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Hello everyone and welcome to Functional Fertility, the podcast designed to demystify your hormones,
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uplevel your lifestyle and supercharge your fertility potential.
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I'm your host, Dr. Kalia Waddles, and today's episode is a great example of systems biology
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as we explore the connection between migraine headaches and fertility.
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I find so many connecting points between these systems when I'm doing a fertility assessment.
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So I'm really excited to welcome today's guest, Diane Ducarmes.
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Diane is a contemporary master of the migraine investigation, blending Western science, Eastern
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medicine and cutting edge technology to unearth the root causes of migraines.
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Diane's dedication to migraines inspired her to create her podcast, Migraine Heroes,
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and her company, Nectar Health, leads the journey toward migraine relief and wellness.
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Welcome to the show, Diane.
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Thank you so much, Kalia.
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I find that migraines pop up in so many of my fertility patients, and so as I am working
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with them, I'm asking them to do some tracking for me and kind of plot their migraines with
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their cycles and their stress level and what they're eating.
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And I know that you have all of this expertise in the relationship between migraines and
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our cycle, and I wanted you to give our listeners an introduction to this topic and tell us
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how these things might be related.
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Yes, absolutely, because they are.
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For many, they are.
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Not always, but for many.
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And so you've probably seen a couple of different patterns in your data, where you see some
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women will say, I always have migraines just before my menstruation, for example, which
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can be sort of a big classic, but not for everyone.
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So they will say, oh, I have lots of premenstruation symptoms, and one of those can be terrible
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migraines that will last for a couple of days.
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Some women might say, then I also have some migraines during my menstruation, and it can
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be like the first day, the second day, or every single day, or more towards the end
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of my menstruation, when I start spotting.
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Some other women might say, I usually have them after my menstruation, and some might
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say, I have them around the ovulation, or all of the above.
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And in addition to that, they may also say, oh, I can also feel that stress is quite a
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trigger for me, or alcohol, but kind of not always, when I, I think it's always my cycle,
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so it's sometimes a bit random, and when I look, it's random.
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I think it's alcohol, but it's also not always.
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Or some will say, oh, it's completely unrelated, and they are daily, or they just appear in
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just really, really random ways.
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And so we see everything along the spectrum, but the amazing thing is, when we're able
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to understand them, especially when they relate to cycle, but not only, but especially when
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they relate to cycle, then we can unlock the migraines, we can unlock a lot more natural
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From your perspective, and all of this data that you've looked at, is it helpful to track?
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I mean, does it help us to create a more precise treatment plan when we know when in the cycle
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the migraines are happening?
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It's a great question.
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Yes, it really does, because it allows to create transparency, but you need to look
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at it with a very open eye.
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Sometimes women will be asked to track, and they do that for quite a lot of years, but
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then they don't see the pattern being consistent, and they feel discouraged, because then they
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feel, oh, then it doesn't really help.
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But it still does, because once you can see the forest and the trees, you can start to
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plan your life much better, and start to find solutions.
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Maybe I'll explain why.
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One of the things that really, that, you know, women will go, they're told to track sometimes,
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you know, even by their GP, by their neurologist, can be also, you know, if they're very lucky,
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but their functional fertility doctor, and in which case it's very useful.
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But in the case of a doctor, sometimes they will track, and they will say, oh, it's cycle
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And then they come to the doctor's office, and they look at the data together, and they
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say, well, it's actually not cycle related, I can't see, I don't see the pattern, or the
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doctor will challenge, is there a pattern in the first place, do you see, it's not cycle
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related, but I thought it was, so intuitively they feel it is, but when they look at the
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data, it isn't systematically, and that will throw them off in their intuition, yet their
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intuition is super, super, super important.
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Yeah, in all things, in migraines, in fertility in general, in medicine in general, intuition.
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Completely, completely, like we know so little, I mean, shame on us in the West, we know so
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little about the female body, that women get gaslit at a super high speed, and their intuition
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will be really, really challenged in ways that are completely unfair, and usually wrong.
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So I can give you a few examples, for example, you can have a woman who's going to place
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a migraine IUD, and initially the migraine IUD doesn't give her migraines, but over the
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years it does, and she feels it's the root cause, but then she leaves it for a couple
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of years, and the doctor's kind of reluctant to remove it, because they say, no, it's not
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And then there's a bit of a domino effect that happens, so initially, because she's
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going to put it, she might feel good, she doesn't bleed anymore, but over the years
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she starts to be more bloated, she starts to have numbness in the arms, numbness in
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the legs, tingling sensations, she might have sore joints, she starts to have a terrible
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posture, she puts on a bit of weight, she's a bit moody, she has more symptoms with this
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absence of menstruation, and there's a bit of a domino effect going on in her body, and
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by the time the doctor agrees to remove it, and she removes it, she still has migraines,
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but now that are coming from somewhere else.
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And the doctor might say, see, I told you, it was not the migraine IUD.
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But she was right.
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And so really listening to one's intuition is really, really important.
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I'll give you another example, I have lots of women who are going to be put on a lot
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of preventative medication, and medication for an acute attack.
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They're going to feel, the more I take them, the more, I don't know, I start to have this
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stomach uncomfortable and acidity, and sometimes I throw up, but I feel part of what I throw
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up are the medications.
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I think they help me in some way, but in some way they make everything worse.
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And again, it's not going to be backed necessarily by science, but they're right that it just
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continuously messes up their system and their fertility in the process.
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Which is why I think you've highlighted the importance of a very careful history collection,
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really understanding not just someone's labs and their biomarkers, but their lived experience
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and zoning in on that intuition piece.
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And as we think about some of the root causes of migraines, it seems like for some there's
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a hormonal picture, it seems like maybe there's an inflammatory component in some others,
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based on what you've said.
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Are there some other common root causes that you're finding in women specifically?
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Ah, yes, absolutely.
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So when you look at the different systems, it's a bit like the following.
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What is really interesting, and let me start maybe with that, is migraines are genetic.
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And because they're genetic, it's 5% of boys and girls.
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And we understand that in the West, it's like 5% of boys and girls have migraines and after
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all it's genetic, so it's normal that it's quote unquote fair.
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But as of puberty, the incidence for women is going to triple to quadruple, leaving 18%
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of women with migraines.
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And Western science is going to be very puzzled because they will say, well, purely hormonal
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migraines do not account for the 13% difference.
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It can't justify the whole 13% difference.
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But what happens if you look at it from a functional perspective, the woman goes from
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being a girl to being a woman.
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And so in the equation of fertility, what's going to happen is that she's going to start
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to be able to give life to a baby.
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If we compare her to a man, a man is going to have daily cycles with one sex hormone
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and it's going to produce one cell in that equation.
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But the woman is going to produce the whole baby, the brain, the hair, the nails, the
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heart, the blood, the eyes, you know, it's a very sophisticated.
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So if you have to compare the female factory and the men and men to a factory, men's factory
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would be quite a simple factory, maybe an envelope factory.
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And the woman would be a very sophisticated factory, maybe a car factory.
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So the ability from puberty that something goes wrong with the system is much higher.
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If you had a dashboard with buttons to troubleshoot problems, the dashboard of the woman would
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be a lot more sophisticated because the system can produce material.
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It can produce a child.
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Also in her fertility years, she's going to lose 23 to 28 liters of menstruation.
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So it can also produce blood.
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The man's body is not wired like that.
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And so when she goes through puberty, the insulin is going to triple to quadruple because
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the system comes out and it's all complexity.
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And so when we look at migraines, we have to then look at the system, what systems are
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changing in her body.
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And the first system that changes is really has to do with the liver.
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And I speak seven languages and it's almost I only speak two.
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I speak West and in West when you say liver, you always designate the piece of flesh at
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the bottom of your right ribcage.
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When you say liver in Eastern medicine or in Mandarin specifically, you don't mean that.
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You mean the liver system, the liver function, and that liver function, you have the liver,
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the gallbladder, all of the female hormones, all of the mood hormones, all of the tendons,
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the eyes, a lot of the brain, the temples, the top of the brain, the eyebrows.
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And so whenever that system will be challenged or not doing well, the brain is going to complain.
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And I think we we in the West, we describe migraines as, you know, it's 18 percent of
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women having a genetic neurological disorder.
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And that's a really we have to be careful with the words we choose.
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Neurological disorders like, oh, mother nature decided to make a fifth of women cuckoo.
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Oh, let's spice it up.
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Is that plausible or does that not make sense?
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I think we have to ask the question, really, does that really make sense?
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And a fifth of women who are producing 100 percent of the people's planet are just neurologically
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No, that doesn't quite make sense.
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In the past, people with women with migraines, they would be able to predict weather changes.
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They would be able to protect society from bad foods and test things for this food to
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protect the tribe, to protect the people, because they were a lot more intuitive than
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And so the migraine is more of a tool here, a massive tool for fertility, because if I
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manage to conquer my migraines, I manage to conquer my fertility.
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And so that beautiful liver system that is going to be in charge of my hormones is also
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incredibly related to my brain.
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And we know that from the gut brain axis.
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We know that from the biggest perspective.
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And so the more the woman's going to feel, the more my liver's liver organ is inflamed,
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the more it has inflammation, the more I took maybe wine, cheese, chocolate at a wrong time
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of the cycle, the more my brain is going to be inflamed and the more I'm going to
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But not always, because sometimes my liver system is on top of its game, but then I can
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have these foods and I can feel absolutely fine.
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So this is part of the beautiful mysteries of femininity and the beautiful mysteries
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of the cycle that we continue to explore and love so dearly.
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Yeah, this is fascinating.
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And I already know I have been underestimating the impact of liver health on migraines.
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I just have no one talks about it like you just shared with us.
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And related to our liver health and our detoxification abilities, if we think about kind of our assimilation
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area of our body systems is the gut health.
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And you mentioned the gut brain axis.
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And I talk about the relationship between gut health and fertility so much that I wanted
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to spend a few moments here and get your insight on this connection between gut health and
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Yeah, because it's huge.
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So it's only in the last 15 years in the West, and I talk a lot about West and East, in the
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last 15 years in the West that we discovered the gut brain axis and how the brain gives
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instruction to the gut, which always we thought.
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But then it turns out that the gut also gives instructions to the brain.
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And we discovered that quite recently.
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Now, in Eastern medicine, this has been known for thousands of years.
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It was always a part of it.
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So if you discuss with a really old traditional Chinese medicine doctor and you say, oh, we
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have this cutting, you know, cutting edge science on the gut brain axis to like, oh,
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probably, darling, you haven't understood really well what they meant on TV or on the
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And you're like, no, no, no.
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I this is what you mean.
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It's like, oh, no, but we've done that for a while.
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Like, where are you coming from?
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Of course, it's connected.
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How could it not be?
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Just look at an animal.
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You can say, oh, no, the brain of the bee is disconnected from the thorax of the bee.
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That doesn't make any sense.
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So if you look at your body, of course, it's a system.
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Your brain is not a starting point.
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It's also an end point.
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And so the gut brain axis is completely connected.
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Now, what's defined the gut, as you rightfully say, has to do with everything from the mouth
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to the end of the food chain and all of the hormones within.
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And so all of that's really, really completely intertwined.
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And so the more my gut overall, all of my systems and my thorax are going to be happy,
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the more my brain is going to be happy.
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So oftentimes, women, when they have a lot of migraines or when they have a lot of fertility
[15:20]
issues, they might be very fixated on these things because this is the most loud symptom
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That symptom of not being able to reproduce.
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And I like to call it a delayed fertility, just not being able to reproduce yet because
[15:34]
the body is just not yet where it needs to be or, you know, the massive pain that they
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experience in their brain.
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But you know, but there's so much more that is that is going in.
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I encourage women to pay attention to the other symptoms like, oh, if you feel bloated,
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if you have numbness, if you feel dizzy, do you feel dizzy when you stand up fast?
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Are you sensitive to light?
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Can you stay in front of a screen long?
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Can you do you sweat a lot?
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Do you sweat easily?
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Do you sweat at night?
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Do you have gray hair when you're so young and so pretty and you should be in age of
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Are you tired easily?
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And so all of these symptoms are a reflection of imbalances inside the gut that once solved
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can solve for the migraines as well, hence the fertility too.
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Those two come hand in hand.
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One is a tool to reach the other one.
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And do you find, let's say a woman is struggling with migraines and maybe her fertility as
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well and she has dysbiosis or she has intestinal hyperpermeability or leaky gut.
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Do you find that when we address those issues in the gut, the migraines improve?
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The migraines completely decrease intensity and frequency, disappear and the woman gets
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Like that's the shift is completely instantaneous.
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I have seen so many women, they have that extra radar that almost the other ones don't
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So when you do your work, you have all of the analysis for you to help the woman get
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The woman who has migraines has that additional thermometer, additional barometer to give
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you and say, no, it's not fixed yet.
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As long as the migraines are there, it means there's something missing.
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Now, if the woman has less, less, less, less, less, she might just get pregnant before it
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completely finishes because the body might say, hey, you know what?
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We're doing great.
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We have everything we need.
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You know, let's do this.
[17:40]
I'll give you an example.
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For example, leaky gut, I find really interesting.
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In the language in the West, when we say gut and we say it's leaky, we almost blame the
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gut for being leaky.
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Yeah, we see the gut is being leaky.
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When actually it might be that at the top of her gut, at the top of her food chain,
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there's the stomach spleen.
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The stomach spleen is in charge of it, like a gatekeeper to triage the food coming in
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and take from mother nature the things, the very things that are going to be able to form
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the baby and form a mom and form blood and form amniotic fluid.
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And that police officer is going to triage that food and give it at the disposition of
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He's also in charge of making the skin really firm and the muscles very firm.
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And so we love this guy.
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He's the one that if you have a good one, you know, your body stays in amazing shape.
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And when we're pregnant, we have the stomach spleen changing role and he's going to not
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He's going to also feed the placenta now when the stomach spleen, for some historical reasons
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or some imbalances, is not doing a good job.
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He's going to send all the food and triage to the gut and triage to the small intestine
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who's going to go, maybe, maybe there are things I want.
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Maybe there are things that I don't want.
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It still has toxins.
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It has parasites or allergens and also has the good stuff.
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And so it may go into a gut that's completely leaky and runny or into a mix of constipation
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and and sort of very loose stool and get completely confused and all over the place.
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Once that's the case, it also means that the body is unable to produce the placenta
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and might say, hey, you know what, I'm out of this protective baby thing.
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Like we're going to need for nine months, I'm going to need to feed two of you.
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And currently, the reality is I struggle to feed one of you.
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I don't want to go.
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I don't want to go ahead.
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Regardless, you do IVF, I just I'm not ready.
[19:57]
And so the moment you repair that, the body has the dysbiosis resumed, the leaky gut resumed,
[20:03]
and then the body's like, ah, now we can work.
[20:06]
And so when the body says no, listen to it, you know, listen, listen to it.
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One thing I find really, really difficult is for a couple when the woman goes through
[21:29]
a miscarriage because the body says, hey, I didn't say I was ready, I'm not ready, we
[21:34]
There's not enough blood volume, there's not enough liquid for the amniotic fluids, we
[21:38]
can't feed the placenta, I'm not, there's no game on, I can't do this, I'm so sorry,
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I'm going to have to start again, I can't do this, I'm so sorry, I can't do this, I can't
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There's no game on, I can't do this, I'm so sorry, I'm going to have to stop this project
[21:53]
together and for the dad, there's no life yet because there's no baby in their arms
[22:01]
I have a husband and we have two children and I remember when we came back from the
[22:04]
hospital, it's like, it's so weird to come back, three of us, and I thought, oh my God,
[22:08]
we left three of us, he left in the thighs of my belly, but for him, it only hit him
[22:15]
when he saw the baby and for me, the day I took a pregnancy test, I was pregnant, but
[22:22]
for him, I was only pregnant the day he heard the heartbeat and these things only become
[22:27]
tangible for men much later.
[22:28]
He also became a dad, I mean, he's an exceptional dad, but it comes gradually.
[22:34]
For women, for us, we become a mom the day that test is positive, in love with our child
[22:41]
and in love with its soul and in love with its presence immediately and when the body
[22:46]
says no and the woman has to go back on abandoning that child, it's really hard and there's
[22:53]
a lot of grief and it's really, really hard, so my encouragement is always try to fix the
[23:01]
migraines completely first and then the fertility will follow because otherwise you have miscarriages
[23:07]
and when you have miscarriages, you will carry that grief for your whole life, which
[23:12]
is a really difficult grief and completely unnecessary and also unequally distributed
[23:17]
in the couple because it's going to be your grief, not his grief.
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Beautifully spoken, and this is something I see in my real patient population, those
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who have a history of migraines and also have a history of pregnancy loss and that was actually
[23:32]
my next question is, it makes sense to me that we use the migraine as a red flag, that
[23:38]
there's something else going on with inflammation, with hormones, with our mitochondrial function
[23:44]
From your perspective, and I think you answered this, but I'll just kind of summarize it
[23:48]
again, do you advise that we have complete resolution of the migraines before trying
[23:54]
to conceive again or is a decrease in frequency or intensity enough?
[23:59]
It's so hard to plan the timeline and I would love to hear your thoughts.
[24:03]
Oh, I would get rid of them completely.
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If you get rid of them completely and you do that beautifully with foods, you will also
[24:11]
have a pregnancy without migraines and that means a pregnancy without medication.
[24:18]
It also means you have a pre-pregnancy without medication and now we know how the impact
[24:25]
of medication on pregnancy is.
[24:28]
So we realized recently that even Tylenol in pregnancy, which if you Google it, and
[24:33]
I love Google, I find a really good trusted source, will still tell you that Tylenol is
[24:37]
okay during pregnancy, but if you go in the fine reading of the latest clinical trials,
[24:43]
they say it's actually not okay.
[24:45]
It damages the liver and it's going to create a much higher likelihood of having ADHD in
[24:52]
We don't understand all of these things.
[24:54]
Like if you can't have alcohol because it has toxins, what makes us think that having
[24:59]
medication in pregnancy is safe?
[25:02]
In fact, if we are where we are today, it all dates back to, I don't know if you're
[25:06]
familiar with that story, into the 60s where a lot of women who were pregnant were having
[25:11]
In order to treat their nausea, a doctor came up with a medication called thalidomide and
[25:18]
as a result of that medication, there were 10,000 children in Germany alone that were
[25:23]
born without limbs, so lacking full arm, full leg.
[25:27]
It's only if you speak with elderly people, they might say, oh, I know such a person.
[25:32]
Can you imagine you're a mom and because you were trying to have a bit of comfort, then
[25:38]
And it was a traumatic event for everyone.
[25:41]
It was complete traumatizing.
[25:43]
And it's because of that that we started to remove women from clinical trials because
[25:48]
We thought, oh, my God, maybe she's not pregnant, but then she becomes pregnant.
[25:54]
Maybe she's not pregnant because she doesn't know she's pregnant.
[25:57]
And so even if it's one in the whole clinical trial, this is just, you know, this is a life.
[26:03]
And so for very protective and well-intentioned reasons, women will be removed from clinical
[26:08]
And so I find that imbalances in the child, you don't see them immediately.
[26:14]
They might come later in life like ADHD, like, you know, children that struggle to
[26:19]
focus, struggle to fall asleep, have, you know, sort of difficulties at school, breathing
[26:27]
issues like, you know, you know, you can usually sometimes trace it back to up to how the
[26:31]
pregnancy was held.
[26:32]
So if you can de-medicate in that beautiful fertility phase and then have a beautiful
[26:38]
organic pregnancy, then life is just much, much easier beyond.
[26:47]
This is maybe true for a few different conditions.
[26:49]
I talk about this all the time, that a very thoughtful and intentional preconception planning
[26:54]
time where we work to reduce migraines and chronic inflammation and even your GI symptoms
[27:00]
is ultimately reducing the risk for chronic disease, maybe 20 years later, maybe through
[27:07]
And so it's such a beautiful opportunity to do these things for our full body wellness,
[27:12]
knowing it will impact our pregnancy.
[27:13]
So I appreciate your insight there.
[27:16]
And I'm 100% with you.
[27:18]
And that's why I was so excited, you know, because our values and our beliefs are completely
[27:23]
aligned and completely aligned.
[27:25]
It's very, very true in Eastern medicine, in traditional Chinese medicine and in Ayurveda,
[27:31]
which arguably sort of cracked something about fertility, something along the lines, right?
[27:36]
It doesn't mean that it's easy to manage a large population, but they did manage to be
[27:39]
quite fertile for quite a number of years, thanks to their medicine, which was completely
[27:44]
specialized into women and not necessarily into men.
[27:47]
And and yes, and so the more you solve for that, the more they see the vitality of the
[27:54]
baby is a reflection of the vitality of the parents at conception.
[28:01]
So they say the more the health of the parents at conception, the almost the better the DNA.
[28:07]
That's what they've expressed.
[28:08]
That's what they've experienced.
[28:09]
I don't think we can prove that scientifically yet, but empirically, that's what they've
[28:15]
And so their whole obsession was like, if we do that for a couple of generations, then
[28:19]
we all have sort of stronger human beings.
[28:24]
And I think the reverse is true, at least a bit when you look at our generation of children
[28:28]
and our generation in the world, you know, are we are we getting sort of healthier and
[28:35]
healthier generations or or more anxious generation, more generations with cancer, more
[28:41]
generations with ADHD, etc.
[28:42]
And of course, technology plays a role in there, but not just technology, also the way
[28:46]
we feed ourselves, the way we treat our bodies, the way we mute signals with medication.
[28:55]
I know one of the ways that you're really interested in and have an expertise in
[28:58]
supporting that vitality is with nutrition, is with superfoods.
[29:03]
And you mentioned that there are certain foods that can help us to treat our migraines.
[29:07]
And some of these, you know, I will see what you reveal, but I imagine some of them are
[29:12]
very antioxidant rich and anti-inflammatory and can help with other body systems as well.
[29:17]
Will you talk us through maybe your top five superfoods?
[29:20]
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[29:22]
And so I work with 700 foods and I find that nature has, you know, everything it needs
[29:28]
to produce a beautiful baby.
[29:31]
And it's all about finding, OK, what are the imbalances?
[29:34]
So whenever I meet someone, there's usually a number of layers of imbalances and I need
[29:39]
to unpeel them like an onion.
[29:41]
And I find that going and unpeeling the onion in the right order is really, really important.
[29:48]
And so there are some foods that are going to help to do that.
[29:51]
And there are some foods that are also going to hinder that.
[29:53]
And this is where I want to start because I know that this is actually more universal
[29:57]
is there are some foods that look superfoods, but that will get you a miscarriage really
[30:06]
And I want to share that because some women might feel I'm pregnant.
[30:11]
And then I have sort of a delayed menstruation and I never got that really, really positive
[30:16]
But I swear I was pregnant.
[30:18]
And they're right.
[30:18]
Again, their intuition is completely right.
[30:20]
And one of those foods that will give you that aspect is, for example, turmeric.
[30:25]
Turmeric has a great reputation and really deserves it.
[30:28]
It's a beautiful food that in case of a number of diseases is going to help is anti-inflammatory,
[30:34]
But there's there's two buts.
[30:37]
One is turmeric is going to clean the blood.
[30:40]
When you are freshly pregnant, you don't want to clean the blood.
[30:46]
Like it has to be cleaned before.
[30:48]
Once you're pregnant, you want to not touch the blood.
[30:50]
You want to respect it.
[30:51]
And so imagine your temple of love, your uterus, how you have that beautiful baby.
[30:55]
You don't want to start cleaning the uterus while the baby is there growing.
[31:01]
You don't want to do that.
[31:02]
And if you do that, it will result in an imbalance significant enough in the uterus that the
[31:08]
And so I really want to attract that because oftentimes we will talk about a food in absolute
[31:14]
And I think it's a big mistake that we do in the West.
[31:17]
We talk about a food such as if it was only doing the good stuff and we're going to celebrate
[31:22]
what they do good.
[31:23]
We don't celebrate what their dark force.
[31:26]
So you need to think for every door you push from the other side, you pull.
[31:32]
And so you want to understand the pulling as well as the pushing.
[31:36]
I'm getting something.
[31:37]
What am I giving up?
[31:39]
And in the case of turmeric, it's that balance of of the of the the uterus and the blood.
[31:46]
There's another one which, again, is loaded for its anti-inflammatory properties is ginger.
[31:52]
Ginger will make the blood circulates faster.
[31:56]
And so if you have a ginger infusion when you're pregnant, freshly pregnant, you can
[32:02]
The other thing is ginger is really warm in nature.
[32:05]
So it may take some of the in some of the liquids that will constitute the amniotic
[32:11]
And so it's not welcome.
[32:12]
Now, that being said, a ginger infusion or decoction is very different to candied ginger
[32:18]
that you can chew if you have morning sickness.
[32:21]
Very different things.
[32:22]
So the morning sickness one makes sense.
[32:25]
You don't necessarily swallow it.
[32:27]
And that's going to help you remove very naturally and very softly the nausea.
[32:35]
But ginger that you drink might might shift that balance, make the blood circulate too
[32:41]
fast and therefore, you know, you losing the baby.
[32:45]
Does that make sense?
[32:48]
So just a quick question.
[32:49]
I know probably some people are using either turmeric or ginger for their anti-inflammatory
[32:57]
Is it something where perhaps they could take through ovulation and then they discontinue
[33:02]
so that the second half of their cycle in early pregnancy is safe?
[33:07]
Yes, that's a that's a big, big yes.
[33:10]
That's the way to do it.
[33:11]
And it's great, too.
[33:12]
So, for example, if you've had a lot of miscarriages, it's really nice to clean the uterus after
[33:16]
all of these miscarriages.
[33:18]
And so turmeric can help with that.
[33:21]
And so that's exactly what you do.
[33:23]
You do that in that follicular phase.
[33:25]
And then once you hit ovulation, you stop it.
[33:28]
Yeah, yeah, brilliant.
[33:32]
Are there a few other foods that you find to be very powerful to help migraines that
[33:37]
might also benefit fertility in some way?
[33:42]
And always go if you try some of these foods, always try them and then see how you react,
[33:48]
because I don't know you and every person has their unique traits.
[33:52]
But, for example, goji berries, they have five roles they can play.
[33:58]
They will stimulate your liver and detox it, which are two very different roles.
[34:03]
And both are equally important.
[34:05]
When you stimulate the liver, you see their liver system.
[34:08]
You're a bit behind on your on your homework.
[34:10]
Here's more energy and you can choose whatever you think is important to do on your to do
[34:16]
It may be detox, but maybe also hormones or tendons or something else.
[34:22]
Third, it's going to nourish the kidney system, which is also super important in
[34:26]
It's going to increase the yin, so these beautiful liquids that make the woman very,
[34:31]
very wet and very hydrated from inside.
[34:36]
And it's going to increase the blood volume.
[34:39]
So that's a beautiful food.
[34:40]
Now, because it's so beautiful, because it's so rich, you really need a really small proportion.
[34:46]
So you can just put, you know, eight to 10 in a cup of water, hot water, let them infuse
[34:54]
And and that's enough for the day.
[34:56]
Your body, it's there's always a magic number to every food.
[35:01]
So, for example, if you see one apple a day keeps the doctor away.
[35:04]
What about five apples a day?
[35:06]
Well, what would that do?
[35:07]
You can imagine in your brain, it's like I'm going to have five apples a day every
[35:10]
single day for 20 days.
[35:11]
You can almost have already stomach cramps.
[35:14]
So it's the same with these really small and potent food.
[35:19]
There's a happy portion that is better to have daily than a massive amount, you know,
[35:26]
to have in one go.
[35:30]
So we're going to make our infusion with our goji berries.
[35:32]
Do we eat them afterwards after they've been soaking?
[35:36]
If they've soaked for a really long time, they're likely going to be a bit like mushy
[35:40]
and not very good in taste.
[35:41]
So you don't have to.
[35:42]
If you don't like waste, then you eat them.
[35:46]
They will always add more, but you don't have to.
[35:49]
What is really interesting is when you take an infusion, you bypass the gastric juices.
[35:53]
And so the the all of these nutrients go directly into the bloodstream, which is really nice.
[35:59]
So if you have, for example, you get you can still access some of that beautiful food that
[36:05]
way, which is nice because you need it.
[36:07]
You really, really, really need it.
[36:08]
If you have any, it needs to be repaired.
[36:10]
But meanwhile, you still need to go by the day.
[36:12]
And however, however, however, and I have to say these things, it's really important.
[36:19]
Goji berries do contain fructans.
[36:22]
So if you have an IBS, like a full blown irritable bowel syndrome and you're on a FODMAP diet,
[36:29]
If the goji berries make you bloated, stop them immediately.
[36:32]
They don't suit you.
[36:33]
You see, that's what I mean by I find sometimes in the West we have a very black and white
[36:37]
version of vision for food.
[36:40]
But the reality is it has these small nuances that are important and you don't have to know
[36:46]
I think as long as you follow your intuition, then you can also just trust your intuition.
[36:51]
You don't, you know, in absence of knowing everything intellectually.
[36:55]
Yeah, it's funny, just as an aside, as a related note, I do a lot of G.I.
[36:59]
testing in my practice.
[37:00]
And sometimes people will come in and they'll say, every time I eat avocado, I feel nauseous.
[37:05]
I don't feel well.
[37:06]
Or every time I eat, you know, an olive oil and then we do their G.I.
[37:10]
testing and we find that they're really having a hard time digesting fat.
[37:13]
And it's great that we see it on the report.
[37:15]
But I'll say you already knew, you already had the intuition that these foods weren't
[37:20]
working well for your body.
[37:21]
And of course, now we have some specificity and we know how to support you so that you
[37:24]
can enjoy those foods.
[37:25]
But listening to those signals that you're getting every day is so important.
[37:32]
And what is really hard sometimes is because the signals can change.
[37:40]
And maybe what I want to talk about that a little bit, too, is if you think of a man
[37:45]
next to you, like he wakes up and every single day he has one sex hormone and his liver does
[37:50]
the same thing and his body does the same thing.
[37:52]
It's quite simple.
[37:54]
If you're a woman, you have all of that cycle.
[37:56]
And so in that cycle, some days the liver system is going to produce estrogen, some
[38:00]
days LH, some days progesterone, some days detox from a medication, some days detox from
[38:05]
a bit of alcohol, some days have a big to do list, some days have a smaller to do list,
[38:10]
some days be able to go through it and some days not.
[38:13]
And this is where women will feel that their intuition is not reliable because they feel,
[38:19]
yeah, I'm intuitive, but it's also inconsistent.
[38:23]
Some days, yes, and some days no.
[38:25]
And so I'm not sure.
[38:27]
And I think you can still follow your intuition if some days no, then pause that for a little
[38:31]
bit, just park it on the side and reintroduce it just gently, just sort of gentle movement.
[38:37]
Obviously, I make it sound simple.
[38:40]
Obviously, we both know it's a lot more complicated.
[38:43]
But, you know, in absence of support, you can always rely on yourself first.
[38:49]
Before we move on from talking about the liver, I should have dedicated a whole episode just
[38:55]
I mean, this is so fascinating.
[38:56]
But before we move on, there are some things I do in my practice to support the health
[39:00]
of our liver, things like castor oil packs.
[39:03]
Can these modalities fit into a migraine treatment plan as well?
[39:08]
It just occurred to me.
[39:12]
They will take a lot of toxins out of the liver system.
[39:15]
And so that's going to be a certain types of migraines.
[39:18]
For example, premenstruation migraine would be a really good one, like when the toxins
[39:23]
in the liver are responsible for parts of those migraines specifically.
[39:31]
My wheels are turning.
[39:32]
All of the things that we can do.
[39:35]
I wanted just to explore quickly another area with you because I saw you posted on social
[39:41]
media about the impact of migraines on relationships.
[39:45]
And this is something that I've seen in my practice, but I don't think I was appreciating
[39:48]
because a lot of my patients are already on a fertility journey, which has its own implications
[39:54]
on the relationship.
[39:55]
And then you add this layer of migraines.
[39:58]
And I just wanted to get some advice from you on what we can do to support couples who
[40:05]
might be navigating fertility struggles and have this added layer of migraines and how
[40:11]
that might influence their communication dynamics.
[40:15]
Oh, yeah, this is such a big topic.
[40:18]
And let's talk about the relationship to the spouse.
[40:21]
We can also talk about the relationship to the parents and to the siblings, which also
[40:25]
can be difficult in those two endeavors.
[40:29]
For the spouse, because migraines are genetic and empathy is the ability to relate to what
[40:36]
So if you take your spouse, when you say you have a migraine, the closest thing they can
[40:40]
relate to is a headache.
[40:43]
And even if you say a migraine is not a headache, it's not a sentence they can really process.
[40:48]
And so I've done a whole podcast on this topic, a quick one, because I don't think spouse
[40:53]
have that much time for migraines.
[40:55]
But, you know, 15 minutes podcast on migraine here was just to explain to them what is a
[40:59]
migraine and why it's so hard to relate to.
[41:02]
And I find the best analogy we can find is like a hangover that's going to last for two,
[41:07]
three, four, five, seven, eight, nine, ten days and will not move with any medication.
[41:12]
And there you're quite close with.
[41:14]
For a woman, you could think labor.
[41:17]
Labor might be, you know, some people argue their migraine attacks are harsher than labor
[41:24]
And so I try to first calibrate the pain we're dealing with.
[41:28]
And that's really important.
[41:29]
And it's maybe sometimes hard to convey yourself because it means you're advocating for yourself,
[41:38]
I don't know, maybe it's hard to do or hard to believe.
[41:41]
And the first of all, it's like breaking the myth dialogue, maybe with a couple of facts
[41:46]
because it's genetic, you can't feel it because you can't feel it's hard to relate.
[41:50]
So, you know, these are the two best proxies that, you know, you can have in terms of pain.
[41:56]
And then then there's the fact that men always want to jump to a solution.
[42:01]
Usually, I mean, often I was on, you know, with a person yesterday, a woman, and she
[42:09]
was mentioning that in the past, her boyfriends were commenting on her migraines and sometimes
[42:14]
giving her random solutions or saying there's something you must be doing wrong.
[42:20]
And both receiving advice and being told there's something that you must be doing wrong is a really
[42:25]
hard sentence to receive.
[42:27]
I also presume that in your practice, this is also what women are told sometimes.
[42:32]
There must be something or this must be something we are doing wrong, which like this royal
[42:39]
we kind of you having most of the job with that baby.
[42:42]
And it's really, really hard.
[42:45]
And I think just, you know, having distance with it.
[42:48]
Like, he didn't mean it that way.
[42:50]
Like, it's really offensive, but he didn't mean that way in taking.
[42:54]
I think as women taking a lot of distance vis-a-vis, you know, what our partners can
[43:01]
actually understand and finding maybe maybe more a deal in someone like you or me.
[43:10]
And I don't mean that in a very commercial way at all.
[43:16]
It's just that the help you need is they can't give you what you need.
[43:21]
Like, they don't even understand the problem to start with.
[43:25]
So it's really hard for them to relate.
[43:27]
And I also find that and that's very personal experience.
[43:30]
I find men, they like to think that the baby comes from the bird.
[43:33]
They want to know that they're fertile.
[43:35]
They don't want to have their virility sort of touched.
[43:38]
And so it must be you.
[43:39]
You must do something wrong is that please don't tell me I don't have what it takes.
[43:45]
It kind of, you know, because they're not used to it.
[43:48]
So as we grow up as teenagers, as women, we get knocked off, you know, by our menstruation.
[43:55]
And we have to seek for help really, really early in our lives
[43:58]
because our bodies just make these unusual things.
[44:01]
And because before the machine works really, really well,
[44:04]
it comes with a lot of challenges.
[44:05]
So we're used to asking for help.
[44:07]
Men are not, you know, everything normally rolls until they're 40, 44.
[44:12]
Everything's rolling.
[44:14]
And so they're not used to asking for help.
[44:16]
And so I find as a woman, you have in that toolkit, that modesty,
[44:19]
that seeking for help, that intuition, that motherhood, that sisterhood,
[44:25]
and leverage that to have them being your duo to transition all of that
[44:30]
and have the baby come from the bird very naturally and very gracefully if you can.
[44:36]
Because it's really hard in a couple and can lead to a lot of deaf dialogue
[44:41]
and things that are said that, you know, one would regret without ill-intending.
[44:47]
It's really, it can be, it can put unreasonable pressure on both.
[44:55]
So that makes sense.
[44:57]
Yeah, it makes perfect sense how our romantic.
[45:00]
Relationship or our partnership can change you mentioned that there may be different dynamics with parents or siblings
[45:04]
Will you tell us a little bit about that?
[45:06]
Yeah, and actually I want to also mention
[45:09]
I've also heard some people mention that their their spouse was also their migraine carer
[45:18]
And so there had a role as a spouse and
[45:22]
Almost as a male nurse or a nurse
[45:25]
Yeah, and so they had to make the distinction between when am I your nurse, you know
[45:32]
Deciding when do I take you to the emergency room because you're in so much pain
[45:36]
You can't decide for yourself anymore and certainly drive not drive yourself to the emergency room because maybe you've lost your vision
[45:44]
when are we a couple and
[45:47]
People expressing how difficult these two roles are
[45:49]
Men also having expressed a sense of guilt that they have because they want to help but they cannot help so for them
[45:56]
It's also they find themselves in a situation that they are very unfamiliar with
[45:59]
Where there's a problem and it's a massive problem and I love you. And yes, I can't do anything for you
[46:07]
So I've heard from people sometimes seeking therapy for that
[46:11]
To divide these roles and and be able to live in harmony, although it's still better to de-migraine and get fertile
[46:21]
Found it really really interesting and very powerful. And so I just want to mention that now back to your question on parents and siblings
[46:27]
I'm sorry. I find parents. Look sometimes they will have migraines themselves in which case they have a lot of empathy
[46:34]
And that's great. Parents have that unconditioned love parents can also be the providers for someone who suffers from migraines and therefore
[46:42]
Suffers so much they can't work and they can't live by by themselves
[46:46]
So they might live in with their parents in which case they might feel fertility clock is ticking away
[46:52]
That maybe it's never an option for them
[46:56]
And so it creates a lot of distress in the child. It also creates a lot of distress and guilt in the parent
[47:03]
And so I find that's a beautiful relationship of unconditioned love
[47:07]
Sometimes you can have a parent that is so difficult that it's the cause of the migraines and sort of child abuse, etc
[47:13]
That's also possible
[47:15]
But overall, it's usually a relationship of love and then and then you have the siblings and the siblings
[47:24]
The the are maybe the little bit harder
[47:28]
sometimes not sometimes not always and
[47:30]
that's because they again they don't relate and they feel they are the same because they have the same parents and
[47:37]
Maybe they have a few headaches because maybe they inherited the gene
[47:40]
But a very slight version of the gene and so they compare their pain to their siblings pain
[47:46]
And that's really puts quite a lot of tension because they will say all my sister also talks about is for migraines and then they
[47:52]
roll their eyes or she doesn't show up to family events and
[47:57]
come across such siblings which has happened quite a bit in the past because I explained to what I do and then they ask a
[48:03]
Lot of questions and then they talk about their family member and I take that time to listen to acknowledge
[48:08]
Their frustration because they're usually just frustrated like oh we used to be, you know
[48:12]
Spending so much time together and now just all of us was like such as if you had a new relationship
[48:17]
With your migraines so good. You don't want to leave it like the conversation is almost absurd
[48:22]
And so and then I reframe it
[48:24]
I'm like well probably if I may the siblings are first probably about ten times as much as they actually express
[48:30]
They probably hide that they suffer because they really learn to hide in a way
[48:34]
And when it's Christmas and they can't come but they probably feel extremely sad so
[48:40]
Just add you can't solve it
[48:43]
They will figure it out. They're smart. But meanwhile just have just genuine empathy again. It's genetic if you can't relate to it
[48:50]
Imagine labor imagine a massive hangover because that's the best you can and so just be kind just be kind
[48:58]
It's difficult for them
[49:00]
Yeah, so difficult and there's so many layers
[49:03]
It's the pain and the grief and the all kinds of emotional turmoil that's related. So just be kind
[49:09]
I think that's a great takeaway for us and Diane
[49:12]
I just know everyone who's listening will want to learn more and I know you have so many
[49:16]
Resources that are available for those who'd like to learn more about their migraines. Will you tell our listeners where they can find you?
[49:24]
Yes, so you can go on the website
[49:27]
My nectar health.com and there you'll find the test you can take the test and the test is going to ask you
[49:33]
97 questions about your migraines, but also all of the other stuff going on in your body
[49:38]
And in itself, it's going to be quite an eye-opener because usually people will just focus on the migraine
[49:44]
There's just so much else going on
[49:48]
We can meet and talk about your migraines
[49:51]
And and their root causes and then the other thing is I have a podcast called migraine heroes where I have lots of women that
[49:58]
Are coming to testify and I think after I've worked with them
[50:02]
They have two emotions. One is an emotion of gratitude think. Oh my god after two decades of migraines Oh
[50:07]
Heaven and then another emotion. I'm gonna call it the really emotion like really I went through two decades for
[50:17]
That's so absurd. And so they come they're not baits
[50:20]
They just come because they say well I can hope it just serves other people because it's been a nightmare for me
[50:26]
And I'm just so grateful that there was a an exit to all of this
[50:32]
Well, we'll have all of those resources available. So that if anyone is
[50:37]
Struggling with migraines as they're tuning into this show to work on their fertility
[50:41]
They know that there is a solution and they don't have to have that
[50:45]
Really moment or maybe they will but at least they'll get to that moment where they have this relief. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah
[50:52]
Yeah, and I find you know, like I find it's beautiful to do
[50:55]
Functional fertility and to really listen to the signals and listen to you know
[51:01]
When you do your work, you're beautiful at work. You bring you know, a lot of children in the world a lot of children
[51:06]
You know that come so naturally and in respect with
[51:11]
Nature and alignment and love of their parents and and just you know, just as a human beings that we were wired to do
[51:19]
And and and migraines is one of these many symptoms that help us decode. Okay, where is the problem?
[51:26]
And so I'm and so listen to that. Don't mute it. Listen to it
[51:32]
Listen to your intuition. Thank you so much to our listeners who choose to tune into this show and
[51:39]
Trust us on your fertility journey to our shows producer Paola Martini
[51:43]
Thank you so much for making this show a possibility and Diane. Thank you so much for your time and your insights today
[51:50]
It's just been a pleasure to chat with you
[51:52]
Thank you so much Kelly and thank you for the beautiful work and energy that you bring into this world
[51:59]
We'll see you all next time. Thank you. Thank you
[52:03]
Did you love this episode and want to hear more head over to dr. Kalia waddles comm slash podcast
[52:09]
Where you can find more episodes on all things fertility
