simple.

[30:04]

And then for blood clots, they'll see them.

[30:06]

They will see physically.

[30:07]

Oh, I had migraines.

[30:08]

I had blood clots.

[30:09]

Now they're gone.

[30:10]

I no longer do have migraines.

[30:11]

Really fascinating for people who had cysts.

[30:14]

I just had a woman who just texted me today and she said, my cysts I've seen in the ultrasound

[30:18]

is massively reduced in size.

[30:20]

I feel I'm on the right trajectory.

[30:22]

Or another woman who had three cysts on her ovaries needed a hysterectomy and no longer

[30:26]

needed it.

[30:27]

Now that's going to massively increase fertility.

[30:29]

If you see your uterus as a temple of love, again, embrace the beautiful signal of your

[30:35]

brain saying, maybe, maybe we have a problem.

[30:38]

There's a blockage inside the uterus.

[30:40]

Please go fix it.

[30:42]

So you are able to actually tune into your body and say, look, if I fall and I hurt my

[30:49]

knee and I break it, I go to the doctor.

[30:53]

He's not going to give me painkillers over and over again until the pain goes.

[30:57]

He might give me that, but he might also fix the problem and repair the knee or put me

[31:02]

a plaster or cast and ask me not to move anymore or do a bit of a surgery or an operation.

[31:07]

Why would your brain indicate massive pain during your menstruation aimlessly?

[31:14]

It's a smart part of your body.

[31:16]

Your body is a smart system.

[31:18]

And so that's a second family of migraines that are in many ways also hormone related

[31:24]

because the cysts come from that imbalance, then yet end up in a physical form inside

[31:32]

the uterus.

[31:33]

And so when we're talking about cysts, you're not necessarily talking about polycystic

[31:36]

ovarian syndrome.

[31:38]

These can be like other cysts that form, but not PCOS.

[31:45]

Yeah, or both.

[31:47]

But I'm talking exactly, you're right, about the actual cysts.

[31:51]

Got it.

[31:52]

The actual, you know, when you do an ultrasound, you see a couple of cysts.

[31:55]

And so in the east, it's interesting in the east, we want to keep the uterus really clean

[32:00]

for fertility and beyond, always keeping the uterus clean.

[32:03]

So spring cleaning it.

[32:07]

Which is part of also like the spring and the fall, like liver cleanse is part of it,

[32:11]

right?

[32:11]

You can kind of clean the liver.

[32:13]

So my question now is, I mean, that was a beautiful explanation of kind of explaining,

[32:18]

I love how you kind of merge the east and the west in there as well.

[32:22]

So if we were going to just kind of take that bird's eye view and look at the menstrual cycle

[32:26]

and say, if you have migraines during menstruation, if you have it during ovulation, and if you

[32:31]

have it, you know, luteal phase close to when you're about to menstruate, either one of those,

[32:38]

look at the liver?

[32:40]

Or look at the liver system?

[32:42]

Yeah.

[32:43]

So for before menstruation, look at the liver system.

[32:45]

During ovulation, we'll look at the kidney system.

[32:48]

The kidney system.

[32:49]

Okay.

[32:50]

The kidney system.

[32:51]

And then during menstruation, again, look at the liver system.

[32:54]

And then the menstruation, yes.

[32:55]

And the uterus specifically, like, you know, what's going on there?

[32:59]

And yes, these are beautiful notions and really thinking about the body holistically.

[33:05]

What is really hard for a woman is that when she has triggers, so sometimes a woman is

[33:11]

going to say, oh, I stopped drinking alcohol because alcohol is a trigger.

[33:14]

But sometimes she might say, I'm not sure alcohol is a trigger because sometimes I'm

[33:18]

certain that, you know, alcohol is triggering my migraine.

[33:22]

So I stopped drinking and I can feel it doesn't suit me.

[33:25]

But sometimes I will drink and I still don't get a migraine.

[33:30]

And I don't understand.

[33:32]

Is this a trigger or is it not?

[33:33]

I'm not clear.

[33:34]

And so when she looks at her data and she collects her data, her data doesn't stack

[33:39]

up or she's going to track her migraines and say it's always cyclical.

[33:43]

It's always before menstruation.

[33:44]

Well, you know, sometimes actually not.

[33:46]

And sometimes it's not at ovulation.

[33:47]

Sometimes before, sometimes after.

[33:49]

And it's just that how much that scorecard within a day, how much did I abuse within

[33:56]

a month or how much did my body not necessarily abuse, but how much was my body overloaded

[34:02]

during this month versus what it can tolerate?

[34:05]

And I think the versus is really important.

[34:08]

And there's a bit of a scorecard if you have migraines on a daily basis, taking your cycle

[34:13]

in function.

[34:16]

Absolutely.

[34:17]

Absolutely.

[34:17]

And when you say a system is overloaded, it's not necessarily just that you're eating processed

[34:22]

and sugary foods.

[34:23]

Overloaded could be emotional stress, mental stress.

[34:28]

It's not just like the food that you're putting in.

[34:30]

It's just you have to think about all the areas of your life like, right.

[34:34]

We know that stress, most mental and emotional stress is perceived stress mainly, right?

[34:40]

Like what is my perception of the situation?

[34:42]

Is it going to be stressful or not?

[34:44]

Diane, you and I can be both be in the same situation, yet I can be so stressed out and

[34:49]

you can be OK.

[34:51]

Right.

[34:52]

And that's just that's my perception.

[34:54]

So the stress, your perceived stress about your life, about your fight with your boss

[34:58]

the other day or your argument with your partner or the overload of list of things that you

[35:03]

have to do on your to do list.

[35:05]

That is also an overload on the system.

[35:07]

It's not necessarily just the foods.

[35:09]

I just right.

[35:10]

Is that correct?

[35:11]

Absolutely.

[35:12]

Absolutely.

[35:13]

Absolutely.

[35:13]

I would even add something that I've noticed is sometimes I had a woman, for example, she

[35:19]

expelled a blood clot the size of a baseball.

[35:22]

So I'm quickly interrupting this episode to invite you if you are ready to start or continue

[35:27]

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[35:31]

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[35:37]

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[35:41]

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[35:46]

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[35:51]

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[35:53]

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[35:58]

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[36:01]

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[36:05]

Head down to the link in the show notes to check out packages and pricing options and

[36:10]

apply for the program today.

[36:12]

OK, now back to the episode.

[36:17]

And I had to Google baseball to really think, you know, is it my French?

[36:21]

Not, you know, my English not good enough or did I understand that?

[36:26]

And she says, well, obviously, the migraines went away instantly.

[36:30]

And so we always sort of warn for fertility.

[36:33]

We're like, OK, careful moving forward.

[36:35]

Your fertility massively increases because now your body wants to reproduce, right?

[36:39]

She says the second thing that really came is my stress level really decreased.

[36:45]

And sometimes the stress is even one layer deeper, which is inside my body.

[36:51]

There was a Latin stress, a Latin threat.

[36:56]

Yes, yes.

[36:58]

I love that.

[36:58]

I find that quite fascinating observation from that woman who says, oh, wow, my stress

[37:03]

level is massively dropped.

[37:05]

When she expelled that baseball size of a blood clot, too.

[37:09]

Wow.

[37:12]

Sometimes women might say, you know, I have migraines during menstruation and I really

[37:16]

have labor pain like and well, if you feel labor pain like menstruation cramps accompanied

[37:23]

by massive migraines, it is highly likely your body's trying to expel something.

[37:28]

And so trust your intuition and taking a painkiller to mask that pain, like you mentioned

[37:34]

in some of your podcasts, you take you know, you can't take a Tylenol and pop it every

[37:38]

single day and think everything's going to be OK.

[37:42]

You know, think about what is my body trying to do or trying to express and really use

[37:47]

your intuition and trust it.

[37:49]

Trust it a lot, which leads me to another point that you mentioned is, you know, you

[37:53]

can't just pop a Tylenol every single day and be OK.

[37:58]

That when you take medication, what you do is you take a painkiller.

[38:02]

And again, if you're in massive pain, these are important steps to take and you have to

[38:07]

respect the protocol from your doctor.

[38:09]

However, if you also think for yourself and do a bit of research online, you will realize

[38:14]

that taking some of these medication will cause what is called rebound migraines or

[38:19]

medication overuse headaches.

[38:21]

What it concretely means is when you have, for example, a PMS migraine, you know, pre

[38:27]

migraine and you take a medication, you take an instant painkiller, but then you're adding

[38:33]

a toxin that now your liver needs to process on top of everything else.

[38:37]

Yes, exactly.

[38:38]

And so this is going to damage your fertility, which is a topic that you cover quite a bit

[38:44]

as well.

[38:45]

You know, like just that constant medication, chronically medication, medicating to address

[38:51]

things will impact your fertility, because if you start to mess up with your liver system,

[38:56]

you are messing up with your hormonal system, too.

[38:59]

Right.

[39:00]

Absolutely.

[39:01]

And so, like you said, also, when somebody is in so much pain, sometimes at the end of

[39:05]

the day, like they just need some sort of reprieve or relief because they are in so

[39:10]

much pain.

[39:10]

So in the process, so that is, yes, part of the process.

[39:14]

I always say, so our app is called Migraine Heroes.

[39:19]

My job, your job is you manage your pain.

[39:21]

My job is you have no more pain.

[39:22]

Very different jobs, very different ways to get there.

[39:25]

You love that.

[39:25]

You love that.

[39:27]

So there's a perfect segue to the next one, which is stress and cortisol, because we

[39:31]

were kind of I know they all they're all going to kind of merge in together.

[39:33]

But so we kind of have a little, not a little, we got a lot of information on the hormone

[39:37]

piece, cyclical piece, the connection to the liver system and how the body is really trying

[39:42]

to speak to us and tell us what it needs, which is really at the end of the day, what

[39:47]

we should always be thinking about any discomfort, any symptoms that are getting our

[39:52]

attention.

[39:53]

Then it's like, what is the body trying to tell us?

[39:56]

We need to become more aware, understand more about the body so that we can learn how to

[40:00]

read the beautiful map that is our own body to help us thrive as opposed to just living

[40:06]

in survival mode.

[40:08]

So the stress side of things.

[40:10]

So I talk about cortisol on the podcast a lot.

[40:13]

It is something that I test with a lot of my clients through functional hormone tests

[40:17]

like the Dutch test.

[40:18]

And I'm seeing everybody's diurnal cortisol slope.

[40:21]

It's, you know, I have yet to see somebody with a beautiful cortisol slope over a 24

[40:25]

hour period.

[40:26]

Most of us are all zigzagged and too high and too low and flipped on its head and so

[40:31]

on and so forth.

[40:32]

But we definitely know the cortisol relationship with even the blood sugar, also with how it

[40:39]

is going to impact progesterone as well, quite a bit.

[40:44]

So let's talk about migraines, stress induced migraines.

[40:49]

So we have like the cyclical based migraines.

[40:51]

And now let's dive into that stress based migraine and the connection between cortisol

[40:57]

migraines.

[40:58]

And then again, I mean, it all ties back to the fertility component, but let's hear your

[41:02]

take on the stress induced migraines first.

[41:05]

Yes, absolutely.

[41:06]

And you're nailing it because stress is really the second biggest factor for migraines.

[41:13]

I think people will see usually, you know, there's not two people exactly the same, but

[41:17]

they will see their hormone related and their stress related and stress related.

[41:23]

For some people, they will experience migraines during the moment of stress, where some people

[41:30]

will see the moment I hit Friday or Saturday morning and I can finally relax, I get hit

[41:37]

massively by a migraine.

[41:38]

When they can finally relax?

[41:40]

Oh, when they can finally.

[41:42]

It does, it does, it really does.

[41:46]

Or they say it's time I go on holidays.

[41:48]

Bam, it hits me.

[41:49]

And so for my family, it's very painful.

[41:51]

For my partner, it's just really, really hard.

[41:54]

And so it can lead to heartbreaking situations professionally or family wise.

[42:01]

And so you really have two different ways.

[42:05]

So two different types of families.

[42:07]

So during and after.

[42:09]

And when you have stress related migraines, usually you might notice that you have a tendency

[42:15]

to have also ovulation migraines or migraines at the time of ovulation, because as you mentioned,

[42:21]

the cortisol and the cortisol and the progesterone, those two are more related to the kidney system

[42:28]

alongside the ovulation.

[42:30]

And so this is how I tend to look at it.

[42:35]

All right.

[42:35]

And so with the stress induced migraine, I guess, you know, I'm trying to decide,

[42:44]

do I want to wait for like some tips towards the end after we talk?

[42:48]

Yeah, let's do that.

[42:49]

Okay.

[42:49]

Can we move to the gut component and the connection between the migraine and the gut?

[42:52]

Because you did talk about the vagus nerve a little bit earlier.

[42:56]

Before we even keep going there, can you just talk, tell people,

[42:59]

just in case they don't know, what is the vagus nerve?

[43:02]

Yes, absolutely.

[43:02]

So the vagus nerve is a, imagine a massive tree in your body and the foliage is in your brain.

[43:10]

And then you have a big trunk in your neck and you have really deep roots that go

[43:15]

in all of your organs and limbs.

[43:19]

Yeah.

[43:19]

And so the vagus nerve is going to connect the hundred billion nerve cells of all of your body.

[43:24]

He's the commander.

[43:25]

He's the chief of orchestra of your body.

[43:28]

Incredibly important nerve that has been found in the West about 200 years ago,

[43:34]

in the East about 5,000.

[43:37]

It's the ancestor, a part ancestor of acupuncture.

[43:42]

Yeah, in part.

[43:44]

And so the amazing, amazing circuits of electricity is taking place in your body.

[43:52]

And so it's through that vagus nerve that some of the pain is conducted, is driven, is sent.

[43:57]

Yeah.

[43:57]

And so when I'm stressed, I'm going to have that, yeah, a fright, flight or fight response.

[44:06]

And that's going to also trigger that vagus nerve.

[44:08]

So you have the vagus nerve, which is on the nervous system front,

[44:11]

and then you have the gut brain axis a lot more in the chemical aspect of things.

[44:16]

Like really think of your biome and the mushiness of the inside of your brain.

[44:21]

Yeah.

[44:21]

More, less of the electric currents, but more of the sort of chemical components that

[44:27]

the matter that is inside of your brain and inside of your gut, your gut being defined,

[44:32]

anything that starts from the mouth all the way to the bowel movement.

[44:36]

Yes, yes.

[44:37]

Yeah.

[44:38]

Okay.

[44:38]

So we have, so again, I mean, the gut distress and the hormones, we know they are all connected.

[44:43]

So you've done a really beautiful job of kind of like breaking down each component of that.

[44:47]

So, so when, would you say even maybe somebody with chronic digestive issues like,

[44:55]

you know, IBS or IBD or any, you know,

[45:00]

bacteria in their microbiome is this this can also be connected to the

[45:05]

migraine component as well through one brain access absolutely absolutely so if

[45:11]

you have for example a really bad biome and you have what would be called in the

[45:16]

West SIBO or MCAS or candida all of this would in the East be called dampness so

[45:26]

forms of humidity inside the biome which can sometimes correlate with endometriosis

[45:32]

so think a lot of mucus formed around the endometrium because it leaks from

[45:39]

the bowels itself then the brain is going to have a tendency to be a lot

[45:43]

more foggy a lot less mental clarity so these might be women that say not only

[45:49]

do I have massive pain during migraine attack in between attacks I also feel

[45:55]

extremely foggy extremely dizzy I just don't feel a hundred percent I really

[46:01]

struggle to work it would be very difficult and can put people in

[46:05]

financial distress and yeah and just a very very sad like happiness is composed

[46:12]

of a few pillars like friends family purpose in life and some form of you

[46:19]

know thought that your life is bigger than what it seems and a faith and so

[46:24]

the migraine disease can really take over each pillar and so if you start to

[46:29]

be dizzy or foggy 24-7 preventing you from working and engaging meaningfully

[46:35]

in relationships it's just really hard so that's gonna connect like that so the

[46:40]

gut is completely connected to the brain for example from that perspective I love

[46:45]

that and even when you said that I was just thinking about like what it's like

[46:49]

to have you know it's kind of overcast and a little bit foggy and a little bit

[46:54]

drizzly and rainy today if we just think about what it's like outside when it's

[46:59]

clouds are low it's heavy and foggy versus that clear beautiful sky which

[47:05]

was blue exactly not shining through exactly I feel you just feel so much

[47:09]

more vitality at that point absolutely and I love that you mentioned that

[47:13]

because I took me a while to put trackers together because to help people

[47:18]

globally I had to put trackers together and so now I put all of that it's called

[47:23]

the migraine heroes app and I call them heroes because for me these are people

[47:27]

who try stride tried failed failed failed and then succeed and that's exactly the

[47:32]

way you describe is exactly how we track is with like blue sky or a thunderstorm

[47:36]

or a really cloudy day or a semi cloudy day or a rainbow day you know to really

[47:42]

help illustrate what's going on inside their body another idea that comes to

[47:47]

mind when it comes to guts gut brain axis is if you take the polar opposite

[47:51]

which would be chronic constipation if someone has a lot of constipation think

[47:56]

of it just with pure logic right if you're really constipate means there's a

[48:01]

lot of dryness inside your bowels and that dryness is going to convert into

[48:05]

dryness an absence of moisture in the brain now the brain we know from Western

[48:10]

science is 74% water yeah and so when my bowel movements are dry my brain can

[48:18]

also be dry and that's kind of leads to vertigo dizziness if I'm trying to be a

[48:23]

mom and to conceive those liquids speed will be prerequisite in order to form

[48:28]

amniotic fluids now in the East things are not as segmented they're more

[48:34]

melting into each other and so being paying attention to okay what is the

[48:39]

dizziness signaling oh interesting I also have very dry bowel movement

[48:45]

constipation that I really struggle to get rid of in spite of having fiber and

[48:49]

vegetables etc and I struggle to be pregnant well you could actually hit

[48:55]

three birds one stone because this is actually from an Eastern perspective it

[48:59]

is the same problem interesting I am so fascinated more about the at one point I

[49:05]

was like I'm like you Diana if we lived in the same city I'm sure we'd be great

[49:09]

I love learning and every time I interview somebody else on the podcast

[49:16]

and I'm learning about their area of expertise or their niche or what

[49:20]

certification they've done I'm like I want to do that next I get so excited so

[49:24]

I actually thought one time maybe I'll be an acupuncturist and learn more about

[49:27]

traditional Chinese medicine and all that and every time I learned I mean

[49:30]

I've read books but every time I talk to somebody and learn more about it it's

[49:33]

just I love the way that you are able to take both the Western and the Eastern

[49:38]

concepts you're doing a great job by the way and kind of pulling them together

[49:41]

and being able to explain both sides and you know on the Western side this is the

[49:46]

picture on the Eastern side this is the picture while they're different you can

[49:49]

see how they come together it really helps pull the picture together so I

[49:53]

just I commend you on being able to articulate yourself nicely thank you

[49:57]

thank you that means a lot I think it's dumb you know sometimes we see them as

[50:03]

saying different things or they're polar opposite or they disagree and the

[50:07]

more I go into all of this the more I see how fundamentally they converge and

[50:12]

we don't like to really admit it but they do converge a lot so recently you

[50:19]

mentioned in the value I took a class of neuroscience at the Harvard X and there's

[50:24]

just so many things that really stroke me where I'm like wow this is the West

[50:27]

eat really really proving the East for example they have this beautiful

[50:31]

equation to measure the speed of a neuron in the brain and it released to

[50:35]

temperature and the Chinese will always see and I always ask in the app to have

[50:39]

a lot of teas and I'm making people drink warm not necessarily always eats

[50:43]

but sometimes just drink and how it changes their brain so I find quite

[50:48]

fascinating that the West then comes back and says oh actually the the more

[50:53]

you eat warm the faster your neurons are interesting especially in the winter my

[51:00]

friends especially if you live in a cold place like myself it's like get

[51:04]

those warming foods have that warm tea it's not about eating clean and having

[51:09]

salads every day no if you're in a cold place you need to eat warm foods with

[51:14]

lots of hearty fats and vegetables and get like you can feel the difference

[51:19]

when you eat something cool something warm in in one of your podcast you

[51:24]

mentioned that you know like when the when the eggs there the temperature of

[51:30]

the uterus rises slightly to keep the the fertilized and the fertilized egg

[51:35]

warm in the luteal phase yes exactly and so the Chinese it will obsess about you

[51:41]

know keeping the uterus warm yes where songs yeah where's the bed all of those

[51:47]

things yes I love it love it so as we as we can I know we can probably talk

[51:54]

forever but we've gone quite we've gone quite deep and understanding the kind of

[51:59]

nuances and theory behind this I'm curious to know what if you can give

[52:04]

some okay so I know you said that your business or your your company uses

[52:10]

essentially food you'll be able to heal so I mean I'm sure there's different

[52:18]

protocols depending on the individual depending on the type of migraine and

[52:21]

all of these things what can you share with regards to food if you can if you're

[52:26]

thinking of you know your elevator pitch or your your five-minute

[52:30]

explanation on how to use food to support your body with minimizing

[52:38]

migraines and then also improving fertility what would you share or even

[52:43]

kind of like the process that you go through with clients to figure out what

[52:46]

foods are going to be best for them based to really help them mitigate these

[52:53]

migraines and heal themselves like you said three weeks yeah you you changed

[52:57]

your food and all of a sudden so I'm sure everyone's wondering like how did

[53:01]

you do that what would I recommend yeah so so I'll start by answering your last

[53:06]

question is like how do you do it and look I I pushed it to boundaries I never

[53:12]

thought I would have to the the complexity of these individuals I've met

[53:17]

and the commitment I've made to them and to solving every single case has been

[53:21]

huge and so the results today is that I ask about a hundred questions on all of

[53:27]

the things happening inside the body and I ask people to feel a tracker and now

[53:31]

there's a you can download the migraine heroes app and you can start to track

[53:35]

your migraines and we can start to explain them them to you very fast and

[53:40]

so and so by doing that you start to understand yes Oh what is going on

[53:46]

inside this body what's what's what's going on with this I'm gonna call it

[53:51]

delayed fertility why is this body not fertile yet what is the condition that

[53:57]

the body's putting forward saying to the human if you don't fix this I don't I

[54:02]

can't I can't proceed for nine months yeah and so and so I asked question I

[54:08]

mean there's a lot of listening you know a lot of questions a tracker and I also

[54:12]

ask a picture of the tongue which is very common in traditional Chinese

[54:16]

medicine are you vid as well used to be also quite part of the West not as

[54:20]

developed but you know quite a bit just to seize the white coating is it yellow

[54:23]

do we go for antibiotics or is it you know bacteria virus like just to have a

[54:28]

sense and so I have about 15,000 images and so there's a proper AI that just is

[54:33]

gonna read the tongue I can do that in a split second and it's an incredible

[54:38]

piece of information it allows us to not only know where we start but also know

[54:43]

how we progress and so with all of that information we have a really acute sense

[54:48]

of what's going on to the body and then we're going to define in what order we

[54:52]

remove problems by adding foods and and also then we can observe at what speed

[54:59]

is the body you know solving it so what the beauty with migraine and fertility

[55:05]

is that you can say did you fix it yet well if the migraine is gone you fixed

[55:09]

it mmm and then and it's what is really fascinating is that oftentimes I have

[55:14]

women I welcome them and I say okay I'm just please ask you not to get pregnant

[55:18]

immediately I'm just want to clean your uterus I want to do a few things before

[55:21]

we go for it but when I tell you to go for it usually women are pregnant that

[55:25]

month so I might say okay can you hold off for two or three months yes and then

[55:31]

I'm like okay now we're ready and when we're ready she tells me by the way

[55:35]

amazing I thought I was gonna have my menstruation delayed I had no PM no no

[55:41]

PMS I really thought my menstruation was gonna be late no sore breasts no

[55:45]

moods etc and also my last menstruation Wow like bright blood you know bright

[55:53]

red blood incredible and so the woman feeds her body's completely novel and

[55:58]

I'm like okay now go for it this is yes this is your time and they're pregnant

[56:03]

and it really shows how the body is not a coincidence it really shows that when

[56:09]

you do your work 80-20 consistency beats perfection I'm completely with you on

[56:13]

that yes that when you do your work the body as a logical machine all it wants

[56:18]

it is to reproduce yes that's what we're designed to do yeah and so I've welcomed

[56:24]

people they had had you know they were coming for their migraines but they had

[56:29]

had IVF I'm like oh you can pose that just relax like you're just putting so

[56:35]

much stress on your body D migraine and then boom they're pregnant after you know

[56:40]

I have people they announce their pregnancy at six months because like I

[56:43]

cannot believe I'm pregnant I've had four miscarriages and I keep on thinking

[56:47]

I'm gonna lose the baby and yes I see six months yes yes yeah like I just don't

[56:54]

dare saying it I'm like okay now you need to make new friends yes I know go

[56:59]

out there and be able to say it and so it's um like it's really a beautiful

[57:05]

machine and so that's how that's how we work is really by removing these layers

[57:10]

so think of it like onions peas so you remove them one at a time and so

[57:16]

something that can apply to all there's a beautiful food that I quite like is

[57:20]

goji berries but but in the right way so goji berries they have a lot of ability

[57:25]

they have ability to stimulate and detox the liver they have the ability to

[57:29]

nourish the kidney system they have the ability to increase blood volume

[57:32]

increasing and so they're incredible food now because they're so potent you

[57:37]

need a very very little amount so eight to ten a day is plenty and to absorb a

[57:43]

maximum nutrients if you put them as an infusion and you let them infuse for 10

[57:48]

15 minutes they release their nutrients in the water and then become highly

[57:51]

absorbable and so just having that from time to time is really really nice

[57:55]

because it's going to solve a lot of you know a lot of underlying problems in

[58:00]

parallel however do not have goji berries if you have an appropriate IBS

[58:06]

irritable bowel syndrome and that you're on a FODMAP diet and you don't like

[58:10]

just oligosaccharides goji berries do contain fructans so again use your

[58:14]

intuition if you hear me say that on podcast but it makes you bloated trust

[58:19]

your body first yes your body is always right always always right that's funny

[58:25]

that you say that because I was gonna say I so when I went to school for

[58:28]

holistic nutrition over a decade ago and I learned everything that I could

[58:32]

start learning about food and all the beneficial properties of food and all

[58:35]

these new foods like at least 10 years ago you know cacao nibs weren't as

[58:39]

popular as they are now or like chia seeds were were popular but not as

[58:43]

popular or known as they were now and I learned about goji berries I you learn

[58:46]

about kombu there's so many foods that you learn about that you don't really

[58:50]

kind of find think about buying in your traditional grocery store but the goji

[58:54]

berries oh I don't have IBS I don't need to follow a flow FODMAPs diet but

[58:59]

goji berries always may always make my they do not agree with my tummy and I

[59:04]

would always try and I'm like I know they're so good for me they're called in

[59:08]

so many wonderful recipes I'm gonna try it again and try it again every time I

[59:10]

have it no doesn't work with me so I'm like okay but I'm curious to know sorry

[59:15]

you mentioned this and I just want to clarify for those listening you said so

[59:20]

eight to ten goji berries per day is all you need a little bit goes a long

[59:23]

way and you said to soak it in a little bit of water is this room temperature

[59:27]

water and then you eat the goji berries after you're just soaking it and what

[59:31]

can you just explain that a little bit my question make it like an infusion so

[59:37]

you actually put hot water like almost boiling water on top of them and then

[59:43]

you drink the you drink the drink of the water got it and then you leave the goji

[59:47]

berries you don't eat the goji after I mean by the time if you've if they have

[59:51]

been you know infusing for a while they will be a bit mushy and not very good in

[59:56]

neither taste or texture they've given everything they could give you can

[60:00]

compost them probably or you can eat them there's nothing wrong with eating

[60:06]

them okay maybe you know what this was many years ago I haven't touched goji

[60:10]

berries for many years because when I did back in the day I was my tummy was

[60:14]

upset but maybe I'll just I think my mom has some goji berries I'll just see if I

[60:17]

can infuse them and maybe it will be a different experience for me or like

[60:21]

you're said now I'm not listening to my body because my body's like no Nora we

[60:24]

told you we don't like exactly a little experiment just for fun okay and so with

[60:32]

the nutrition plans that you give to your clients then so you do all this

[60:35]

data collection up front this is precisely what I would do with my

[60:37]

clients as well I collect the data with regards to their blood labs their

[60:40]

menstrual cycle parameters we do some more in-depth testing through functional

[60:43]

lab testing I always say the first month at least at least the first month

[60:47]

is data collection time we need to collect data to really understand so

[60:51]

we're not just throwing spaghetti spaghetti at the wall and just trying a

[60:54]

thousand things and then seeing what sticks so after the data collection is

[60:58]

done you do all your process then you're saying from that each individual gets a

[61:03]

specific nutrition plan based on the data and then from and then they

[61:08]

implement that and then over time depending on the individual that could

[61:13]

be maybe like a two-month plan or a protocol and then from there you're

[61:16]

like okay now the doors are open and you're ready to try to conceive again

[61:20]

just to understand yeah okay yeah absolutely correct and so the the foods

[61:25]

are gonna change about every three to four weeks sometimes you're like wow

[61:29]

this list is just impeccable you're nailing it your energy is increasing you

[61:33]

have to if you're in migraines your bowel movements are a lot better formed

[61:37]

you have much less symptoms such as less sore breasts less numbness less

[61:42]

aura etc and your sentiment your mood is also a lot improved then you might keep

[61:50]

them longer and sometimes you're like okay this one's we're going to do a

[61:53]

quickie because it's not a big imbalance sometimes you might come back on

[61:56]

something and sometimes you might also add and remove at the same time so for

[62:02]

example on the biome you might do things in parallel and so we do that it's

[62:07]

completely custom made and if suddenly COVID hits you we're gonna pose and

[62:12]

focus on repairing the damage caused by the COVID because this is what is most

[62:17]

acute and top of mind for the body sometimes we might also notice through

[62:21]

the tongue image this person is having you know really strong emotions and

[62:26]

we're gonna talk about it and say hey do you think there's something going on in

[62:29]

your life they're like oh this is a bit spooky how do you know yeah your body

[62:33]

gives the score so I'm gonna give you a few foods and you can eat them and and

[62:38]

your thoughts are gonna be more balanced you can also just share it with us so

[62:43]

there's a chat inside the app it's quite luxurious like if you were trying to

[62:47]

make money you would not create an app with a chat inside with real humans

[62:52]

that's not how you do business but if you're trying to solve people's body

[62:56]

it's a great it's probably you know a great idea so so there's like real

[63:01]

people chatting to you and and helping you solve that yeah and so that's how we

[63:07]

find we also want to know like if you if you're passing quite a lot of clouds we

[63:12]

we like to know that and we like to see you know how is your menstruation so the

[63:16]

whole app is gonna collect that and we can monitor that as humans on a daily

[63:21]

basis beautiful beautiful so Diane if you can just let us know where people can

[63:27]

find you I will make sure to have these links in the show notes below but I know

[63:31]

you've got quite extensive social handles available once you've got your

[63:36]

app you've got your podcast and your website if there's I'm assuming maybe

[63:39]

the website it can give us like the centralized place for someone to go to

[63:43]

be able to find yeah yeah so I would so the website is my nectar health calm and

[63:51]

but the app is really called migrant heroes and so this is where we're

[63:55]

converging this is a beautiful name and we like it a lot so go for the migrant

[64:01]

heroes app this is also the migrant heroes podcast and so and my name Diane

[64:06]

Ducarme and so you will find these beautiful resources to your due diligence

[64:11]

you know reads listen to people you will hear they're very different to you

[64:16]

however they share love similarities they're also coming to you for an hour

[64:20]

to explain their story not because they're paid or incentivized but because

[64:25]

they say look what has been going on in my life for 5 10 20 30 years has been

[64:31]

very difficult and I don't wish it on anyone let alone my enemy or anyone like

[64:36]

that and so I wish you know someone else can benefit from from from hearing my

[64:42]

journey beautiful absolutely I I mean I learned a lot today from you so I'm sure

[64:46]

those listening are either learning something taking a little nugget home

[64:50]

with them or sharing this podcast episode or resources with somebody else

[64:54]

are utilizing it themselves so thank you so much Diane for taking the time to

[64:59]

share your knowledge explain and and also for putting together this wonderful

[65:05]

sounds like an incredible app so yes for those who are looking to connect with

[65:09]

Diane or learn a little bit more about if you're suffering suffering from

[65:13]

chronic migraines sounds like Diane would be the person to go to so head

[65:17]

down to the link in the show notes to check her out otherwise thank you so

[65:21]

much Diane thank you thank you thank you Nora thank you for having me thanks

[65:27]

if you're looking for more information on how to prepare your body for

[65:31]

pregnancy download my free eat to get pregnant guide this is a one-page PDF

[65:37]

that guides you on how to eat for your menstrual cycle to support your hormones

[65:41]

and overall fertility once you download the guide you'll receive free fertility

[65:45]

boosting recipes to support you on each week of your cycle you can find this at

[65:50]

www.naturallynora.ca backslash eat this link is also provided for you in the

[65:57]

show notes below see you next week

Originally published March 2025

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The migraine and fertility connection | Migraine Heroes