Why Migraines Happen—and Why You Don’t Have to Live With Them

Migraines Beyond Symptom Suppression 0:00

from a root cause perspective, looking beyond pills, botox, and symptom suppression. If migraines have disrupted your work, your parenting, or your quality of life, this conversation's for you. Thank you so much for coming here today, Dr. K. I really appreciate it. And we are really unpacking today a topic that is so burdensome for so many people. And I feel like one of these things that people are so frequently told to just live with is so debilitating. And so I'm really grateful that you're willing to unpack this both hard topic that so many doctors are not willing to unpack because it can be very mystifying to people.

And so so many times people are told migraines are just genetic or something that they'll just have to live with or they're kind of thrown things like Botox or different medications. But from a root cause perspective, is that actually true? something someone's gonna have to live with. Yeah, I'm glad you asked that question because it's true that there's a genetic link and you see this run in families, but migraines are related to blood flow in the brain. And there are certain vitamin deficiencies that also predispose people to developing migraines.

Then there's a whole other component where there are different triggers. So migraines typically have an aura where you might smell something, see something, but it's all related to blood flow in the brain and the neurologic system. So I really love that you're saying that. So you're saying there's a genetic component. But the question is, is this just something people will have to live with or is there something that can be done? Oh, they can do all kinds of things for that. And I just love it when people ask that question because what good is it to say, well, I have migraines, I'll suffer with this the rest of my life and there's nothing more I can do.

Right. So, you know, here, of course, we're all about genetics at Hope for Healing with our wellness blueprint, our genetic panel. But when we think about pain, the first thing you want to do is look at inflammation. But let's step back and I'm going to let you guide the conversation for that. No, you don't have to live with it all your life. I love it. As someone who has struggled with migraines severely in the past, I really do appreciate this approach to understanding that, yes, there are genetic components.

My mother had struggled with migraines. She had to give herself injections. Like, that was something that I do appreciate when we take the note of it, but not just, okay, well, you suffered with it, now next, you know? Okay, so you talked a little bit about this, but maybe you can unpack this a little bit more, is how migraines differ from a headache and why does that distinction actually matter clinically? Right. Well, if a person has ever suffered from a migraine, they know the difference. So many, many times you will get debilitating, throbbing in your head.

and to the point that you feel nauseated and it may be on one side of the body or the other. And it's a culmination of all of these different things.

Headache vs Migraine and Hidden Causes 3:10

The one thing that I like to look at, I reflect back to when I was a child and I remember seeing what was a migraine where every little bit of sound was amplified and the light hurt my eyes and all I wanted to do was to be still and I felt like vomiting and if you'd suffered from a migraine that may be exactly what you suffered with. We have to think about if there's an underlying infection that may be causing a toxic burden on the body that's leading to that. So many, many times people that get debilitating migraines may have undiagnosed infections.

mononucleosis, Lyme disease, Bartonella, Babesia, many of the other mycoplasma pneumoniae, chlamydia, not the sexually transmitted chlamydia, but these are what are called co-infections. So these migraineous headaches. Why do you think that migraines are so misunderstood from like a conventional medicine where it is just kind of here is your pill and here is your pill or hey, we can up your medication. Some of that medication that they're given, they're like, I can barely take care of my children or focus at my job.

So why do you think there's such a misunderstanding or just a, here's what you're going to be given? This is something that just irritates me is that no further deep dive into it. It's like, okay, you check the boxes for a migraine headache and it's mostly on this side of your body or that side of the body, but no one's looking deeper. You have to be a good doctor. So do a good neurologic exam and make sure that there's nothing else happening and also potentially image the brain. So if you're suffering from migraines and no one has ever done an MRI of your brain, that's a really good idea.

And just a really good neurologic exam to make sure that there's nothing else going on. Because what if it's a brain tumor that's leading to this? Or there's something called an arteriovenous malformation. So something that's abnormal in the blood flow of the brain or the brain stem. So that's something that could lead into migraines. But when we separate migraine headaches from other types of headaches, like a tension headache or you've been looking at your phone too long or sitting at a laptop and your eyes are tired, it's very important to distinguish to what's going on with what's called your temporomandibular joint.

And your mouth, like, do you have an infection in your mouth that's going up something called the trigeminal nerve into your brain that's leading to infection and migraine? Well, it's infection that's causing migraine as headaches. So if I have someone who shows up with a migraine, I'm going to say, have you had an imaging of your brain? Have you had a really good dental exam to make sure that you don't have an undiagnosed infection in your mouth that's triggering those migraines? I really love that you've unpacked this full spectrum of your body.

Like, you know, like that's so much about root cause medicine is to understand your body works together. And we don't just think of like, oh, I have a headache and it's isolated there, right? It's that your body is ever functioning in this pattern. So you mentioned a couple of the symptoms that can come with migraines. Are there by any chance any like symptom patterns like that could give clues to possibly what's driving the migraine? Yeah, well, we also know that hormones mediate migraine headaches.

So if you're a woman and you get perimenstrual migraines, having a look at your hormones and when you're young, many, many times a little bit of progesterone at the right time of your cycle can really minimize your migraines headaches. So also certain types of foods, specifically foods that are very high in histamines, aged cheeses and wines and fermented food, it's a high histamine burden. So you can try removing histamines from your food plan or using something. Like if you really love your wine and it's not organic and there's sulfite, using something that breaks down the histamines, will also minimize the chances of developing this throbbing one-sided migraineous headache.

Well, I think what you've really also encouraged in this moment is to be a student of your body, right? Instead of just saying, oh, I get migraines all the time, try to study the patterns of which this migraine, why it comes, when it comes from. We'll talk about things like for people who maybe and whether, and you could actually speak into whether this would be a headache or a migraine, but for people who didn't know about multiple physical sensitivity and would like walk into a place like Bath and Body Works and then would walk out feeling like I'm gonna puke, that my head is killing me.

And so they can have those things that just kind of consistently add up. And I mean, like we're constantly being, you use the sword in another podcast is like- assaulted by chemicals and fragrances. And for people who have that sensitivity, that's just going to be a part of learning their body.

Triggers: Hormones, Histamine, and Inflammation 8:40

And so I really love teaching people to be a student. And these are things you can look for. You really touch on inflammation, right? So when we hear headaches, we hear inflammation. So how does inflammation in the body and brain contribute to migraines? Well, let's go back to this. So what is inflammation when you're hot, red, swollen, and painful? And when you develop pain, pain is a lack of oxygen utilization, all right? So it's limited blood flow. So anything that can drive down inflammation, The other is what you mentioned, Lauren, about multiple chemical sensitivities.

We know that that is a lack of the body's master antioxidant and master chelator, glutathione. So glutathione pulls those things. out of the body. And so for anyone, I would ask them to keep a headache log. When does it occur? And a lot of times people get overwhelmed when you say, you know, please keep track of what you eat. It doesn't necessarily quantity wise, but what are you eating? What are you drinking? Just slap it on a sheet of paper and see what happens. And for women, the cyclicity, you know, the cycle with your cycle.

And so balancing those hormones and As I said, even when you're young, really, really young, you can have progesterone and it will do no harm. It's a beautiful thing. Yes. So keeping track, just like you said, of what is happening. And so you were talking about, we think inflammation, what does that look like? Yeah. Well, you know, what goes in your mouth? We talk about this all the time, but we know that gliadorphin and casomorphin, gluten and casein, many, many times, if you just remove the gluten from your food plan, your migraines will be greatly minimized.

Another thing is removing dairy, like cheese especially, but aged cheeses, those trigger migraines all the time. So when we think about inflammation, the things in your kitchen, that doesn't cost you anything to remove. So those things like set off a bomb in your body. So removing those foods. The other is when you think about different ways to lower the inflammation when we talk about what we put in our body and lowering the histamines too. So that's like leftovers. It's fermented foods. Now, I'm not saying cut all those out.

It's a matter of the load of those histamines, because it's impossible to eliminate that. But it's really good to have fresh foods, not leftovers. And if you're going to eat fish, have it be flash frozen. So it's a fresh filet that was flash frozen. You know, things that are high in histamines are eggplant, red bell peppers, as I said, leftovers. You know, tomatoes have quite a bit too. Again, it's not completely eliminating. It's choosing smaller amount. Now, inflammation. Our body is so complex.

There's different systems and different ways to lower inflammation. And most people turn to things like ibuprofen. And you know, if you're in a lot of pain, that's very helpful. But we can also modulate the immune system with pure cannabidiols. That means things that come from hemp that don't have THC, you know, so you're not smoking pot. I mean, a lot of people that have migraines turn to marijuana to help their pain and they're looking for things to decrease that. So using non-THC containing things to drive the inflammation down.

And there's also a system in our body called the endocannabinoid system that you can modulate with something called PEA, palmitoyl ethanolamide. You can take three to five of those multiple times a day to really help with the pain. If you feel nauseated, many times you need to use something that's going to help with the nausea, meaning Zofran. I hate to use venergan. It makes you sleepy, but Zofran does not. Also, a lot of times with migraines, there's an injectable form of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory called Toradol.

And Toradol works really well too to turn that around. We tend to use that in our IV functional therapy room. to give IV and it can stop and halt and hopefully move that migraine to the side. What I think I loved about all of these things that you're starting out with is that for someone who really wanted to go the functional route with my headaches versus getting Botox injections or being put on some of these more heavier painkillers that just did not react well with my body. I remember going to Hope for Healing and y'all giving me things to help me get through before we understood and found the root cause of my migraines.

Those IV drips with turtle were my lifeline. Like those are the times that kind of helped me to function and keep working because I think, and maybe we can talk about this a little bit, but the emotional burden of migraines. and you feel so incompetent so frequently because you're in so much pain you're like I can't like I can't get my brain to focus and being able to have those things like Zofran and and if not wanting to like take it don't we have Zofran via IV right? Yeah, you can have that via IV and also if you feel it coming on, you can use the little sublingual tablets because many times if part of your brain is throbbing and you want to stop that before it gets to the point that you feel like puking, your guts out.

We tend to give people a prescription for that so that they have it available to kind of turn it around. My biggest fear going the functional medicine route was that not everybody uses all the tools in the tool belt.

Nutrient Deficiencies and Targeted Support 15:00

And it's just like, oh, let's just start here. But I felt like when I came here, like as a patient, there was this Beautiful combination of like no like we want you not in pain. We're just not gonna ignore it there We're not gonna stop to okay. You're not in pain now go it was a but this shouldn't be happening and I wasn't looked at like I was crazy. It wasn't like well some People just struggle with headaches. It was like, no, let's get your pain under control so that we can really dive in at a pace that you can handle.

And so I just really wanted to like speak into the layering approach that can be able to be offered anyway. Diving into something you were saying was really cool with all the medications that you mentioned and you taught me this and I just really love for you to share about the genetic component to determine maybe which hole needs to be filled. And so you walked me through this beautiful analogy of the SNPs that cannabidiols can help fill in or LDN or PEA. Can you unpack what we see when we are looking from a genetic component for people's migrates?

Right. I kind of like to think about that inflammation as a lake of fire. And if you build a dam and there's three holes in the dam, you got to plug all three holes in order to make the pain go away or to minimize it or to help. So there's a system called the toll-like receptors. Toll-like receptors are throughout our gut, our body, our brain. And you mentioned, Lauren, something called low-dose naltrexone. People get very confused about naltrexone. At high amounts, it can be used for addiction.

It is not addictive and it is not an opioid, but it's an opioid antagonist. So it shits in. So these little toe-like receptors are throughout the body and the genetics show that we do either on the immune autoimmune inflammatory panel, also on our neurological psychiatric panel, and then on our proprietary panel, the Wellness Blueprint, And really we want the whole thing and anyone can do the whole thing. They don't have to become a member of our practice. They can be any state, any country. Any country.

We have people from all over the world who do this because it really guides your care. And you don't want to guess why keep buying all these things or going to all these doctors. It's like identify where the problems are. These toll-like receptors, low-dose naltrexone, it's low dose. It binds to that receptor and it blocks the release of these things called cytokines. Cytokines are little invisible inflammatory messengers that cause all this pain and inflammation. Then there's a system called the endopinapinoid system.

And especially when we talk about the brain, the brain has these Pac-Men called microglia and they clean things up. And so PEA stabilizes the membranes of those microglia. So for children or adults that have seizure activity or they migraines where there may be abnormal electrical activity within the brain that doesn't progress to a seizure, but just this phase of dilation, meaning the blood vessels get big and they throb. And if you've ever had a migraine, you know what the heck I'm talking about.

Yes. Throbbing, excruciating headache where you just can't think, you just can't function. So PEA, palmitoyl ethanolamide, big long name, we just say PE, it binds to those microglia membranes, those receptors, blocks them, and it stops the production of those cytokines and bad boys. Yeah. that cause all that inflammation. Then the last system, CB2 receptors, cannabinoid receptors, we use different types of CBD. In our practice, we don't carry any that has THC. We have some that we have people apply topically, even to their children, and then take orally.

And there's ones that are stronger strength. if you're really having a lot of severe pain. So that kind of deals with the inflammation. But also remember that our nervous system is made up of a lot of fat and our nerves are coated with fat. That's called myelin. So having that, many, many people who have migraines your arms. If your arms feel like chicken skin, then you may very well be depleted in essential fatty acids. So using omega-3 fatty acids, the right kind, the right amount. For children, we look at about 1200 milligrams of EPA and 900 milligrams of DHA a day.

And an adult, it's a lot. It's like, if you've got migraines, 2400 milligrams of EPA and 1800 milligrams of DHA. Not just the total on your Omega. You can go to some of our big box, our big store, and I'm sorry, you're just not getting what you need and you're not getting the quality and all that. And you're still investing a lot of money. Yes, you are. For something that doesn't work. Right. And you would have to take like maybe 16 to get the equivalent of say five or it's ridiculous. It's, you want quality essential fatty acids to coat your brain and fuel your brain and all these cells so that they function well.

Well, let's talk more into that. What I love, your passion behind the deficiencies, is because it really is. You genuinely enjoy equipping people with things they can do. either in their kitchen or supplements they can do on hand. And so we started with the fatty acids. Are there other nutrient deficiencies that can speak into or kind of cause, like if we have these things, migraines? Yes. Vitamin D3 with K2. Really? Yes, so if you, and vitamins E and A, but it's especially the Bs, but if you look at everything that's fat soluble, so when you have had migraines and you have had pain, it's as if you are rusting your cells from the inside out.

So the fatty layer around your cells gets depleted. So by fueling yourself with the omega-3s, but a big one that's really involved with migraines is B vitamins across the board, your B vitamins. So using an excellent B complex, helps to decrease the frequency of your migraine. And you want the right forms. You want what are called bioavailable or methylated forms of B vitamins to fulfill your deficiencies. That's another beautiful thing. These precision genetics show you what you don't have available.

Now, let's talk a little bit about the way nerves function. Something that's absolutely critical for the brain and the central nervous system and all of our nerves to function is vitamin B12. When vitamin B12, you're not looking at what's in the bloodstream, but also folate. You want it to be, if you do get B12 in your bloodstream measured, you want it to be around 1500, even if it says that's high, that's what's in the blood, not necessarily what's in the cell. And then you can tell how your body is perceiving it by looking at something on the complete blood count.

It's called the MCV, mean corpuscular volume. They used to call red blood cells corpuscles, but mean is average. And functionally, we really want the size of the red blood cells to be, you know, between 80 to 83. Also with migraines, you don't want to be iron deficient because if you cannot carry oxygen to the nerves and the central nervous system, then, you know, plain old iron deficiency anemia needs to be corrected. So B vitamins, omega-3s, optimizing your fat soluble vitamins.

Infections, Lyme, and Root Cause Testing 23:30

Why fat soluble? Because the fat soluble vitamins help the brain function. Vitamins K, E, A, and D. And, you know, our body is this beautiful, smooth-oiled machine. Now, something that's absolutely imperative is magnesium. Not all forms of magnesium are the same, but when a person suffers from migraines, I recommend that they use something called magnesium L. Magnesium glycinate is very, very helpful too. Magnesium L3N8 also, because of its crossing it over into the blood-brain barrier, helps to minimize those migraines.

I love all that, specifically because as again, like as someone who came to Hope for Healing, a part of like migraines being one of the things that did it, magnesium was one of the things that was in the drip that caused this, like for someone again, who struggles with headaches, it was a I was like, is this normal? That release intention? Especially because I love that you, when you mentioned Zofran, because when you're feeling nauseous, the last thing you want to do is eat food. When you're going through all of that and so taking supplements for a while there, we're out of the question, which is another reason why I started with IV therapy as the treatment because when all of this dysfunction was happening, I'm like, I'm going to take the supplements and they're going to come back up.

I think this is a really great time to talk about IV therapy in general. Oh my gosh, yes. Because of all these things. Yes. Before we dive into how IV therapy and targeted nutrients can change the trajectory of migraines, let's take a quick moment to hear from Dr. K about our sponsors. If you or your child struggle with migraines, you've probably been told it's just genetic or something you have to manage forever with medication. But what if genetics could actually be part of the solution? This episode is sponsored by the Gron.

Their genetic panels help us understand how your body may be inappropriately inflamed and how it may have difficulty cleaning itself out or detoxifying. You may also lack the ability to absorb certain necessary nutrients to minimize migraines and have neurotransmitter receptors that may influence the development of migraines. Instead of guessing, Vagran gives providers a roadmap to personalize care and address migraines at the root. If you're nauseated and you struggle with migraines frequently, many people don't know it, but one IV drip is equivalent to about six weeks of taking oral supplements because you saturate all yourselves with those nutrients.

So if you're having headaches, migraine headaches, and you're close to us, we have put together these IV drips that if you did four, like one or two a week, four to eight, the frequency of the migraine should go down drastically as you start to build the empty buckets in your body. Also just having injections of B complex. or B12, the right kind, hydroxocobalamin, that that will help many, many times with migrenous headaches. And that may be enough to really curtail how awful these headaches are.

And then if you work to try to get a little progesterone on board if you're a woman or find out if you have an infection. Because if you go to your regular doctor and you say, I struggle with anxiety and I have these migraines and sometimes I have trouble sleeping and I have migratory joint pain and these palpitations, you need good, elegant testing, good physical exam. You need somebody who's going to listen to you and not blow you off and say you're I was told my headaches were my wedding at first, my wedding coming up.

And so I was like, oh yeah, you're getting married. They'll go away after the wedding. They didn't go after the wedding. And so I came back and I'm like, you're a newlywed. It'll be fine. It'll go away. And it was constantly like, hey, we'll just give you this for now. We'll give you this for now. Or even worse, they're like, well, you can only be on this for so long. If it doesn't fix, you'll have to come back in. And so now, but I love that you mentioned all of those. That's exactly where I want to go is the bacterial and the infections and all of that.

And so you mentioned that, and that was actually really interesting because I loved, my body loved magnesium. I could not get enough of magnesium, which actually was a huge indicator to my providers. to go, hold on, so let's talk about those infections. Let's talk about Lyme disease and how it burns through magnesium. Let's talk about all of that. And I'm really unpacking where we really got to the root of my headaches, but in how we've gotten the root of so many other people's headaches. Yes, so infections can cause migraine headaches.

I mentioned previously having infection in a tooth or where a root canal has been, and you can have those travel up the trigeminal nerve and cause these really serious headaches, something called trigeminal neuralgia. Additionally, two infections such as, we were talking about vector-borne illness. So a vector is something that transmits something, ticks, fleas, bed bugs, cat scratches, various things that transmit infections, mosquitoes, those kind of things. And you may never have a rash. but migraine headaches, joint pain everywhere, crazy anxiety, depression, gallbladder dysfunction.

You know, you can get these organisms lining the inside of the gallbladder causing sludge and abdominal pain. And so There is an elegant questionnaire. It's called the Horowitz. If people Google the Horowitz questionnaire, H-O-R-O-W-I-T-Z, I believe it's called a multi-symptom questionnaire, and there's different scoring. If you get to a certain point, it's almost inevitable that you've got undiagnosed vector-borne illness, but it can be other things too. So that's where You need an excellent physical exam.

You need someone to look at your skin, look at your joints, listen to you, hear you, and then you need testing done. And sometimes these bugs hide. They will hide and you have to provoke them to kind of come out. They'll live inside your blood vessels and cause migraineous headaches. So Bartonella and Lyme disease, but Bartonella especially likes to live in these things called biofilms, slimy mucusy layers. And they will, those organisms will hide in the bloodstream and cause these terrible headaches.

And Babesia is another one that comes through mosquitoes and they form little nests in the veins and every four weeks or so you'll get these flares. You might have fevers and migraines and babesiosis is what it's called. And it can sometimes mimic leukemia or a blood cancer, but migraine headaches are part of that. So working with someone, if you look up that Horowitz questionnaire or You can go to places like Project Lyme, they have the questionnaire on there too, LymeBytes, other places and, you know, find that questionnaire and see if you test high.

And then we do certain testing here, but first of all, it's like listening to you, looking at you, but migraine headaches and infections that are undiagnosed can cause that, especially in the neck. And you really don't want to live a life with these infections living in your body. I can say where Lyme disease was never looked at because by the time that I was looking for all these things, the bite was gone.

Genetics, Healing, and Hope for Recovery 31:50

Like there was no clear indicator that like I had been either bitten by a tick or scratched by a cat. And so the thing that I wonder is if maybe someone can think of a moment where they were like, oh, I remember that bug bite or I remember being scratched or however that happens. Is there a reason why it can sometimes take a while to present symptoms where it's not an instantaneous, now I'm sick and falling apart? Is there a way or something that happens or gets triggered? Yeah. You may have no bite, no history of it, but if you've got all these things and migraine headaches are part of that, you need to consider those potential problems that could be leading to those migraines.

I love that. For people who don't have infections, I was just going to say, for people who don't have infections and many, but just have a genetic bend toward this and there's issues with blood flow. You know, we take like caffeine or things or etc. with caffeine to kind of constrict blood flow to stop the throbbing and that kind of a thing. Many individuals will have issues with nitric oxide production on their precision genetics. So that's something that we keep in mind too. You have adequate blood flow all the times and balance everything that contributes to that by lowering inflammation and providing the body with the nutrients that it needs.

That typically really helps to minimize those migraines. Lauren, question for you. Have your migraines been greatly reduced since providing the nutrients and treating those infections? I used to live in daily migraines. They were a thing of what I dealt with, and I remember the first time that I didn't have a migraine I kind of freaked out it was like weird like I had just gotten so used to living in pain and now like when I have a migraine which I'm telling you it's very very infrequent maybe every other month or maybe something but I I can easily check my environment.

I can check maybe I haven't been eating the way that I should. And there are very easy checkpoints to go, okay, let's put this into control. But I remember talking with Christopher, my husband, and being like, how did I live with this for so long? How was I so buying the lie that this is just going to be my life? And you talk about this a lot with your patients, that healing isn't linear. So I was sick for nine years and they didn't know what to do. And for a three-year health journey that I have, I mean, like I've been on a longer health journey when it was in the nine years I was still looking, but to change the approach and to change into this functional medicine, what they couldn't do in nine years, we've been able to drastically change.

And definitely the first year, but now three years later to be like, I feel like a different person. And so just really being able to say, this is impactful. This changes things and I've lived it. When I think about this, I think about the benefit of what people can glean from the autoimmune inflammatory panel or the neurologic psychiatric panel because it has a lot of those inflammatory markers on that. A person can just get those panels or they can do the wellness blueprint because we know that these genetics guide the care.

The beauty of the wellness blueprint is it has the inflammatory markers. the detoxification, how your body takes out the trash. And you had mentioned multiple chemical sensitivities. And there's a lot more there than, you know, than bad detoxification. But if your body can't take the trash out, then you are in a world of hurt. The other is the essential vitamins and minerals. That is also on our Wellness Blueprint. Now, what I love, like I said, is the beauty of these either injections or these IV therapies because they can help so rapidly.

And you can work at eliminating the histamine load or spreading it out. You can avoid the alcoholic beverages that might trigger it, minimize your fermented foods. Now, that doesn't mean you stop at all. You can have little bits here and there. take the gluten, take the dairy out. And it is amazing what happens to the frequency of the headaches. You know, if you've been around the block and are on multiple drugs, you know, it's stopping that. And then, of course, taking that questionnaire, the Dr.

Horowitz questionnaire. He is an internist in Upper New York State, his wife developed. Lyme disease, and then he's a world-renowned expert and has helped so many practitioners. All four of my children have been treated for vector-borne illness, Lyme disease or Bartonella, and just the pain and just the gaslighting. You know, it's interesting. One of my kids said, don't you remember? Because I didn't remember. I mean, she's 26 now, but when she was in eighth grade, you said, mom, don't you remember when I got what looked like a spider bite on my leg and you almost took me to the ER?

And then about two weeks later, I developed my knee swelling, my knee pain, then, you know, a lot of OCD, eating disorder type stuff. and depression. At one point, myself, three of my daughters, we were all on antidepressants at the same time. And it's like, I just thought, oh, it's genetic. It's just the way it's going to be. The last year and a half has been the hardest years of my life. And I haven't had to go back on an antidepressant. I've been moved to tears in many ways and had a lot of struggles.

But when life gives us these trials that we can't predict, it's like the power of precision genetics and giving our body what we need and leaning into the other resources that we have. I could not be where I am without the power of God's faithful grace and love in my life. And I think that you feel the same way. It's like drawing our power from above. But for all of you migraine sufferers, these are some tools and then some things that you can do to help yourself. Again, if you haven't had an MRI or real good physical exam, go see a neurologist, ask for these things.

It's medical standard of care. You are not your genetics. You are not your genetics. You're not locked into this. Can I actually ask a personal question because you said something that really we talk about genetics a lot as a mother who has struggled with depression and then to see your children struggle with that and you're to be at first to just be given, it's just genetics. What kind of like unintentional, like I'm going to say unintentional meaning I don't believe that providers are intentionally trying to shame patients, but it's what's happening.

Take a little into like how to work through that it's so much more than and like to kind of release that burden from people who feel like they've done this to their children. And you know, it's interesting that you bring that up because I struggle with that now. I'm like, the things I did wrong. And then I have to lean in and go, I was suffering myself and I didn't know about functional medicine. So you as a mom or a dad, it's like, you have to stop the shame game and all of that. And even if something does run in your family, You still need to lean into, I have asked my daughters for forgiveness and, um, you know, every, I've had a lot of therapies of my daughters and, um, you know, that's necessary to reach out and get help.

And we all need that. So good. Just because genetically it's there, you are not tied into that and you can break the bondage of your familial stuff that comes along. The family may have all these things, but you can turn and redirect. And when we talk about genetics, again, this isn't, you know, what country you're from or anything like that. This isn't, if you might have this syndrome, it's like specific little things that you can do something about. in your body. Things that you can modulate. Things you have power of.

I love it. I absolutely love it. Well, Dr. K, before we close up, we know we've talked a lot about different supplements that can help, different nutrition things that can help. Is there any other closing comments that you'd like to give for people who struggle with migraines? You don't have to struggle with migraines. That's what I like to say that there is hope and you need to have someone to partner with you to find all these things. I love that. Yeah, we talked about, you know, all these different things, you know, looking at your nutrients.

Just dig deeper. Don't settle. Don't, you know, don't settle for suffering. Dig deeper. And again, I want to thank Fagran for sponsoring us because without having these genetics, we could not guide care. I just love how when patients improve, when we give them what they need and we take away what they don't need. So fill your cup. of micronutrients and find a good functional medicine practitioner, partner with you and collaborate with you. And we would love to partner with you too. Visit us at Hope for Healing or explore the resources linked in today's show notes.

And if this episode encouraged you, please share it with someone who's living with migraines. They need to hear this message too. Until next time, remember, there is always hope for healing.