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The absolute frustration of another migraine hitting and ruining another day, week, month is unbearable.

We need every tool we can find to give us the clarity that we need to able to work on the deeper parts of healing a chronic disease like fixing our hormones, correcting neurotransmitters, healing our mitochondria and restoring our gut function.

And for some people, it’s a piercing that does it. At least while it heals.

In this article, I’m going to be discussing the complete guide to tragus piercings and how migraine and headache sufferers are using it for relief with little side effects.

Why does getting your tragus pierced work?

There are two main piercings that are being used in the migraine and headache communities. The daith and the tragus.

Daith is by far the more popular one and it seems to be the more effective one as well. You can see our article on daith and tragus piercings for migraines with reviews here.

But for some people getting their tragus pierced is what helps.

The picture below shows you where the tragus and daith are:

Some say that these piercings work only because of placebo but there are reports of migraineurs receiving relief after piercing for cosmetic reasons and not anything health related at all.

But there are two more likely explanations.

#1 These piercings go through Arnolds nerve which is connected to the vagus nerve. Vagus nerve stimulation devices are actually used for the treatment of epilepsy, depression and migraines.

There is even an FDA approved vagal nerve stimulation device called the Gammacore which we wrote about here.

So if you have poor vagal tone, this may be why it helps so much but there are also more effective exercises you can use that have far less safety concerns which I outline in the article here.

#2 These piercings may be working on acupuncture and acupressure points and as we know acupuncture can be just as effective as some medications.

But this is an entire system of medicine and to reduce it down to one or two points really does not do it justice and it is always better to get the real thing done.

I discuss both of these in the video on tragus and daith piercing reports below.

How to get your tragus pierced properly + Big concerns

Because the tragus piercing goes through a thick piece of cartilage it can take a long and annoying time to heal.

But, even more fun is that it is reported to be one of the most painful piercings as well.

Generally, far more painful than the daith piercing.

We have to do what we have to do, especially if we want to try something that requires little work on our part.

If we actually want to put in the work to heal our brains and bodies then we have to dive into deeper topics like complex and complicated migraines here and vestibular migraines here.

Piercing Healing Techniques

The biggest concern with these piercings is infection and long healing time.

Make sure to follow these tips during the healing phase as closely as you can:

– Monitor for any reactions to the metal, generally titanium is one of the better and less reactive types

– Keep the area clean and avoid going into public pools or places with excess bacteria

– Use a piercer that is diligent about their sterilization and cleanliness techniques

– Be careful not to get the piercing caught on clothes or to fiddle with it too much

– If needed clean the area twice daily with soap/water or a saline solution instead of alcohol

– Avoid sleeping on the side you pierced

– Plan for the 3 to 10 months it may take to heal a cartilage piercing

One of the catch 22s of the daith and tragus piercings is that for some people, when the piercing is fully healed, their migraines come back. It is as if the pressure point is not being sufficiently activated anymore and cannot do its job.

Piercing healing nutrients

Along with avoiding irritating the area or getting it infected we want to give our body extra nutrients to heal.

These include:

• Vitamin A (Liver, peppers, carrots, orange fruit)

• Vitamin C (Citrus and sour fruits)

• Zinc(Shellfish, mollusks, nuts and seeds)

• Enzymes(Citrus, raw foods, pineapple, papaya)

• Other minerals (calcium, magnesium, silica)

Avoid turning your piercing into an antenna

Of course we want to avoid exposing ourselves to EMFs and turning our piercing into an antenna for all of the frequencies floating in our airspace by using natural substances as soon and often as possible.

These include:

• Wood

• Porcelain

• Bone

• Stone

What does the community say?

We asked the Migraine Professional community for their input on both tragus and daith piercings here as well as just tragus piercings here.

At the end of the day we need to find short term relief but we also have to ensure that we are getting to the root of some of these problems and addressing the underlying causes that so commonly keep us stuck and in pain even when we are on the right medications. This is where we shine and do our best detective work, teaching you how to heal your brain.

We focus on fixing the root causes that so commonly create central sensitization, inflammation, stubborn pain and immune dysregulation.

This is why I have created the 10 steps program as a way to begin addressing the entire picture of causes, triggers and stressors on your brain. In this program I cover 10 massive areas of impact over 10 modules sent to you 1 week at a time. Each module has extra tips, tools and techniques to give you a holistic understanding of the commonly available tools you can take advantage of to take stress off of your brain.

Click here to learn more about the 10 steps program.

Have you had your tragus pierced? Did it work for you?

Let me know in the comments below.

There’s no doubt about it, something is going very very wrong with our culture. The dysautonomia cases I see are often late stage migraine cases. It is the people who have had migraines for a long time that have only been approached with medications…

It is almost a part of the progression of migraines when they are not dealt with properly in the same way that fibromyalgia can be. As the brain is more and more affected, the immune system becomes more and more dysfunctional and our nervous systems functioning breaks down more and more, we get dysautonomic and we fall into a massive pain and flare cycle that perpetuates itself.

Luckily, we can see this cycle coming from a mile away. Even 10, 20 or 30 years away the symptoms start to show. In this article I will be covering how to understand and empower ourselves with dysautonomia, connect it to migraines and then cover some simple vagus nerve exercises.

How can we understand dysautonomia in a way that empowers us?

Dysautonomia is a term that is used as an umbrella for a number of different conditions where our autonomic nervous system dysfunctions.

We have two parts to our nervous system:

1. The motor side that controls our movements and musculoskeletal system
2. The autonomic side that controls everything else including heart rate, breath rate, pupil constriction and dilation, digestion, blood pressure and temperature

Basically, the autonomic nervous system controls everything else that we do not consciously control.

But there are two parts to the autonomic nervous system:

• The sympathetic(fight, flight, or flee) side

• The parasympathetic(rest, digest and repair) side

Our body is constantly taking in information and determining how much into one side or the other we should be.

If a tiger attacks us, we become very sympathetically dominant and our blood sugar increases, adrenaline gets released and our body starts to burn and mobilize resources to fight it or run.

When it does this, it turns off things that we need in the long term like detoxification and digestion.

This is great in the short term but terrible long term.

In the long term we want to be parasympathetic dominant. We want to live in our rest, digest and repair nervous system.

This is the nervous system that cleans the house, breaks down food and absorbs nutrients, keeps our immunity regulated properly, repairs tissues and allows us to think clearly.

If we think of it in terms of traditional Chinese medicine and the yin/yang then the parasympathetic is the yin and the sympathetic is the yang.

The yin or parasympathetic is what gives us the energy and resources to be yang. The yang is what takes those resources and spends them and breaks down tissue so that hopefully when you are mostly yin again you can repair and the tissue can become even stronger.

This happens in a perfect world where we are healthy, have nutrients that support repair and aren’t stuck in an inflammatory cycle.

But in reality, our bodies get beat up all of the time and we are in a constant stressed out go-go-go mode that drives us into the ground.

Small stresses here or there are not a problem and we can usually bounce back but when we go through things like:

• Early childhood trauma that programs our nerves to be on high alert

• Long bouts of continued stress

• Trauma or grief

• Toxicant exposure

• Chronic infections

• Nutritional deficiencies

Then our body can be sent into a cycle of inflammation, oxidation, catabolism and blood sugar dysregulation.

Normal Vs abnormal nervous system response

In a normal and healthy individual, you get stressed, your body releases a massive amount of resources to help you and you can meet the demands of the stress.

Once the stress is over, your body turns off this release and goes back into calm, cool, rest, digest and repair mode.

In an unhealthy individual this stress response doesn’t get shut off properly, it’s abnormal and continues for too long and the balance gets broken.

The feedback systems our body and brain have to turn the fight of flight system off break.

We become hyper excitable, anxious, nervous, jittery, wired and tired. And so does our brain. It becomes hyper sensitive to stimuli that are normal, regular every day things.

This happens all too often and is a sign our balance between the two is breaking.

Primary vs secondary

Generally there are two types of a disease that can present:

• Primary that happens “by itself” and for “no reason”

• Secondary that happens as the result of something else going on

The problem is that our systems of assessment are not very good. A GP will on average only spend a few minutes with you and this is nowhere near enough to understand what is going on in your body, mind or environment.

This often ends with many many disorders being classified as “primary” and having no cause when in fact there are many dysfunctional systems going on and a disease progression process coming on long before this disorder came to be.

Health isn’t as cut and dry as it’s often made to be and we need to understand that our influences from birth have a far greater role in our health than our genes.

Where should we be looking?

Instead we need to look into our body systems and try to understand what is happening from a functional, holistic and integrated perspective. As we now know, everything that is happening in the body is affected by everything else happening in the body.

Ex. The brains health is dependant on the guts health…

But

Our gut health and brain health are both dependant on our emotional health

And then coming full circle, our emotional health is dependant on our gut health.

So we need to look at all of our systems and then have someone help us look at underlying factors if we are still in pain.

We not only want to look at the systems that are having issues whether that be digestive or hormonal or nervous or musculoskeletal…

But we also want to look at how we think, breath, move, eat, drink and sleep.

We want to look at our environment for toxicants and at our social/familial exposures for stresses.

This is when we start to unravel the “mystery” of why we are sick because, to be honest, if we just look at the system falling apart and the diagnosis we are given, we can feel like it’s a mystery and feel lost.

Connecting dysautonomia and migraines

So how can dysautonomia create migraines and how can migraine create dysautonomia?

If we speak in terms of symptoms then they cannot. Symptoms cannot necessarily cause dysfunction other than compensations.

But if we speak in terms of how can the dysfunction of our nervous system(dysautonomia) and how can neurodegeneration(migraine) cause each other, then we are looking more at physiological processes and how they affect each other because of their connection to each other.

One of the easiest ways dysfunction of our nervous system can contribute to migraines is the deregulation of our intestinal tract, the food that we put in it and any infections that may be lurking.

If our nervous system is not properly innervating our gut to maintain tight control over what is happening, the 100 trillion + organisms inside can become opportunistic quite quickly.

That list of a few foods that triggers our migraines can quickly grow into 50, 80, even 100+ foods creating an immune reaction.

Likewise if our brain is constantly inflamed and in pain then the very fabric of our nervous system begins to fall apart.

We become inflamed and then the damage of inflammation creates more inflammation and the damage of that inflammation creates even more inflammation and so on.

We enter into a vicious cycle of self perpetuated inflammation even if we begin doing “everything right.”

It can take a long time to shut off the response once we stop throwing gasoline on the fire.

See this video where I explain everything in detail around dysautonomia and migraines.

How can we see them coming?

Our body is constantly “speaking” to us.

Constantly trying to convey what is going on inside of it and whether what we are doing is favourable or not.

Long before a disease develops, we have symptoms.

For most people unaware of their bodies signs, these symptoms are just regular every day things that hold no meaning.

But things like feeling tired around mid afternoon, having chocolate or sugar cravings, being a little gassy, mood swings, having to have that coffee daily, developing fat around your organs or having PMS are all signs you are in the early stages of system break down.

These symptoms are actually very common, but they are not normal.

You want to look at areas of your life where you don’t have optimal functioning and areas where your functioning is not normal. (Remember common is different from normal)

For example, a burp after a meal may be normal. Burping for an hour after a meal is not.

Having a period is normal. Having PMS is not.

Pooping a soft fluffy log once a day without strain is normal. Filling the toilet with offensive diarrhea daily is not.

What do we do?

There are many things we can do today and right now. Many will cost us nothing but our time or energy, and this is where we should start as we begin building ourselves back up. This is where the 10 steps program comes in.

But we have to make sure we have strong vagal tone above many other things.

Our vagus nerve runs from our brain into our organs and is a super highway of information, most of which is going from the organs into the brain for processing and interpretation.

We want to keep this vagus nerve toned much like we would a muscle.

It needs exercise!

Evolutionarily, we would constantly be exposed to scenarios that would tone our vagus nerve but because we now live sedentary, comfortable, indoor lives where everything is brought to us, this doesn’t happen anymore.

This means we need to force it.

5 Dysautonomia Exercises that strengthen the vagus nerve

Of course before starting or changing anything see your healthcare provider for information and advice.

I will not be too left brained about these as your body and what it responds is individual to yourself and I invite you to listen to it.

Regular cold exposure is what we evolved with

The cold is an incredible tool, especially because it makes us so uncomfortable. Much of our chronic illness and the break down in our brain is because we have lost the stimuli that our bodies evolved with. We did not evolve to sit on a couch or have 3 square meals or be warm all year long and it shows in how fragile our bodies have become.

Of course, the cold is such a powerful tool that in many cases it should be worked up to. It is a stress to be in the cold so we want to make sure we work up the dose and have the resources to recover after it.

Staying parasympathetic while in an ice bath or cold shower is a skill in and of itself, but almost free to do and takes little to no time. You have no reason not to.

Practice Breathing daily

Breath is our ultimate tool for controlling the balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. It’s a great way to pump your body and tone your vagus. See this video for some simple breathing exercises.

Gently gag your way into vagal tone

For this, you can use a tongue scraper or toothbrush.

Simple reach farther and farther down your throat until you gag.

You’ll know you’re doing it enough when your eyes begin to water.

Gargle at maximum intensity

A heavy and hard gargle with as much effort as possible. This should be a sprint of gargling.

Hum your heart out

Singing and humming is a great way to tone the vagus nerve, you just have to do it at maximum effort and to exhaustion to force your nerves to grow and connect.

These should be repeated 4-5 times daily for the first 3 weeks to notice an effect, especially with severe dysfunction.

But of course, they are no replacement for a whole and balanced program including all of the different factors that add stress on or take stress off of your body.

For that, the 10 steps program is the absolute foundation for brain health. Click the link to begin.

Do you have both dysautonomia and migraines?

Let me know in the comments below and how they progressed for you.

Every few days a migraine sufferer will come to me and say, “They tested me for everything, blood, CT, MRI etc and it all came back clear.”

It can make it look like there is nothing wrong with you and that you’re absolutely fine.

In some cases like the MRI, you probably are.

But if you are experiencing chronic headaches, dizziness, hormonal problems, fatigue, weight gain or brain fog, you need to step into the world of integrative medicine.

The sad reality is that our medical system is amazing at dealing with injuries and acute care, but absolutely horrendous with chronic disease.

Learn why this is so and how to fix it in this article.

Testing is problematic

The first part that we need to understand is that the testing done through the standard medical avenue is skewed.

Most labs will base their reference ranges(which tell you what is normal, high or low) on the averages of their testing population.

First off, not only is chronic disease in the general population sky high with 133 million americans experiencing at least one chronic condition…

But the lab testing population is an even more skewed population, the majority of them being ill and many severely.

If the range of “normal” is based on a sick population, this gives us a sick normal.

Instead we want to be looking at functional medicine ranges for disease and pre-disease signs so that we can support the individual before they have a problem and address the systems that become dysfunctional when disease starts progressing.

We want to look at optimal and this is where a functional medicine practitioner is the best resource.

They help test the body systems that break down before a serious pathology has developed. They support your body so that it is not so overburdened with systems breaking down that it has to create symptoms and eventually disease.

By understanding that we need to look at optimal reference ranges as opposed to the standard we can come to healthier conclusions about what’s going on.

Pro tip: Many conditions are not thoroughly screened enough such as with thyroid disorders

• Often times it will only be Total T4 Total T3 and TSH that will be tested but we need much more than just this. We also need to know our Free T4, Free T3, Reverse T3, Anti TPO and more! Conditions, their tests and the treatments used have really been whittled down and don’t serve our chronically ill population well enough because of it.

You are not a brain, and a neck, and a liver, and a heart…

There is a big disconnect.

You go to a GP.

He sends you to a neurologist, a rheumatologist and an endocrinologist.

Each of them functions within their specific area of expertise but then it doesn’t circle back.

It often doesn’t circle back.

100% of the time if you are experiencing a chronic disease you should also be sent to a nutritionist, personal trainer and someone to help you deal with all of the things that go on in your head and your heart that aggravate or cool all chronic diseases. This usually doesn’t happen either

But still, you need someone to bring it all together with you. Someone to spend the time to check in on your exercise program, dietary regimen, supplemental protocol depending on what body system is affected and to test you for underlying causes that keep the entire mess rolling…

But it just does not happen…

If you’re lucky you may find a more holistically minded integrative practitioner.

Often that might be a chiropractor, acupuncturist, naturopath or a functional practitioner like myself.

But it’s not as easy as that, they need to spend the time and have an understanding of each of these areas and how they come together to affect each other.

What is the most important system to address first?

The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems balance is definitely up there.

But maybe the gut as well.

It could also be trauma if these issues have really deep roots.

You want to find out what exactly it is for you, remember that the pains we experience are often a symptom of something deeper. I go into detail in this in our how we address headaches video here.

You broke inside(systems) long before you broke outside(symptoms)

There’s actually a step by step process for this in the general chronically ill person because the body cannot simply be forced to do things.

We know that if we force our body to act or react, it usually comes with negative consequences and symptoms/side effects.

It needs to be supported.

the body has spent millions of years developing its systems from being a tiny little bacteria into the massive 10 trillion cell organism that is host to 100 trillion microorganisms.

It knows what it’s doing and it just needs the right support with some gentle stimulation to do it.

Burnout

It begins with the burnout. As I talked about above, our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems control everything that goes on or does not go on in our bodies.

If we are constantly in our sympathetic or fight or flight nervous system… If we are constantly being stimulated, stressed, go-go-go and overactive, then our body and its systems are too.

They choose to win the fight that is going on right now and sacrifice being able to take steps in the long term war with healing.

This is where it begins.

• Whether that being going to sleep too late or waking up too late

• Not making sure we are receiving enough daily direct morning sunlight

• Not eating in a calm environment

• Overdoing workouts and expending more energy and breaking down more muscular tissue than you have the resources to repair

• Holding on to inflammatory emotions instead of releasing them and forgiving yourself

• Constantly being stimulated and keeping your mind running on a hamster wheel at 100%

• Breatheing like you are battling a tiger

• Drinking stimulants because of dependencies or low energy

These all add up.

They all shift you over into the sympathetic side of the nervous system. The survival side.

The thing is, if you’re chronically ill, you cannot live in that survival mode.

You have to push yourself and every single little win you can get to switch over.

To become parasympathetic.

To live inside of rest, digest and repair mode.

Your gut-brain bugs

It often begins there. Not always, but often. Sometimes it can begin in the gut.

But the burnout just begins the roll of being chronically non well, it ruins your lifestyle patterns, gives you cravings that make it hard to eat a healthy diet, makes you moody, reactive and emotional…

And it compromises the health of your gut.

We know the massive gut-brain connection through the vagus nerve and know that if it’s destroying your sympathetic/parasympathetic balance, it’s leaving your gut susceptible.

It leaves you wide open for invaders.

Not only does stress and the sympathetic mode leave the mucosa that protect your gut weak, it also shuts off your first and foremost main protection against any pathogens.

Stomach acid.

This is your first and most important line of defence against pathogens, but it also either sets your digestive system off on the right path…

Or

It dumps a bunch of undigested food into your gut that then becomes a breeding ground for the very organisms we are trying to protect ourselves against.

Parasitic and pathogenic gut infections are not just a third world problem. They are a first world problem as well and can lie under the radar in some cases without any symptoms for years.

Until the stress builds up too much and they get the opportunity to grow.

Or until another undigested batch of food comes through and they can slowly take over more and more of the gut…

Dealing with them is not easy, especially in a chronically compromised individual.

Not only are they tough to get rid of but when you are trying to get rid of them their die off will clog up your bodies ability to function, shooting up inflammation levels and aggravating every symptom you have.

But it is 100% necessary.

The only way you can do it is if you:

• Chew well enough and have a strong enough stomach acid, bile and enzymes to break down the food

• Eat just the right amount of food for you based on your genetics with a healthy balance of nutrients/calories

• Top up your hydration levels and make sure you have the minerals to support gut integrity

• Strengthen your vagus nerve through exercises

• Make sure your MMC or migrating motor complex which moves food through the bowel works properly by ensuring you have 6 hours between meals at least once a day which is often at night

• Have a highly varied vegetable rich diet so that your good bacteria can eat and create short chain fatty acids to help calm your immune system down and feed your brain

And then we have to bring in the clean up crew to undo the problems caused by being so sick and having multiple systems crashed.

Fixing your weak brainstem and mitochondria

This is where we support the bodies and brains ability to reduce how much oxidative and inflammatory damage has been caused.

We take the burden off of our systems of detoxification, we make sure that our nutrient profiles are optimized so that the brain and tissues can repair and clean themselves of any backed up problems.

As our body becomes burnt out and chronically sympathetic and as our GI system breaks down and we can clean ourselves out as well, we begin building up toxic by-products.

These by-products are created in the mitochondria of every cell and the mitochondria of our brain cells are very susceptible to damage from them.

The brain needs a gentle program to continue nudging it along so that it can deal with this burden slowly and steadily.

When the waste gets removed, the brain can then begin to build better and stronger brain cells.

This is where we need our nutrients like:

• Fatty acids with a balance of omega 3-6

• Smooth and steady supply of carbohydrates and sugars

• The full spectrum of minerals like those found in our sea and Himalayan salts

• Amino acids from the proteins we eat

• Enzymes from eating live and living foods

• Vitamins and co-factors from eating rich organic and wild fruits n veggies

This is making it simple and easy to understand on a practical and actionable level and what I do for clients who are experiencing brain pain that they’ve tried everything for but it still will not go away.

The combination of dietary and lifestyle medicine with the right testing and a scrutinizing eye using the right references ranges makes all the difference.

Once you know the problem and dysfunctional system, it’s easy to use powerful supplemental programs that make things move along much more smoothly and quickly.

It all really comes down to being listened to and understood by your healthcare provider.

Being adequately heard, tested and then supported as your body starts reversing through the disease process sounds easy on paper, but few practitioners are present for their patients and this is why I created Migraine Professional.

As a way to break the noise and get to the truth of the brains many cries for help.

I also created a presentation explaining why migraines are so problematic, what is missing in how we assess them and what we can do right now to take a better approach in healing ourselves.

If you have not yet, make sure to read our article on Getting To The Root here.

And you can join our community of over 20,000 migraine menders by going here.

Digestive issues were one of the roots of my migraines. At the time, I had no idea they were connected but they are what drove my brain right into pain, my senses into over-excitation and my body into the ground. Apple cider vinegar was a part of my journey back. In this article, I will be covering how apple cider vinegar and acid reflux are connected to migraines and headaches and what we can do about them.

So, what is apple cider vinegar?

Apple cider vinegar is a vinegar made from apple juice. But this is not just any vinegar.

It has been supported by research to help with:

• Weight loss

• Blood sugar control

• Diabetes management

• Cholesterol

Apple juice is turned into alcohol and then fermented into a vinegar, producing acetic acid.

The best brands are organic, unfiltered and contain the “mother” which you’ll see as a little murky substance in the bottom of the vinegar. Like Bragg’s apple cider vinegar here.

Vinegar can kill all sorts of pathogens and this is helpful to us on our journey for a strong gut.

Why apple cider vinegar? + Benefits

Apple cider vinegar is amazing for killing all sorts of pathogens and this is helpful to us on our journey for a strong gut. We want as few of the bad guys and as many of the good guys living in our intestines as possible so we always want to make sure we feed them well and maintain a balance.

It also has an amazing ability to regulate blood sugar is incredible and well studied for:

• Improving insulin sensitivity(1)

• Changing how strongly carbohydrates hit our blood sugar(2)

• Improving post meal blood sugar(3)

It also improves one of our major risk factors for migraines and headaches…

Obesity.

Some studies have showed that if you have apple cider vinegar with a meal it can improve how quickly you get full and end up eating less food throughout the day.(4)

It has also been shown to help reduce belly fat in the obese with 15ml leading to 2.6lbs(1.2kg) and 30ml leading to 3.7lbs(1.7kg) of weight loss over 3 months.(5)

Some research is also coming out to show it may have an effect on heart disease as well which is yet another migraine risk factor we want to avoid.

See the infographic below for a number of ways you can add apple cider vinegar into your routine.

3 Keys To Apple Cider Vinegar With Migraines, Headaches and Acid Reflux

1. Using it for acid reflux is the opposite of what you think

The prevailing wisdom that’s been told for years and made billions of dollars off of us with through antacids and proton pump inhibitors is that acid reflux is caused by too much acid in the stomach.

But we need to understand that any time we are stressed, our stomach actually reduces stomach acid because it reduces digestive function.

Our culture is in a chronic state of stress and this is by far our largest killer so we have to factor this into our digestive health.

It is actually much more common that our feelings of acid reflux are caused by not having enough acid and eating poor quality Standard American Diet type foods.

Low stomach acid is much much more common than high and it shows in our societies ability to digest foods properly and maintain a strong gut.

Stomach acid needs to reach a low enough pH to empty into the intestine, if it doesn’t it will stay in the stomach and this can actually end up creating a fermentation like process that creates lactic acid.

This lactic acid will then come up and create the sensation of acid reflux.

Its easily misunderstood but worth a try for your particular situation to see if you need more acid.

Apple cider vinegar is an easy way to get this acid, same with the juice of a lemon taken immediately before and immediately after a meal.

Depending on how much acid you are creating and how big the meal is, your perfect amount may be more or less.

Apple cider vinegar is very strong so you may want to dilute it down if drinking or simply add it to food like a non vegetable/canola oil mayonnaise or a salad dressing.

2. Apple Cider vinegar is a digestive powerhouse

Not only is apple cider great for digestion because it supports our stomach acid, cleaning up of bacteria and regulation of blood sugar which are all essential gut supports, but it also contains prebiotics because of the fermentation process required to make it.

Prebiotics can be thought of as the foods that our microorganisms eat.

Where as we might eat a vegetable and get calories and nutrients from it, that vegetable also contains fibres that our body cannot breakdown and absorb.

So what ends up happening is our gut bacteria eat these fibres and break them down, allowing them to maintain balance and give our gut microbiome strength.

These gut bacteria will then create postbiotics from these prebiotic fibres which help modulate our immune system and improve our oral tolerance or the ability for our body to tolerate foods.

These are all essentials in maintaining a strong gut, strong immunity and strong resilient brain.

3. Your Gut – Brain Axis will thank you

When we want to create and keep a happy brain, we need to understand our gut-brain axis and take steps to improve it.

Apple cider vinegar helps us do that.

Our gut-brain axis is the massive super highway of nerves that sends messages from our gut to our brain and vice versa.

A majority of this happens through the vagus nerve.

The vagus nerve is incredibly important and making sure we have strong vagal tone and keep the nerve toned makes sure that when our brain is in rest and digest, so is our body.

The vagus nerve actually has a 9:1 afferent to efferent signalling from the gut to the brain. This means that is sends 9 times as much information to the brain than the brain does to the gut and it signals how important gut health really is.

Not only that but our brain is also 90% immune cells and only 10% nerve cells.

With our gut being where the majority of our bodies immune system sits, when things go wrong in the gut, they play a huge role in the brain.

By improving our acid reflux by reducing poor quality foods and figuring out if we actually need more stomach acid…

And by using apple cider vinegar to support our blood sugar, weight loss, cholesterol, digestion and gut-brain we have an incredible new, and more whole approach to the causes of our migraines or headaches.

But there are some precautions we need to be aware of.

When to avoid apple cider vinegar?

Apple cider vinegar(ACV) needs to be cautioned in 3 different situations but of course before making any changes to your lifestyle or diet you want to ask your doctor.

The three are:

• Histamine issues

• Other reactions

• Stomach ulcers

Histamines play a large role in a percentage of the migraine population but it’s by no means all of them.

The downside is that because ACV is a vinegar and the result of a fermentation process it is high in histamines so if you have histamine issues, you may want to steer clear of it.

As with any new substance you want to gauge your reaction to it and be careful because it is a vinegar and contains strong acids. It is likely too acidic to drink on its own without dilution and long term use should be supervised.

The last and final precaution is around stomach ulcers.

Because you are adding acid to your stomach it may aggravate any stomach ulcers you have.

But I am not one to leave you hanging as stomach ulcers may be a sign of bacterial infection.

It is often that bacteria like H pylori will burrow into the stomach lining and cause inflammation, contributing to gastric ulcers.

Not only that, but these bacteria can actually neutralize any stomach acid that we create, leading to this problem with acid reflux and making it more complex than just fixing stomach acid.

This is where I would run specific laboratory tests out of my highly trusted and accurate lab as one of my clients.

I’ll help you figure out what’s going on, run the tests to find out what’s causing your gastrointestinal issues and then teach you a protocol to deal with these bugs. But of course we will also look at everything in the greater scheme of migraines and headaches and educate you as a whole.

If you’re looking for help getting to the root cause feel free to join me for a call here.

Not already part of our 20,000 community of migraine menders? Click here to join.

Cervicogenic headaches have become one of the most common and annoying headaches known to man because of their connection with the muscles of our head and neck including our back (trapezius, rhomboids, levator and latissimus). But the cervicogenic ones can be some of the easiest to deal with as well. In this article I will discuss what cervicogenic headaches are, what you absolutely must know about them, how to support your exercises so that you’re successful as well as some simple cervicogenic headache exercises.

What are cervicogenic headaches?

Cervicogenic headaches can be explained simply by breaking up the word into its roots:

Cervico – neck

Genic – created

So cervicogenic headaches are neck-created headaches.

Generally these headaches are those that are started by or contributed to by tension and pain in the neck.

But all of our muscles are tied together and so the muscles or better known as fascia that wraps over our skull are affected by the tension or pain in our neck.

As above, so below.

The muscles below our neck in our back including the trapezius, rhomboids, levator and latissimus are all responsible for contribution to the neck and head pain as well.

Pain in any of the systems connected to the nerves coming out from our neck can be responsible for the pain we feel in our head and these headaches.

But we also need to understand that all of our nerves “hold hands” and because of this we can have nerves above or below also affecting our cervical nerves.

This is one of the reasons we should have both a skilled physical therapist like a CHEK practitioner but also a health coach supporting us with our health and pain.

Absolute must know and understand about cervicogenic headaches

Even though the name cervico-genic headaches implies that these are neck created headaches at the end of the day our body is not this isolated.

Of course, we need to make sure we get our atlas and axis vertebrae checked, which are the very top two vertebrae of our spine…

We also need to look above and below the neck to find the source of the problem.

If these cervicogenic headaches were caused by an accident then it may be as simple as doing the exercises below and having your atlas and axis checked.

But if these have developed over time and are “idiopathic” without known cause then we need to take a more functional and holistic approach to it.

For example, often our cervicogenic headaches will be caused by imbalances in our posture that have developed because we, just like everyone else, are doing our work below us , usually at poorly designed desks, chairs and computer stations causing our head to come forward and our lower back to flatten out.

For every degree that our head comes forward it causes our entire body to have to compensate and adds weight and tension to our neck musculature.

But there is also a missing ingredient to the general approach of physical therapists with their treatment of neck and head pain…

We have to make sure core function is working properly and integrated.

This is where we come into viscero-somatic-inhibition.

Viscero – organs

Somatic – body

Inhibition – Turning off

When we experience viscero somatic inhibition our organs turn off our body.

More specifically our organs, if inflammed or overloaded will turn off sections of our abdominal musculature.

The easiest example of this is when a woman gets her period. If her body isn’t balanced her core will often turn off, her belly will get distended and her back will hurt.

This is the uterus overloading the parts of the nervous system that are feeding it and causing an entire section of the spinal cord to compensate.

So as much as we need to support the muscles of our neck and back and balance them with breathing and core functioning, we also need to address lifestyle and nutrition to turn off sources of inflammation in our organs or we may keep running into the same problem over and over again.

Supporting cervicogenic headaches

How do we go about this?

Core functioning and posture is the basis for a strong neck and keeping those pesky neck headaches away.

We want to first get away from any reasons for inflammation in the gut and organs and then support them so that they can do their job properly.

After that we will get into cervicogenic headache exercises and correcting posture.

The basis of a healthy, happy and non-inflamed gut is a great nutritional strategy.

This is often best done through a paleo type approach high in plant and pastured animal foods.

You want to make sure your blood sugar is staying balanced with meals and this can often mean avoiding grains, starchy foods and excess fruits.

An easy recipe for your foundations is to make sure you eat:

• 3 cups of full colored vegetables or berries each day

• 3 cups of cruciferous vegetables per day

• 3 cups of leafy greens per day

• Add sea weed and other sea foods for trace minerals and their high nutrition

• 1+ times a week include an animal organ into your meals

• 3+ times a week include a food high in glycine like bone broth, soups with bones, tendons and ligaments

• Only eat pastured and grass fed or wild meats

• Include soaked and sprouted nuts and seeds throughout

Above and beyond this we want to make sure our hormones are balanced so that things like menses don’t throw our body into so much inflammation it causes pain and shuts off our core.

But there is also the massive problem of dysbiosis(imbalanced gut bacteria) as well as fungal and parasitic infections in the gut which needs to be tested for by a high quality stool test and dealt with.

This along with liver inflammation which can come from environmental toxins like BPA, phthalates, heavy metals etc. Can also be tested for and dealt with accordingly.

Lets get into the exercises.

Cervicogenic headache exercises

One of the first places we want to go is correcting our posture and this is almost impossible if we sit with poor ergonomics for 8 hours a day at a desk or in a car. We have to find ways to support our lower back curve and avoid having to look down because this brings the head forward.

Using something simple like a lower back support and lifting your screen is an easy way to take tension off of here.

Before doing any exercises or changing anything make sure to see a physio, chiropractor or osteopath and get a full assessment.

As neck supportive exercises we want to use this circuit:

Start by taking the tension out of the back of your neck which keeps your head forward

• This is done by putting your chin to the top of your chest and then using your hands to lightly pull your head forward and hold. You should feel a light stretch in the back of your neck. Hold this for 60 seconds as you need a long static stretch to take the tension out of your muscles.

Then work on strengthening the front of your neck which holds your head up right

• See the video below for neck strengthening exercises

NEXT

We want to make sure our core is functioning properly, and often this will get dismissed as being something we do not need to worry about because if our core wasn’t functioning we wouldn’t be able to stand.

This is a giant misunderstanding and a big part of why the fitness industry is full of fit sick people and perpetuating myths around “flat stomachs.”

We have two separate sets of core functioning, our inner unit and our outer unit.

They are both highly integrated into breathing and with every breath, our stomach should be expanding out.

This does not happen in stressed, overwhelmed and fearful individuals or individuals with organ inflammation that prevents the diaphragm from pressing upon and massaging the organs.

The majority of people experience an inverted breathing pattern and this is showing compromised core functioning.

When we breathe, our shoulders should not be raising up and into our neck.

When we breathe, our diaphragm which is a muscle under our lungs should be going down into the abdomen, creating negative pressure in the lungs causing us to inhale.

For the diaphragm to be able to move down our abdomen needs to expand out.

If our inner or outer units are holding tension, this will not happen and instead our breath will go up into our necks and shoulder, triggering fear and stress receptors, reducing breathing capacity and adding a load of strain onto the neck.

Queue headaches.

This tension can come from many areas some of which are:

• Organ inflammation

• Poor core function

• Social and cultural perceptions about “flat” stomachs

• Fear, stress or anxiety

• A pattern that has not been retrained

For a simple neck exercise see the video below:

And the last and final piece is to make sure you stretch out your upper back and pectoralis(chest).

When we sit in poor posture our lower back will flatten out and upper back will over curve to compensate for our head coming forward.

But as our head comes forward our shoulders will often come forward as well causing our chest muscles to shorten.

We can work on both of these areas easily using a foam roller and rolling out our upper back as well as our chest and using chest stretches to open the front of our body up.

By using these corrective exercises and stretches combined with postural and ergonomic correction as well as the dietary, respiratory and inflammatory support you will be so much more successful in improving the quality of your headaches compared to if it was only an exercise based approach.

We always want to approach the causes, support the systems that need it and give our body a little push in the right direction. At Migraine Professional it’s a no brainer that we always need to approach our health holistically.

For more information see our article on 1 big tip for cervicogenic headaches here as well as 13 Secrets of Cervicalgia Headaches with exercises and treatments here.

What exercises do you use for your cervicogenic headaches?

Headaches and migraines are terribly painful in and of themselves but when they have the pulsating or throbbing quality to them they can be unbearable. It can drive you mad with each beat. Luckily, as long as we know what they are, we will know what to do about them. In this article, I will cover what can be causing pulsating headaches as well as what to do about them.

What are pulsating headaches?

Pulsating headaches are a broad way to characterize our headaches known by their throbbing, aching or pulsating nature.

They feel as if the veins or arteries in your head are pulsing with each beat and this may be on top of the already painful head or as the main pain. The pain  comes and goes fairly quickly, repeating over and over again.

There are many causes and some of them serious so if this is out of the ordinary for you or if you have not been to a doctor for it then medical assistance should be your first go-to.

What is generally happening is that when the body triggers its headache or migraine mechanism it will dilate blood vessels to bring more blood, oxygen and resources to the brain. This combined with the incredible sensitivity caused by some headaches can then make the dilated blood vessels and pulsing of our heartbeat aggravate our headache. The brain itself does not actually have any pain sensing nerves but the meninges which supply blood to the brain and cover it do.

What causes pulsating headaches?

There are many different causes of headaches that pulsate as this is only a symptom and does not point to a disease or an etiology(cause).

The diseases and conditions can include:

• Caffeine headaches

• Hangover headaches

• Rebounding

• Temporal Arteritis

• Migraines

• Cluster headaches

• Occipital Neuralgia

• Hemicrania Continua

• Allergic Reactions

• Sinus Infections

• Other more rare head pain disorders (Stroke, Brain tumor, Meningitis)

But at the end of the day this doesn’t help us understand what is causing the headaches which is a much trickier problem.

Some of the causes and triggers can include:

– Loss of sleep

– Missing meals

– Lack of core values

– Food sensitivities

– Environmental sensitivities

– Toxin overload

– Mitochondrial problems

– Muscular tension

– Excessive physical, mental or emotional stress

– Nutritional deficiencies

– Hormonal imbalance

– Sensitivities to additives, preservatives, chemicals

– Mold

– Structural changes

– Genetics

– Dehydration

– Medication overuse

– Parasites

Here are two graphs with the most common triggers from a study done with migraines:

All of these headaches can cross over but in general there are some things we can look for to identify what’s going on:

• Front of the head and low can be a sinus infection or allergic reaction

• If the pain is at the back of the head and your nerves are actually painful to the touch then this may be occipital neuralgia

• If it happens at night it may be a hypnic headache or migraine

• If it comes in groups and often behind an eye, it may be a cluster headache

• If you drink more than one coffee per day it may be caffeine withdrawal from the coffee or from not having the coffee frequently enough because you’ve developed a dependance

• If you are taking more than one abortive, anti-inflammatory or anti pain medication per day or every day consecutively for a week or more then it may be a rebound headache

• If it is caused by weather, has environmental sensitivities, after food, from fasting or any of the above graph triggers then it may be a migraine

• If it has never happened before, is sudden and severe then it may be a very serious and rare condition and requires immediate medical intervention

• If it is in your temples then temporal arteritis may be possible

• If it happens when you stand up then this may be because you have low blood pressure or dysautonomia

What are the standard treatments for pulsating headaches?

The treatments for all of these are fairly unique but they are all generally some kind of prescription medication.

From migraines which can be given:

• Ergotamines

• Triptans

• Analgesics

• Opiods

• Topamax

To cluster headaches which can be given:

• Triptans

• Pure oxygen

• Corticosteroids

• Calcium channel blockers

To hemicrania continua which can be given:

• Indomethacin

• Antidepressants

• Nerve blocks

To allergies which can be given:

• Zyrtec

• Claritin

• Allegra

For these it is best to get your doctors opinion and a diagnosis so that you are assured that you are safe and it is nothing more serious.

Some signs it may be more serious include:

• A new type of headache

• Change in your headache

• Headaches after injuries

• Headaches with a fever

• Speech, vision, sensation, personality or motor control changes

• Sudden and unusually severe

What are some alternatives we can try?

First and foremost whenever we have a chronic headache that our medications and standard treatment don’t satisfy we need to go and get functional medicine testing. This is a deeper and more comprehensive form of testing looking at what’s going on with your various body systems.

Our body systems are all connected and depend on each other. Often when we correct the body system going through dysfunction or stress, the pains and symptoms we experience go away. On the flip side if we simply do things to hide the symptoms, mask them and get rid of the pain, we can continue with the condition for years and decades..

Some more natural things we can try include:

• Capsaicin

• Melatonin

• Heat therapy

• Magnesium

• Hydrotherapy

• Massage

• CBT

• Biofeedback

• Acupressure or reflexology

• CBD or cannabinoids

• Hypnosis

• Herbal Support

• Turmeric

• Chiropractic

• Mindfulness meditation

• Menthol

See the video below on the 3 best natural ways to beat headaches:

Whenever we are dealing with pulsating headaches and especially if they are chronic and keep recurring we need to give our body EXTRA support.

Some of the best ways to do that are outlined in this article on the headache that won’t go away and what to do about it.

We always want to address the root causes if we can and make sure our body is supported enough nutritionally, emotionally, mentally, structurally, chemically, socially and environmentally

Do your headaches pulsate? How long have they been like this? Have you been given a diagnosis? Let me know below.