Migraines - Triggers R Not Root Causes - Part 1

Instagram @doctorhoustonanderson 
Come on over and ask some questions! 

Looking to connect with Dr. Anderson?
https://linktr.ee/doctorhouston

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to the functionalmedicine and natural healing
podcast where we share thesecrets to upgrade your
digestion, improve yourhormones, restore your immune
system and detoxify your body.
I'm your host, Dr. HoustonAnderson. Now let's get started.
The following discussion is foreducational purposes, it is not
intended to diagnose or treat.

(00:24):
always discuss medicaltreatments or medical
interventions to your personalphysician. Alright guys, welcome
back. This is Dr. HoustonAnderson here. And today we're
going to talk about migraines.
If you haven't seen me around onthe podcast it is because
practice is pretty busy. Andwe're doing a ton of actually
Instagram right now. So if youwant more answers or more
information for me, go check meout on Instagram. We're doing

(00:45):
Instagram lives, we're doing Qand A's, we're doing interviews,
things like that. And my aunt ormy follow there is Dr. Houston
Anderson. So spelled out D o c to ar Houston Anderson. So go
follow me there. And I'll kindof go through some things there
in addition to this podcast toanswer some questions that you
may have after listening to thepodcast. So stay tuned to the
end of this podcast, actually,we'll answer some questions that

(01:08):
people asked previously onInstagram as kind of motivation
to inspire this podcast. As wesaw chronic migraines was a huge
problem that people weresuffering from when I asked, you
know, the general population,what are some things that you're
just really having a hard timecovering, recovering from? Okay,
so let's talk about chronicmigraines real quick. In the
clinic or in the office, thebiggest thing I see when people
fail to get results withmigraines is that they're using

(01:29):
a single dimension approach.
Okay, so one person thinks that,oh, it's just when I get
dehydrated, I get migraines, andother person thinks it's foods.
And everyone thinks that stress,maybe they think, Oh, it was
just my job, or it's just myspouse, or it's just my kids,
when I moved through this, I'llbe fine. And I find that with
any chronic condition, you wantto address it from every angle

(01:52):
possible, in order to get thebody back to what I call balance
or homeostasis. So if you canget to that basic balance, then
your body has a much easier timemaintaining, then you may be
able to figure out what yourtriggers are oftentimes with
some of these chronicconditions, specifically
migraines, and headaches, isthat you don't really know
what's causing it. Sometimesit's bright light, sometimes
it's not. So what you need to dois get down to where your body

(02:14):
is healthy enough for you toeven understand we see this a
lot with gut health too is thatyou know, someone's got is so
irritated that something canirritate it. One, they can eat
McDonald's and feel just fine.
And they could eat broccoli andbe sick the very next day. Now
there's patterns in this that usdoctors know. But otherwise,
people are really confused as tolike what is really causing it
because there's not aconsistency or a theme. Okay, so

(02:35):
the one thing I can tell youfrom my experience in the office
about chronic migraines is that90% Of those, whether they've
lasted 10 years, 20 years, 30years are very treatable. So I'm
not here to downplay theseverity of your migraines or
say that it was easy, but rathersay that even for the patients
that are super suffering, theconventional medicine approaches

(02:57):
or the standard approachesyou're gonna get from your
doctor's office. And a lot ofpeople think they go to a
neurologist and think like,that's the end all be all, as if
that neurologist knowseverything about the body. No,
they assess your neurologicalsystem. And they looked at what
tools they have. And sooftentimes, they don't have many
tools other than drugs andsurgery, so you're stuck where
you're at, right? If they don'tneed to cut out your brain, then

(03:17):
you may not have as many optionsfrom them. If you don't want to
take a medication like a lot ofmy patients do. Don't, a lot of
my patients don't want to takethat medication, then you're
going to be kind of stuck up thecreek without a paddle. So let's
talk about understandingmigraines from a basic
perspective. But I want you tofocus on this because it's
really important as far as whenyou understand the way it really

(03:38):
works. Because like I said, manypeople don't understand what
their migraine is or how it goesabout. But to oversimplify the
concept of what's happening witha migraine, it's multifactorial,
and so once again, thatneurologist isn't going to be
able to figure it out in andhave in and of themselves, right
they can't be the only one thatworks with you on this model.

(03:59):
But the best model thatunderstands the root cause of
migraines is that your brain isin what we call a hyper
excitable state or anoverstimulated state. The
overstimulating state changeshow your nerves fire, how
frequently they fire and howlong they stay on and how fast
they shut off. It also changesyour blood flow, so how much
blood too much not enough, andalso changes your glial system

(04:21):
when you're in a overstimulatedstate so that your brain immune
system. So with your brainimmune system, that's going to
create a lot of inflammation.
When the vascular blood flowsless you can have a build up of
lymphatic tissue of lymphaticwaste, and that lymphatic waste
can lead to one of the reasonswhy it takes so long to get over

(04:42):
a migraine where they can last,you know, 72 hours or longer.
And oftentimes if you're someonethat suffers from migraines for
like, weeks at a time, like youhave one that lasts like a week
and a half or something likethat, you're having two or three
migraines and you just haven'treally been able to separate the
difference between the two. Butthat's not as common as you
think. usually lasts a day,three days, something like that.

(05:02):
And they kind of go away as yourbody finds the mechanisms to, to
uncomplicate, that inflammationof the brain, or that hyper
sensitization. So, once again toover over simplify to simplify
that whole thing. So you guysunderstand nerve stimulation,
blood flow and your immunesystem are the three things that
are at the root of the migraine.
So like I said at the beginning,if you're looking at like, if

(05:24):
you're looking at migraines froma single perspective, like, oh,
it's probably just a foodallergy. Well, yeah, that food
allergy would fall into thecategory of specifically
stimulating nerves if it's ahistamine thing, or the immune
system, if it's a food allergything, to where you could have
either one that that stimulatesthat nervous system. Okay. So

(05:47):
triggers versus root causes iswhat I want to talk about next.
triggers for migraines arerarely root causes of migraines,
which is why people get soconfused on the treatment and
why many patients suffer, eventhough they're trying really
hard. Okay, so let's look atsome of the triggers alcohol,
wine, caffeine, coffee, evendecaf, loud sounds, bright
lights, strong smells, perfumes,lotions, cleaners, things like

(06:11):
that. Smoke stress exercise inour course, barometric pressure
changes, barometric pressurechanges or weather changes.
Really any medication like birthcontrol any kind of pill, like a
blood pressure pill, salt,cheese and tyramine which we'll
cover in a second, aspartame andmsg. So those are all common

(06:31):
triggers. Though, though, Iwouldn't say that most of those
minus one of those would be apossible root cause, which is
that cheese cheese can be a rootcause of migraines and very
common in the migrainepopulation. Okay, let's talk
about another one are migraines,genetic, I always say they lie
to you, right. So they're gonnatell you that everything that
your mom has is genetic, it'snot true. But a lot of people

(06:52):
are held other dealt a hardhanded genetics, which means
that essentially, you're likerunning a race, and you have to
start like a mile behind theother person, it's possible to
win. But it's harder for youthan others, for sure. And
that's the bad genetics, but themigraine themselves, we don't
find a ton of geneticcorrelation as much as we find

(07:12):
different systems in the bodythat might be genetically
inferior to say, the person thatcan get away with anything. So
we all know those people, right?
The person that can do whateverthey want to their body, and
they feel great, or at least wethink so. I think recently,
we've seen a lot of those peoplehave some more health problems
when you introduce things likeinjected toxins and things like

(07:33):
that. So but I would say there'sthere's two main genetic
components that you want to payattention to, that make it a
little bit harder for people tostay away from migraines. And
the first one is liverdetoxification. So a lot of
people have different inability.
So you tox from the liver, thatcan be a genetic factor. And
then the other one actuallyfunny enough is the part of your
body that controls sodium,potassium.

(07:58):
And that story of sodium,potassium, and calcium. If
you're either prone to thateither from an adrenal kind of
inheritance issue, or from likea parathyroid or thyroid issue,
you'll find that those problemswill often have a familial
connection, though, once again,it's not a causative connection.
So I'm not I'm not saying thatbecause you have genetics that

(08:20):
you're have to have migraines.
But if you have these badgenetics, you may be more prone
to them, which means you have tobe more careful about your
lifestyle, which if you havemigraines, and you're not
willing to be careful about yourlifestyle, the honest truth is
you probably won't see very goodresults. It is something that
takes awareness, it takessomething that that requires
healing and then once you havethat healing, then you have to
go and kind of live thatlifestyle for quite some time,

(08:41):
if not forever. So let's talkabout that root cause that I
mentioned before the theoverstimulated or over
sensitized nerves that you have.
So to just explain that I have acouple analogies here that will
go through your nervous systemrests at a specific level, it
should be essentially cool, calmand collected most of the time,

(09:03):
and then an extreme step stresssituations, it should be able to
be ramped up and on high alertimmediately, okay? In migraine
individuals or sufferers, thenervous to close to being
irritated. Okay, so the examplesthat that I want you to imagine
for me, so imagine this, imagineyou're driving your car, because
today's the day after Christmas,imagine driving in your car with

(09:25):
your family and friends.
Everyone's laughing, having agood time. Everyone's happy
about the Christmas season,everyone got gifts, and they're
their favorite gifts, and theydidn't get anything they didn't
like, and you're driving homefrom an event and then someone
cuts you off and slams on theirbrakes, right. So you have a
little bit of a scare, you slowdown within a couple of seconds,
you're back to laughing withyour friends and family and
enjoying the rest of yourholiday season. And this is an
example of where you're in a lowstimulation state, the person

(09:48):
cuts you off and you're able toget back to your normal self
pretty quick. In a secondexample, that's probably maybe
even more common we would say,say you're driving home from a
long day at work. You know youYou have a you have a sink full
of dishes that you didn't get tolast night because you were too
tired. The rest of the house isa mess. You forgot to go
shopping for food and you'resitting here trying to eat
healthy. So now you have to,like, have this like what can I

(10:08):
even eat and you're starvingbecause you didn't have time to,
to eat at work. You and yourspouse might be in an argument
over like you know, the holidaypresents to buy, how you're
going to pay your bills, howmany credit cards to use, how
many credit cards not to use.
Maybe you have kids that arefailing their classes at school,
they waited, you know, allsemester to finish their project
like the night before. And nowsomeone cuts you off in your car

(10:30):
on your way home, what do youdo? So first, you slam on your
brakes, of course, maybe use afew choice curse words, you race
forward, you show them some signlanguage that's not nice. And
lets them know that you don'tappreciate them cutting you off,
then you speed off ahead andmaybe you're upset for 510 15
minutes, or maybe you don't evencalm down before you go to bed
that night, you're like I justgot to go to bed. In a lot of

(10:52):
scenarios, this is where thehyper excitable or
overstimulated nerves are in amigraine patient. So you're
right on that edge all the time,it really didn't matter if
someone cuts you off. Or ifsomeone said, you know, ask you
to help them out with somethingyou were so irritated and on
edge, that you weren't reallygoing to recover from that
event. Anyway, this is the waythe nervous system works. So

(11:13):
your nerves should be sittingmuch below that threshold is
what we call it. So is thatthreshold is at what point you
become irritated or stimulant atwhat point that nerve fires, and
it should be really low. And sowith migraines, your goal is to
do whatever you can to get yournerves, the individual nerves as
far away from that threshold aspossible, so that you can handle

(11:34):
a stressful event, you canhandle any of the triggers. If
you think about light being atrigger, obviously light is not
a dangerous thing in mostscenarios. But a bright light
sets off a migraine why is that?
Because the nerves in the eyesare so very powerful. And they
receive a lot of light that assoon as that happens, it sets
off the nerve, it begins to fireand all of a sudden you go into

(11:55):
your phases of the migrant.
Okay, so essentially what I cansay about those two scenarios is
it was the same person, it wasyou the same event, it was
someone cutting you off, but thereactions of the body can be
very different when you're in ahyper excitable state. So
sometimes that could take hoursdays, or it actually takes works

(12:15):
to cool it down. Now you got todo some meditation to calm down
from that guy cut you off well,or you gotta do meditation to
keep yourself from having amigraine. Now this is very true
meditation does work frommigraines, but I always say
like, Why do you have tomeditate and no one else does to
keep the migraines away. This isimportant information for you to
know. Okay, so so back to onceagain, this is root cause the
nervous system being hyperexcitable, while it's at resting

(12:38):
state, your vascular blood flowchanges and your immune system,
which is your main inflammatorysystem that affects your nerves.
Those are the things that arethat are inflamed. Now I do have
to say like the elephant in theroom for all migraine sufferers
is if you don't know that youhaven't Googled ever and you
don't really have intentions butof healing. But MSG
preservatives and food dyes likethese are standard things that

(13:00):
have to be cut out. If you'retrying to eliminate migraines,
you think you're going to eatCheetos and process lunchmeat
every day, you're not going tobe successful. So some of the
common triggers, obviously youdo have to avoid yet once again,
the triggers aren't root causes.
Nearly all the patients I'vetreated the migraines have a
food allergy or food sensitivityat the root of their migraines.

(13:21):
And that's probably arguably oneof the most important things
that we have to address andanyone that comes into the
office. I always say like ifyou're if you're young, when
your migraine starts a five to12 years old, or even really
before 20 You're looking atthings like eggs or dairy
creating some of those migrainesis a food allergen. And then if
you're an older person thinking2530 Plus, you're thinking corn
and gluten as more of your foodallergies. Now, of course,

(13:45):
there's a million differentthings you can do. But there's a
lot of foods that can set youoff. So for example, like say
garlic sets you offer or anorganic apple could even set you
off. It's probably not the rootcause if it's like, you know
only red apples after threeo'clock in the afternoon on
Fridays, it's probably somethingelse that's getting your hyper
excitability to that point. ButBut in general, you do want to

(14:08):
avoid your triggers, you justwant to find something more
that's bigger. So in foodsensitivities, I would say,
there's no real like, Hey, I'mhit. A good example. It's really
common in the office that Iprobably don't say enough is,
there's really no such thing aslactose intolerant. You're
either dairy intolerant, oryou're not lactose intolerance,
and you have an altered gut.

(14:29):
That's a whole different thing.
But think about that for asecond. It's really true. So you
know, if you're like, Oh, well,if I only eat sourdough bread,
well, you probably don't have agluten sensitivity. If you can
get away with sourdough bread.
Though sourdough bread is agreat health food if you can
tolerate it and you're notactually allergic to the gluten
from it. So just something topay attention there. There is an

(14:51):
exception that I think I shouldmention when a food is in a
sensitivity that you may nothave heard of, because once
again it's another big word andso sometimes medicine likes to
use big words to to Thank you.
So the word is tyramine so hightyramine foods are something
that people react to a lot whilethe tyramine isn't a root cause
while you're trying to calm downyour nerves and get them away
from that resting potentialthat's wrong. Bank brain

(15:12):
chemistry can take a second ortwo to adjust so it's not like
it's not like instantly everyoneleaves the office and tomorrow
their migraines are gone. Ialways tell them they will
slowly start to decrease and assoon as they start to decrease,
you know you're on the rightpath. It'll just take a couple
months and then those migraineswill slowly but surely fade and
disappear. Definitely anintensity. Sometimes they go
from migraines to headaches andthen headaches down to less
frequent headaches and then allthe sudden you forget that you

(15:34):
didn't have one this month, orthis week, but foods that you
might not know for example, Ijust want to throw out here that
are high and tyramine that youthink are health foods or things
like avocados, okay, liver, rawliver, okay. So if you have like
a migraines and you're tryingraw liver to get your liver
healthier, that can be a setthat can be a trigger because of
the tyramine in it, even thoughtechnically it's healthy. Soy

(15:55):
sauce, cheese, right. So themore age the cheese that can be
a problem. Fermented foods, alot of people go that route and
they end up with migraines,processed meats, chocolate, red
wine, sour cream, yogurt, K,once again, even if it's organic
yogurt, but you're looking atthis concept of, of where these
are some of the triggers withtyramine, and I just want to
throw them out there because alot of people don't understand

(16:17):
that. And so how that really thetyramine essentially stops the
breakdown of serotonin,adrenaline, dopamine, and
histamine. So it kind of leavesthis kind of mess of chemicals
in the brain that you have todeal with, once again, changing
the hyper excitability state ofthe nervous system. And then
you're kind of stuck there.

(16:38):
Okay. Let's talk about nowprobably, you know, the second
factor. Soif you ask me, like the first
factor of migraines, I wouldalways go to like, there's
probably a food sensitivity thatneeds to be avoided. So I don't
want to underplay that I want tomake sure that you understand
that the food is really, really,really important. And then the
next step is really important,but it's kind of complicated,
it's a little more complicatedthan just avoid eggs or avoid

(17:00):
corn or avoid gluten orsomething like that. So that is
liver congestion. So reallyquick to get the myths out of
the way. Liver congestion cannotbe solved by a liver detox a
liver flush or a magical livercleanse, right no matter what
you read online, it can't becured by just to know not to
mention names here. But liverliver is liver detoxification is

(17:22):
not solely dependent upon celeryjuice or anything like that
there's more to a liver cleansethan just drinking your celery
juice every morning. But livercongestion is first solved more
importantly, not by what youadd, but why what you take out
by figuring out what'scongesting your liver. And so
this is once again, this is asecondary thing. A lot of people

(17:43):
miss this because they're notreally understanding how to get
to the root of things. They'retrying their best. Trust me,
everyone that comes to my officehas tried something very few
people come in and say No, I'venever tried anything to get rid
of my migraines. Okay, so thefirst thing that we want to
worry about that overborne isthe liver the first part of a
gut D two, sorry, the first partI gave it away there, the first
part of the liver detox is tofix your gut. Okay, so toxins

(18:04):
released from your gutmicrobiome are the first things
that you need to do to heal yourliver. So you need to address
those. And I have lots of otherpodcasts on the gut. So make
sure you listen to those ifyou're really interested in some
of the details about thosethings. But to keep it simple,
the gut organisms in themicrobiome, they release all
these chemicals every day, thesechemicals need to be detoxified.
And if you listen to my otherpodcast, I don't use probiotics

(18:26):
in my office hardly ever, maybeafter a stomach flu. But this is
another reason why even the goodguys in your microbiome release
chemicals. It doesn't have to begood. They can be good
chemicals, they can be badchemicals, they can be useful
chemicals. But the goodbacteria, aka probiotics release
chemicals that the liver has tothen detoxify. Now, if you have

(18:47):
other things going on bad guysin there too, then then you have
things that you have to detoxifyand kill first before you can
actually take that burden off ofthe liver before I would add
probiotics. So my stance onprobiotics is for more fun is
always we kind of balanced themout after we take care of the
more important problems, whichwould be killing aggressive and

(19:09):
infectious microbiome agents. Sowhether it's parasites,
bacteria, fungi, or viruses thatwe have to address. So the
second most important thing forthe liver detox is actually
hormones. I have a podcast onestrogen dominance. I have
articles on our website andestrogen dominance. But for
females, this is huge. Butlikely in today's day and age
men have too much estrogen too.

(19:30):
And whether that's due the factthat they're eating excess
sugar, or whether it's justenvironmental exposure or the
chemicals they're using, orthey've just gained a few pounds
over the years, due to like notperfect diet and exercise
regimens. And then that bellyfat actually makes estrogen so
that's an important thing toknow. But once you fix your gut
and hormones, that's when you goand start doing your liver work.

(19:51):
Okay. Now while you can do bothat the same time, if you're not
at least addressing the hormonesand the liver, the hormones and
the gut at the same time you'regonna run into a problem
detoxifying your liver, you'rejust gonna run into like, hey,
every time I detox my liver, Ifeel amazing. And then you know,
a month later you feel horribleagain, want to throw out one
other thing that's really commonthat you don't hear about in

(20:13):
your in your doctors offices.
Because there's a fine line whenthere's problems that aren't
pathology and medicine, theydon't really have many things
that address them. And so whatdoes that mean? That means like,
if you have an upset stomach,but you don't have stomach
cancer, like they don't have alot of things for that. One of
the big things in the brain andmigraines is that we have these
things called micro embolisms ormicro clots that a lot of people

(20:33):
don't talk about. And in Chinesemedicine, they talk about this a
lot as like blood stasis orblood stagnation. They're often
caused by bacterial infections,or blood vessel inflammation.
And then you develop these kindof micro clots, these tiny
little coagulation of bloodcells, red blood cells, and that
blood clot goes through the tinyvasculature of the brain, and

(20:55):
then it reduces blood flow. Soas soon as you have less blood
flow, so anytime you have abacterial infection or
inflammation of the vessels, youhave this chance, and then all
of a sudden, you have reducedblood flow to the brain. And all
of a sudden, sodium and calciumhave to like come out to make
the vasodilation happen. Andthen sometimes they'll do
vasoconstriction. And that's whythere's no consensus on

(21:16):
migraines of how that reallyworks. I had one guy one time,
actually, it was a great exampleof this. He ended up having
amnesia, but he had 24 houramnesia, so he forgot
everything. For 24 hours, hecouldn't remember if he was
married or not, he'd only beenmarried about a year couldn't
remember if his dog was alive ordead, things like that basic
things that you would definitelyknow. And he went to the
hospital because he couldn'tremember anything. And then all

(21:38):
of a sudden, it all came back tohim 24 hours later, and their
stance was simply that he wasjust fine, right? Like, it turns
out, sometimes these thingshappen. Okay, they did not
investigate that cause likelywhat he had was a microclimate
at the time, which essentiallydecreased blood flow to the
brain. Now, once again, that'snot even a diagnosis. I'm just
saying there was a problem inhis brain at the time that he

(22:00):
forgot everything. And that whenit comes back in 24 hours, he
wasn't magically healed. And wehear that a lot. A lot of you
guys out there are actuallyputting off taking care of your
health, because you're justsaying, Yeah, I had an upset
stomach last week, but it's goodthis week, okay, it's off this
week, then it's good next week,it's like, you'll find that like
you're back and forth, butyou're putting it off because
you're saying I'm probably fine.

(22:22):
The reality is oftentimes, we'renot probably fine, and we keep
putting off something that needsto be addressed. So in the next
episode, I'm gonna cover likesupplements for like the micro
clots and things like that, likeprotocols, actions, ways to kind
of like self diagnose yourself.
But this migraine one may end upbeing like three episodes,
because I don't want these to betoo long. But let's, so So those
are kind of the basicmechanisms, right? The micro

(22:44):
clots is a vasculature issue. Sodefinitely you got to address
the inflammation of thearteries, if you know you
already have heart issues, thenyou're going to be more prone to
migraines. But as we get older,the immune component actually
kind of dies down. So you don'tfind a lot of 80 year olds that
have migraines, because theimmune system is not as vigilant
as it used to be. So it's kindof happens in these in these

(23:06):
peak years when we're more proneto these things. So when are you
more prone to hormonalfluctuation, you know, somewhere
between when life hits hormonesis you know, somewhere between
20 and 40 for females, sometimes45. Oftentimes menopause will
kind of calm down the migrainesfor men, same thing, when are
they busy, stressed have liverproblems, drinking too much

(23:28):
things like that, that's allgoing to be you know, 20s to
40s, something like that. Solet's pay attention to some of
these questions. Once again, Igot the question over at
Instagram, which you shouldfollow me there because I'm
going to do a follow up on thispodcast right there. But but in
for information that's reallyimportant there is is I like to
ask q&a. So what's your problem?

(23:51):
What can I help you with? Whatis no one answering for you? And
where's conventional medicineand even maybe alternative
medicine failing you? And sohere's what I would say. Here's
the first question is reallycool one because it's from way
over in Kenya, right? So thequestion was, how to boy in the
clinic that had Naegleriafowleri, which is a brain eating

(24:12):
amoeba, right? And you guysthought your migraines were a
problem. But this this amoebaactually can kill up to 95% of
people if it's not addressedwithin a few days. So it turns
out that in this scenario, theinfection is gone. But
headaches, probably migraines, Iassume, still remain. How would
I go about treating thispatient? That's a really good
question. And obviously, this isnot medical advice, because you

(24:33):
have to like go through a fullhistory and figure out what this
guy's story was. But and agesand things like that. But when
something like this comes up, Iusually tell people, I'm going
to assume that the infection isstill there. At some level, it
may only be one organism, it mayyou know, your brain may be able
to take care of not allowing itto eat more brain tissue, but
it's really common for aninfection to remain even after

(24:56):
it's been treated. Most commonin conventional medicine is
gonna be like ah, pilot already,they give you an antibiotic and
then they're like you're betterbut it's still there low levels.
In fact, it infects, you know,most infections are with us at
all time. But if there's like 2%Extra, no one's gonna say
anything but 2% can create a lotof problems in the body, if
you're looking at itfunctionally, not
pathologically. So I wouldprobably assume that that

(25:18):
infections there. I'm saying H.
Pylori is like that C. diff islike that giardia and other
parasites are like that, towhere they're still there. And
so I'd go around with a tritium,obviously naturally with herbs.
Some common herbs like Neemleaf, Wormwood, thyme, and
oregano oil would be ones thatmay be available in Kenya versus
America where we have a lot ofthings here. And then the second

(25:40):
thing that I would do is I wouldtreat the brain inflammation,
one of the inflammatorycomponents of the brain is
called xanthine oxidase.
Xanthine. And then it requiresxanthine oxidase to actually
detox. And the sad thing isxanthine oxidase cycle is
actually really hard for thebrain to go through. So with
concussions that linger longstanding, you know, post

(26:00):
concussive syndrome that lastsforever PTSD after concussion,
really any PTSD, any longhaulers that exists with brain
or neurological symptoms, you'relooking at doing any oxidants
that help with the Xanthinedetox and olive leaf works
really well for that. So that'sprobably my go to in high doses,
not the extract, but the wholeolive leaf. And then we use a

(26:21):
OPCs, which the big word is toohard for me to say right now. So
long story short, you can lookup OPCs, they're a little bit
expensive, but they're great atcrossing the blood brain barrier
and decreasing that nerveinflammation that is likely
still there. Quick note onWormwood, just because I
mentioned it, you won't hear memention Wormwood too much,
because I feel that Wormwood isreally slow.

(26:43):
It's really good for blood basedparasites and amoebas. But it's
not as good for intestinalamoeba. So that's a whole nother
story. So I would say like witha blood based one, it is good
for it. But you may have to beon worm one for six to nine
months before you see a benefit.
And some of like the kind ofchronic diseases that go on.
Alright, here's another coolquestion. newly approved drugs
called CRPS. What do you thinkabout them? So these are

(27:06):
calcitonin gene relatedpeptides? My first thought is no
way. Right. So CGRP medicationsare calcitonin inhibitors. That
kind of alter the mobilizationbreakdown absorption of calcium.
Now once again, calcium has todo with how sensitive your nerve
is. So if you're under is kindof thought to be like the main
mechanism of pain and migraines.

(27:28):
So while it will reduce thepain, it also affects like bone
metabolism and things like that.
So three things to think aboutwhen anyone asked me about a
drug is one, if you're maskingthe pain or masking the symptom,
the drug will stop workingeventually, and when it breaks
through, okay, that's my secondthing when the drug when the
when, when the pain breaksthrough. First of all, that drug

(27:48):
stops working. Second of all,the drug suppression creates the
body to create anotherinflammatory pathway. And
there's multiple pathways, itcould be oxidation, it could be
leuco trains, it could beprostaglandins. But it's going
to create a whole nother levelof inflammation that makes it
worse, and it's going to makeyou in a harder spot to treat.
So unfortunately, everyone on amigraine medication is a little

(28:11):
bit harder to treat, the moreoften you use it, the more often
the harder it's going to be. Sothat would be the second thing.
And then the third thing toreally think about holistically
is when you stop the body'sprotective mechanisms, you end
up with other problems. So yourbrain is creating inflammation

(28:31):
changes in the nervous system,blood flow changes to
essentially save your life,right? So because it's taking
care of your brain, but whatyou're finding is your body's
taking care of your brain. Andwhat you're finding is that
you're stopping what it's tryingto do, or masking it. So in some
scenarios, your body can stilldo it. But usually you're
stopping a process and thatprocess was important, either

(28:52):
for revolute resolution of themigraine, or for getting the
blood flow back or for changingthe resting potential of that
nerve or for these are there's alot of things that it's
important for. So whenever youtake a medication, you're
stopping a pathway and thatstopping the pathway always has
consequences doesn't workforever, and you're gonna be
stuck looking for more answers.

(29:13):
Okay, so that's kind of mystance on all drugs, but
specifically the CGRP makes mewonder about how messing with
calcium absorption works forfemales over the age of 50 and
60, as osteopenia andosteoporosis start to creep in.
And once again, you're gonna beup a different creek without a
paddle in a few years. Okay,last thing, Why are women more
prone to migraines than men?
This is a really good questionbecause you find that women are

(29:34):
about three times more likelylikely to have migraines than
men. And there's two things Iwant to talk about. One is the
estrogen dominance story. Like Isaid, Go listen to that podcast
if you haven't already. And ifyou have estrogen dominance or
hormonal symptoms, you aren't onMGR shook extract yet. It's time
to start right so it's apowerful thing that we'll talk
about on supplements in the nextepisode, I'll link in the bio
section i'll put a link downbelow on the show notes just so

(29:56):
you can understand How to get itif you want to get out but it's
probably my number one migrainego to supplement. Okay, but
that's a whole nother thing. Butlong story short, we want to
address the estrogen issuesfemales especially if you're
noticing that they're cyclicalmeaning once a month, or if
they're associated withovulation or menstruation, or
both. And then honestly, likewith migraines, it can be the

(30:19):
week before leading up to theovulation and they can be the
fall down and the week after.
And so really, you're looking atlike three to four weeks of the
month. So almost all forfemales, almost all of them that
have migraines are dressingestrogen dominance at some
point. So we use the artichoke aton. They're not the only
product though. So I had someonemessaged me the other day, hey,

(30:40):
you know, I'm already onartichoke. Now what do I do?
Well, there's if you've beendoing it long enough, so if you
didn't been doing it six months,and you didn't see a result,
then then it's probably not thesupplement for you. And we're
looking at a differentmechanism. And that's why I say
you have multiple mechanismsthat we're looking at here. It
may not be the estrogen dominantstory for you, but for for most
women and why women have it morethan men, estrogen is definitely

(31:00):
at that root. Okay. The secondthing that on the on the reason
why women have more migrantsthan men, and really more
autoimmune disease and allsensitivities and symptoms, is
because anything that affectsthe myelin sheath is going to be
more sensitive. And femalesfemales have a thinner myelin
sheath. So the myelin sheath isessentially the fat that goes
around the nerve that protectsyou from outside inflammation,

(31:24):
stimulation, irritation, right,so all of those things, three
things are going to be addressedby having a nice thick, fat,
kind of myelin sheath. So itprotects your nerves from
sensitivities keeps that restingpoint really good for the
nerves. But in women, it's alittle thinner than men. So men
are going to get away with ingeneral more things that

(31:44):
irritate their nervous system.
The other thing was gonna befatty acid composition, women
are gonna be more sensitive tothe Omega three omega six
balance, which we'll talk aboutin the next episode. But then
men, but as paying attention tothose Omega ratios, where men
may be able to get away withfrench fries and women, one
French fry or two french friesmight disrupt that imbalance.
And once again, these are thingswhere it's like, unfortunate,

(32:08):
but it's true. But those are oneof the reasons why women are
going to suffer from MS more.
Anything that affects thatnerve, anything that affects
that nerve sheath. So even likechronic epstein barr infections,
you're looking at chickenpox, orshingles, you're looking at any
virus, really, you're looking atCOVID going to be more long
haulers and females than men,because they're less protected.

(32:31):
All right. So once again, thankyou for listening today. That's
all we're going to cover hop onmy Instagram, and we'll do a q&a
As soon as I post this on theepisodes podcast for this week.
And then I'll take questionsthat we can kind of cover in
your next in the next episode.
So I can help you do some selfdiagnosis so I can help you know
what supplementation I'drecommend. And that way we can
control some of the migrantmadness when I did my research

(32:52):
for this podcast I was lookingfor what are people saying out
there? What are the medicaldoctors, even the functional
medicine doctors saying? Andhonestly, to tell you the truth,
there was very, very littleinformation that I could find
with us because Google wassuppressing me or not, I have no
idea. But even on my DuckDuckGosearches, I didn't find much as
far as what you can do formigraines. And it's really one
of those things that like I said90% of people are going to be

(33:14):
able to get a dramaticimprovement in their quality of
life if they take some of thesebasic steps. And we'll see on
the next episode. Thanks