Today we’re going to explore some of the underlying causes for migraines.
When patients come to see us, we often have to do a full evaluation to figure out what is the contributing factor causing the migraines. One of the biggest things patients must try to grasp is that medication is not addressing that underlying cause.
Why Migraine Relief is a Passion of Mine
Now, migraines are near and dear to my heart because I used to be a migraine sufferer. When I would get a migraine, I had to go to bed and sleep. It was the only way to find relief. There was no way to predict an episode and no reason why they occurred.
Migraines affected my life greatly. I truly understand my patient’s pain and frustration when they come to me for migraines. Many people don’t understand how debilitating it can be when you have to come home in the middle of the day to go to bed, when you can’t go to work or when you can’t play with your kids!
It simply robs you of the quality of life that you should have! So, again, this is near and dear to my heart! It was my passion to figure out why I had this condition in the first place. I dove deep and uncovered some of the causes of behind migraines and this research helped me support and aid many patients in my clinic with this condition. My research also helped me find relief!
So, today let’s talk about some of the big causes and what needs to be evaluated to be able to resolve some of the issues that you have going on.
Nutritional Deficiencies
First and foremost, your body may have nutritional deficiencies that you’re unaware of. If you are lacking and of the following, the deficiency could be causing your pain:
- Selenium,
- Vitamins,
- Minerals,
- Vitamin D,
- Vitamin A,
- The B Vitamins.
A lack of these elements going to be triggers for migraines. Your body produces a symptom to tell you that something is not right. In this case, debilitating headaches.
If you have a nutritional deficiency, your body may be producing the migraine to say, “Hey, something is not right. Fix me.” You could still be eating a clean diet of fruits and vegetables and still be mineral and vitamin deficient because a lot of our soil has been depleted of most of its minerals. People are still not getting the adequate amount that they actually need.
We have to look at vitamin and mineral status in your body and begin to eat the proper foods if you’re not already eating them and then getting you to digest them too.
Food Triggers
Food triggers are also another major factor in migraines and something to be vigilant in your awareness. Many foods can trigger migraines and headaches. I will tell you the top three are going to be gluten, dairy, and soy. Those things create massive inflammation and thus can trigger a migraine.
Such inflammation is what aggravates that nerve in the first place and produces the symptom of pain. So, we’ve got to be looking at those food triggers and you can’t do a food journal to figure this out.
A lot of my patients say “I have already done a food journal and my doctor tells me that it’s nothing that I’m eating.”
Not totally accurate. The problem with journaling is that most food sensitivity issues stay in your system up to six months. So, the headache that you have today could be something that you ate two months ago. It’s really hard to track your food intake and then be able to correlate it with something that you’re eating.
We highly recommend our patients start with proper testing to identify some of those food triggers.
Hormones
Now, we need to look at hormones. If you are between the age of 25 and 40 and you have migraines, you more than likely you have a hormone component to this condition. There are a lot of women out there who come to me who are already on birth control, who have abnormal cycles that infertility issues and maybe they’ve been on birth control since they were 16 because that’s when their abnormal cycle started.
Or, again the birth control is just covering that up. You still have an underlying hormonal problem that may be leading to the trigger of your body producing that symptom of a migraine. So we have to take a look at what is truly the underlying problem.
Is it hormonal and that shift in fluctuation of hormones– even if you’re on birth control– that may be the exact trigger for you? We also need to look at your thyroid hormone because if your thyroid is dysfunctional and you’re body can’t balance out the hormonal component, your body can also produce a symptom of headaches and migraines.
Environmental Impacts
There are a multitude of environmental triggers that create migraines and headaches. Red lights, environmental toxins, MSG, heavy metals, etc. So many factors can trigger those headaches.
Again, your body becomes bombarded with these toxins and then you produce a symptom to say, “Hey, I’m going to load this toxic load in my body. You need to fix it.” It’s just a way that your body is producing that symptom. So we have to look at the environmental part of the condition because it’s a big key player.
Structural Imbalances
Last one is going to be structural. We have to rule out that we don’t have anything structural going on in the neck that could be creating that dysfunction. So if you have a herniated disc, you have arthritis in your neck to noses, anything abnormal about it like straightening of the cervical curve, those things can contribute to the migraines and headache itself.
We want to identify or rule out a structural problem at the beginning of treatment. The reality is that most patients don’t just suffer from one problem. They usually have two or three different things that need to be addressed for us to be able to completely resolve their problem in the first place.
We can help, just reach out and we’ll work to find you a solution!
If you are a migraine sufferer, please contact us! Or if you know someone who struggles with this condition, share this article and let them know they don’t have to suffer! There are other options out there.
You don’t just have to take the medications, which in many cases doesn’t fix the underlying problem and leaves you suffering from those migraines. We’ve had good success in our office when we can uncover the triggers.
So, I encourage you to schedule a consultation if you are a migraine sufferer to see if we can help you. If not, then you’ve learned a little bit about exactly what some of your triggers are and maybe you can dive deep and try to figure out what is your trigger for your migraines.
Please fill out the form below so we can start the conversation. We look forward to hearing from you!
