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Your migraine hits, then you check the sky and yes, a storm is rolling.
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Turns out your body is a better weather app than your phone. Let's find out why.
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Migraine Heroes is a podcast for chronic migraine sufferers who've seen countless
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doctors with no results. Learn how to reduce your migraine attacks without endless medications
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or constant sacrifices. Hello, I'm Diane Ducarme. I've helped over 500 people break free from
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migraine, even after suffering for up to 60 years. My mission in life? To bring this relief
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to a million people using a unique blend of eastern medicine and western science.
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In this episode, you will learn how weather and barometric pressure changes can trigger
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or worsen your migraine so you'll recognize these silent cues before the attack hits,
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practical steps you can take if you're sensitive to changes in barometric pressure,
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or through temperature fluctuations so you can reduce your risk instead of just suffering,
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and how to integrate eastern medicine awareness into your weather trigger strategy
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so you feel empowered rather than helpless when storms roll in. Stay with me till the end
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because this is where you'll understand why a change in weather can literally alter how your
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brain feels pain. So when we talk about weather-triggered migraines, we're referring to
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attacks linked to changes in barometric pressure, changes in humidity, changes in temperature,
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or even sunlight exposure. And for many people, these shifts don't just coincide with migraines,
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they set them off. Research from the Journal of Headache and Pain 2023 shows that drops in
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barometric pressure, the kinds that often precede storms, can trigger migraine attacks in sensitive
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individuals. Why? Because your body's internal pressure system mirrors the atmosphere around you.
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Your brain and blood vessels constantly adjust to external air pressure. When that pressure
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suddenly falls, as before a thunderstorm or during a flight, it can cause vessels in the
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brain to dilate, increasing blood flow and activating the trigeminal vascular system,
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the same pathway responsible for migraine pain. And so at the same time, these changes can shift
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oxygen levels and neurotransmitters like serotonin, which modulate your pain and your mood.
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Now, temperature and humidity fluctuations can further destabilize your system,
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affecting hydration, electrolyte balance, what the West calls like that,
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and your nerves transmit signals. This has been analyzed quite a lot. A 2015 study in
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cephalalgia found that even small drops in atmospheric pressure could increase migraine
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risk by up to 20%, especially in individuals already sensitive to sensory
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or environmental change. And a newer data from 2022 links weather sensitivity to dysregulation
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in the autonomic nervous system, meaning the part of the brain that controls automatic functions
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like breathing and blood flow may overreact to rapid environmental shifts. Now, interestingly,
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stabilizing routines like consistent sleep, hydration, and light exposure have been shown
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to lower the frequency of these barometric migraines. In a study in 2021, maintaining
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a steady circadian rhythm significantly reduced weather-triggered attacks, suggesting that it's
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not the weather itself, it's the shock of the change your body reacts to. So when a storm moves
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in and you feel that familiar pressure behind your eyes, it's not superstitious. Your body is actually
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responding to a measurable shift in the air and your brain, finely tuned to its environment, is
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doing its best to adapt. And I have to comment because we have, you know, since 2019, like a
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wealth of data confirms everything I just mentioned. Like we see that over and over again
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for some people, weather-induced migraines are more prevalent than for some others, but definitely
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something we see across the board. In traditional Chinese medicine, weather-triggered migraines are
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seen not as random reactions, but as reflections of how external forces interact with your internal
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landscape. When the air outside becomes turbulent, like windy or humid or heavy, that same movement
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can echo inside your body. And traditional Chinese medicine calls this external wind, a force
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that disturbs the smooth flow of qi and blood, often rising towards the head. And so wind is a
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bit of a mystical term. I want to address that. And oftentimes when I'm coaching people, we talk
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about wind. Wind just means things do not circulate in the right order. They don't go where they need
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to go. And if you're listening to me and you have some of those, you might notice you have migraines
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that go from the back of your brain to the front of your brain. So it goes from that little ball
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you can see at the bottom, you can feel at the bottom of your head, just above the neck, all the
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way to behind your eye and back and forth. And sometimes it can manifest as migraine that changes
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location. So sometimes you're behind your head and then they're on your forehead and then they're on
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the top of your head and then they're on the temple, right or left. So sometimes it can go
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from one side, like fully right to fully left, etc. This notion of wind migraine, of migraine
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changing location, really mimicking the external environment, and sometimes it's triggered by other
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things than an external environment, can be also triggered internally. That's the object of another
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podcast. So when wind enters or arises internally from stress or fatigue or sudden change, it can
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cause the qi to surge upward or just in the wrong direction. And that's when the temples tighten,
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vision blurs, the head feels full and pressured, the migraines move around. So meanwhile, if the
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stomach spleen, the body's stabilizing center, is weak, it can't anchor that movement. And the result
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is energy rises too easily. It's going to mirror the instability of the weather outside or the
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humidity inside of you has increased. And when the humidity outside changes, you feel those changes
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inside of you physiologically. Now I want to address something really important here.
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If you found out that wine is a trigger, for example, it's easy enough not to have it. You
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remove it from your life, okay? And by the way, that's difficult, right? But if you identify weather
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as a trigger and you live, say, in Arizona or even in Singapore, where it's very humid, or New Zealand,
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where it's humid and windy, or even in Dubai, where you're under the air conditioning all the time,
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it's impossible to control your environment. Sometimes people see a correlation between
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changing city and starting to have migraines, and that's no coincidence. Now, how do we address that?
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You're going to need to trust the purity of our intent here. Since 2019, we have helped people
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rebalance their biome and bodies to become weather resilient and not triggered by weather changes.
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This is something that I will say, I will hand on heart say, we've seen possible in our data.
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We're able to do that for 100 people in parallel, and our goal is to do that for a million people.
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I'm assembling an A-team around me, super smart, super capable people to help me achieve the
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difficulties. If we went to the moon in 1969, I believe we can harvest the power of AI to help
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people navigate their gut-brain axis better, a lot better. Now, meanwhile, what can you do concretely?
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The Migraine Heroes app is now tracking weather patterns as well, and over time, we'll be able to
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give you predictions and actions to help you out. Meanwhile, we're helping people correct this
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manually. If you are at home and you want to take action today, here are some practical tips.
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If you feel more migraine when you have barometric pressure changes, then you need to avoid ice cream,
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kombucha, latte, coffee with milk of any kind. Okay, not just cow milk, but any kind of milk.
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If you have more migraines when the weather turns hot and the temperature increases,
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then you need to avoid ginger, spicy dishes, garlic, and most likely turmeric, at least if taken alone.
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And so these are some of the basics. At Migraine Heroes, we've observed that it's easier to add
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foods than to remove, so we add. For safety of you whom I don't know, for example, what life
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stage are you at? What medications do you take? What is your diet? What other symptoms do you have?
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Are you pregnant right now? Turmeric, lauded for its properties, can cause miscarriage.
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If taken in the very first week of pregnancy, you think you're pregnant and you were, but not long
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enough that you would have that first heartbeat at the ultrasound. So for now, just take the advice
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mentioned above and listen to it again if you forgot. These are some good advice. Now, of course,
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by any means, if you do feel your migraine are more and more intense, do see a doctor, do get an MRI,
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do get a CD scan. Those are important. I'm speaking here if you've done everything and
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nothing's working. And remember, every small step you take moves you closer to freedom.
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You are powerful, you are resilient, and you are no longer alone. Keep rising, Migraine Hero.
