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isn't just about longevity for someday later. It's about feeling stronger, moving better,
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and having more energy today. The link is waiting for you in the show notes. I'd love
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to welcome you inside.
[01:00]
Real quick before we dive into this episode, I have a little sleep secret I want to tell
[01:05]
you about. Sleep is crucial for your fitness, but it's crucial for just plain old everyday
[01:12]
life and function. I find I sleep great unless I have a migraine. I've had more than my fair
[01:22]
share since perimenopause all the way through post-menopause. My secret weapon was Blue
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Sky CBD sleep gels. Each gel contains 25 mg of CBD and 25 mg CBN for deep restorative
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sleep. Something about it helps to reduce inflammation, which I believe for me was key
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in helping me get to sleep. But the biggest thing is so many of the over-counter solutions,
[01:52]
whether for sleep or migraines, can ruin gut health and liver health. Neither one of those
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Sky CBD. We'll put that link in the show notes and you'll find it everywhere on Flipping
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50 at my favorites. What are you waiting for? Good night.
[03:03]
Definitely getting intimate today. Do you experience migraines and constipation in menopause?
[03:11]
And yes, that was an and, not an or. Did they begin with more frequency or more intensity
[03:19]
during perimenopause? Why does this happen? And are these common or is it just me? Are
[03:27]
you asking that? This is your episode. Migraine and constipation can be symptoms of perimenopause
[03:34]
and menopause, and these may get in the way of our daily lives and even affect our mood
[03:40]
and behavior. Today, ladies, let's talk about why these happen, how we can prevent these
[03:46]
issues and what to do when or if they hit. We're going to talk about what's going on
[03:52]
with our bodies in a very different way than you've ever heard, and we've visited the topic
[04:00]
of migraines many times before. As you might know, I've actually suffered from migraines
[04:08]
in the last 10 years more than ever before in my life. Thinking at first it was altitude,
[04:16]
living at altitude after not forever in my life, but I no longer live at altitude and
[04:23]
I'm still struggling with migraines from time to time. And let's face it, it's always feels
[04:29]
like it's been a long time since the last one until one hits and then it feels like
[04:34]
there's way too many. So in this episode, my guest will talk about whether or not you
[04:40]
suffer from both things, what the connection is between the two and what may be happening
[04:48]
in your body that you've never considered.
[04:56]
My guest today is Diane DeCarmen. She's a master in migraine investigation, combining
[05:03]
Eastern medicine, Western science and technology to uncover the root causes of migraines with
[05:09]
an MBA from Harvard, fluency in seven languages and dual studies in TCM. She focuses on, and
[05:22]
by the way, do you know what that is? Transcendental meditation. She focuses on the power of functional
[05:27]
foods rather than eliminating. Yeah, you're going to want to hear this one. We're not
[05:33]
talking about removing foods. Surprise, nice surprise. Diane hosts the Migraine Heroes
[05:40]
podcast and leads Nectar Health in pioneering migraine relief and wellness. And I will tell
[05:48]
you that again, you're going to be pleasantly surprised by this podcast episode. And I encourage
[05:58]
you to listen, even if you're not someone who is plagued by migraines and or constipation.
[06:04]
And by the way, I want to define the constipation for all of us. If you're not having at least
[06:10]
one healthy bowel movement every single day, you would be classified as constipated. So
[06:18]
with that, let's dive in.
[06:27]
I'm Deborah Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a
[06:32]
decade ago to answer questions about fitness in menopause and beyond before you knew to
[06:39]
ask them. The goal to help accelerate your results with science and the practical application
[06:49]
of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer
[06:58]
in the world than a midlife woman. And it's not just about you, but the three generations
[07:03]
that you influence. My unique 40 year career, including being a university senior lecture
[07:13]
in kinesiology and industry subject matter expert and an international speaker to founder
[07:20]
of the first and the only exclusively made for menopause and beyond fitness membership
[07:26]
in the world. Every week I interview experts behind the scenes and the science of optimal
[07:36]
hormone balancing fitness and longevity and share answers to our community's questions
[07:42]
so you can have the vitality and the energy that you want, need, and deserve.
[07:47]
Diane, thank you so much for being here.
[07:56]
Thank you, Deborah, for having me.
[07:58]
Well, and sometimes I do this selfishly. So many of our listeners know if they paid attention at
[08:07]
all, I have on occasion in the last decade, probably more than prior to that experience,
[08:13]
some headaches. And I continually find myself with this line. I don't identify as somebody who has
[08:19]
migraines, but every once in a while, I think if it gets any worse than this, I don't know how
[08:24]
anybody lives or survives with a migraine. So there may be that. Before we dive in and unpack
[08:31]
that, though, that I cannot wait to start doing, I want to ask you a little bit because that's a
[08:38]
pretty intriguing bio. I would love to know, first of all, what seven languages are you fluent in?
[08:47]
Oh, look. So my mother tongue is French. I'm a French speaker. I grew up in Belgium.
[08:53]
In Belgium, you can't get away without speaking Flemish, Dutch. So that's what you learn in
[08:58]
school. Then when I was 14 years old, I moved with my family to London and I learned English.
[09:04]
In London at the school, I couldn't take Dutch because that was just not an option.
[09:08]
So I had to pivot to German, which I had quite a lot of catch up to do.
[09:13]
Then I went to Costa Rica to learn Spanish. That went really fast and I loved it. And I
[09:19]
later went to Mexico to study in Spanish. Before working, I learned Italian in painting classes in
[09:27]
Florence, which was absolutely gorgeous. And while I was working, I learned Mandarin,
[09:32]
for which I had to stop working a few times. So about a full year in total.
[09:36]
And I absolutely love that language. I think when it comes to health, it has gems to offer.
[09:42]
So I have a question. So like a good DJ can now do mashups. Do you ever find yourself in
[09:49]
the middle of a sentence cross-languaging? Oh, yes. Absolutely.
[09:54]
Because there are some words you can't really translate. There are words that don't really,
[09:59]
really translate. For example, I love this one in Spanish that says tengo flojera,
[10:04]
which means you're just really don't want to do anything. But in a negative connotation,
[10:09]
like I just I feel lazy right now. Just give me a break. I want to be on my sofa.
[10:13]
Whereas in Italian, you'll see dolce freniente, which is very positive.
[10:17]
And it means sweets do nothing, means hang out at the cafe and watch the beautiful woman,
[10:23]
you know, all pimped up with their fashion outwear and see what you want to wear next,
[10:28]
which is a very positive. And so there's just some things that you can't always translate. Yeah.
[10:35]
How interesting. I can't even imagine. And I'm super envious of you. So clearly,
[10:42]
you love education. Your brain works very differently than mine does,
[10:48]
which is why we bring on guests, right? I want to ask you, as we're talking migraines,
[10:56]
we're talking constipation, we're talking about all the things. Is there a reason that led you
[11:02]
personally to want to unpack all of this that's going on? Is there personal history here with
[11:08]
issues? Yeah, absolutely. So basically, migraine is probably the eighth language,
[11:13]
you know, I speak. It all started with my godfather, who died from a glioblastoma,
[11:19]
which is a very terrible brain tumor in 2015. And it was very abrupt. It happened extremely fast.
[11:26]
And after he passed away, one of my sisters said, I'm very stressed because I have a lot of
[11:31]
migraines. I've had them for three years. And I think I have the same. And my godfather had four
[11:37]
children and my sister had three. And I could really empathize that this would make her freak
[11:41]
out. And she had done lots of MRI, like most people with migraines will do, only to be told
[11:47]
there's nothing. And so she was in pain. Yes, there was no explanation for her pain. So she says,
[11:51]
I think I have that. And I told her, look, I'm not sure that's what you have. But there is
[11:56]
something for sure. Let's try to fix it. I know someone. And it turned out that when I was 17,
[12:02]
I had had a skiing accident. I had broken my femur, lost half of my blood, shrunk a kidney,
[12:07]
and I had a ski in my forehead. And so I was so fit before that accident. And after that accident,
[12:12]
my life completely flipped. And for 12 years, I had myself limped, had chronic fatigue,
[12:19]
done way too much sports to try to muscle, but done everything upside down. And I had
[12:24]
ultimately found a solution while I was working in China with a Chinese doctor who had just
[12:29]
recommended food, just food. And my body was back to where it was at 29. It was back to where it was
[12:35]
at 17. So I said to her, I know someone, I think she can help. It's not about your brain. It's about
[12:42]
why is your brain complaining? And, you know, bear in mind, I didn't know anything about migraines
[12:47]
back then. I'm sure there's a reason we talked to her. So we set up a call and I wrote three pages
[12:53]
on all of her symptoms. And Dr. Zhang is her name, very kindly said these are the foods she needs to
[12:58]
eat and this is why she has her migraines. And within three or four months, my sister no longer
[13:02]
had migraines and life went back to normal until my neighbor told me the same story and said, I've
[13:08]
had seven years of migraines and I'm so very sorry. And I've had a really confrontational
[13:12]
conversation with my dad. And I go, what was it about? And she said, well, after seven years of
[13:16]
migraines, he says, I need to get medicated for life, including having injections in my brain.
[13:20]
And I said, oh, wow, that sounds a lot. I know someone I think who can help. I'd love to help
[13:25]
you out, you know, between a conversation of WeChat, WhatsApp, we can fix this, I'm sure. And
[13:29]
she was interested because she had lived in China herself. We did that. And after four months,
[13:33]
she no longer had migraines. And I'm like, well, why did your father tell you to do this? And she
[13:38]
says, well, because my father is a neurologist. And I thought, wow, that doesn't make any sense.
[13:43]
Of course, her father is smart. They're from New York. It's super well educated. Of course,
[13:47]
he loves his daughter. I have just not the slightest doubt of that. Why would he recommend
[13:52]
50 years of pain and medication when it's actually feasible otherwise? So I thought the foods I had
[13:58]
recommended were very close to the medication he was recommending. But I realized it was the
[14:04]
polar opposite. The medication was aiming at silencing the pain. And I was just doing like
[14:10]
with the language, trying to listen to the message. Why is her body complaining about?
[14:16]
Why is it just in pain? And so after I had met that doctor, I always wanted to set up
[14:21]
something to help women because I think we struggle way too much. And this is 2024. It's
[14:26]
time things change. And then it became evident from all of the data that I saw with 18 percent
[14:31]
of women suffering from migraines, women suffering from them three to four times more than men,
[14:36]
that something could be done. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. So
[14:42]
I know that there's been some link to like histamine foods and migraines. Is there any
[14:50]
connection there with the foods that were recommended? I mean, were they avoiding
[14:55]
histamine or? Absolutely. So let's take that very concrete example. That's a wonderful insight. Yes.
[15:01]
Removing histamine and thiamine can help a lot of women get their migraines fewer. And the reason
[15:07]
for that is that the liver system. So now if we talk not English or not any Western language,
[15:13]
but if we go back to Mandarin and we say liver, which is gan in Mandarin, when we say liver,
[15:19]
we don't designate the liver organ. We designate the liver function with the liver, the gallbladder,
[15:26]
a lot of the brain is the most connected organ to the brain, the tendons, the ability to detox,
[15:33]
the breasts, the uterus, all of the female hormones, all of the mood hormones. OK,
[15:36]
so if we take that big function, let's imagine that for some reason, the big function was
[15:41]
overloaded. Then the body would no longer have time for the wine and the cheese and the chocolate.
[15:49]
And all of the toxins. And so if you were lowering your toxins and if you were making your life
[15:54]
smaller, which is really sad, and I'm nothing about life being smaller, but this is the only
[15:58]
choice women are left with currently in society. If you make your life smaller and you say,
[16:03]
I'm going to stop having histamine and thiamine, you might feel that the severity and the intensity
[16:08]
of your migraines go slightly lower. And so that's going to work just because you deload
[16:14]
that system that is grumpy in your body right now.
[16:18]
So, you know, a lot of women in this middle age and slightly over also deal with vertigo
[16:28]
and or dizziness that may or may not be called vertigo. We've recently talked here,
[16:35]
listeners, if you remember about dizziness can sometimes be a sign of electrolyte deficiency,
[16:42]
meaning you need some more, but not always. So migraines, vertigo, dizziness, you know, that
[16:50]
talk about what happens during perimenopause and menopause, that why did these emerge
[16:59]
in someone who says, like me, I've never identified as somebody who has migraines.
[17:05]
So there are some fundamental changes that happen during perimenopause. And I think in the West,
[17:10]
we focus a lot on hormones, which are really important, but there's a lot more going on
[17:16]
as we can feel. Right. I think most women would say, oh, well, beyond hormones,
[17:21]
let me tackle a few topics. There's other things I'm experiencing.
[17:25]
And so in that massive change, there's one change that is when there's a lot of changes
[17:30]
that are important to me, one that is much bigger than the other ones, which is that.
[17:35]
In a Western language, you would say we dehydrate. OK, so if you think of the body from a Western
[17:41]
perspective, you'd see the body 60% water, the brain is 74% water. We've calculated all of that
[17:46]
very precisely in labs. If I look for life on Mars, I'm going to look for water. If there's
[17:51]
water, there's life. And in my body, I have all of that beautiful fluid in my brain as well.
[17:56]
In the East, they don't talk about H2O water the same way we do. They talk about another concept,
[18:03]
another concept which is called Yin. And Yin is once again, from a language perspective,
[18:09]
a lot more encompassing. So it talks about the water, but it will include the electrolytes
[18:14]
you're referring to. It will include the hormones as well. It will think of Yin more as your brain,
[18:22]
your lymphatic system, your intracellular hydration, the hydration of your eyes,
[18:27]
the hydration of your bowels, the hydration of your skin. And if you take a newborn or let's
[18:34]
take a six months before they walk and they get really, really fat and full of collagen and full
[18:39]
of everything we wish we had more of, that's a baby in their springtime. OK, and we go towards
[18:46]
a little bit more autumn and they have a lot of moisture and we have much less. And so when the
[18:53]
woman starts to go into perimenopause, her Yin starts namely to be more depleted. And so it's
[19:00]
going to translate into a lot of things she thinks about. OK, she's going to have more dizziness and
[19:07]
vertigo because think of the brain and the gut-brain axis and think of the vagus nerve as a
[19:12]
big tree. The roots are planted in your small and large intestine, around your heart, around your
[19:18]
stomach, around your liver, around your kidney. And all of these roots that gather the hundred
[19:24]
billion nerve cells in your body will all gather in a trunk along your spine, form a larger trunk
[19:30]
in your neck. And then they're going to plug in a bit like a Tesla in your brain. OK, that gives
[19:34]
beautiful leaves. The more the inside of my thorax is beautifully hydrated with Yin, the more my
[19:41]
leaves are going to be very green. And so as I'm going to age and go from spring to autumn,
[19:47]
my roots are going to be more dry and my brain is going to be more dry. So it's going to translate
[19:52]
like this. I'm going to have a bit more dizziness, a bit more vertigo, a bit more blurred eyes. I'm
[19:57]
going to struggle to find my words. My memory is slightly more poor. But at the same time,
[20:02]
I feel more constipated. I go chronically to the bathroom. Then I take a few laxatives and I'm a
[20:07]
bit, you know, things are a bit too fluid. Then I go back to constipation. I have a bit of vaginal
[20:13]
dryness. Then my skin is more and more dry. My lips are more dry. Everything in my body is
[20:18]
slightly more dry. And and so that's what is referred to as Yin in terms of language in the
[20:25]
East. And they're going to think about it in a very, very large manner. So with some electrolytes,
[20:31]
but not only. OK, so what's the answer? Yeah, that's a great question. So the first thing to
[20:37]
probably notice, because it relates to a lot of the things that you've said, actually, and you've
[20:41]
written and that you live by, is how to manage your fluids overall. OK, so for example, you talk
[20:48]
about a lot of exercise and how you can't exercise in this phase of life the way you used to.
[20:55]
Because let's imagine you're doing like intense cardio, like really intense, like hits with high
[21:00]
impact. Well, you're going to consume your Yin left, right and center. You can't defend yourself
[21:06]
anymore. So you're going to hurt yourself. And so exercise, when it's poorly done and the way you
[21:11]
would argue, don't do it, would be migraine triggering if people were doing that all the time.
[21:17]
Yeah. And so managing sweat is important. You need to sweat a little bit, but not as much.
[21:25]
Then you also talk about fiber and you talk about too much fiber. And indeed, the fiber,
[21:32]
what is really interesting, let's imagine vagus nerve and my gut brain axis. When I have fiber
[21:37]
in my gut, the fiber makes my digestive enzymes redundant because it says, hey, free pass. I don't
[21:43]
need to be digested. I'm just going to go through. Yeah. And so if you're a bit constipated, initially
[21:49]
it helps. And so therefore, fiber have a great reputation in the West because they help with
[21:55]
constipation. But now let's imagine I only have fiber. I only have fiber for my diet.
[22:01]
Then my digestive enzymes become redundant. And so I have fewer of them. And so next time I'm
[22:07]
going to eat something, maybe I'm going to feel bloated because I'm not digesting it. And yet
[22:12]
it's going down. And my small and large intestine are like, maybe, maybe what's that thing? It's
[22:17]
not digested. Someone didn't do their job before us. Thank you very much. That's not very helpful.
[22:23]
Now we're dealing with all sorts of things that are not digested. And so you have to have a very
[22:28]
balanced diet and not push away starches too much. A starch, if you do a white rice and millet
[22:35]
congee, for example, which is a very traditional Chinese recipe in order to digest a congee,
[22:41]
which has no fiber, you have to produce digestive enzymes. So the moment that little bowl of rice
[22:48]
and millet with excess water doesn't look really nice, doesn't look very pretty, is really cheap
[22:54]
to produce, really not expensive at all. What's going to force your body to do is to instantly
[22:59]
produce a lot more digestive enzymes. And that's going to in turn start to hydrate deep inside your
[23:06]
body. And then sometimes we also medicate a lot. Now think about the medication for a minute.
[23:15]
So the medication will enter your liver system and will do the job it needs to do. Usually
[23:19]
medications in the West are very precise. They go straight to the point, they get the job done.
[23:24]
Now, how do they exit the body? And do they? My experience is that they end up in three places
[23:33]
in the liver system, increasing the toxicity and therefore increasing migraine. So this is
[23:38]
why women who will have migraines, the more they're going to medicate to not have migraines,
[23:43]
the more they're going to have something called in the West and scientifically proven called
[23:46]
rebound migraines and medication overuse headaches because the liver is more intoxicated.
[23:52]
So through the vagus nerve, the inflammation is really felt. Then it can end up in the blood
[23:56]
in form of blood clots and just accumulate in terms of residues or more predominantly,
[24:03]
it's going to go in my large intestine and just stick around. And then it's going to build that
[24:08]
little chronic, small inflammation that's going to suck up a lot of my yin. So think of yin also as
[24:14]
the water hose of a fireman that extinguishes inflammation. I don't have a lot. And if I have
[24:20]
the water hose, all of these medications that stay all the time, I really consume my yin. And so I'm
[24:26]
going to get more chronically constipated. Okay. And so that's something to be mindful about. And
[24:31]
also as we age, sometimes we have to take medication, right? Like sometimes it's just
[24:35]
not an option. The more we're going to accumulate them and overlap them, the more we're going to
[24:41]
have that state of inflammation. And the more we're going to have that dizziness, vertigo,
[24:45]
mental lack of clarity, and really think back of the tree. If my roots aren't hydrated,
[24:50]
then my leaves can't thrive. Hey, this is Deborah Atkinson. And there is one thing you can't do
[25:01]
in the gym at your age, and that's get all the protein that you need. You've got to do that
[25:07]
in the kitchen. To make it easy for myself, not only to get the protein, but the fiber,
[25:12]
the fruits and vegetables I want daily, I started drinking a smoothie a day, 30 years ago. But
[25:21]
when I realized all the junk, the sugar, and the extras that you don't want, that I don't want,
[25:27]
hiding in most protein powders, that's when I finally caved in after years of saying,
[25:32]
I will never, ever, ever sell supplements. Stop skipping, skimping, and sabotaging yourself
[25:40]
in the morning after workouts by always being prepared. Look, yep, I agree. Real food first.
[25:47]
But it's just not convenient to carry a turkey sandwich. Sometimes the protein and don't forget
[25:54]
the fiber, they kill cravings and they boost satiety. And you've got to make it easy to do
[25:59]
the right thing. You can use code podcast for 10% off your first order at flipping50.com today.
[26:17]
So this is interesting and what it's suggesting to me is that this is a vicious circle. We're
[26:25]
wanting to create a quick fix or, you know, I know there've been times for me, I'm, you know,
[26:32]
can't wait to close my eyes. If I've got a really bad headache, if I've got a migraine,
[26:37]
absolutely can't wait to do that. Then sometimes that being still and quiet will actually make me
[26:43]
aware of how it's throbbing. So I will give in as much as I'm trying not to take some over the
[26:52]
counter fix. But how is that affecting us? We take an Excedrin PM or, you know, Excedrin migraine.
[27:01]
How does that affect the gut and the constipation that can be good?
[27:05]
Look, medications completely have their place. I think when we're in pain,
[27:09]
you know, sometimes you have no choice but to power through, right? If you have children,
[27:13]
work, you know, how can you miss on too many things? And so for a woman who suffered from
[27:18]
migraines for a lifetime, it's awful. It's just awful because they're going to have all of these
[27:24]
symptoms, for example, trembling sensations in the arms or in the legs. Maybe they get half their
[27:29]
body paralyzed. Maybe they start to lose their eyesight. They start to have nausea, throw up,
[27:35]
and they have all of these symptoms and they know the attack's coming, which creates a huge level
[27:39]
of anxiety. And they're afraid to be in pain and they have to cancel all of their plans. And when
[27:43]
you are in these types of situations, of course, relying on medication, you know, can be vital and
[27:49]
extremely important. And so it's really there to help. But in the long run, it massively hinders
[27:55]
and doctors know it. The science knows it. Now, the way out is to tackle the root causes.
[28:02]
What is my body complaining about? What is it complaining about? It's a bit the same as if you
[28:07]
say, oh, then my firearm is going on. And the doctor says, oh, take a hammer. And then maybe
[28:13]
if you aim the box right, then you can stop the sound. And if that doesn't work, then you can cut
[28:18]
the electricity current of the house and it should technically stop. But then the woman is at
[28:24]
the top of her ladder and she's like, oh, my God, and there's smoke and my house is on fire. What's
[28:28]
wrong with me? You know, I have this and I have that. And those two things belong together. Oftentimes
[28:34]
they belong together. The migraine is the signal. It's actually evolutionary. There's this beautiful
[28:40]
paper written by Elizabeth Loader, who's a professor from Harvard, and she writes about
[28:46]
the evolutionary advantage. Like, why is it 18 percent of women have migraines? Well, because
[28:51]
it's a really smart tool to help you be intuitive and say, hey, Deborah, maybe time to relax. Hey,
[28:57]
Deborah, why don't we exercise differently than we used to? Hey, why don't we not eat that food
[29:02]
as much? And so it was making women very intuitive and even able to predict weather patterns because
[29:08]
people who suffer from migraine can be very influenced by weather. And so over the thousands
[29:14]
and millions of years, people with that genetic predisposition survived more because at the core
[29:19]
of it, it's a longevity genetic. It's positioned today as a neurological disorder, such as if your
[29:25]
brain was illogical. But have you ever had your knee hurting or your elbow hurting or your tummy
[29:31]
hurting because of no reason? There's always a reason. So why would your brain, the smartest,
[29:37]
arguably part of your body, why would it complain for no reason? There is a reason. And if you can
[29:42]
find it, then all of your symptoms go away and your life's much longer. And that's why that gene
[29:47]
made it through the years. Okay, so I want to ask you something. You said not too long ago,
[29:55]
you know, if a woman's been dealing with migraines for her whole life, you know, there are moments
[30:01]
when you have to do what you have to do. And you were expressing and exuding a lot of empathy at
[30:06]
that moment in your heart of hearts and in that brain of yours, which we know has been around the
[30:12]
block. Do you believe that maybe is something that we can put a halt to, that there's a reason for it?
[30:21]
It's just we have not been looking in the right place. Yes. Yes, I do that days in and days out
[30:28]
for the last five years. So look, it took me three weeks to learn Spanish and about the same to learn
[30:35]
Italian. Arguably, my mother tongue is French. But for the last five years, I've only done every
[30:42]
single day. I'm a mom of two. I work and exercise every day. I'm a good mom every day. But therefore,
[30:47]
I have to work a little bit every day because, you know, a migraine is not a nine to five problem.
[30:52]
It is feasible. It is a very, very, very logical signal. And always when a woman says, Oh, I still
[30:59]
have a migraine or this is not working. I'm like, Okay, let's hop online. It means I am not reading
[31:04]
you. I am missing something. It's my fault, not yours. Because your body will still be logical.
[31:10]
It's just that I'm not hearing you properly. There's something that we're missing. And by problem
[31:15]
solving together. And like, there's something in your environment. Let me dig. Do you do this? Do
[31:19]
you do this? Do this? Ah, okay, it's that. Oh, here's why. Oh, really? I thought it was healthy,
[31:23]
or I thought it was good. And then we change that until we get to the point. And once we get to the
[31:28]
point, then the woman will lead the life that she's been always after. And so they have two
[31:35]
really, really strong emotion. One is a sweet emotion of gratitude and thinking, Oh, my God,
[31:40]
life is so good. The other one is quite bitter. And so that's why I started this podcast called
[31:46]
Migraine Heroes. Because for me, they're heroes. They fell so many times. They face so much hurdles
[31:54]
in their relationship, in taking care of their kids, in being fired for their migraines and
[31:59]
having to stop their studies and having to stop their biggest dreams, in lying to everyone and
[32:04]
saying they're fine when they're not just because it's the same disease they talk about for years,
[32:09]
and they're misunderstood because people think of it as a headache. And they will try something
[32:14]
again and again and again until they find and that's really a hero journey. Once you liberate
[32:19]
yourself, but you've fallen so many times. For sure. Talk to me about this. And is there
[32:26]
a genetic component or is that do you find irrelevant? Oh, yes. So there is a one to 40
[32:34]
genes lucky that have been identified that give migraines. But like you say, it's irrelevant
[32:39]
because the body complains for something very illogical. Let me give you a very concrete
[32:44]
example. It's always nice to have concrete examples. Let's imagine, first of all, a woman
[32:48]
in perinatal pose who's going to be very constipated. The moment you lubricate the inside
[32:54]
of your heart intestine and the inside of her large and small intestine, you remove the toxicity
[32:59]
of the medication. You stimulate her liver system. Her bowel movements are going to converge from
[33:04]
sort of nothing or rabbit-like pebbles, which is called a type one, according to the standard
[33:11]
indicators to a type four, which is that beautiful banana shape comes out easy. And the more she's
[33:16]
going to converge to that type four, the less she's going to have migraines. Very visible. You
[33:22]
can see both ends. Another thing that can sometimes happen is that in perinatal pose,
[33:26]
the body still has stuff it wants to expel. And there's a clock ticking. I have a number of women
[33:32]
who have migraines before menstruation, which are different to during menstruation. Sometimes
[33:36]
you can have a migraine during menstruation if they have a few blood clots that are inside of
[33:41]
their uterus. And the brain is like, mayday, mayday, we need to expel this. This cannot stay.
[33:47]
Or they have a cyst or fibroid. And the body's like, I don't want this to stay. This is dangerous.
[33:52]
This is not safe. And we can't defend ourselves. And the doors are going to close at some point.
[33:57]
We can no longer expel this. And so it's on a clock to get it out. And so when you let that out,
[34:04]
you know, I've had women expel things, you know, of eight to 10 centimeters. One woman,
[34:09]
she expelled a blood clot the size of a baseball. That next day, she no longer had migraines. And I
[34:15]
can promise you, she also no longer had anxiety. I think she was very anxious. Her body was
[34:20]
anxious, was physically anxious. Was it irrational that she was having migraines? Absolutely not.
[34:26]
Absolutely not. There was nothing of a neurological disorder angle. She was profoundly logic.
[34:33]
And the migraines completely went away. And when the hard part is to find what is the root cause,
[34:39]
because the root cause can be anything. It can really be anything. Let's compare now a man to
[34:45]
a woman because it's genetic. Back to your question. I just mentioned that. Yeah, I think
[34:49]
it's insightful. So if you say it's genetic, then, well, it should be 50-50, right? Men have it the
[34:53]
same as women. It's not the case. It's 5% of boys and girls until they're, by their nature, you know,
[35:00]
quite logical in our Western brain. And the moment we hit puberty as women, the incidence
[35:05]
is going to triple to quadruple for women. And the moment we go into perimenopause, the incidence
[35:11]
increases yet more. And the reason is, if you think of a man or a woman as factories, the men
[35:20]
produce sperm, which is really important. A woman has the ability to produce a child, a brain,
[35:29]
eyes, a heart, blood vessels, blood itself, bones, nails, hair. Which factory do you think is more
[35:37]
complex? Well, clearly the female factory is of a different nature. And so if you had a dashboard
[35:44]
to report problems, which is the brain, which dashboard would be likely more to go, you know,
[35:50]
with the switchboard open left, right, and center? Well, the females. And so in Chinese,
[35:57]
there's an expression that says something along the lines, like, if you have cured 10 men,
[36:01]
you still haven't cured a single woman. Meaning the female body is incredibly more sophisticated
[36:08]
than the male body. And the Chinese character for health in Chinese is a woman under a roof.
[36:15]
And so the whole emphasis of traditional Chinese medicine is on the female body, because they say,
[36:20]
if you provide security and health for the woman, you have provided security and health
[36:25]
for the population. I believe that. So that is directly in alignment with, you know,
[36:31]
under our mission and tagline is we believe there's no more powerful health influencer in
[36:36]
the world than a midlife woman. Yes. I want to summarize and then I want you to correct my
[36:43]
summary. But I think there's so much important here. And I think the biggest aha moment potentially
[36:51]
for everybody here is that migraines are connected to constipation. And it's not necessarily an
[36:57]
either or. And you also don't have to sign up for both if you, you homeroom mothers who are
[37:02]
overachievers. But so where the traps we don't want to fall into when tackling constipation.
[37:10]
And I would say a couple of them too, maybe that you didn't say, and one is ignoring it,
[37:15]
that a lot of women simply tolerate it and don't actually realize that you might think of that as
[37:21]
your normal, but we can fix this. There's something better. And there's a reason that's
[37:25]
happening too much fiber, you know, and I think that is where everybody goes. And they also go
[37:32]
immediately to also more water, which should be helpful. However, you know, we can do too much,
[37:40]
too little fiber or too little diversity in the gut. And what about stress? I mean,
[37:46]
when we talk about like migraines and we talk about constipation, where does stress,
[37:52]
our own perception of what is stress, where does that fall relative to both?
[37:59]
Oh, absolutely. So stress, if you think again of your vagus nerve, like the big tree,
[38:04]
we go back to the big tree. Big tree is connected to the liver. It's also connected to the kidney
[38:08]
and the kidney system is in charge of stress. And as we age, the liver organ, according to
[38:16]
Western science, is going to decrease by 43% in volume up to 43. So it's almost going to half.
[38:23]
So your ability to detox, your ability to produce, your ability to produce blood,
[38:27]
your ability to clean your breasts, your ability to reproduce all of that, you know, is halved.
[38:33]
And the kidney system also goes on. They both transition with less power, essentially. And as
[38:39]
that happens, you have just less resilience to stress. Now, in the West, we talk about the
[38:46]
gut-brain axis as being a two-way street. In the East, they've always said that, not just for 15
[38:51]
years, but for 2000 years. And they also say that emotions relate to organs and organs relate to
[38:57]
emotions as both ways. So the more you age and the more your kidney system is weaker,
[39:04]
the more you're going to be feeling stressed. And the more you're stressed, the more your kidney
[39:08]
system is going to be weaker. And so it becomes quite difficult because you become quickly in a
[39:13]
vicious circle. Now, the more you have a weak kidney system, the more you're going to have
[39:18]
migraines in particular behind the head and in the shoulders and sort of all those sensations.
[39:24]
And so stress will be a huge trigger. Now, for some people, they feel the migraine during the
[39:30]
stress phase. For some people, they find the migraine after the stress phase. And so once
[39:36]
they relax, so it's a Friday evening, Saturday morning or weekend or holiday migraine versus...
[39:42]
Have you been looking over my shoulder?
[39:45]
Yeah, it's very different. And you reach that differently. And again, a lot of it comes back
[39:50]
to language. I think when we say migraine or vertigo or dizziness, it's a word such as if it
[39:56]
was one thing that's absurd. It's the same as if you say migraine, it's the same as if you say,
[40:02]
I have pain. You go to the doctor, you say, I have pain. Oh, sure. Tell me, are you pregnant?
[40:07]
And are you in labor? Did you have a stomach bug? Did you break your arm? Did you break your leg?
[40:12]
In function of that, we can help you. But if you just say pain, pain, pain, how do you want to be
[40:18]
diagnosed? Well, and so when we say migraine, migraine is a word that, you know, of the
[40:23]
dashboard is the same as if you dashboard clicking. Sure. Where does it click? And so is it on top of
[40:30]
your head? Is it on your right temple? Is it on your left temple? Is it behind your eyes? Is it
[40:34]
behind your right or your left eyes? Is it across your eyebrows? You know, it's all of these things.
[40:39]
And what is it coupled with? Do you also, when you feel constipated, have vertigo and dizziness,
[40:45]
do you also lose your eyesight? Do you see blurred? Do you see dots and prisms in your vision? Do you
[40:50]
see blurred at night? Do you have a cataract? Do you have a glaucoma? And all of these things will
[40:55]
indicate, OK, where in the system is the body having a problem? And from there, it's completely
[41:03]
feasible just by adding food. By the way, I only add foods. You add food and you repair the system.
[41:09]
Once the system is repaired, the brain goes like, oh, thank you. And the woman also feels a very,
[41:16]
very, very new sensation. She's like, wow, this body is working. I am being logical.
[41:23]
And there is a solution. And no, I'm not crazy. It's a moment of extreme joy, just understanding
[41:31]
what your body is trying to tell you. It comes with extreme joy.
[41:35]
This is just so insightful. And you said something there I don't want anybody to miss.
[41:41]
You only add foods. Yeah, I only add foods. Very interesting. Yeah. OK, for listeners
[41:50]
who might be themselves dealing with migraines or constipation or the both of them got a package
[41:57]
deal they didn't know they signed up for, where can they find you, follow you, learn more about
[42:04]
how potentially to work with you? So I have an app called Migraine Heroes and a podcast called
[42:10]
Migraine Heroes. You can go straight in the app or the podcast. And my website is called My Nectar
[42:16]
Health. And there you can take a test free of charge and meet with me. And so basically the
[42:23]
first step for me is understanding a migraine. And so that consult is just thirty dollars. I
[42:28]
usually take 60 minutes. Usually it will take me more. I book for 60. I always have buffers.
[42:33]
Sometimes it takes, you know, an hour and a half, sometimes two hours just to explain you and walk
[42:38]
you through all of the domino of imbalances that happen throughout your life. And why are you
[42:43]
experiencing the symptoms that you experience right now? How do they relate to the underlying
[42:48]
conditions and what can be done to correct it? And it's a moment where I strongly invite spouse.
[42:54]
I strongly encourage spouse to come because spouse are usually very impacted as well.
[42:58]
And they love this conversation. We talk about all things vagus nerve and gut brain axis.
[43:02]
They find very informative. And then if that's of interest, then we start working together.
[43:08]
And yeah, and it's quite special. Look, I had a successful career before. I started at Harvard.
[43:14]
I was like working hard and doing a very classic thing. But now I have the most wealthy life I can
[43:20]
have, which is, you know, giving people their life back, putting couples back together. And
[43:25]
when you hear it to the Migrant Heroes podcast, which are all women who are not sponsored,
[43:29]
they just come because they have that moment of gratitude. And that moment are really why I
[43:33]
suffer so much. It's beautiful. I start to interview them as a couple because also the
[43:38]
woman she transforms, she has a glow. She's just more lively. She says yes to things. She forms
[43:44]
relationship. They also tend to lose weight when the body comes in shape and in order.
[43:49]
They have all of these added benefits together with more self-confidence, less stress,
[43:54]
and just thriving woman, thriving elders. And this is where society then follows,
[44:03]
you know, thriving elders. And maybe in the East, we had that for longer. I think it's in the West.
[44:09]
We've lost that really wrongfully. So it means the younger generation are doing
[44:14]
all sorts of crazy stuff that they think is going to be just fine when they were older.
[44:19]
And we know from the sidelines, completely not.
[44:24]
Yes, yes. And you can't always tell them.
[44:30]
Absolutely not. They have to also do their own experiments.
[44:35]
Due diligence. Yes. Thank you so, so much for being here and for breaking this down in such a
[44:42]
very unique and authentic way and weaving together the Eastern way of things and your gentle way of
[44:52]
communicating it all made it so easy to take in. So I'm sure audience members will be following.
[45:00]
with you. All the links so that you can connect with Diane will be in the show
[45:03]
notes everyone. That you will find at Flipping50.com forward slash migraines
[45:10]
and constipation in the menopause.
[45:18]
Do you have a question for a podcast? A question you would love to ask? Well maybe a story
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[45:28]
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[45:34]
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[45:40]
open call for podcast questions or tell your story. Would you like to be a guest?
[45:45]
So if you're looking for a community of women who are also interested in
[45:50]
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[45:53]
every new year, join the Flipping 50 Insiders group. That's Flipping 50
[46:00]
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[46:13]
Thank you for listening. To listen to a decade of episodes and to get the show
[46:19]
notes visit Flipping50.com where you'll be able to find all the previous
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[47:05]
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