Migraine – Does a Body Good?

If you suffer from migraines, the best medicine might be to simply ride out the migraine. 

If you suffer from migraines, the best option may be to ride out the migraine. Yes, migraines are more than debilitating but they may just serve a purpose in healing.

What do you do when you twist your ankle?

You take it easy. Your ankle swells, and the inflammation and pain cause you to rest the ankle. Let the body get to work while you rest. Because healing takes time, even though during that time, you can be in a lot of pain.

Migraines and Gut Health

I have a client who suffered from migraines. Hormonal changes and stress always made them worse. She also noticed that fungal issues and yeast symptoms worsened during this time. When she started working with me, instead of focusing on migraine medicines—as, over the years, her migraines were getting worse—we focused on healing the gut.

Sometimes an imbalanced gut (dysbiosis) can result in toxins from the gut congesting the liver. Our liver is one of the main detoxification pathways, and we need a healthy functioning liver to properly detoxify any toxins in the body (and why I am not a fan of detoxing before strengthening the body first!)

Toxins run through the blood vessels and the lymphatic system. These toxins can irritate these pathways of circulation. When a part of the blood vessel in the brain becomes irritated and inflamed, that part of the blood vessel often collapses.

The result?

Migraines and pounding headaches. Blood pressure increases because the surface area of the blood vessel is restricted. Blood flow decreases and clotting factors increase. The blood flow hits the sensitive lining of the brain and the migraine pain intensifies.

Why Migraine Medication Is Problematic

Time to grab some migraine medications, right?

The problem with any medication that stops migraine pain is that when toxins (from our gut) run through blood vessels and then these vessels become inflamed, the body’s protective response is to collapse the blood vessel. Intentionally.

The collapse of the blood vessel is part of the repair process and needs to happen. The body is now in an emergency state to “fix” the collapsed part of the blood vessel. The body will prioritize healing the inflammation in the collapsed blood vessel. We need fats to inflame and we need inflammation to heal. Acute inflammation, in this situation, is a good thing.

Once repaired, the blood vessel will regain its structure and the migraine will stop.

 

The repair of the collapsed part of the blood vessel must happen so that the body doesn’t have to heal two parts of a collapsed blood vessel when another migraine attack occurs. When the next migraine occurs, the body will always try to go back and repair what it couldn’t earlier. So now, two collapsed parts of a blood vessel need repair.

Do you know what that means?

More intense migraines.

This is why stopping a migraine (or an asthma attack) with drugs or supplements can be extremely dangerous. (This is the same inflammatory and repair process of the bronchi in an asthma attack.)

By taking the medications, the risk is getting more frequent and intense migraines over time. The downstream consequence is more significant and intense migraines (more collapsed parts of the blood vessel needing repair), causing possible strokes.  

Listen to your body. Maybe it’s time to stop foods with gluten, stop toxic plant foods that damage the gut, and stop the highly inflammatory processed seed oils (canola oil, included).

My client no longer suffers from migraines. If she eats off-plan for weeks, they come back. My client’s indulgence in highly processed carbs, high antinutrient plant foods, and seed oils is diminishing. Sometimes we need to be in enough pain that it’s just not worth eating toxic foods.

Heal the gut and trust the body’s innate wisdom. Why are you getting migraines? What caused the migraine? What is the body telling you? You wouldn’t try to run a marathon on a twisted ankle just because you took some morphine, would you?

Let go of temporary band-aids and work on getting to the root cause of healing. It might just save your life.