We need to be accepted and heard for the story within us…
We need to slowly keep on progressing towards health…
And we need to feel supported every step of the way.
It’s become so common that patients are not receiving the treatment they need and often not even being referred to the right health professionals so that specific issues can be addressed.(Like many of the underlying illnesses behind migraine)
But if I’m being straight with you, finding a specialist for your migraines to listen to you and give you the solution that only someone who listens can…
is like finding a needle in a haystack.
I went through so much pain(and money) until I was given the solutions my body needed.
What I didn’t know at the time, was what to look for in someone that could.
Here Are Four Methods That Never Help But Patients Often Get
1. Being told there is no cure or that something can’t be cured.
This is one of my biggest pet peeves. There is no reason you shouldn’t have hope and try new approaches to your health.
Time and time again I have seen the most severe cases “spontaneously” go into “remission” never to be heard of again.
It doesn’t help anyone involved thinking that you are forever sentenced to be sick and there is nothing you can do about it.
The body is always trying to heal itself, you just have to get out of the way. Watch out for practitioners that give you dead ends like these.
2. A magic pill or supplement
When you approach your health, make sure you approach it as a whole.
The human body and mind is a system of systems and they are all interconnected.
This means they are all talking to each other and taking stresses off and putting stresses on each other.
We see our migraines as the product on the end of a conveyor belt…
But often don’t realize all the pieces that went into creating our sensitivities and susceptibilities that lead to it.
This means that trying to add something on at the end of the line doesn’t fix any of the problems we got along the way.
3. Symptom treatment
Without symptoms, we would not know we are sick.
This means that having a symptom like head pain, vertigo, photophobia etc. is not our actual ill health but an expression of our body.
It is like looking through a kaleidoscope.
What we see is just a picture of our disease and not the actual root cause of it.
Our body uses these symptoms to warn us that something we are doing or something in the environment is causing us ill health.
When we focus on removing these symptoms we are actually trying to silence our body’s cries for help.
It’s like the engine light coming on in your car.
Getting rid of the symptom is like breaking the actual light as opposed to fixing what’s wrong.
4. Ignoring mental and emotional turmoil and trauma
Oftentimes we are encouraged to be tough and fight it out when we go through traumas.
When we don’t get the proper support we need to deal with them, they can linger in our bodies.
They can turn into unhealthy patterns of behaviour, neglect and obsession.
After months and years of acting this way they become unconscious to us and seem like regular behaviours or feelings.
But this is where we can develop serious chronic, autoimmune and terminal illnesses.
When we skip over the effects traumas have had on us, we fail to take a holistic approach and ignore the root causes of our ills.
Five Signs A Practitioner Will Give You Leaps And Bounds In Health
1. They use a totality of all the symptoms in your body
One of the most important and usually overlooked pieces to chronic migraine healing is getting an entire picture of all the ways your body is expressing its individual illness.
They see everything going on and make the connections between it all(read between the lines).
In functional medicine this helps show what systems of your body are overburdened and can use some support.
It also gives you a foundation in finding the root cause because the body will tend to work its way backwards through old symptoms when it begins healing.
This is one of the reasons why functional and holistic medicine is precise, holistic and attends to detail.
2. They activate and support the body’s own healing systems
The body is well equipped to deal with an amazing number of stressors like:
– Extremes of hot and cold
– Starvation
– Infections
– Injuries
– Oxidation
The systems that support us in these situations have evolved over many millions of years.
The overloaded and overburdened bodies we see today are a product of a complete change in our day to day living.
– Hundreds of millions of new chemicals never before seen by our bodies
– Low exercise levels
– Empty nutrition
– Parasite/fungal/bacterial infections
– Food intolerances
– Being overworked/traumatised
– Sick buildings
These have created a confusing and overwhelming environment for our bodies.
Trying to take away symptoms and add more harsh chemicals to an already chaotic mix creates more harm and never works.
When we want to properly heal we have to take away the stressors that tax our bodies first.
Stress comes in many forms including:
– Physical
– Mental
– Emotional
– Financial
– Electromagnetic
– Chemical
– Spiritual
Without using stress reduction, supportive diets, lifestyle changes , mental/emotional coaching, detoxification and supplemental support, using strong medicines is just a patch fix and gets nowhere with addressing the root causes or creating long term health(Often it does more damage than good).
Using the body’s natural mechanisms to heal as opposed to going against them makes sure that we are supporting the body properly because at the end of the day, we aren’t the ones doing the healing anyway…
Our body does it all by itself and of its own accord.(and it’s always trying)
We can only support and guide it in the right direction and give ourselves the space we need to heal.
3. They understand what it’s like to be sick (and recover)
The biggest support I found from health practitioners that helped me was when they knew what it was like to crawl out of the tired painful hole of sickness.
They understood what I’d been through and how to give me the guidance I needed to move forward.
They knew there were several parts needed to get better like: lifestyle changes, nutrition, mental/emotional support, proper testing and supplementation.
This gave them the knowledge to answer what systems in my body were crashed, overactive, underactive or bogged down.
If a parasite infection needed to be addressed first, if past trauma needed releasing or inflammation was running rampant etc.
All of these things need to be understood first before chronic migraines and headaches will subside. And only the right person can identify those limiting factors, do the right testing and give you the right protocol.
Fortunes are lost and time disappears when you use the wrong medicines , use random tests and ignore the individuality of the person in front of you.
Don’t settle for less than consistently progressing toward healthwhen you choose a healthcare provider.
It can take lots of time to get out(because it took lots to get in) but there should always be a slow and steady increase in progress(even with hiccups).
Make sure to have a proper assessment by a migraine specialist and possible scans to rule out serious issues as well as lab testing for microbiome diversity, hormonal difficulties, adrenal fatigue and nutrient deficiencies when needed.
If you’d like to learn many of the pieces that the doc just simply doesn’t have time to talk with you about migraine relief, then the 10 steps to migraine health program is great for learning how to body can heal itself.
So jump over to this page and get more support or contact us here for a personal holistic assessment of your condition and learn what you need to heal.
These are all possible signs your body is having a tough time dealing with blood sugar spikes and drops.
But since we all succumb to those primal urges built into our system that make us need food now…
How about we find healthy replacements that don’t hurt us as much as the vending machines, packaged products or fast food stores?
This case study found “that the implementation of the dietary regimen successfully reduced the need for headache-related pain medication by at least 70% when compared to pre-treatment levels”
Before we get started these are some great guidelines:
– Avoid all cheap oils like vegetable oil
– Remember to soak your nuts to remove the antinutrients they have in them and make them more digestible
– The key here is keeping carbohydrate full foods low, this includes grains and fruits even dried fruits
– Always drink water first and foremost when hungry because thirst is often mistaken as hunger right up until kidney failure
– Use raw ingredients not bleached, roasted, fried, candy coated etc.(They add to the body’s load of stress)
– Dried fruits are higher in carbohydrates so intake needs to be monitored
– Nuts and seeds are higher in proteins and fats which makes them ideal for maintaining blood sugar as simple snacks
– Use exercise to deplete the sugars in your muscles so that the sugars in your body have somewhere to go instead of creating fat and hurting the brain
So let’s get going.
Remember, as I always recommend reminding yourself…
Listen to your body and what it says about individual foods and their proportions.
1. Power Balls
Power balls are super easy and can basically be made with any nuts, seeds or dried fruits.
The key is keeping simple carbohydrates low and having a fair amount of proteins and fat for long smooth energy while still providing nutrients.
The principle is simple, you take chewy sticky ones and combine them with dry pieces of others.
Sometimes a food processor works, other times just chopping up and mashing works great.
My favourite is:
– Dates
– Cocoa/Cacao powder or paste
– Hemp seeds
– Chia seeds
– Cashews
– Vanilla extract
Seed the dates and mash them up.(Use only enough to give a small amount of sweetness to the balls as too many dates make for a high sugar snack)
Soak the cashews for 6-8 hours to make them softer and more digestible by the body.
Soak the chia seeds for an hour with barely enough water so that they swell up a little and release their jelly.
Chop up cashews, mix the vanilla and chia together then mix in the date mush, hemp seeds and cashews.
Mix well and roll into bite size balls.
Top with some cocoa powder or you can melt raw cocoa paste into the recipe itself.(Covering in coconut flakes works great too for an evening snack without the burst of energy of cocoa)
Other options to include are:
Macadamia nuts, almonds, almond butter, hazelnuts, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, pine nuts, poppy seeds, brazil nuts, walnuts, pecans, coffee beans(careful)
2. Trail Mix
This is a no brainer.
Head over to a good organic sourced nuts, seeds and dried fruits store and mix and match to taste.
The best thing to do here is to “feel” what your body needs.
Feel a yes and feel a no to different nuts and seeds.
Just be careful with too many dried fruits as they are high in sugar and we tend to have a higher craving towards them because of it.
My favourite mix right now is:
Cashews, goji berries, golden berries, cacao nibs, green raisins(they aren’t covered in cheap oils) and pumpkin seeds
It’s inexpensive and easy to make your own healthy versions of, just watch for overdoing the dried fruit.
If you’re getting tired after them, change up the ratios.
3. Apple Pie Filling
I love this recipe and originally found it in the book Spot On Nutrition by Andrew Johnston.
It’s fairly simple but does require some cooking.
It completely makes up for it in taste.
Ingredients are:
– Apples(green are lowest in sugar)
– Coconut oil
– Great lakes gelatin
– Stevia
– Cinnamon
Options depending on your sensitivities(and tastes) include butter and honey/maple syrup
I don’t use any amounts in these recipes because I typically go by taste and they are tough to mess up.
Plus if you do mess them up it’s a great reason to make another batch and eat them both.
I start by coring and peeling the apples, saving the peels on the side of my baking tin since I don’t like them mixed in with the meat of the apple but love to eat the peels in this recipe.
Next I cut up or grate the apple in the tin and in a separate pot I melt down the coconut oil and mix with the cinnamon(I use a lot of cinnamon), honey, maple syrup and stevia.
Pour them over the apple and pop them into the oven.
When the apples start to release their juices I pour the great lakes gelatin into the tin and mix it all together so the gelatin gets into the whole dish while keeping the peels in one section as they have a different texture.
I usually let it bake until it’s juicy but not too soft as I like some crunch to my apples.
Once cooled this can be refrigerated for a delicious bite size jello snack that is absolutely full of nutrients.
The cinnamon, coconut oil and gelatin help regulate the sugars from the apples and sweetener but it is still a good idea to use a minimal amount of sugars in this unless you are training hard and your muscles need them.
4. Chia Seed Pudding
I love this pudding!
It goes great with so many different nuts, seeds, berries and fruits.
But of course we want to keep blood sugar stable to give us that nice smooth hummm of energy throughout the day.
The base of this is really simple.
It’s just chia seeds with water or a nut milk.
Lately my bodies loving cashews so I simply soak the cashews for 6-8 hours or overnight, then blend them with some water and bam you have cashew milk.
Some people strain out the bits of cashew but I just blend it more and love the nuttiness and nutrients.
Also if I want straight cashew milk I just add a little stevia, honey and vanilla extract to the blender and you have a delicious drink in minutes.
But back to the recipe.
Take some chia seeds and mix them with a little water.
They will swell up and release a gooey jelly like substance.
The more water the more they will swell up to a certain point after which it will just become more watery.
I usually let them sit in this water for about 1-3 hours depending on what i’m doing but it’s also possible to just throw the milk in with the chia seeds and some berries, pop them into a good glass tupperware(not plastic) and take with you to go.
But that’s really it.
Just the chia seeds with water(or milk) makes a pudding, then based on your taste buds and desires you can add more to it.
My favourite mix right now is:
– Cashew milk
– Chia seeds
– Blueberries
– Cocoa paste
– Stevia
– Honey
– Cinnamon
– Vanilla Extract
I make the cashew milk, add vanilla, cinnamon, honey and stevia and blend.
Then take that mix and stir in chia seeds and let sit for 1-3 hours.
Throw in a few blueberries and you’re done!
5. Sardines and avocado
This recipe like most of the others came from my laziness and desire for a quick snack that keeps my body happy and satisfies my mouth.
Ingredients:
– Ripe avocado
– BPA free wild canned fish
– Lemon
– Sea salt/celtic salt/himalayan salt
– Pepper
Just mash up the avocado, and fish together.
Right now I really like wild pink salmon and herring fillets.
Then give it a squirt of lemon and add salt and pepper to taste.
It takes a minute or two and adding the lemon to the avocado keeps it from getting dark so it can stay for longer.
Again, notice the theme here, everything is a mix of protein and fat with a little bit of carbs to keep our tongue happy.
Just focus on healthy sourcing of the foods like making sure you get wild and organic ingredients.
6. Nut butter and apples(or celery)
Do I have to say more?
Its an old snack with a new spin on it because we have a huge influx of different nut butters in the last few years.
Of course you can always go with the healthier and more inexpensive route.
Simply buy your own nuts wholesale, soak them for a few hours and dry, then throw them into a food processor until it turns them into butter.
But the recipe is simple.
Slice up some apples or cut up some celery sticks and dip them in your nut butter of choice.
Takes seconds to make and really puts a damper on cravings.
7. Coconut oil(or MCT oil)
This is a more recent method of maintaining our brains functioning and not spiking blood sugar.
MCT(medium chain triglyceride) oil is basically coconut oil since coconut oil has tons of medium chain triglycerides.
These are fatty acids that are very easily absorbed by the body that actually provide a fuel source for the brain.
Some people eat the oils straight(I only like coconut oil if it’s cool) or just add it to a food or drink.
MCT oil is often added to coffee to take the edge off the coffee and give it a longer smoother “burn.”
Just grab and go!
8. Homemade Chocolate
This is near and dear to my heart as a huge foodie and chocoholic.
What we are doing here is taking the raw ingredients that chocolate is made from(cacao) and melting it down with our favourite ingredients, then letting it cool in the fridge or really harden up in the freezer.
Ingredients:
– Raw cacao paste
– Cacao butter
– Coconut cream(the hard one not can)
– Coconut oil
– Vanilla axtract
– Sweeten with (Honey, stevia, maple syrup, blackstrap molasses)
– Toppings to test include: Anything you can cover in chocolate
Now it is important to note that raw cacao paste is very strong. It’s like coffee and because of this we want to dilute it down and mix it with other things like cacao butter, coconut cream and coconut oil.
The other main ingredients are to sweeten and provide more layers of flavor.
Then of course just add whatever topping you like.
So you take a little pot, and melt together the top 4 ingredients, feeling and testing for ratios.
I usually find a tablespoon of cacao paste is good for 2 tablespoons of coconut oil, a teaspoon of coconut cream and 2 tablespoons of cacao butter.
Once they are melted, let them cool a little bit and add whatever sweetener you have on hand.
I usually grab a muffin tin and add toppings in the individual trays of whatever I have available which can include:
– Peppermint oil
– Hemp seeds
– Mullberries
– Puffed grains
– Protein powder or collagen
– Walnuts
– Hazelnuts
Stir it a little in each individual tray and pop it into the fridge if you like it soft or freezer if you want it hard.
The key with this one is experimenting around and finding your own mix of flavors that satisfies you but with the base ingredients it creates a steady supply of energy and beats those cravings because of the chocolatey goodness.
9. Berries
It’s hard to pass up berries.
We evolved with them and have eaten them for thousands if not millions of years.
They are amazing sources of nutrients and depending on the kind are actually very slow sources of carbohydrates.
This means they give our body energy and nutrients but wont give us so much that our body has to compensate and cause a fatigue rollercoaster we usually experience when eating poor processed foods.
Obviously, wild and organic or biodynamic sources of berries are the best.
It’s simple just grab them and go or add them to some of the recipes above.
Blueberry, raspberry and blackberry are safe bets but strawberry can be high in sugar content because of all of our agricultural hybridization techniques that just want more flavor.
10. Avocado Pudding
Another delicious go to when you have a chocolate craving.
I haven’t experimented with a vanilla or berry pudding with avocado but it may be possible.
The key here is to use ripe avocados.
It’s simple, just blend the avocados with your sweeteners and flavours of choice.
Use a nut milk, nut butter or coconut milk/cream for more rich fat and slower sugar spikes.
My favourite recipe right now is:
– Avocado
– Coconut cream
– Cashew milk
– Honey
– Maple syrup
– Stevia
– Vanilla Extract
– Cacao Paste
Melt down and mix all of the ingredients except avocado, dont boil them!
Then simply peel the avocados and pop them into a blender or food processor, add the melted mix and blend to desired texture.
You can eat warm or cool and serve.
It goes great with berries added in.
And that’s it!
It’s simple and easy and studies show just how important it is for our brains to get steady energy without the spikes that are caused by most processed foods.
Surprised you were never educated about maintaining blood sugar by your healthcare provider?
It is a key factor in healing our brains and guts so that migraines cant stay around.
The bathtub is already full of food intolerances, gut dysbiosis, inflammation and blood sugar handling issues.
Adding another strain like changing our circadian rhythms(our sleep/wake cycles) adds a extra bit of stress we just can’t handle.
The bathtub overflows and we trigger.
The problem with weekend headaches is that we have a regular sleep pattern all week(usually) then friday comes along and we go to sleep way passed our circadian set sleep time.
This makes us miss our physical repair time (10pm-2am) and we usually end up eating more poor food, spiking our stress hormones like cortisol late into the night and then end up sleeping in on saturday.
When we sleep in we go passed our programmed waking time and further upset our circadian rhythm which controls our entire body/nature balance and helps us regulate all our biological oscillators like heart rate, breathing rate, brain frequencies and peristalsis rate.
This is huge for trigger and does not give us more rest and repair like we think.
When the sun comes up, our cortisol goes up, whether we are sleeping or not.
But we get to decide if we are in tune with it or adding more stress to the tub.
2. Create more stress free time than just the weekend
We are all often to blame on this one, it’s part of our culture, but not a necessary evil.
We often add everything on during the week, doing the entire to do list in one giant spurt of stress.
But in doing this we ignore our body’s signals, miss meals, miss hydration, miss quiet time, miss any communication about bodily needs and often run our day right into the night.
Even if we fall asleep (which usually ends up being more like passing out) we usually take our to do list with us into sleep and our mind doesn’t actually fall asleep properly. This is one of the huge reasons for the over medicating of sleep meds.
So instead of taking our regular stress of a 9-5 job, we turn it into a 7am-10pm grind, 5 days a week, followed by a 2 day migraine attack and repeat.
Instead, break it all up, prioritize the most important to-do’s, create outlines and shortcuts, plan ahead, add some to do’s to the weekend and make sure you prioritize feeding yourself brain nutrients and “meditating” to break up all the fog and stress of the week.
It’s not a crime to take stress free breaks, often.
3. Eat the same foods at the same times
Our body has to prepare for food, this is why grazing often does not do well.
We go through what is called the cephalic phase of digestion.
Cephalic just means head.
The moment we start thinking of food, preparing food, cooking food, cutting food and eating food…
Our body starts to prepare its digestive juices.
Our mouth starts to salivate, our saliva is full of enzymes that break down food.
Our stomach starts to drop its pH and get extremely acidic so that it can kill any bacteria and break down food particles.
Our gallbladder starts to swell up with bile so that it can neutralize the stomach acid and dump a bunch of enzymes to further digest all our proteins, fats and carbohydrates and make them easily absorbable by our gut bacteria and intestinal villi(like a little carpet that soaks up nutrients into your body).
So when our body can plan for our meals, it digests, absorbs, assimilates and eliminates them way better.
If you go from texting on your phone in a drive thru, to eating while you watch a show…
There is no time or focus spent on the delicious flavours of the food and the cephalic phase is skipped.
Plus we don’t end up chewing our food and you know the rule:
“Drink your food and chew your water”
Because mastication is massively important in digestion and absorbing both food and drink.
But it’s also important to do them at the same time.
When we wake up, our body is primed for a meal.
It’s primed from the fast that is our sleep and it’s ready to break-fast.
But we often get many problems from eating late.
Our body’s are usually not to keen to it, even if we are used to it.
When we eat late, we usually eat cheaper, poorer and more convenience foods.
We end up spiking our blood sugar very close to bed and cause blood sugar issues while we sleep which destroys sleep quality.
And our digestion is weakest at night as it is preparing to run our detoxification and repair processes it needs at night.
Remember, our brain literally shrinks at night so that it can detoxify the days damage.
We need to support this process or we cannot have brain health.
Instead, listen to your body and find the times of day when it is ready and asking for meals…
Not your head but your stomach.
We can often confuse the two.
4. Spread out the list
Spread it out, slow, steady and consistent improvement is all we need to have all the health, wealth and happiness we want in life.
Don’t do it all during the week and end up crashing during the weekend(or you’ll trigger).
And don’t procrastinate in un-effective ways and leave it all for the weekend where you don’t actually end up getting relaxation time.(or you’ll trigger)
Just a little bit every day, and pepper it throughout, remember that everything in our life goes in cycles.
So we have cycles of high stress and lots of focus and we have cycles of low stress and relaxation, rest and digestion.
When we can learn to listen to these cycles, nurture each part of them so we can maximize both our focus and our rest, we can actually get far more done, with far less stress.
Smart stress and smart rest create brain health success.
5. Kill the stress before bed on friday
When in doubt, kill the stress before it can start a weekend headache.
Plan the weekend out, make a list of all your to-do’s so you can forget about them while you sleep.
Eat a super healthy and blood sugar stabilizing meal with healthy veggies and nutritious meats before bed so that you give your body logs not kindling to maintain the fire throughout the night.
Go into a specific de-stressing mode before bed.
Self massage or roll your body out with a ball or foam roller to release tension held in the body.
Take an epsom salt bath with essential oils to feed yourself muscles relaxing and brain healing magnesium.
It’s important to remember we hold tension from our mental, emotional and physical areas in all of the mental, emotional and physical areas.
Often times emotional stress can end up in our shoulders , tighten our neck and trigger a headache. Or physical tension can create emotional upsets and put us over the edge triggering a headache.
When we can specifically take time to address mental, emotional and physical tension, we can prevent the bathtub from overflowing.
6. Avoid alcohol and replace weekend junk
With the onset of the weekend comes our rebellious side.
This comes from our childhood experiences where the weekend was a free for all and we could do whatever we wanted compared to the week where we were under a strict schedule.
It’s important to remember we carry our inner child within us until the day we die.
And this child gets rebellious if we don’t give him the attention he needs.
So depriving the child all week doesn’t do well if we want to avoid reaching for the alcohol or junk.
Our will power over our inner characters is only so strong.
Instead we need to learn to live in harmony and symbiosis with them.
Healthy alternatives and boundaries can help us satisfy all of our inner needs and prevent us from making poor late night decisions when our character is too weak to control all the unconscious behaviours with sheer will.
But this comes down to us and our knowledge on cooking and nutrition.
Keep it healthy and keep it simple.
When we have healthy tasty options ready and keep the unhealthy ones from being readily available, we can make huge progress in the inflammation that gives us pain free health or sets our brains on fire.
Want to know how food triggers affect migraines being triggered?
Sign up for the pre-release of our food/triggers guide here:
66% of migraine sufferers agreed that they do not have access to effective treatments in 2017.
The way I deal with the frustration of my doctors approach to my health is by understanding that:
– They only have a few minutes with each patient because of our current insurance based model of medicine
– They have to quickly sift through symptoms to find the drug that will match them
– They have to prescribe as safely, effectively and efficiently as possible in that time
In this post we are going to be talking about the 9 shocking things your doctor doesn’t tell you about migraines
1. Medication, botox and surgery isn’t the only thing you can do
There are dozens of different modalities and substances you can take that have shown lots of promise for migraines.
Many of which work better than the preventive migraine drugs that were all invented for other reasons than migraine.
For example, CoQ10 is a nutrient our body uses in its energy metabolism and as an antioxidant and immune regulator that has shown benefit in studies with migraines and has an amazing safety profile.(Study)
There is also a really big fact that most doctors will never bring up to you and part of it is because they have no knowledge in the area, they are not specifically educated on migraine and telling you would cause them to lose revenue.
It’s food.
Food has been the most successful migraine reliever for years and some studies have shown that 100% of patients improve with dietary changes. (Study)
2. They have no knowledge of nutrition, lifestyle or environmental medicine and especially not for migraine
“Most graduating medical students continue to rate their nutrition preparation as inadequate.” (Study)
The migraine mechanism exists in many people and some experts would even say that it exists in most.
The problem is that we are entering into a time period where the triggers for this mechanism are growing exponentially.
From the outgassing of chemical fumes from new cars, new houses and new products…
To the ever increasing electromagnetic frequencies we are being subjected to through radio, cellphones, routers, smart meters and other “smart” electronics…
To even things like mold, household cleaning products and cultural perceptions of beauty that causes us to hold improper breathing patterns, which exert undue pressure on our necks and trigger.
Nutrition or lack of as well as environmental and lifestyle stressors play large parts into how high our threshold is and how high our trigger levels are.
Without addressing these we can hardly hope to make long term changes to our health and affect the frequency, intensity and severity of our migraines.
But doctors are not well educated in these areas and because of this the majority of people that go to their doctors for help end up missing key pieces to the migraine puzzle.
It’s up to us to get educated and seek out well rounded health practitioners that can help us tackle these areas.
This is why I provide the 10 steps program for those who want to get deeper into their health than ever before.
3. They know little to nothing about migraines except what their list of medications tells them
The average doctor is little interested in the specifics of migraine.
Through their scope of practise they are only required to be able to assess and diagnose a migraine and look down their list of medications for a possible fit for treatment.
The majority of them other than neurologists and headache specialists do not keep current with the literature and do not know the specifics of the migraine battle.
They don’t understand the vast number of problems and difficulties that come with migraine, social stigma and treatment unless they have migraines themselves.
It’s important to understand they are trying their best but they should not be an end all be all source for migraine treatment.
Ask them to refer you to a specialist who will know more and make sure to get a dietary assessment from a nutritionist as well as a physical assessment from someone like a NUCCA chiropractor or CHEK practitioner as a good baseline.
4. Your health is the most important factor in your tendency to migraine
When we think of migraine we need to break it down into the basis of how a migraine comes to be.
We have our triggers which are the accumulation of the stresses in our lives from dietary, to emotional, to environmental, to hormonal, to mental and so forth.
We call this our trigger level.
Then we have our threshold level which is the level that if we cross, our migraine will trigger.
Then we have the bodies base functions that are constantly repairing, detoxifying and dealing with the stresses life throws at us.
These are the foundation principles for health and if we keep them fine tuned, our body can deal with a massive amount of stress and still come out okay.
The thing is, our health is implicated in all three of these.
It will determine how much our body can compensate for stressors and how many stressors it can take before we trigger.
Making sure we stay healthy through all the different avenues of health keeps our threshold high, triggers low and foundation principles balanced so that our body functions at its best.
5. The most successful, well studied relief therapy for migraine is diet
Diet is huge and often understated.
This study found that when an average of 10 foods were avoided there was a dramatic fall in the number of headaches per month, with 85% becoming headache free.(Study)
Many migraineurs know their trigger foods because soon after them, they trigger, and we all know pain teaches us best.
But there is also a huge number of foods our body is sensitive to 1-3 days after ingestion that affects us that isn’t so obvious.
Then there are the foods that are just generally unhealthy and cause inflammation and oxidation as well as provide little to no nutrients.
Between these groups of “trigger foods” we have a few studies that have shown amazing results for migraine sufferers that are far better than the mediocre results from many of the standard “migraine drugs” like topamax.
Without negative side effects, but plenty of positive ones.
6. Many people recover from severe migraine without medication
It happens every day.
Finding the causes of why so much stress and tension is building in the body is far more effective in the long term than medicating and trying to push the problem away.
It’s important to remember that chemicals act on only a few pathways and most of them for migraine are unknown as to how they work…
But they create so much distress in the body that it gets shocked out of its regular pain generation and we see some benefit and think its working(Queue the placebo).
This is why they usually come with a list of “side effects” which are actually direct effects because the body is trying to compensate for the damage they are doing.
When dealing with medications it’s important to make sure you supplement for the nutritional deficiencies they are causing and a simple site like mytavin.com can help a lot.
You’ll notice that many of the migraine preventive nutrients(magnesium, CoQ10, B vitamins) will be on the list of depleted nutrients caused by the drugs.
For example topamax causes glutathione(antioxidant) and folic acid(B9) to be depleted.
This is problematic for long term health and all drugs should be screened for deficiencies.
7. Migraine is a protective mechanism and a headache is a type of migraine
Proposed by Dr David Buccholz is the idea that migraine is actually the main mechanism by which all headaches come about.
He states that a headache is simply a mild more controllable migraine and that what is classified as a migraine is a headache that the body has a much harder time recovering from once triggered.
This makes sense if we think of headaches as a fire in the brain.
A small fire that only causes a little bit of damage is easily put out by our bodies firefighters and only causes minor symptoms like pain because there is little damage.
On the other hand, when our trigger levels get really high and a wildfire starts because of way too much inflammation…
Not having enough nutrients/antioxidants which our bodies firefighters use as water causes the damage to go out of control.
The fire burns longer, gets hotter, causes more damage and because of this creates more symptoms like nausea, vertigo, vision loss, radiating pain etc.
When we can see the entire fire for what it is,
We can take steps to support our firefighters and provide them with the nutrients and foundations,
For them to put the fire out and help the amazing ecosystem that is our brain to regrow stronger and healthier preventing us from trigger the next time stress gets the best of us.
8. The more responsibility you take for your health the better your migraines will be
Stay away from the blame game and making it anyone’s fault.
These are just the circumstances we’ve been given.
But as soon as we can take responsibility for it, we can move from a place of power.
The power to make the change and get the help we need is in our own hands and we are far stronger that way.
Instead of being stuck in a “fix me” mentality, we can move to “let’s find solutions” and act from a place of problem solving instead of being stuck in the victim mentality.
Take a stand for the beautiful body that you are taking care of for these few brief years on this planet and think of it as your friend.
If you were taking care of your friend and wanted the best possible scenario for them with the best chance at finding a solution that works for them, what would you do.
Research, get educated on migraines and what all the health practitioners use to help their patients.
From a headache specialist to a nutritionist to a CHEK practitioner, acupuncturist and craniosacral therapist.
There are many amazing solutions that can get you back to living a normal life.
The catch is that only you live in your body 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and only you can make the right decisions moment to moment so empowering yourself is a must.
When you see your doctor, make sure you are taking an active role and pre-educating yourself on options and consequences for long term health.
They will be happy to see that you are actively searching for solutions with them and looking into areas their scope might not cover so that they can help even more patients in the future.
9. They often get paid by device and drug companies to sell their products
It’s not uncommon for companies that create drugs and products to pay for expensive dinners and pay doctors to attend “seminars” where they learn about the use of their drugs and devices.
But this can provide a conflict of interest as some of these gifts are extremely generous and create biases in the doctors perception of what to use for their patients.
The problem is that it’s not easy to find out BUT luckily it is becoming less and less of a problem as more measures are put in place to keep these conflicts of interest from happening.
When receiving a prescription it’s important to cost compare in your area and online.
See if there are non brand name alternatives as they can be 10x cheaper in some cases and be weary of your doctor continually prescribing expensive brand names.
Overall there are many pieces that aren’t covered in the quick few minutes we have with our doctor but as long as we stay educated we can come from a much better place and put ourselves on a healthier path that doesn’t cause more problems than we initially came with.
To take the burden off of doctors and make one resource for migraineurs to learn about and deal with all the different areas mind AND body stress comes in I created the 10 Steps program.
This program covers mental, emotional, physical, dietary and environmental stressors but also has some bonuses like what detoxification actually means and how reducing our bodies toxic load can alleviate symptoms.
Worldwide there are approximately 22 500 000 migraine attacks every day.
Migraine attacks aren’t a Root Cause – they’re a symptom of something underlying.
Shifting Perspective
When we look through a kaleidoscope, we see many multiples of reflections of whatever we are looking at. But these pictures are not the actual object, just reflections.
This is how migraines work. Evolution didn’t spend millions of years just to end up crippling a seventh of the population.
The body uses whatever it can to tell you that somethings wrong. Be it a migraine, skin issues, depression or gas.
Its like putting your hand on a hot stove, if you didn’t have a pain reflex, you would hold it there until your hand was so badly hurt that it stopped functioning.
Without these warning signs we would have no way to gauge when we are doing something wrong. We have to be tough to get through the pain of migraines, but we have to be gentle with ourselves to learn what it is that’s hurting us, whether it be emotional pain, intolerant foods, poor environmental conditions, lack of nutrients or parasites.
Looking at the Root Cause
The problem is getting a proper assessment that is functional in our day to day life that gives us solid steps to take towards healing the root.
How do we do this ourselves?
It all begins with a log.
Keeping a proper daily exercise, diet, sleep and emotion log is un-waiveringly one of the most important steps you can take to getting to the root.
This benefits you twice because it not only gives you the ability to be the detective in your own life but if you ever end up lost without a paddle it allows a skilled holistic health practitioner to easily get a record of all of the events, triggers and upsets that have been happening in your life that are regularly lost to memory.
When you can begin to tune-in to your own feelings and functioning you can begin to take a step back and say “ hmmm I notice that when I work late two nights in a row, I skip my winding down at home.
This cuts the stress relief of being with my family which, in the first place, is the reason I am working so much.
Then this ends in burning the wick at both ends which cuts even more time out of work and family and leading me to a migraine on the fourth day.
The log is the first step, but creating a foundation of health is the second.
How to support the body
A foundation in health can be found through applying the 6 foundation principles and gauging where your individuality lies within them.
When this foundation is flowing like it should, our hormones and blood sugar are stable, energy and creativity is high, our digestion is repairing and lymphatics are removing congestion.
We come from a place of abundance instead of scarcity because we feel solid.
1. Thinking
There is nothing more important than having a system for where to guide your thinking. When we have a system we don’t have to rely on the random fancies of our thoughts to whatever whim they take.
It all begins with growing a dream and goals out of our desires and fears.
Something that makes us burn inside and want to create and heal, but also keeps the hungry wolves of our nightmares away.
This dream needs to have something concrete that it can leave behind and be known by so as to satisfy the greater functionings of our mind and soul. This legacy is forged out of the world we want to create for our family, friends and children and what you want them to know you by.
These dreams are fueled and rooted in our loves. Our loves feed the burning fire of our dreams and are made of the things we want to achieve them for. Whether it be for our own desire to become healthy and pain free, or to be able to give 110% to our careers, or to be there for our children when they grow up. The love is our day to day fuel that feeds us to be better.
When we are clear on our dream that we want to create, legacy we want to leave behind and the loves that fuel it, healing is easy and natural.
– Create a crystal clear picture with step by step instructions on how you will get to your dream
– Dedicate yourself to it, if you are getting migraines then maybe big macs are not the best way to get to your dream
– Commit to finding who and what you need to know to achieve it, find someone that’s done it and learn what they did
2. Breathing
Breathing is absolutely essential but rarely talked about. Nobody tells you that monitoring your breathing can tell you if your body is stressed or relaxed and how to bring down your cortisol and calm the body or prepare it to do battle with the day.
When we breath, we should be inhaling 2/3 into our abdomen and 1/3 into our chest. The breath should be about 6-10 seconds long in total.
The average person has a much quicker breath and this causes a stress response from the body. It can also be because of a stress response or a reaction to eating too much acidic sugary food.
If you find that you don’t breath into your abdomen you can practise laying on a flat surface with a water bottle on your stomach and purposefully raising and lowering the bottle as you breath in and out of your abdomen until your diaphragm is retrained.
If you find that you don’t breath into your chest you can try this:
Take a seat and make sure you are sitting up
Put your shoulders back and down
Inhale and hold your breath
Inhale more and hold it
Inhale again and hold it
Then inhale a fourth time and hold it for a few seconds to feel your chest and shoulders expanding. Don’t let your shoulders raise up.
This will help promote stretching of tight muscles around the top of the lungs that prevent expansion
These two simple techniques have solved chronic headaches that have lasted for decades in many patients once they learn how to do it right.
3. Drinking
Proper hydration can be difficult especially at the beginning of a healing journey. When we’ve been dehydrated for so long, our body will take any chance it can to start flushing out toxins that were previously unable to be dealt with because of a lack of resources.
At the end of the day, it’s water that gives us a majority of our energy because most people walk around with more than enough caloric energy.
If you drink much less than half your bodyweight(lbs) in ounces of water a day then you are at high risk of needing some hydration.
Hydrating and not just adding more toxins begins with finding a clean pure water source like a local artesian well or finding a reliable water filtration company.
If you are not sure how many minerals are present in your water, add a pinch of sea salt because the minerals are what suck water into our tissues.
Avoid plastic and tap water at all costs.
Remember, “the solution to pollution is dilution” because we are made of water and this is highly understated.
4. Eating
It can be quite simple to begin eating a healing self sustaining diet, but when we run into problems like migraines there can be many many factors that change what our diets need to consist of and this is why I recommend doing a rotation diet and food logging.
As migraineurs we can run into many problems with diet that we most likely aren’t even aware of because of our variety of symptoms and foods with dozens of ingredients.
Depending on the case, a patient may need to go anywhere from: ketogenic to paleo to antifungal to low amine and anywhere in between.
Doing allergy tests doesn’t help either because our bodies desires and intolerances can change from one day to the next based on its needs.
And being able to tell our triggers can be extremely hard when a food that we eat on day 1 does not end up triggering us until day 3.
Start off paleo, it’s really simple, wholesome, nutritious and eliminates many of the additives preservatives and chemicals we find in our day to day food supply causing us aggravation.
5. Moving
Moving is simple when we think of the primal patterns of movement, Walk(jog run), lunge, squat, twist, pull, push and bend.
These are the basis for all of our movements and it’s absolutely crucial we can perform these movements without pain or else an assessment should be done by a qualified practitioner like a CHEK practitioner.
Our body is made up of what we call fascia, fascia is like a web of tissue that interconnects our whole body and can be the reason why a problem in our foot, could be causing an imbalance in our head giving us pain.
If we start to notice a reduction in our ability to perform any of the primal pattern movements it’s imperative to roll it out, stretch it out and strengthen it or find a qualified practitioner to help you make sure its not causing your migraines.
Getting out in the sun and sweating when we can is a huge bonus to our immunity, lymph, digestion, emotions and hormones. This effectively strengthens our body as a whole, because it’s what we were designed to do.
6. Sleeping
Sleep needs to be deep, undisturbed, restful and refreshing.
Ideally we need to sleep between dusk and dawn as our repairing hormones are peaking for physical regeneration between 10pm-2am and our psychologicalhormones are primed for repair from 2am-6am.
Not all sleep is the same so make sure you optimize your sleeping environment.
No computers tvs or lights that stay blinking all night as they can cause a cortisol response. Try and block out all outside light and noise with good windows and blinds or try a sleeping mask and ear plugs.
Winding down is one of the most important aspects and I find journaling my thoughts of the day as well as writing a list of things I have to do the next day or few days really helps me let go of them and know that I can pick the thoughts right back up where I left them in the morning. On the paper not in your head.
Just as it takes about an hour for the sun to set, our bodies are adapted to take an hour of preparation for them to be able to drop our cortisol(energy/stress hormone) and flood us with melatonin(sleep/repair hormone).
Take the time to do something non-stimulating, no screens or “blue” lights which are lights usually given off by fluorescent, LED and TV screen lighting. A simple addition to your sleep arsenal is a pair of amber glasses that block the blue light from entering your eyes.
If you just can’t fall asleep, use magnesium before bed, it’s the missing mineral in our 21st century diets. An epsom salt bath, a magnesium supplement or a magnesium spray are great ways to add what’s known as the “relaxation mineral.”
Remember it’s absolutely crucial to cover the foundation principles of health before starting therapies that might just become palliatives and prevent you from actually “healing” and instead just “managing” your migraines.
It can be likened to having the engine light turn on in your car. Not covering the foundation principles and adding more things to stop the pain would be like going into the dashboard and breaking the engine light. In the end, the engine still has a problem that can be getting progressively worse, and now you aren’t even aware.
Homeopathy for Migraines
This is where the magic and wonder of homeopathy comes in. These little white pills are minute amounts of medicinal substances that create a remembering effect in the body. They are like jumper cables in that they amp up the immune system of the body to speed up restoring balance from the inside out.
Homeopathy in migraines are extremely helpful as they have no toxic side effects and prompt the body to begin healing the very core of what is causing the symptoms in the first place, whether it be sensitivities from a toxic liver, too many heavy metals, overburdened immunity, sluggish lymphatics an over run digestive system and more.
Some studies like this one have shown huge efficacy in using homeopathic medicine to permanently reduce the severity of migraines by prescribing homeopathic remedies that are targeted to the individual person and their set of symptoms and experiences and not just a migraine.
There Are Hundreds Of Homeopathic Remedies For Head Pain
Homeopathy has thousands of different remedies that can be applicable in a variety of cases but it all depends on how the “totality” of the symptoms of the person comes up.
For example if a migraineur finds barometric pressure differences to be an extremely important trigger, the homeopath may choose to include the rubric
But there are 9 different remedies that all have different pictures they present with.
In the end its all about looking at the whole person and finding a remedy that matches who that person is to the “picture” of the remedy.
Wonderful things can happen to migraines when homeopathy is used in conjunction with supporting the body.
And the body can only be supported properly as a whole, because that’s what it is.
This is why it is so important to find a great holistic health practitioner that looks at the root cause, and understands what it’s like to go through migraines so that they can guide you out.
We all want to eat well so that we can extend our lives and the quality of them.
But often times it can seem like we are eating really healthy but still experiencing migraines and as we now know, food is one of the biggest causes of neurological stress.
I suffered from terrible, gut wrenching, make me hide in a dark room and grip a bucket migraines, but after changing what I was eating(and a few other things) they went away and I’ve been migraine free for over 5 years now.
In this article I am going to talk about what you can do if you feel like you are eating healthy but your migraines just won’t stop.
If we eat a meal and feel tired, get cravings, get jittery, start yawning or feel brain fog, we are not eating right.
The way we know we are eating the right foods at the right times in the right proportions is that we go from a slight dip in our energy before the meal to a smooth and steady transition to energy again.
No dips, no cravings, no mess.
1. Manipulate Macronutrients
This is the biggest factor in post meal energy.
Our body is always asking for varying ratios of our macronutrients and we can understand these as proportions.
Macronutrients are the big categories our food falls into like protein, fat and carbohydrates.
If we eat a meal and feel tired, chances are our meal proportions were off during that meal and likely the last few meals too.
Now, we can fall into different categories depending on our ancestry because a norwegian’s ancestors have distinctly different needs than a zimbabweans.
In the north there was little to no sources of carbohydrates in the winter because the ground froze so they had to depend on proteins and fats from animal sources…
Near the equator there was consistent vegetation all year long providing carbohydrates so animal sources weren’t as necessary.
The extremes end up with a 90/10 ratio either way.
So you could be 90% animal foods and 10% plant foods in the north…
Or you could be 90% plant foods and 10% animal foods near the equator.
But those are the extremes.
Often times our needs end up changing throughout the day.
Where my morning meal may be best suited toward steady clean sources of energy with proteins and fats, my evening meal may have some more carbohydrates to help my body’s cortisol levels drop so that I can sleep easy.
If I am training hard my body does much better with more animal foods.
If im sedentary then it loves vegetables.
During the winter, warming slow cooked foods help me function at a much higher level…
And during the summer, fruits keep me cool.
Seeing the play here?
It’s very real and our body is constantly asking for changes.
Don’t make everything the same and switch it up based on your needs.
Often times I find sedentary people eating too many refined sources of carbohydrates which cause huge problems because the body doesn’t know what to do with it all, this leads to the brain getting an overload of sugar and subsequent spikes and crashes while the body tries to re-regulate itself.
Que the fatigue and cravings…
2. Deal with GI issues
If you are eating a “clean diet“, do you still experience bloating, burping, gas, indigestion, reflux etc.?
It’s important to understand that it’s no longer just about what we eat.
It’s also about what we absorb.
Our body:
Digests -> absorbs -> assimilates and eliminates food
When it’s functioning properly.
If we are having GI issues with a good diet then there are deeper pieces of the puzzle to look at and these most likely aren’t working right.
Some deeper issues include:
Parasites and funguses
Digestive strength
Stress load
Hormonal imbalance
Physical impingements etc.
Go for a deeper dive and look at yourself and your life objectively. Because everything in your body and its functioning is connected.
If we are experiencing an overload in one area, it can spill over into everything else.
Assess these areas:
Daily chemical intake
Variety of movement
Trauma
Relationships
Social life
Joy
Health
Career
Creativity
Finances
Education
Home environment
Spirituality
Check out this video on great foods for some GI issues
3. Is the food digesting?
If we are digesting our food properly then our digestion goes like this:
– First and foremost we think of the food and our digestive juices start forming
– Our mouth salivates and we make sure we chew our food thoroughly to break it down into liquid because our body only absorbs liquids
– Food enters our stomach where if we are healthy, our stomach secretes hydrochloric acid and the pH in the stomach drops very very low, enough to further break down the food
– Our stomach releases its contents into our intestines and bile gets secreted to neutralize the acidic pH and release enzymes like lipase(fat digesting), protease(protein digesting), amylase(carbohydrate digesting)
– Then this broken down food that should be liquid at this point moves through the intestines where it gets further broken down into the building blocks of life
– Proteins -> amino acids
– Carbohydrates -> sugar
– Fats -> fatty acids
– As it moves through our intestines the massive amount of bacteria we have breaks it down further, creates vitamins for us to use and assists with the absorption process of those nutrients
But each piece in this process can go wrong.
If it does, we are set up for gastrointestinal issues and indigestion.
Some problems include:
– Not connecting to the food so digestive juices are delayed which often happens when we are rushing through life
– Not chewing food causing large food particles to enter our digestion making their break down difficult
– Not having enough stomach acid because of high levels of stress, infections, medications, not being present with the food etc.
– Lack of digestive enzymes and bile to neutralize pH because of a weak digestive system from a number of stressors
– Imbalance of bacteria which cause the formation of waste, overgrowth, infections, indigestion of food, creation of gas etc.
Digestion is everything and health begins in the gut.
Our gut health is directly proportional to our head health and its crucial we take care of our digestion and fix these steps along the way so that food provides nutrients for us instead of more problems to deal with.
4. Double check it’s actually “clean”
There are 5 extremely important ingredients that can be hidden inside food and can turn it from a healthy food, to a head banger.
But of course at the end of the day, the foods your body is asking for is individual to you.
These 5 are:
– Hydrogenated oils
– Food additives
– Food preservatives
– Empty carbohydrates
– Processed meats and meat products
Hydrogenated oils are everywhere.
If you have a packaged food and the ingredients lists a type of oil, it’s likely hydrogenated.
The problem is these hydrogenated oils are absolutely poisonous for our physiology and especially our brains.
With headaches we need to be very weary of sources of fat because our brain is mostly fat so any time we eat these sources we don’t want our body substituting our tissues with toxic building blocks.
They are one of the biggest causes of GI distress and inflammation across the board.
Next there is food additives and preservatives.
When we think of our brain health we also need to think of our gut health because anything that will compromise the gut, get through it, and into circulation, can get into the brain.
Additives and preservatives like sodium benzoate cause our body to say no way.
They can aggravate our gut, creating immune and inflammatory responses and push up the total stress load(trigger level) on our bodies.
For common food additives and preservatives to avoid click here.
Then of course we hit the empty carbohydrates.
This is most commonly present in processed and packaged food, and ingredients like high fructose corn syrup are notorious for it.
They cause our blood sugar to go up, but without nutrient complexes.
Nutrient complexes are where macronutrients like carbohydrates are bound to all the other nutrients like vitamins, minerals, enzymes, cofactors etc.
For example, when we eat a strawberry, we are eating strawberry cells which contain sugar but the cell is so much more than just sugar and comes with millions of different nutrients we need.
Processed meats and meat derivatives are usually conventionally raised and this means it was not fed well, it did not have a good life and the problems that it has had will transfer through into its meat.
For example, if we feel sad we can feel it head to toe.
Not only do we feel the effects of it but every cell in our body will suffer because of it. Painful emotions release chemicals like cortisol that have harmful effects on every cell in our bodies and this makes for very sick meat products.
Make sure you know where your meat is coming from.
5. Experiment with intermittent fasting/ changing meal times
One of the most common reports I get is that a patient is just not hungry in the morning so it’s hard for them to start off with breakfast being the biggest meal(which it should be for a dozen different reasons).
But it’s usually that they are also eating very very late at night and throwing off their circadian rhythms(day/night cycles).
This is really hard on the body and will destroy digestive ability.
Our body needs sleep to: rest, recover and repair.
Not to digest food.
Avoid eating late unless you have blood sugar issues in which case you need to have a nutritionist guide you on what to eat so that you can sleep sound and recover your blood sugars variability.
One of the best ways to improve digestion, heal hormones, stabilize blood sugar and activate the cleaning up processes of the body is intermittent fasting.
An intermittent fast is basically a mini fast.
The standard is fasting 16 hours and eating 8 hours a day.
This means only water for the 16 hours and during the 8 hours you fit in all your meals to make sure you get enough nutrients and calories.
But again, experimenting with meal times is important and ideally you would start off your 8 hour eating cycle first thing in the morning when you wake up.
Giving your body this 16 hour break from digestion helps heal up any problems you’ve developed over the years.
6. Get Tested
“Current research in parasite books says that approximately 90% of the world population has an active parasite infection”(Link)
This is everyone, not just third world countries like many people believe.
Now I’ve mentioned parasites a few times but this is highly underrated and almost every single patient I’ve tested has a gut imbalance, whether that be a pathogen or just dysbiosis(imbalanced good:bad gut bacteria ratio).
The way we can understand this simply is that when our body gets weak, when we don’t have proper hygiene, when we are highly stressed or put into foreign situations that our body isn’t adapted to like tropical vacations…
We can succumb to these tiny tiny organisms taking over our gut and becoming harmful.
This will kill our digestive capacity and any healthy food we eat will feed them instead of us.
If you have trouble with digestion or unexplainable illnesses and are told by specialists that you are fine then I suggest getting tested.
A regular doctor will usually not run the right labs so I recommend a functional medicine practitioner or naturopath.
Get tested.
7. Hone your other foundations
Now I’ve talked about the foundation principles before in an article here.
Without having them running at least half decently, our body will be under so much stress that it won’t be able to digest properly.
Each of the foundation principles is a staple in how our body functions so that it can maintain itself.
If you are eating clean and still having issues digesting then make sure the others are running at full capacity.
It can often take a while to reprogram patterns that we’ve been using for years especially things like breathing into our chest.
But consistent practise of them will create a cascade of beneficial reactions that are so much more powerful than just adding a supplement or changing a drug.
For example breathing is not just necessary for oxygen delivery but also CO2 delivery because we need them both to survive.
Breathing is also necessary for our organ function because it acts like a massage for them which without they wouldn’t clean themselves out properly.
Breathing is also a huge lymphatic pump. Our lymphatic system is like the waste management system of our body but it doesn’t have a pump like our blood does with our heart.
Where we have 3L of blood, we have 10L of lymph in our body. But this fluid relies on muscular contractions and the expansion of our diaphragm through breathing to be pumped.
Not only that but breathing also activates digestive and relaxing receptors if we do it right, or stress and anxiety receptors if we do it wrong.
All of these things can be improved if we breath right and this is just one example of how strong the foundation principles are for health.
If you want to know more about the foundation principles start the 10 steps program that has a dedicated module in week 7 for the foundation principles.
A complex migraine can be incredibly hard for you to treat and even worse when complicated with things like trauma, comorbidities and physical changes.
It’s usually the more difficult patients that come to me so I’ve dealt with many of these cases.
It’s always most important to address the biggest stressors and focus on the root causes for long term relief.
In this article I’m going to cover 7 great tips for complex and complicated migraines.
Before I start, here’s a great video on complex migraines:
Here is a statistic on some common symptoms reported by people with complex migraine:
1. Get a full physical assessment from a skilled physical therapist like a CHEK practitioner, NUCCA chiropractor or osteopath
Physical issues can be a massive source of stress on the neck, shoulders and head that won’t be fixable through medication alone.
Having a medical doctor give you a physical assessment is never enough because their specialty is not in structural assessments.
There can be a number of physical relationships between muscles, tendons, ligaments and bone that affect the body non stop and create tension on the head.
These therapists can give you manual therapy and take home exercises to help undo years of physical stress on the body and fix common contributors to complex migraine headaches like posture and subluxations of vertebrae.
2. Have a functional medicine practitioner hear your case and send the appropriate functional lab tests to you
Functional medicine practitioners and naturopaths are the all stars of the medical chronic disease care world.
If you are experiencing chronic, constant, complex and complicated migraine headaches then you need to have the right laboratory tests done.
But a regular GP will likely not do this for you.
These tests can include:
A full hormonal panel not just the standard hormonal tests run by GPs
A GI map that tells you about dysbiosis, parasites, infections and so much more
A micronutrient analysis to see if your nutrient levels are low which can easily make you susceptible to a whole host of problems(magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin B12, zinc, selenium, B vitamins)
You can find a functional medicine practitioner near you here:
3. Make sure your MD has given you an assessment, taken blood work and sent you for an MRI to rule out anything more serious
It’s absolutely essential your primary care physician(PCP) has gone through your case, heard your story, sent you for the routine testing and you have a baseline in case anything changes.
This will also rule out a few things they can find that may be underlying the migraines because as we know, migraines are often a symptom of something deeper.
Because I do things holistically I often run into migraine sufferers who have been completely mistreated by their doctors and not listened to at all.
Do not stand for this, fire them just like you would with anyone working on your house.
If they don’t want to listen, ignore you, talk down to you or aren’t giving you satisfactory results, give them the boot.
You’ll be happy you did because a good doc can make all the difference.
4. Have a holistic health coach go through your entire life with you
Holistic health coaches are the new GPs of the chronic disease care world.
They are like the functional medicine practitioners and naturopaths except they have much more time to talk with you and go through the nitty gritty.
Do not ignore the nitty gritty.
The nitty gritty is all those things that contribute to the body’s stress load that raises our trigger levels and lowers our threshold level.
This can include:
– Environmental toxicity coming from:
Hygiene products
Makeup and care products
Offgassing caused by house, clothing and vehicles
Electromagnetic fields
Blue light
Living location
– Dietary toxicity and absence of nutrients
– Physical stress and lack of or excess
– Emotional overwhelm
– Mental excess
– Improper breathing patterns
– Sleep insufficiency
– Circadian dysregulation
and so much more.
In a world that has become increasingly synthetic, these are specific reasons we are experiencing more headaches than ever before.
Our genes evolved to be really good at how nature functions and the last 100 years have flipped it on its head.
A holistic health coach can help you figure out what caused so much stress on your physiology, long before the straw broke the camel’s back.
They are essential for everything your body has to do at all times to function properly.
Just one of them being severely out of balance is enough to create more headaches than you can deal with.
It’s super simple but extremely powerful once you understand them.
They are critical for your body to clean up waste and bring in nutrients.
The problem is that most people are not doing them correctly and this is leading to the massive amount of chronic disease we see today.
Not only that but they directly contribute to headaches.
If you want your body to love you and give you pain free days you need to learn how to:
– Think right
– Drink right
– Eat right
– Breath right
– Sleep right
– Move right
There’s a lot more to them than just:
– Think positive
– Drink enough so you’re not thirsty
– Eat vegetables
– Remember to breathe
– Sleep 8 hours a night
– Get exercise
Those are just scratching the surface so I encourage you to check out the 10 steps and get started on a journey where you’ll learn more about health than your doctors ever taught you.
6. Create a detox program
There are well over 30,000 synthetic chemicals circulating in our food, air, water and soil.
Most of these are not regulated and not tested for safety.
Our body only has a few systems to detoxify an almost infinite number of stressors.
The problem is that when we get too many of these piling up in our body, our body starts to go haywire.
It starts creating dysfunction, our brain cells metabolism gets impaired and we develop sensitivities and intolerances.
We get things like chemical sensitivity, food allergies, hives, eczema and more that all aggravate our body and push our trigger levels up.
Everything that contributes to the body getting stressed, contributes to headaches becoming easier and easier to trigger.
There are 5 main detoxification organs:
– Liver
– Gut
– Skin
– Kidneys
– Lungs
But you also need mental and emotional detoxification.
A detox program will support you in a few key areas:
– Detox foods like specific fruits and vegetables that support the organs(carrots for GI, grapes for kidneys, cauliflower for liver etc)
– Supplements that support detox (ie dandelion for liver, celery root for kidneys, chamomile for skin etc)
– Movements that help your body fine tune itself (working in, working out, tai chi, qigong, stretching, massage)
– Breathing exercises
– Sleep optimization since the brain detoxes during sleep
– Emotional detox
– Mental freedom
You can create your own detox program through the guide provided in the 10 steps program.
Every migraine sufferer I talk to has mental and emotional stress and overwhelm as one of their main problems.
The issue here is that not only can we be influenced by mental and emotional stress during the events and when we think about them…
But unless we learn how to let go and get them out of our bodies, we will hold onto them.
Strong experiences like trauma and things like overcare can eat us alive from the inside out.
We can become obsessed about things that continue to degrade our health.
This is my message to you telling you to stop.
You deserve better and require a lot more love than you allow yourself because of these situations.
Get into the feelings and let them go, shake them out and give yourself a break every few hours to focus on giving yourself love.
It’s one of the biggest causes of degrading health and there’s no lab tests for it.
When we don’t acknowledge that we are worth it and act like it…
Our body can start to attack itself and lead to things like autoimmune disease, which migraine is starting to look a lot like.
If you can’t do anything else, just repeat “i love myself” and “I complete me” every chance you get.
Drive how you feel into your subconscious to reprogram how you see the world.
7. Eliminate every food trigger/sensitivity and stressor
There is something absolutely profound about finding that just by removing a single food, you can cut your headaches in half.
But it sounds too good to be true, nobody believes it until they try it.
Often times it’s this one simple technique that can change a migraineurs life.
I’ve helped patients experience it over and over again, food matters.
Not only does it matter, but for some people it’s the entire reason they are experiencing migraines.
There’s a simple formula but it takes some preparation.
It goes like this:
– Remove the most common trigger foods
– Create a simple system for finding personal triggers
– Heal the gut so that you can stop creating sensitive foods and even recover some already sensitive foods
– Slowly challenge and eliminate them
It’s really easy if you know what you’re doing so I created a guide that’s currently in its pre-release here.
When we are dealing with complex and complicated migraine headaches it’s important to understand that there are many different factors that go into developing disease.
Most of them are not necessarily related to the brain so we need to take a step back and look at the whole picture.
We need to look at our entire life, the stresses in it, our traumas, accidents, surgeries, medications, physical body and how all of our systems are functioning.
If a system isn’t working right, let’s say we are experiencing diarrhea every day, then we need to look deeper at what is going on in the gut because it is directly connected to the brain through millions of neurons.
When we can address the whole body and all of its systems, not only can we find what’s creating the pain, but we can also make our body much much stronger to developing issues next time life gets the best of us.
If you’d like to get help figuring out the migraine puzzle click here to get a free 20 minute strategy call to work through it together.
Nobody wants to feel like an ice pick is being stuck in their head.
Unfortunately, about 2% of the population goes through this pain. (1)
Luckily they usually only last a few seconds to a few minutes max.
I’ve been there.
When I was super high in inflammation and on the trigger mode road to daily migraines I’d also get these flashes of pain.
In this article, I’m going to talk about what Ice pick headaches are, what the most common drugs used are and some special tips to consider when you find yourself experiencing them.
What is an Ice Pick Headache?
Ice pick headaches are actually just a name used to describe short flashes of “stabbing like” head pain that usually occurs in the front or temple areas of the head.
This pain usually comes out of nowhere and disappears out of nowhere as well.
They fall under a category called primary stabbing headaches which can have a massively spread out total disease duration from under 2 weeks to over 52, graphed below.
The problem is they pack a punch. You can easily go from a pain level of 2 to a pain level of 9 in a few seconds. This is enough to make anyone stop and clench for dear life.
It’s recognized as an idiopathic headache which means there is no known cause.
Let’s take what is known about what doctors use to treat it and point you in the right direction.
Here is a more detailed video about a patients experience with ice pick headaches and how NUCCA chiropractic care is an amazing therapy that worked for him:
What are the most common medications used to treat ice pick headaches?
These types of headaches are known as “indomethacin responsive headaches” which means they respond to the drug indomethacin.
Unfortunately, about 35% of patients fail to respond significantly enough to that treatment method. (2)
Other common medications that get used include:
– Gabapentin,
– Cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitors
– Nifedipine
– Paracetamol
What causes ice pick headaches?
Just like most of the other headache disorders, everyone throws in the towel.
And it’s true, we know very little about our own brains and bodies.
The American migraine foundation says:
“The cause of ice pick headache is unknown but it is believed to result from transient breakdowns in the brain’s central pain control mechanisms.”(3)
Because ice pick headaches are thought of as a primary headache, they are often labelled as not usually having an underlying cause. Simply a “malfunction” in the body.
The interesting thing to note here is that if you suffer from other headache disorders like migraines, you are more likely to experience ice pick headaches.
What do we do?
Let’s look at the information and piece it together with what we know about other headache disorders.
It may be quite often that inflammation plays a role in developing issues like headaches and migraines.
After all, what is one of the first things you reach for when you get a headache?
An aspirin or an advil.
These are nonsteroidal anti inflammatory drugs…
Then there are the prescription medications…
Indomethacin and cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitors are both anti inflammatory drugs.
Then we run into one of the more commonly used supplements that have been found to be effective and we will talk more about in the tips…
Melatonin.
Melatonin is thought of as the sleep hormone. It helps us sleep and run all our important sleep repair. Not only that but it’s also an incredibly strong antioxidant.
Sleep is also the master healer in our bodies which without we would break down and die.
The majority of the repair and cooling of the inflammation that goes on in our bodies happens during sleep.
Our body temperature drops and our brain shrinks to squeeze out all the built up waste from the days thinking.
Without sleep, headaches are unavoidable and there’s a reason why.
Bringing it all together
What are the pieces of the puzzle?
Some of the most common medications for ice pick are anti inflammatory
The american migraine foundation says “The cause of ice pick headache is unknown but it is believed to result from transient breakdowns in the brain’s central pain control mechanisms.”(3)
Headache and migraine disorders are commonly connected by oxidation and inflammation
One of the most common supplemental treatments is melatonin which is a strong antioxidant
When we start to look at it like this everything becomes more clear.
Break down in the brain doesn’t happen for no reason. For a tissue to stop working and degrade, unless there is an acute physical injury, it goes through a process of chronic inflammation or “fire” first.
If we want to be healthy and avoid inflammation and oxidation that can wreak havoc on our bodies we need to follow simple steps that keep our body cleaning out waste and delivering nutrients.
Now let’s talk about the 5 special tips I have for you:
1. Melatonin
Of course first and foremost is a simple hormone that you can buy at your health food store.
Usually, a dosage of 1 or 2 mg taken sublingually is enough and studies have been done on ice pick and other headache disorders like migraine here and here respectively.
But taking melatonin sublingually(under the tongue) is just scratching the surface of what’s going on here.
If melatonin is producing relief that means our body may well be deficient in it.
How does our body become deficient in a hormone that we absolutely need for sleep, repair and keeping oxidation and inflammation at bay?
Here are a few reasons that should be corrected before you become dependent on melatonin from outside of your body:
– You aren’t actually getting into deep sleep
– Circadian rhythms are out of whack and adrenal hormones are upside down
– Blood sugar is dropping and spiking at night
– You are deficient in proteins which give you the precursors to melatonin like tryptophan
– Excess fluoride in the water supply or diet lowering melatonin(4)
– Too much blue light from screens before bed
– Stress is keeping you out of relaxation and being able to wind down
2. Hot/Cold Technique
If an ice pick style headache is lasting longer than a few seconds you can quickly go for exposure to hot/cold.
The simplest way is warming your hands but this may not be enough.
Many headache sufferers use hot or cold on their head, neck, shoulders, hands, and feet.
One of the most common methods is to get your hands really warm and put your feet into cold or ice cold water.
Showering with cold is a great way to give your body the hunters reflex and change its blood flow pattern to take any heat and inflammation off the head.
3. Some Quick Minerals
Another simple trick that has worked quite well is a quick dose of minerals.
Taking a small cup of water, juicing a lemon or lime into it and giving it a good sprinkle of sea salt(Not table salt).
This mix provides you with a massive amount of minerals, enzymes, cofactors, and important antioxidant and anti-inflammatory vitamins like vitamin C.
Juice it, stir and down.
This has been reported to work for other headaches as well and the minerals provided by the sea salt have been well studied for relief with various headache disorders.
4. The Ultimate Herb For Inflammation
There is an amazing herb out there, used all the time and for thousands of years before any of the anti inflammatory drugs existed.
This herb has an amazing safety profile but as always, make sure to check with your doctor before making any changes.
The neat thing about this herb is that its actually been studied and found more effective for inflammation than many of the drugs on the market.
It’s turmeric.
Taking a thumb sized piece of turmeric root and blending, squeezing or crushing it for fast absorption is an easy way to deal with inflammation daily.
You can also get it in a powder and in a liquid in some places for easy use.
Pro tip: If using fresh turmeric, break it down, mix it with fresh ground black pepper and some healthy fats like coconut oil and let it simmer in a pot for a few minutes.
The piperine in the black pepper extends the effects of turmeric by 300% and the fat + cooking helps to activate them and make them available by the body.
When an ice pick headache hits, you want to be prepared.
If you’re lucky it will only be a few seconds, but if not, focus on bringing down inflammation.
Experiencing them regularly means you should start looking deeper at what is going on and creating stress in your body because stress leads to inflammation.
Finding the root causes of stress, supporting the body in how it functions and giving it extra boosts and support so that it can heal itself and return to normal functioning is what we work towards in the coaching I do with migraineurs here.
Your brain is constantly building new brain cells and replacing old ones, make the new ones stronger.
If you want to learn more about migraines and headaches than you’ve ever known because you want to get better, join the community here.
Let me know what works for you when you experience sudden head pains in the comments below and make sure to share this post because it helps others find new strategies.
Going through a hemiplegic migraine can be one of the scariest experiences of your life.
My clinical practise has given me the chance to help them and today I will be sharing the 3 worst “sins” of hemiplegic migraines along with information about sporadic and familial hemiplegic migraines as well as common triggers and what to do.
Let’s start at the beginning.
What is sporadic, familial and hemiplegic migraine?
Hemiplegic migraine is a rare subtype of migraine with aura that causes intense throbbing pain, nausea, sensitivity to light and sound.
This type of migraine is extremely severe and one sided which gives it its rare and one sided presentation.
The paralysing effect it is known for is called motor aura and is attributed to cortical spreading depression which we will talk about further on.
It also causes numbness, tingling and extreme weakness that is comparable to temporary paralysis giving it its name.
Hemi – half
Plegic – paralysed
Hemi-plegic migraine = Half-paralysed migraine
Usually it is only weakness not paralysis but can come with a range of other stroke like symptoms such as speech loss, decreased consciousness etc that make it a very scary experience.
There are two subgroups of hemiplegic migraine:
Sporadic hemiplegic migraine – This is hemiplegic migraine that isn’t found to have an inherited connection from your family and happens “randomly.”
Familial hemiplegic migraine – This is hemiplegic migraine that has a traceable family history. The subgroups of FHM are based on genetic testing.
Is hemiplegic migraine dangerous?
Before we talk about the dangers of HM see our video below on understanding hemiplegic migraine.
Hemiplegic migraine is easily confused with stroke as symptoms are very similar so it’s always most important to rule out this possibility.
That said, hemiplegic migraine is still a very serious form of migraine and with symptoms being so disabling it can be dangerous.
With the involvement of cortical spreading depression in hemiplegic migraine this means there is a massive inflammatory problem mixed with a lack of energy and excitation in brain cells which can cause brain cell death.
Many hemiplegic migraine sufferers are more likely to have the characteristic brain “lesions” that long term migraine sufferers have been found to exhibit.
Symptoms of hemiplegic migraine
The symptoms of sporadic, familial and hemiplegic migraine are fairly the same.
The international headache society has this criteria for hemiplegic migraines:
Attacks that fulfill migraine with aura and exhibit both:
Fully reversible motor weakness
Fully reversible visual, sensory and or speech language symptoms
Attached below is a graph showing the possible symptoms and a more complete list can be found here.
That said, the most common symptoms are:
One sided weakness of the body with face arm leg involvement
There are some very serious symptoms that happen during hemiplegic migraine that should not be taken lightly.
These include:
Coma or a decreased level of consciousness
Memory loss
Confusion and loss of coordination
These can be especially dangerous if you are driving, operating power tools or heavy machinery.
Though they are similar to a stroke, the symptoms usually come on slowly, build up and then go away slowly.
WebMD states that there isn’t a predictable pattern with how it generally progresses, but from my experience individuals will experience the same progression each time they experience a flare unless their health changes for the better or worse.
Prognosis
According to the NIH,
“Although most people with FHM recover completely between episodes, neurological symptoms such as memory loss and problems with attention can last for weeks or months.
The occurrence of FHM attacks tends to decrease with age.
The eventual neurologic outcome is often benign; however, about 20 percent of individuals with FHM develop mild but permanent difficulty coordinating movements (ataxia), which may worsen with time, and nystagmus (rapid, involuntary eye movements).
Unusually severe migraine episodes have been reported in some people with FHM.
These episodes may include fever, seizures, prolonged weakness, coma, and, rarely, death.”(Link)
Hemiplegic migraine disability / Is it a disability?
Hemiplegic migraines are incredibly disabling but their acceptance into a disability claim will depend on how severe they are and if they keep you from working a normal job that pays equal to or more than the disability payments.
Here is an article with information on hemiplegic migraines and disability claims.
Here is a great article on getting approved for migraine disability.
Hemiplegic migraines most common treatments
According to healthline the most common treatments for hemiplegic migraine are high blood pressure medications as well as anti seizure drugs.
In the Migraine Professional community talk we had here there are quite a few people who use triptans for their hemiplegic migraines but healthline says that they are not recommended as it can make hemiplegic migraine symptoms worse or cause permanent damage.
For more information on hemiplegic migraine treatments go here.
Hemiplegic migraine in pregnancy
Studies show that most pregnancies will actually reduce the chances of a migraine sufferer experiencing an attack and this is attributed to many factors including skyrocketing progesterone and DAO.
But some aren’t so lucky and this can actually mean increasing migraines.
It’s important to consider what is causing the migraines in the first place and to look at root causes.
If you’re not experiencing any digestive issues like bloating, burping, reflux, pain or loose stools…
And if you don’t experience any hormonal difficulties around ovulation or menses like pain or PMS…
Then it’s important to get a full assessment on everything that is going on from a holistic health practitioner like a functional medicine practitioner.
Do you get fatigue?
Do you have trouble sleeping?
Do you have inverted breathing?
Have you been screened for food intolerances?
Have you had your mineral levels checked?
Is there emotional stress or trauma going on in your life?
There’s many more.
These can all affect the strain that is put on your system and the likelihood that your brain will not be able to continue normal functioning which may lead to trigger.
If you are experiencing extreme symptoms like those of a hemiplegic migraine then taking every win you can get in supporting your body and lightening the brain and nervous systems burden is absolutely necessary.
Familial hemiplegic migraine genetic testing
According to the NIH, “Mutations in the CACNA1A, ATP1A2, SCN1A, and PRRT2 genes have been found to cause familial hemiplegic migraine.”
To understand which genes affect which type of familial hemiplegic migrane go here.
The same things that can cause regular migraines to trigger, can cause hemiplegic migranes to trigger.
See this article on migraine triggers and if you want to know everything there is to know about food triggers then see this guide.
But hemiplegic migraines because of their connection to cortical spreading depression are intimately linked with epilepsy and this means that our metabolism is compromised leading the brain excitation.
One of the best ways to prevent epilepsy and many types of migraines by reducing our brain cells extreme excitability that can lead to their death is through a ketogenic diet.(Link)
The study above found 90% of migraine sufferers to respond to a ketogenic diet because of its ability to reduce neuronal excitation and cortical spreading depression. (Link)
Now for the good stuff.
The 3 worst sins of hemiplegic migraines
1. Triggers
First and foremost as with any type of migraine you need to understand what triggers and causes are.
A trigger is something that adds to your trigger level.
Your trigger level, if it goes above your threshold level may trigger a migraine.
So you want to keep your triggers low and threshold high.
Examples of triggers include:
– Weather changes
– Bright lights
– Scents
– Sensitive foods
– A stressful event
Then we have causes.
Causes are deeper issues that are going on within us that compromise our body. If a cause is strong enough, it can develop more triggers.
For example if you have a gut dysbiosis(bacterial imbalance) then this can lead to the inability to digest some foods properly and create food sensitivities.
These food sensitivities can then trigger you and get blamed when really it was the dysbiosis.
Causes can get incredibly deep like traumatic events, heavy metal toxicity, parasite infections etc.
It’s important to address the cause as well as the triggers.
Removing triggers can help you get better within a few days but if the cause isn’t addressed then your body can continue to develop triggers and you can end up with a seemingly endless and impossible list of triggers.
Start slow, work your way back through how the condition progressed, what started it, what was going on in your life when it started and what could have pushed it over the edge.
If you can’t make any concrete connections then it’s important to get a full lab panel from a functional medicine practitioner.
This will tell you all about amino acid levels, enzymatic issues, fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, heavy metals, organic acids, neurotransmitter issues, hormonal problems etc.
2. Insulin/carbohydrate roller coaster
This is huge for migraine sufferers and especially for hemiplegic migraine sufferers because of their connection to cortical spreading depression, epilepsy and the ketogenic diet.
It’s important to understand that our brain can run off of two fuel sources; sugars or fats. These get broken down into glucose and ketones.
If we are constantly eating carbohydrates and sugars we can develop high blood sugar levels which lead to a huge number of issues like obesity and diabetes.
One of the newer terms for alzheimer’s is “diabetes of the brain” because the brain becomes so saturated with empty sugars and attacks from insulin that it becomes insulin resistant and cannot produce energy from sugar anymore.
What is insulin and what does it do for us?
Insulin is a natural hormone that for the purposes of this conversation takes sugar out of our blood and deposits it into our cells.
When we eat a food full of carbohydrates(these are broken down into sugars) or sugars they get broken down and absorbed into our blood. Causing blood sugar to go up. (caffeine and other stimulants can mess with insulin as well)
High blood sugar can send us into a coma so our body tightly regulates it. When it notices blood sugar goes up it releases insulin.
Insulin takes the sugar(and other nutrients that are bound to it) and puts it into our cells.
And this is great as long as our cells need the sugar, because then they are insulin sensitive.
If they don’t need the sugar, they become insulin resistant.
If we continue to provide 24/7 sources of sugar to our body our cells get overloaded and start to resist insulin completely.
The problem is that this mechanism can become dysfunctional and then our cells stop responding to insulin at all.
We want to avoid this as sugar and insulin are both necessary to deliver nutrients and help our cells function properly.
This is where the ketogenic diet and ketones come in.
Instead of us constantly eating high carbohydrate meals(sugar, grains, too many fruits) we eat small amounts of slow carbohydrate meals (dark leafy greens, vegetables) and moderate amounts of protein along with higher fat.
This creates a switch in our body that regularly happens when we go into periods of fasting.
When the sources of carbohydrates and sugars go down, our body starts taking the fat we have in our body and breaks it down.
When it breaks it down it creates ketones which are the basis of the ketogenic diet because during the diet you are essentially living off of ketones.
This diet is amazing for lowering blood pressure and improving weight loss and insulin sensitivity…
BUT
It is phenomenal for the brain.
It lowers excitation in the brain and provides a really powerful antioxidant called butyrate that prevents brain cell damage.
Next we have some of the well studied all star supplements.
Everyone is different so only you and your doctor can determine what works for you.
We are focusing on fixing the cause and the cause is different for different people so you have to find the one that is holding you back from health.
First and foremost is one of the best ways to “cool” any fire that’s going on in the brain and this is magnesium.
Magnesium deficiency contributes to headaches by:
– Increasing muscle tension
– Promoting vasoconstriction
– Allowing NMDA sites to be activated leading to brain hyperexcitability
– Impairing cellular energy metabolism
In one study they found that, “In weeks 9-12 the attack frequency was reduced by 41.6% in the magnesium group and by 15.8% in the placebo group compared to the baseline.”
Unless there is renal failure magnesium is seen as a safe option and many places recommend starting at 200mg a day and working your way up to bowel tolerance.
Magnesium is known as the relaxation mineral and it can relax the poop right out of your bowels.
If you have trouble taking it orally then getting a magnesium spray for your skin or doing regular epsom salt baths 3-4 times a week can do wonders.
CoQ10 isn’t as well known as magnesium but it is an essential part of the energy generation cycle in our cells.
This study found that migraines were associated with low CoQ10 levels.(as well as low vitamin D and B)
In these two studies they found that CoQ10 supplementation was able to reduce attack frequencies of migraines by 50 percent in 61% of participants and by over 50 percent in 48 percent of participants, respectively. (Study, Study)
In the first study they used 150 mg(1x a day) and the second 100 mg(3x a day) of CoQ10
CoQ10 can come from many foods and the amount you need depends on you but I have attached a graph below to make food intake simple.
And finally is B vitamins
B vitamins are absolutely amazing and crucial for our brains. The problem is that if we take too much of them at any one time, our body doesn’t hold on to them and they end up being urinated out.
This means we need them consistently taken throughout the day, ideally from food sources but also from supplementation in severe cases.
Some migraine sufferers have methylation problems which reduces how much of a vitamin gets converted into a useable nutrient by our bodies which is why if you are taking a B complex supplement it would be important to see if methylated versions work better for you.
Riboflavin(B2) is the most common and found 200-400 mg a day to be effective for migraine prophylaxis here.
“68.4% of cases had a 50% or greater reduction in frequency of attacks and 21.0% in intensity.”
There is also Pyridoxine(B6) which was found to have “led to a significant decrease in headache severity.”(study) This study used 80mg per day.
B9 and B12 have also been studied to be very effective and incredibly safe because they are just nutrients.
It’s important to note that B vitamins always come in complexes and this means they require each other for absorption and utilization by the body.
There are many amazing tools we can use to reduce the frequency, severity and duration of our attacks but without assessing, we are guessing.
Make sure you get your healthcare provider to test your gut, test your hormones, look for trauma, test mineral deficiencies and more so that you can get a whole and complete picture of what’s going on.
This will allow you to focus on the most important and key areas that can(and usually do) create the need for migraines in the first place.
This is the way we do it at Migraine Professional because we understand that as long as you don’t treat the cause, you are only palliating and prolonging the pain.
To get the most holistic information on migraine care join our newsletter here.
Have you ever experienced a hemiplegic migraine?
Comment below and share with someone else who might benefit from this information.
I suffered for years trying anything I could get my hands on to get relief.
After going through many health courses and learning what causes migraines and headaches I’ve been migraine free for 7 years now.
Migraine sufferers are always on the lookout for effective ways to find relief from their debilitating symptoms. One method that has gained popularity in recent years is ear piercing, specifically tragus and daith piercings. Though still considered a non-mainstream solution, many people swear by their effectiveness in alleviating migraine pain. In this article, we will explore the reasoning behind these piercings, the science (or lack thereof) supporting their use, and the testimonials of those who have experienced relief like the one below.
What is the tragus/daith ear piercing and how does it work to stop migraines?
There are two ear piercings that are gaining a lot of attention in the migraine treatment world because so little is focused on dealing with the actual causes of migraines like neuronal excitation and inflammation.
The two piercings are:
Daith
Tragus
There are some differences between the two but there is far too little scientific literature on either to make clear distinctions.
Daith piercing is the more popularly discussed method of preventing and relieving migraines and headaches.
The Migraine Professional community definitely vouches for daith piercings’ effectiveness more than the tragus.
It is also little known about why they work or if they are simply placebo but here is what we do know.
Acupuncture uses similar areas to treat diseases which we will talk about further down…
And
These areas go through arnold’s nerve that is connected to the vagus nerve which has been implicated in migraine.
Some conditions like depression and epilepsy have been proven to be relieved by vagus nerve stimulation and some of the common devices for migraines like gammacore are specifically used on the vagal nerve for relief.
Stimulation of the vagus nerve has been shown to have analgesic effects in some studies, which could potentially explain the perceived relief from migraines with these piercings.
Acupuncture, acupressure and vagal nerve stimulation are the closest reasons we have that connects the possible migraine relief to tragus and daith piercings. But make sure to read our huge warning below.
It’s fairly simple.
You find a reputable tattoo shop, get the piercing done and take care of it so that it heals well.
Some even advocate pulling on the piercing when you feel pain coming on to stimulate the vagus nerve further. See video below:
A Huge Warning
Adding metal into your body is not to be taken lightly.
Providing you take care of the hole and it heals up well without infection and with a quality metal that won’t poison you…
It’s important to understand that our bodies are electromagnetic and run on biological electricity.
When we add a metal into our bodies tissues, we turn that metal into an antenna for any radio, internet or other electromagnetic frequencies in the area.
Our cells use a very small amount of energy to communicate with each other so when we introduce a large amount of stimulation into an area we develop chaos in the system.
The best materials to use to avoid this include insulating and neutral substances such as:
– Bone
– Stone
– Porcelain
– Wood
See the video below on one of the world’s most renowned health experts Paul Chek talking about the dangers of piercing, metals, implants and radiation below:
Which side is the best for tragus or daith ear piercings to help migraines?
Generally what is recommended is that you get the piercing on the side where you experience the most pain.
If we take what we know from the information above then we would make sure that if we have a one-sided piercing we get a piercing on the other side to help balance the pull of radiation.
For the musculoskeletal system, compensating for tension on both sides is easier than just one.
This is especially important if we have an imbalance like TMJ which can be made worse by one sided stress.
Is the daith or tragus ear piercing working through acupuncture?
There are some that say acupuncture is at work here and others not.
An interview on ear piercings with Dr. Foster says:
“”Yes I have heard of that piercing,” said Foster, an acupuncturist. “Whether it’s effective for all people suffering from migraines is an interesting question.”
Dr. Foster says it really just depends on the person and the type of migraine that they get. He says that point on the ear is associated with digestive organs. So if your migraine stems from digestive issues, the piercing could work.
“There are zones on the ear that correspond directly to zones on the body,” he said.”
And acupuncture is well known to work for migraines and headaches of all kinds.
Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese medicine practice that involves inserting thin needles into specific points on the body to alleviate pain and treat various health conditions. Some studies have shown that acupuncture may be effective in reducing migraine frequency and intensity (2). It is hypothesized that these piercings could stimulate acupuncture points that target migraine relief, but more research is needed to confirm this theory.
Even sham acupuncture works really well because needles have a huge placebo effect.
This study on acupuncture for migraine prophylaxis found that, “the mean (SD) frequency of attacks decreased in the true acupuncture group by 3.2 (2.1),
in the sham acupuncture group by 2.1 (2.5),
and the waiting-list group by 1.4 (2.5);
a greater reduction was observed in the true acupuncture than in the sham acupuncture group.”
My perspective is that it’s far better to use a systematic approach to health than just take shots in the dark.
It works much better and you know what’s happening so you can track and alter course for even more benefit.
How to change daith ear piercings, earrings and jewelry
By popular demand I’ve also attached a video on how to change daith ear piercings, earrings and jewelry below.
Reviews for tragus and daith ear piercings for migraine relief
Now we will talk about all the amazing and not-so-amazing reviews for these ear piercings and if they prevent migraines for others.
Now let’s see some reviews left in the comments of tragus and daith piercing videos:
Although scientific evidence supporting the effectiveness of tragus and daith piercings for migraine relief is scarce, the power of personal experience cannot be underestimated. Many people who have undergone these piercings have reported significant improvements in their migraine symptoms. While it’s essential to approach such anecdotal evidence with caution, these personal testimonials can offer hope and inspiration to migraine sufferers who have tried other treatments without success.
These reviews are amazing, but what do the studies say?
Daith Piercing migraine studies
First off let’s start with one of the only actual scientific studies done on daith piercing. Sadly none have been done on tragus.
This study presents a case of a 54 year old man with “refractory chronic migraine with medication-overuse, who substantially improved after bilateral ear daith piercing.”
Of his own free will he decided to get the daith piercing.
“After that, he experienced a reduction of migraine attacks, which became very rare, and infrequent, less disabling episodes of tension-type headache.”
But this doesn’t tell us much because it’s only one case.
The first is a survey done by migrainebuddy which involved 70 users who shared their experience, made simple in the graph below.
This shows that 41% experienced no change but the rest did.
Next we have a survey done by migrainepal which included a much larger 1107 participants.
This shows that 36% of people who participated and had the daith piercing had their migraines stay the same or increase since the piercing.
The rest reduced or eliminated their migraines.
These studies are basically showing that it’s fairly 50/50 hit or miss.
What can we learn from this?
Taking all of this information into account, it’s important to understand that this little and seemingly insignificant piercing in the grand scheme of migraine can make a huge difference in a person’s life.
That said, it doesn’t seem to be addressing the cause of migraine that often goes untreated and can create neurological damage later on.
In my personal practise I’ve seen much better results in taking a systematic approach where you address all the factors that are adding oxidation, inflammation, stress and tension into your life.
Doing this alone often relieves migraines by half or more unless there is a deeper pathology going on.
But it’s simple, the body is always trying to heal and always attempting to repair damage that leads to pain.
If we can remove what’s causing the damage and give the body the support it needs through its 6 foundation principles…
Then add in some supplements to fill in the holes and pain disappears.
When nothing else works, we need to learn simple steps we can take to heal our brain, recover our digestive capacity and fix our hormones.
This is exactly why I created the 10 steps program which takes you step by step over 10 weeks to developing a strong foundation on which your brain can recover.
Our brain is about 90% immune cells so as much work as we need to do for our neurons, we also need to fix our immune system or the inflammation will keep on coming.
Click the picture below and learn the simple system that works without drugs or invasive procedures.
Have you ever had your daith or tragus pierced for migraine relief? Let me know in the comments below.
See our facebook discussion and what everyone has to say about their experience here.
The FREE 5 Most Common Mistakes Of Hormonal Migraines E-Guide teaches you:
– Why hormones are the most important focus around why your migraines and headaches keep triggering
– How PMS is common but NOT normal and why it needs to be addressed to be pain free in the long term
– The 5 most common mistakes why hormones stay broken, why so many women become migraine free with pregnancy and why birth control is not a solution
