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What if one of the reasons your migraine keeps showing up has nothing to do with stress,
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hormones or food, and everything to do with your blood pressure being a little too low
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for your brain's needs?
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Welcome to Migraine Heroes, a podcast for people living with chronic migraines with years of pain,
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misunderstanding and lack of answers. I'm Diane Ducarme. I've helped more than a thousand people
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reduce the burden of migraines and feel more in control. My mission in life? To help a million
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people. Each episode brings you grounded insight into what your body might be asking for and what
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can truly help. Just to keep you fully supported, this podcast is educational. For diagnosis or
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medication, always work with your doctor. Now, take a breath and let's dive in.
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In this episode, you will learn why low blood pressure can create the perfect conditions for
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migraine attack, even when your blood pressure is considered normal. How to recognize the subtle
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signs that poor circulation may be contributing to your headaches, fatigue, dizziness and brain
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fog. And one simple at-home way to estimate your monthly blood balance. Stay with me till the end
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of this episode, because at the end of this episode, you will receive an at-home way to
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to estimate your monthly blood balance. If you live with migraines, you may know the feeling.
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So you stand up and suddenly you feel lightheaded. You skip a meal and your headache begins
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creeping in. A hot shower leaves you completely exhausted. You oftentimes feel cold, tired,
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foggy and somehow your body never seems to have enough energy. Yet, every blood test comes back
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normal. And it can feel frustrating and super confusing. And many people spend years looking
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at hormones, food, stress, sleep, while overlooking one important factor, your blood flow.
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So what is low blood pressure? Blood pressure can also be called hypotension and is generally
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defined as blood pressure below 90 over 60. So 90 over 60 millimeters of mercury. However,
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the real issue is not always the number itself. Some people naturally have lower blood pressure
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and feel perfectly fine and healthy. And others experience symptoms because their brain and
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tissues are not receiving consistent blood flow throughout the day. And that distinction is
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absolutely critical. So why does blood flow matter for migraines? The brain represents
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only about 2% of your body weight, yet it's going to consume roughly 20% of your body's
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oxygen supply. And because of its enormous energy demand, the brain is extremely sensitive to
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changes in circulation. Researchers have long suspected that vascular reticulation plays a
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role in migraine development. And although migraine is now recognized primarily as a neurological
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disorder, blood vessel function remains a super important part of the story. Migraine involves
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interactions among nerves, blood vessels, inflammation and signaling molecules. And so
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when blood pressure drops, the body must compensate to maintain adequate blood flow
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to the brain. In susceptible individuals, these compensatory mechanisms may contribute to activation
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of migraine pathways. So what does the research show or say? The relationship between blood
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pressure and migraine is fairly complex. Several population studies have observed that people
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suffering from headaches and migraines often have lower systolic blood pressure compared to those
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without headaches. And some studies have found an inverse relationship, meaning that low blood
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pressure was associated with a higher likelihood of headaches. So for example, research discussed
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in the Journal of Clinical Medicine found that low systolic blood pressure was a significant
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predictor of headache occurrence in adolescents. And psychological factors also play a role,
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suggesting that migraine is influenced by both physiological and neurological mechanisms.
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At the same time, researchers emphasize that migraine and blood pressure have a multifactorial
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relationship. Not everyone with low blood pressure develops migraines, and not everyone with migraines
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has low blood pressure. So there are some common symptoms that may suggest a circulation component.
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You may want to explore the possibility of low blood pressure contributing to migraine if you
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regularly experience dizziness when standing up, cold hands and feet, fatigue that worsens
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throughout the day, brain fog, a certain exercise intolerance, migraines triggered by heat,
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migraines after skipping meals. These clues suggest that your nervous system may be struggling
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to maintain a stable circulation. Now another important piece of the puzzle involves the
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autonomic nervous system. So the system automatically regulates your heart rate,
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your blood vessel tone, and your blood pressure. And many migraine sufferers show signs of autonomic
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dysfunction. Their bodies may have difficulty adapting quickly to changes in posture,
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temperature, stress, or hydration status. And as a result, seemingly small changes can create
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fluctuations in blood flow that increase migraine vulnerability. Emerging research continues to
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explore how vascular regulation, autonomic balance, and migraine are interconnected.
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Because they truly are. The key takeaway is that low blood pressure may not be the sole cause of
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migraines. However, for some people, it may act as a significant trigger, an amplifier, definitely
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a missing piece of the puzzle. If you know me well, you know that my journey into health and
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ultimately into migraine healers began with a skiing accident. When I was 17 years old,
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I lost nearly half of my blood, literally. And at the time, I broke my femur. And at the time,
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because of blood contamination issues at the national level in France and resulting shortages
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in the blood banks, I could not be transfused. And my body had to rebuild what it had lost,
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meaning half of it, on its own. Recovery was slow, slow, slow, slow. Much slower than I expected.
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And I remember profound fatigue, dizziness, inability to do what I had previously taken for
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granted. Some of my blood pressure readings in those first weeks were astonishingly low. But
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later in life, they still were low. And looking back, that experience gave me an enormous empathy
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for what traditional Chinese medicine would call blood deficiency or depletion of vital nourishment.
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When I started to take care of people who were suffering from migraine disease, it made me realize
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something important about women. Over the course of her lifetime, the average woman will lose
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somewhere between 23 and 28 liters of blood through menstruation alone. That's almost half her weight.
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For some women, it can be considerably more through heavy menstruation, copper IUDs,
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difficult childbirth, surgery, blood donation, or other causes of blood loss. And when you've
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personally experienced what it feels like to run on an empty tank, you develop a deep respect for
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the role of blood, but also the pain that it comes when it comes to energy and resilience
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and concentration and emotional well-being. Blood pressure is just one reflection of that reality.
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And in many ways, that accident changed the course of my life. It led me to discover
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traditional Chinese medicine 12 years later. It taught me what it feels like when your body
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lacks resources, it needs to thrive. And it plants a seed that would eventually become my life's work.
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The hope of helping others receive the same care, understanding, and support that I received during
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my own recovery 12 years later. And I'm really conscious my story isn't classic.
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Sometimes I get the comment, oh, it'd be easier if you had migraines yourself. My sister had
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migraines. I think migraines are so, so, so plural. What it gave me was the ability to see
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so many different root causes without bias, without judgment, not trying to solve everyone
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the way I was, but taking everyone the way they were. And that is what makes Migraine Heroes
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possible today, literally, is radical acceptance of the plurality and the differences that you all
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have, your unique patterns and profile. When you go in the app today, it asks you a couple of
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questions and immediately gives you insight into what could be, what do we see as one of the root
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cause, the more dominant root cause of your migraines. And it comes from that massive
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empathy, that massive gratitude of, for 12 years, feeling unwell, feeling ill-equipped, feeling tired,
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napping from 2pm to 8am the next day, having just a body functioning in part, and the joy that
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it comes when I get to make that gift to someone. And that's what's driving us fully. And I hope
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that you can feel the integrity of us as a small team, the integrity of genuinely coming into your
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life and making it flourish, giving you back your own self-transform. Now, from a traditional
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transmedicine perspective, migraines are not viewed as an isolated set of events happening
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only in your head. They're understood as signals that the body's internal flow has become disrupted.
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And one concept particularly relevant here is that blood volume deficiency. That's a concept
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a little bit, little existent in the West, very prevalent in the East, and coupled with chi
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deficiency, just the idea of movement. So chi can be thought as the body's vital energy, the force
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that drives circulation, warmth, vitality and function, and blood nourishing and anchoring that energy.
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When blood is insufficient, the brain may not receive adequate nourishment. Traditional
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transmedicine is going to describe this state as the body lacking enough resources to fully supply
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the head and the senses. Interestingly, many people with low blood pressure fit this pattern
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remarkably well. They will often report fatigue, you know. It's interesting, you know, when I was
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presenting the app to, they were saying, oh, fatigue, everyone feels fatigue. I'm like, no, no, no, I'm not
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talking fatigue. I'm talking about fatigue like I'm going to bash my head through the wall because
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I'm so tired. I have exceeded the fatigue anything. I'm beyond the world of fatigue. They may experience
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dizziness. Okay, this is something I was experiencing a lot. Like, you know, I'd stand up
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too fast and I'd feel dizzy. I'd have to sit on my bed. Feeling cold definitely had that for me a lot,
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like the hands, the feet, pale complexion, absolutely. Weak digestion, for sure. You know, if you don't
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have enough blood, you can't digest properly. Brain fog, poor stamina. And in traditional transmedicine,
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the head is considered the sea of the marrow, a place that requires continuous nourishment. And
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when the body's resources are depleted, symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, and mental fatigue,
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they may emerge, they will emerge. But the way your brain asks for these things is very sensible.
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And I think if you take anything away from everything that I'm saying, and from all of these
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podcasts, is you can trust your body. You can fundamentally trust it, even though you feel
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broken inside and outside, and you feel you're not making any sense. I can promise you from the work
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that I've done, you always do. You always do. It's just sometimes hard to see the forest from the
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trees. But you can fundamentally trust your body. So if your body's in pain and asking for help,
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try to listen. There's an ancient saying that teaches, when the river runs shallow, the fields
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cannot be nourished. And the body works the same way as nature. If your circulation is insufficient,
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the tissues at the farthest reaches, including your brain, may struggle to receive what they need.
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And as you can feel, this is really close to my heart, because this is a root cause that I can
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really relate to quite fundamentally. Now, sometimes it's not just about adding blood, there's
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a lot more complexity and sophistication to things. But understanding, I fundamentally believe,
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is the first step towards feeling completely better and completely yourself. So from this
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perspective, migraines may seem sometimes just represent your body's way of saying,
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I do not have enough reserves to keep going at this pace. That message, just that simple message,
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it deserves attention. Recently, a woman that, you know, she was making progress inside the app, but
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quite slowly. She was slower than anticipated because she was so young. I was expecting her
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to be decently fast. And I realized that through her copper IUD, she was bleeding a lot. And when
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asking her, she wasn't too much aware of how much she was bleeding. And I encouraged her to calculate,
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and it turns out, she was bleeding 11 times what she was supposed to bleed. And so basically, I was
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filling a leaky bucket. So here's my advice for today. If you menstruate, I'd like you to take a
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moment this month to become curious about your blood loss, rather than simply accepting it as
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normal. Okay? Menstrual blood loss is often estimated at around 30 to 40 milliliters per
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cycle, and losses above 80 milliliters are generally considered heavy menstrual bleeding.
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So here, we're talking 1 to 1.4 fluid ounces per cycle, and losses above 2.7 fluid ounces,
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or about a third of a cup, are considered heavy menstrual bleeding. I want you to ask yourself,
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do I soak through pads or tampons every hour or two? Do I need double up on protection?
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Do I wake at night to change products? Do I feel noticeably depleted, dizzy, exhausted,
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or short of breath during my period? If the answer to several of these questions is yes,
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it may be worth exploring further. So today's invitation is simple. Become curious about your
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monthly blood balance. Okay? Just you have an account balance, a money balance, you have a
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blood balance. Not fearful, not obsessive, just curious. Because what feels normal is not always
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optimal, and understanding your own rhythm is often the first step towards better health.
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If you donate your blood, please calculate how much you donate a year,
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and maybe, maybe sometimes take a small pause, if that suits you better. And remember,
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every small step you take moves you closer to freedom. You are powerful,
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you are resilient, and you're not alone. Keep rising, Migrant Hero.
