Insights into Migraines Unveiling Causes and Triggers

Oh, this is going to help so many people who suffer with migraine, which I think the numbers are huge, aren't they?

They are, they are. About 1 in 4 in the US has been either experienced or knows somebody who experiences on a regular basis.

Hello and welcome to Beyond Diagnosis, a podcast to raise your awareness, decisions, and voice for alternative practices so you can take back control of your health. I'm Rita De Michele, your host, a mindset and empowerment coach, and the founder of the Onus platform. Join me each week so you can create the health of your dreams. Welcome everyone to today's episode that I think could transform the many lives of migraine sufferers using naturopathic medicine. Dr. Tanya Painter received a bachelor's degree in cellular and molecular biology and a minor in inorganic chemistry before attending medical school, graduating with a naturopathic medical degree. Welcome, Tanya. It's so good to have you on the show.

Thank you. It's so good to be here.

Oh, it's— this is going to help so many people who suffer with migraine, which I think the numbers are huge, aren't they?

They are. They are. About 1 in 4 in the US is, uh, has been, uh, either, uh, experienced or knows somebody who experiences on a regular basis.

That's, that's way too many people suffering.

It's way too many people.

To be left suffering as well is just, you know, it's in our day and age. Yes, heartbreaking. It really is. So in your view, what's the main reason people get migraines? Is it a genetic factor or is it an imbalance in the brain? What's happening for them?

Yeah, that's, that's a really great question. I think that, you know, my answer is always it depends on the person. And that's one of the reasons why migraines are so frustrating to deal with is because migraines themselves are fit into this diagnostic box. Right. And but that, that diagnostic box could contain 60 or 70 different reasons why someone is having these migraines. And so we don't know all the factors of why one person will have them and another person won't, especially like in the same family. We do know that there are genes involved. There's not migraine-specific genes, but there are genetic SNPs is what they're called, where they're— I won't say they're mutations, but they're different. They function differently than a quote unquote healthy gene. And so people with these SNPs in specific genes will have a higher incidence of migraines than someone without. So there is— we do see that kind of genetic component.

Mm-hmm.

But then there's a ton of other things like hormones, stress. A huge factor is actually trauma in childhood. So there's a huge link between childhood traumas and migraines and chronic issues like fibromyalgia and things later in life. So there's a whole host of reasons why migraines are such a problem and a very limited option for treatment. Because it's, it's not looking at all of the pieces of the puzzle.

Wow, that's— that'll be hard to get your hands around, wouldn't it? Like, just to find what's happening for this person. Or do you start with some functional type of testing to find out where their issue is? And what kind of testing do you do?

Yeah, so I do, I do kind of all of the above, right? The, the very first thing that I like to do is I coach my clients on how to track their symptoms. First of all, understanding that if you have chronic migraine and medication is not sufficient to control them, then there is some— it's more than just one type of migraine, right? If a triptan works every time, then great. Like, we've probably got a fairly simple case. It might not feel simple to the person who's taking the triptans all the time, but if a certain medication is always working for them, then we know it's a very limited number of issues that that person's dealing with. And those are actually fairly simple cases from a functional standpoint to be able to diagnose and treat. The more complex cases come from understanding that, you know, well, sometimes my triptan works and sometimes it doesn't, and then sometimes ice and rest will work and then sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes I can just take like turmeric and drink some water and that works, and then sometimes it doesn't. And so Those are the ones where people want to pull their hair out because they're like, I don't ever know how to treat a migraine because it always seems like it's something different. And the thing to understand is that it's more than one type of migraine. So it's the same treatment isn't going to work for the different migraines that that one person is experiencing. So we want to kind of teach them, all right, what paying attention to the symptoms that you get, the type of pain that you get when it hits your prodrome, your postdrome, how long it lasts, all of the differences from one migraine to the next can really start to tease out out, all right, we're dealing with 3 or 4 different types of migraines here, and they will all be treated differently. So then we can start to unpack, all right, is this a— this is a serotonin issue. That's why triptans work for this. So let's work on, on healthy serotonin balance. This one over here is only related to your hormone cycle, right? You get it right before ovulation and right, you know, for the 4 or 5 days before your period. We know this is hormonal, so your triptan's not going to work on this one. We need to work on hormonal things on this one. And so as we start to break those apart and understand a little bit more about what each individual migraine is telling us, then we can really start to hone in our treatment. And then, of course, there's always the functional testing. And I think we're going to talk about that in a few minutes. But I absolutely do some functional testing as well to really help us hone in on those issues faster than just trying to figure things out by symptoms.

Great. Before we actually get into the functional testing, I was doing a little bit of research, and it came up a lot around the neurotransmitters in the brain. So how key is having those neurotransmitters balanced for someone's long-term change in migraines? And is that key for everyone, or is it dependent, like what you were just talking about, on the person?

That's a great question. In my experience, 100% of people have some sort of neurotransmitter imbalance that's happening. Now, that can be acutely because they're struggling when I'm testing them. They're having issues with a particular neurotransmitter that's causing their migraine. But it can also be that they have something just way off because, again, it comes back to genetics. If they have specific genes that they don't break down or make their neurotransmitters effectively, then that's going to be a major issue for them. And by testing the neurotransmitters, we can kind of take that information. And for someone who knows what genes are involved with which neurotransmitter pathway, then it's easy for us to figure out, okay, this is likely going to need some support from a genetic end versus, oh, this is just an acute thing that's going on right now, and being able to treat it appropriately. So I would say the majority of people, in fact, 100% of my clients, all have neurotransmitter imbalances that do need to be addressed. And that's one of the tests that we do is functional neurotransmitter testing. And then I also say if you're a woman and you're a cycling woman or even postmenopausal, so I guess it doesn't really matter if you're a woman, hormones are going to be involved to some degree. And that's also my experience. So even if— and I've heard this over and over again— I've been tested, my hormones come back normal, it's not that, when it absolutely is that. And we can talk a little bit about the ratios and some of the testing that we want to look for between our estrogen and progesterone. But conventional treatments doesn't look at that. They just look at, oh, your progesterone's normal, your estrogen's normal, you're good to go, it's not that.

So that— you've touched on a lot of the questions that I actually do want to ask. But for our listeners who are unsure, what is a neurotransmitter? So they can actually inform themselves, educate themselves. And so when they're speaking to either someone like yourself, or if they are under the care of a doctor or neurologist or something, they can actually speak about, I would like to have my neurotransmitters, uh, tested, you know, if that's not being tested, because I'm pretty sure that's most probably not being tested. So if they can arm themselves with that information by understanding what they are, you know, that would be so helpful if you could speak to that.

Absolutely. So, um, neurotransmitters are, are basically our body's way of communicating within itself, right? So our organs have neurotransmitter receptors, our cells have neurotransmitter receptors. And so it's, it's the way for the brain and the organs to communicate with each other and with the brain. And so when we see, you know, the majority of neurotransmitters are produced by the brain to stimulate other things, but we're also understanding now it's not just the brain. We used to think it was only the brain, but no, there are actually other cells in our body that are also producing neurotransmitter. There's nerves that produce neurotransmitters. Our gut is huge in producing neurotransmitters. And so we have to look at all of these places to really understand what your systemic— your system looks like from a neurotransmitter standpoint. And conventionally, doctors don't look at neurotransmitters because from a functional testing standpoint, they're very, very helpful. But unfortunately, neurologists, in my experience, most neurologists, most medical doctors don't understand the science behind the neurotransmitter testing. And I hear all the time, oh, those aren't accurate. And that's very much untrue. There's a lot of science behind neurotransmitter testing, functional hormone testing, functional adrenal testing that, you know, kind of comes back to understanding, you know, doing some of the research from a doctor's perspective. They should be looking into these different options for their patients, not just what they learned in medical school 20 or 30 years ago. So really understanding the patient, you know, if the patient can really understand and do some research on You know, how are these tests scientifically backed? How are these helpful? And then bringing that argument to your doctor so they can't shut you down by saying, "Oh no, those aren't those aren't accurate.

Those you can't you can't do that." And these are chemical messages, aren't they not?

They are.

They're chemical. So that just gives some with that. Can we speak a little bit about your type of testing? You know, functional, so they get a distinct understanding. of the testing they may receive and your type of— before we go any further into the questioning, just to get a bit of a background into that functional type of testing.

Yeah. So usually when you go in for blood testing or, you know, blood work, it's, it's just getting a snapshot of a single moment when you went in for your blood draw and that's where you were at. Maybe you hadn't eaten, maybe you had, maybe you had a really stressful commute into getting your blood draw. Maybe, you know, whatever the case may be, That's what it's looking at. And it's not taking into account how your body is utilizing it. It's only taking into account the levels that you have in your blood at the time they take the blood to measure it. From a functional testing standpoint, you're either looking at saliva, so you're looking at tissue levels, or you're looking at urine, which is the breakdown products. And that gives us an idea of how your body is actually utilizing what you've got in the body. So that's where the functional part of testing— of functional testing comes in, is understanding how your body is breaking things down. So we know, okay, well, if your blood tests show normal in a certain thing but your urine is showing that you have very little of it, what's going on there? Why is your body not utilizing it properly? Where is that function not working? And so that can be very helpful to understand where those imbalances might lie, and then, and then really working on those specific pathways to bring your body back into balance.

It sounds so individualized, which is what we need. So with that type of testing, can that look at what sort of underlying conditions— is there a common underlying condition that people have that predisposes them to having migraines, or is Or is it just general?

So again, this kind of comes back to we're not entirely sure of what triggers migraines in one person and maybe not in another. We do know that there is, as I mentioned, that genetic component. So that's going to be something that you can be set up for, for a migraine predisposition. The traumas and the emotional experiences that happen, we know that that is a huge factor as well. And we know that there is a lot of Kind of fight or flight where the migraineur's body gets stuck in that fight or flight response. So the stress response is always activated. And again, that can come back to, you know, a traumatic event. It can come back to chronic stress and not having enough healthy coping mechanisms. Like maybe they weren't taught how to breathe through, you know, a stress response, or maybe they were predisposed to anxiety. And so their body just turns on and then it just forgets how to turn off. And so that kind of hyperactivity can stimulate, overstimulate the brain. We can see a lot of nutrient deficiencies in the migraineur. There is a theory that there is mitochondrial dysfunction. So the mitochondria, if you remember back to 8th grade biology, it's the powerhouse of the cell. So every cell has mitochondria in it, and that's what produces the energy for the cell to function.

Mm-hmm.

When we don't have properly functioning mitochondria, then we don't have enough cellular energy for our cells to do the jobs effectively that it needs to do, right? So they're struggling to even just get the basics done. And so there's a new theory that's formulating that shows there's a relationship between chronic migraines, chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic fibromyalgia, things like that, and mitochondrial dysfunction. So again, there's another potential genetic piece. If it's running in the women of the family, we can look to How is the mitochondria functioning? So all of these things, and then, you know, we've got food sensitivities and, and, you know, histamine issues and, and all kinds of stuff that can come into that, that, that picture. And again, that's where it can be very individualized. But there are things that we know kind of run through the majority of people— electrolyte imbalance, mitochondrial function, poor detoxing skills. And then again, there's a lot of genetics that, that can be cleaned up and optimized as well. So those are kind of some of those foundational things.

Yeah.

And then, of course, working on diet, eating whole foods, healthy, as much as they can, organic diet can go a long way towards that as well.

Fantastic answer. That actually answered a lot of things for myself. I don't actually have migraines, but I do get headaches. And through a lot of trial and error, I worked out that the headaches are food-related.

Hmm.

But, you know, the tiredness, whenever I feel really tired, I tend to get a headache. I never go as far as a migraine, but that certainly answers a lot of— and I'm sure for a lot of our listeners, those nagging little things of, why suddenly am I getting a headache? And they can't trace or they don't know what to trace back to. Was it this? Was it food? It's that sort of You know, helping yourself. But you have to understand from what you were saying what to look for in yourself.

Exactly.

Circling back to what you said earlier, which was one of my main questions, is around hormones. Because even though I don't get migraines, menopause has caused some of the most severe headaches I've ever experienced. Yeah. And I think when I speak to friends and family, you know, they all say the same thing. The headaches are like debilitating, but certainly not for us migraine level. What is the correlation between hormones and migraine and what's happening there? And especially in menopause or perimenopause even.

That's, that's huge. Um, one of the things that absolutely drives me crazy is when a cycling woman comes to me and says, well, their doctors have done everything And they said, just hang on till menopause and hopefully it'll get better. And it's like, the research shows that 33% of postmenopausal women will get worsening migraines, 33% will have no change in migraines, and 33% will improve. So that's a 1 in 3 chance that they'll get better if you wait the 10 years until menopause and then cross your fingers that you're not in the other 66%, right? So the thing that we're up against with hormones, there's a couple of major factors. One of the first that most people don't know about is how important our estrogen to progesterone ratio is. We are a very estrogen dominant society, and I don't think it would matter if it's in the UK or the US or Australia, New Zealand, wherever you are. We tend to run very estrogen dominant. It has to do with just the way that we live life on the planet Earth now. And so what ends up happening is when our progesterone starts to decline because of these stress, this stress that we're always under, our estrogen still usually remains fairly steady until farther on into this process. So the first thing to start dropping is often the progesterone. And when we start getting a lower level of progesterone, it's anti-inflammatory, it's calming, it helps us to sleep. It's a neurosteroid, so it reduces inflammation in the brain. It helps to support serotonin and GABA, some of our helpful anti-migraine neurotransmitters. And so you can start to see as these things start to decline, and estrogen is the opposite, it's more stimulating, more anxiety-producing. We tend to sleep less well when we're estrogen dominant. We get more moody. And so you can see if we're starting to not sleep as well, then that's got its own set of problems that comes on. And then we slowly see this devolving into this really ill state of the chronic migraine. And so there's a few things that when it comes to looking at hormones, this is why it's so important to have functional testing done, because you can't look at the ratio on blood tests. You have to look at it from a functional standpoint. So again, urine or saliva. And you can look at the ratio of how your body is utilizing estrogen compared to progesterone. And typically what I tend to see is that it's a ratio of around 1:30 to maybe 1:50 is generally what I see. We should be at 1:200.

Mm-hmm.

So they're, you know, 4 times lower than they should be to feel good. And so their numbers might come back normal. They have a normal amount of those of estrogen and progesterone when they're tested in blood work. But it's that ratio that is so important and that is never looked at, and it's vital in chronic migraine. So that's one piece. And postmenopausally, everything gets thrown out the window, right? The ratios are all off and all of our hormones drop.

Yeah.

When we're looking at hormones postmenopausally, our ovaries stop working and our our adrenals start to take over that hormone production postmenopausal. And so again, because of our stressful lifestyle and, you know, just how we live life, our adrenals aren't equipped in a lot of cases to handle that transition well. So then what ends up happening is we go from way up here on our hormones and we drop over a period of a few years and we drop below where we can feel good. And so then postmenopausally, we're We're suffering from low levels of estrogen, low levels of progesterone, imbalanced ratio, and it's those drops and swings that happen that contribute to the migraine. So if we could just stay steady and we have just enough to make us feel good, we're not going to get the migraines. And those are the lucky 33%. But the other 66% are the ones that either their adrenals are really trying hard, so it will throw out some hormones and then it'll be pooped and it can't put out anymore. So then those hormone levels drop and then you get a migraine and then it tries it again. And so you're getting these swings. And then in some cases, there's just such a low level of hormones, period, that you can't function well and you just don't feel good at all, ever. So, so that can be a real problem in, in conventional approaches if they're not looking at how that ratio is and what your levels are, because the postmenopausal ranges for hormones are less than, right? Less than 5, less than 10. That doesn't tell us if you're too low, period, right? And so that can be a huge problem because you're within normal range because you're less than what you should be, but it doesn't tell you if you're below a level that would make you feel good.

Wow. So with functional medicine, my understanding is your testing is within a much more narrower range of what think is normal compared to functional is what I'm understanding. Is that right?

Well, so functional testing will take a look at— it will measure if you're below the normal postmenopausal range as well as premenopausal and all of that. So it will give us— in the test that I use, it's on like a little dial. And so it gives us like this little section of the dial where you should be to be ideally within a postmenopausal range. So that's really helpful in understanding, oh, you're way down here. Like it looks like you're at almost zero estrogen. That's not going to let anybody feel good. So then we know, all right, we need to support you with estrogen, but we can't just give you estrogen. We have to give you some progesterone too because we have to keep in mind that ratio. And postmenopausally, nobody gives progesterone because there's no reason to. So you'll get estrogen, but you won't ever get progesterone. And again, from a postmenopausal migraine standpoint, you have to have both in the right amounts in order to feel good. And so that can be a reason why You know, they might try a hormone and they're like, well, this didn't really work for me, so I don't think it's hormonal. The testing comes back that it shows that I'm fine, when in reality it's just that the doctor prescribing the medication doesn't understand it from a hormone— from a migraine standpoint, and that prescribing it is a little bit different than it is for the, the non-migraineur postmenopause woman.

Wouldn't it be the same for even, like you're saying, for a non-migraineur? that they would need— if they're that low in hormones, that they would need both anyway? Because I know someone who is postmenopausal, and she went to your conventional doctor, and she was just given estrogen, or estro, or whatever it's called, um, and nothing else. And I don't think she saw any change or any help whatsoever.

Yeah, yeah, that's not surprising.

Yeah. What is some of the latest research around migraines?

Well, the biggest one that I've been following, as I mentioned earlier, is that mitochondrial piece. So that's been really fascinating to understand. And I've really actually seen a huge change in the response to treatment with my clients when we added just that piece alone. And so now that's something that everybody goes through regardless. And then if they notice a huge difference, we know that they were really deficit in these nutrients. So we continue to support that. If they try it for you know a month or two and they're like, I don't know if it really did much. Great. Then that might not have been a big issue for them. But I would say you know the vast majority of them notice at least some level of improvement with that mitochondrial support. So that's a big one. The other one that I think is is pretty significant is understanding how some of these other genes. So like the COMT gene, the MAO MAO gene, the DAO gene, like how these are all contributing to the migraine. So this is an ongoing study or ongoing field of study as we learn a little bit more about the genetics and how they can play a role. It's not causation per se. It doesn't necessarily mean that if you have the DAO issue, that then you're going to have migraines. So there isn't, there isn't that link. But we tend to see like people with MTHFR issues, there's like a 40— I think it was 46% of people with migraines had this MTHFR issue. That's almost half. So that's pretty significant. So understanding some of that is, is really vital as well.

Can you explain a little bit what you mean by MTHFR and the DAO or DAO? DAO. Those are just genes. What are they? Just people understand.

So DAO is responsible for how your body is able to break down and process histamine. It's diamine oxidase, which is responsible for breaking down histamine. So some people with those mutations, they, they tend to have problems with high histamine foods. They tend to have symptoms like MCAS, mast cell activation syndrome. They have a lot of allergies, things like that. The other one I mentioned, MTHFR, this one's actually fairly well known, at least in most of the people that I talk with. It's— okay, ready for this? Methyltetrahydrofolate reductase. And that has to—

That's a mouthful.

Say that 3 times fast. But that one is responsible— it's an enzyme that's produced that's responsible for a whole host of processes in the cell along the methylation cycle, which is basically— you can think of it like how your cells are able to put a lock on different things that need to be processed or done in the body. And without this methyl key, It can't get out of the body. It can't be processed properly. So this methyl group is really important. And if you don't have MTHFR, the methyltetrahydrofolate reductase enzyme, then you can't produce and utilize this methyl group properly.

And then I assume that has a whole range of other—

Whole range. Yeah. There's no one thing. This is like across the board cells. It's how your body can detox. It's how your body can break things down. It's how your body can absorb nutrients. I mean, all kinds of stuff that it does.

So obviously you can see how well, if you're not processing and detoxing, how that can contribute. Because most people will realize now that toxins float around your body or move around your body, can actually get into the brain. And that's, I guess, what you're saying will contribute to a migraine.

It can, absolutely. Yeah. And we— and that, and that's— that brings up another really good research area where Um, they're actually finding that chronic migraineurs tend to have a lot of, uh, deficiency in their antioxidants. So their most powerful antioxidants, which is what helps us to break down and get rid of, uh, the toxins and inflammation in our body. And when we don't have enough antioxidants, then those things that are causing damage to our body can just keep running around causing damage to our body and causing inflammation, which then causes has, you know, a big, you know, cascade of, of other issues. It burns through a lot of nutrients. And so if we're deficient in this, again, that can come back to genetics that are involved with that. It can come back to diet. It can come back to lifestyle. So there's a lot of different things that can have a positive influence. But, um, they're, they're finding that there's actually a huge— I mean, this was in the 90% where 90% of chronic migraineurs had deficiencies in these really important things in our body. So that was another kind of game changer over the last 10 years as far as treating migraines goes.

And that actually— that, that's fascinating. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people Googling now. They're going to take all those terms and they're on Google right now checking them out because, you know, it's very hard. You may know that you have histamine or some other form of food allergy, but you're just not joining the dots. That that could be the contributor to your migraine because we're sort of brought up separating everything, compartmentalizing everything. So everyone goes, "I've got a migraine that's over here. I have food intolerance or histamine, and that's over here." But it's joining those dots. You know, from what you were saying, it's going to be so helpful to so many people. What are some of the be hard to— main triggers for migraine, like maybe it's environmental for some. I know it's all individual, but in your practice, is there any main triggers that you see across the board for people?

Yeah, so, um, so food tends to be a big trigger for a lot of people, um, and most people are aware of how food impacts their migraines, um, and, and that leads to another problem that we tend to see As far as restricting foods and starting to become malnourished as a result, because the only thing they can figure out is the foods that's triggering them. So they kind of start eliminating all the different variety, and then suddenly we're stuck with, you know, 3 or 4 things they eat all the time, and they start becoming deficient in certain nutrients that then propagates that problem. And so that can be really tricky. But, but so food can be a big thing. The another big issue that I tend to see triggering is stress. Like, food and stress are the first 2 things.

Mm-hmm.

that we want to look at. We want to look at how your body can handle stress, how you're— how you are actively working to keep your stress down. This is like— this is a big thing that we teach a lot about, is our stress awareness, our stress management. Are we breathing properly? Because when we get stressed, we tend to breathe really shallowly. We don't get enough oxygen. Lack of oxygen triggers the brain. The brain becomes hyperactive because it's freaking out that it doesn't have enough oxygen, and then a migraine Mm-hmm. Lack of oxygen also causes our muscles to get really tight. And so if we're not breathing properly, our muscles can't relax, and that can trigger a migraine. So stress is huge. And then I tend to see hormones being right up there as far as where you're at in your cycle, if you're postmenopausal and things have gotten worse, those types of things. And so I'd say those are probably the 3 biggest, followed by some of the other stuff that we've talked about, some of the specific genetics that can be involved, the neurotransmitter imbalances. And although that— I guess that would be more related to stress again, right, as being the trigger because of how that influences our neurotransmitters. And then sleep is another big one if we're not getting enough of it, if our sleep is just poor. And again, that can come back to hormone imbalances, inflammation from food, those types of things. If we're not establishing a good sleep cycle, you know, we sleep in on the weekends because we want to, we get to.

Right.

But from a migraine standpoint, even just an hour sleeping past our normal wake-up time throws our body into confusion. And so it puts out its cortisol that it needs, that it thinks it's ready for at 7:00 a.m. when you normally get up, and then suddenly you're like, oh, we're not getting up. And so the body shuts that off. And that drop of cortisol, when we wake up an hour later, you have this rager. And it's because your body realized, oh, I'm not supposed to put out cortisol right now. So it withdraws it as much as it can. It just stops making it, and that drop will actually trigger, trigger the migraine. So getting up at the same time regardless of day of the week, weekend, whatever, going to bed at the same time. So your body is really— I mean, we— our migraine bodies are so super sensitive, so we just have to stay on schedules at least until we've healed. Now I can sleep in 2 hours later on the weekends if I want to, but it really used to be a big trigger for me to, to get up early.

Sounds like routine is important.

Routine is important. Routine and walking gently with things that people try. And what I mean by that is people will hear, oh, methylfolate is supposed to be really good. Excuse me. Methylfolate is supposed to be really good. Magnesium is supposed to be really good. B2 is supposed to be really good. I'm going to try all these things. They take a normal dose and suddenly something that hasn't been working well gets the nutrients that it needs and it just revs up to full speed. And migraine bodies do not like that. Even if it's a good thing where it's working properly, if it's a sudden shift from like 2 miles an hour to 60, that will trigger a migraine. So it's something where people have to go very, very gently. And introduce, you know, hormones. You can't give somebody who's deficient in progesterone a normal amount of progesterone, or— and by normal, I mean what you would typically prescribe to a non-migrainer, because if you do that, that estrogen and progesterone ratio really changes very quickly, and that will trigger a migraine. So again, it's going ridiculously slowly and making sure that they're slowly ramping up so that their body doesn't get too overwhelmed with too much change too quickly.

That really speaks to the fact of so many people going to the self-diagnostic, you know, self-diagnosing themselves and then buying supplements and taking all these different supplements without actually really knowing what they're doing. And they could be triggering their migraine because they've read on the internet or somewhere or within a group that it's worked for somebody else. And, or, yeah, yeah.

And then a lot of times, you know, they can find some magic gem, but, but a lot of times what I also see is they took it and they think that they failed it, that it made things worse, when in reality it might have been exactly what they needed. It just was too much too quickly, so they didn't dose properly for what their body needed.

Right. And what about when people— I've always heard of people, as soon as they feel like they're getting a migraine Yeah, light can be huge. Yeah. What is that about? What's, what's the significance of the light on migraine?

Well, one of the diagnostic criteria and a very, very common symptom that comes along with a migraine is light sensitivity. So being exposed to light feels like stabbing needles in your eyes. So you want to go anywhere where there's no light. You want to just Just that way your body, your brain doesn't have to process that. And, um, and that can be, that can just make everything feel 10 times worse.

What advice can you give to someone who has just listened to this episode? They're curious about those neurotransmitters or any of the testing, but they're under the care of a doctor or a neurologist. But they really want to advocate for themselves and have something tested. What what advice can you give them, and what are some of the things that they could actually say to advocate for these tests if they haven't come to someone like you?

Yeah, so one of the first things that I would suggest is looking to see if there's a functional medicine doctor or a naturopathic doctor in their area, because we're we're the ones who are trained on how to utilize these types of tests.

Mm-hmm.

Whereas a neurologist might not be. And so that alone is going to be huge because they're going to be approaching the migraines from a completely different standpoint. If they don't have one locally, a lot of times you can establish care via Zoom. At least one good thing that came out of COVID is that we now have a lot more telemedicine options available. So there are a lot of people that now can see patients via telehealth that used to not be available to them. So that's something to look into if you don't have someone locally in your area. And then the other thing is there are a lot of, of online places that you can self-order some of these tests now. So not every test has to be ordered by a doctor. There are many places where you can go to order your own testing. And so that can be really helpful for people who have maybe a less than cooperative neurologist or, or, you know, conventional doctor who, who's not willing to, to order any of those. Um, and then if you really just want to try to include your doctor but they just don't know what the research says, then they can certainly, you know, if they, if they're up for it and know how to do the research themselves, they can look for the research around some of these functional testing options and bring some of that to their doctor to say, no, look, this is a legitimate testing option, and I'd really like to explore it.

Fantastic. I love that because people need to be armed with this information, you know, and have the courage. By listening to this, you know, people can develop the courage to expand what they've been used to or what they think they can have. I mean, you can go to a neurologist, but, you know, find a functional doctor, find someone like you if you're not not getting any results, or you don't want to live on medication. What's that? Because I'm sure there's so many side effects to a lot of that long-term medication use.

There is, absolutely. And, and I, I see it all the time where people come in and they've, you know, had— they had, they had to take their triptans, and, and they're up to taking, you know, 10 to 15 a month. And at that point now, you're in a medication overuse migraine situation. So that, that cycle has to be broken. before you can even think about moving forward in treating the imbalances. So they actually absolutely can contribute to that syndrome. And unfortunately, if that's the only options that they have, then it's really hard for them to figure out, well, how can I break it? I can't just live in misery for 10 days a month or whatever. So, yeah.

So if we go circle back, some of the biggest triggers, if we actually go back over interviews, some of the biggest triggers are things like stress, trauma, food, and sleep, and routine.

And hormones. Yep.

Hormones and routine. So they're things that some, you know, people really need to take ownership, kind of take ownership of. Like, check the food you're eating, I guess. Check your stress levels, um, see somebody, a therapist, for your trauma. These are all things that someone can do themselves to help manage their migraine. Is that correct?

Absolutely, yeah. And then, and then just educating themselves a little bit around some of the other things that we talked about— the mitochondria piece, the antioxidant piece— and just understanding, you know, there's a lot more that research has shown over the last 5 to 10 years that you bring up to a neurologist and they're like, I don't even know what you're talking about. I don't know what glutathione is. Well, glutathione is our most potent antioxidant, and this is what's been found to be deficient in people with chronic migraine. So that's something that, in my opinion, the neurologist should know about if they're following the research in that migraine piece. And unfortunately, there's so many different things for a doctor to try to stay up on. that it's just not realistic to expect them to be on top of everything, which is why if you have a specific problem and you do some of the research for them and you bring that to them— I loved when patients brought me studies that they found, and then I could review it really quickly and be like, this is very interesting, I need to know a little bit more about this, how can this impact how I care for my patients?

Mm-hmm.

Um, you know, or, you know, sometimes I read them, I'm like, yeah, this is not a study worth looking at, you know. But your doctor is going to be able to know that. And if it's a good doctor, they're going to want to learn and understand so that they can better help their patients. So that's how patients can help to train doctors, is by doing some of this research, being a support for them, and bringing it to them and saying, hey, you know, look what I found. This is really interesting. What can we do about this?

I love that. I love that because that's that whole self-advocacy and that self-empowerment within your condition. And you can't expect that a general practitioner who has to know A lot about everything and has a 10-minute appointment can stay on top of everything. So to become informed and educated, I think that two-way street is developing more and more, and I think it's a brilliant way to go because you have to work in partnership with someone.

Absolutely. Yeah, I, I always look at my patients as my partners, right? I'm not there to tell them what to do because they're the expert on their own body. But we can work together because I have the medical knowledge on how a body should work, and they have a knowledge of how their body is working. And together we can figure out what's the best approach for you. And, and that's— it's, it's just a wonderful and beautiful relationship when, when you're working in partnership with your patient, with your doctor. And that's when we start seeing true changes happening in, in the patient.

Yeah, brilliant. I love that. I love it. Which brings me to— I would like, uh, to talk a little bit about how someone can work with you. Like, you're my— you have a Migraine Mastery 24-week online program designed to help women with chronic migraines. And the interesting thing here with your program is that it's for people who are unresponsive to conventional treatment. I find that fascinating. Because so many are, yeah, you know, unresponsive to things, and then they're left— they're left to just deal with it.

Yeah.

Please tell us a little bit about what a migraine sufferer will get and what's the outcome if they booked into your program.

Yeah, thanks. Um, so our, uh, as you mentioned, it's a 24- week program. And what we do is we go through all of the things that I touched on, right? And we touched on a lot of things, so it can feel extremely overwhelming. It's like, how in the world do I look at my genes and my hormones and my neurotransmitters and knowing what neurotransmitters are affected by what genes and our mitochondria? And so what we've done is we kind of step each week, we're working on one specific, one or two specific things. things that are then taking them down this path, figuring out, is this an issue for you or not? Because if it's not, we don't want to waste our time with it, and, and you don't have enough bandwidth to, to deal with all of it anyway. So it helps to walk them through all of those things and then gives them the, the protocols and the support and the things that they can do if they do find they've got mitochondria issues or hormone issues or detox issues. What can they do about it? And so we walk them through what they can do about it. We have weekly Q&A sessions where we're able to sit down, you know, me with the, the group, and we just kind of talk about what they've figured out, what they have questions on. So they just feel supported through the whole process. And then ideally, their doctor is involved in this as well and is another resource. So they've got kind of a team gathering around them, so they don't feel like they're just out there floating by themselves with no resources. We're there to try to help set them up with people in their area that can help them with testing ordering, with, uh, you know, medications if they need it, giving them suggestions on other things that they can try. And then really helping them to build that team around them so that they feel supported and cared for. And our success rate is about— on average, we see a 91% reduction. And these are women that have 20 to 30 migraine days a month when they start with us and are on medications more than half the month. So it really does work. It's all based on the science, the most recent science that we have. And it's— I love doing it. I love it.

That is fantastic. That gives so much hope to so many migraine sufferers. And it is key when you say that care plan, working together in harmony with everyone, because one of the things I find is that it's the overwhelm. You know, you have a condition and someone says, oh, look at this, and you put it into your bag. You have a look at that and you put it into your Try this, and you put it into your bag, and you end up with so many things in your bag that you feel—

You have no idea what order to put it in.

You don't know what to do. And one of the things I think is missing for a lot is, okay, I've got all this in my bag, but how do I bring it together and pull that drawstring closed? And this is where, you know, this is, this is my path, this is what's working, you know. Who helps them do that? Because otherwise it's just all these pieces. That's what I love about this. Which brings me to my last question. What myth around alternative medical treatments do you encounter?

I'd have to say that the one that frustrates me the most and that I hear the most often is that it's not science-based, that it's very woo-woo and they do all these weird things. And that's very much not the case. In fact, I've actually cited multiple studies through our talk just today, Right. So that's right. Alternative healthcare, because we know that we're kind of on the skeptics list, we tend to be much more diligent about researching the latest studies and really looking at what science is showing us. So we can be kind of at top of— not only do we do what we're supposed to do as far as standard of care, but then alternating things as we learn more about the human body and how it's functioning. And a study Here's another study for you that I saw a while ago showed that conventional standard of care treatment in conventional medicine is 20 years behind the research. So we're waiting 20 years for the practice of medicine to change based on our understanding of the human body.

Mm-hmm.

And I first discovered this with cholesterol medications, right? They actually showed cholesterol medications don't make a difference in heart attacks and strokes. And this was probably when I first started looking at this, this was probably about 20 years ago. Um, and they're still prescribing, uh, cholesterol medications to prevent heart attacks, and, and they're, they're showing that it makes absolutely no difference in death outcomes. So it's not about the level of cholesterol, it's about the inflammation. And, uh, and that came out a long time ago, and yet we're still practicing the old way, and nobody's addressing the inflammation, which is what's killing people. So this is, you know, this is a very common myth that we're not paying attention or that we don't utilize science. Now, sure, do we do alternative options? Do we work with herbs and, you know, energetic medicine? We do. And that's where we get kind of the woo-woo part. But there's actually a lot of research on energetic medicine and some of these supplements and things. It's just not as heavily studied because people can't make money off of herbs. It's, it's, it's nature, you know, it's, it's a God thing. So, um, you can't, you can't, uh, you can't monetize that as well. So there's not as much study, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't work.

Beautiful. And I hope that does dispel so many myths that people may have, or if, if someone's unsure about booking in, you know, to somebody like yourself to get the help that they think, oh no, I'm going down some rabbit hole or whatever. That it is true. It is true. It's it's a fascinating area, and it's emerging more and more. And oh, I really hope that so many people do start having that more holistic approach to their health, and especially their migraines that we're talking about today. And it has been such a pleasure to have you on, Tanya. So informative around what causes the migraines and what they can do about it. And if anybody. Is suffering with migraines, all of Tanya's, uh, details— her website, her socials, her 24-week online program— will be in the show notes. Please contact her, help yourself. Thank you, Tanya.

Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

It's been a pleasure. Thank you. I would love to know what was the biggest insight or Aha moment you got from this interview, so you can now speak up, take action, and make informed decisions for your health. And if you like this episode, get instant access to your free ebook, Alternative Wisdom: Taking Back Control of Your Health, at life-onus.com.