90. Cynthia Heals Decades of Dealing With Migraines

Cynthia spent decades dealing with migraines that started in her mid-30s and progressively worsened until they were controlling her life. By her late 50s, she was canceling work meetings, lying in dark rooms for days at a time, and vomiting during attacks. What started as occasional Saturday headaches had turned into 10-day cycles where she couldn't tell where one migraine ended and another began.

In this episode, Cynthia shares how she went from relying on beta blockers and triptans that only prolonged her suffering to understanding why her body was generating migraines in the first place. She talks about the surprising things she learned about nutrient delivery, liver overload, and metabolic waste that went way beyond just eating healthy. She also opens up about the mental and emotional patterns common among migraine sufferers and how addressing those was critical to her healing.

Now in her second year of private practice as a therapist, Cynthia rarely gets migraines. When she does, they're mild and she can trace them back to specific choices. She recently traveled across time zones, dealt with high altitude, early wake-ups, and airport chaos without a single migraine. She shares the simple breakfast strategy that helped her stay grounded and how she's learned to listen to her body instead of living in fear of triggers.

This episode is for you if you've been dealing with migraines for decades and they keep getting worse, if medications worked for a while but now you're in constant rebound, if you're tired of being told to just manage stress, or if you're ready to understand why your body is doing this instead of just suppressing symptoms.

If you're having 8+ migraine days per month and you're ready to get to the root cause, I can help.

Schedule your free consultation here:
https://www.drlesliecisar.com/apply

Free Training: 5 Proven Steps to Being Migraine Free (Even if you think you've already tried everything.)

https://www.drlesliecisar.com/5SHMN

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Ready to try something radically different that actually works? Read more about my approach here: https://www.drlesliecisar.com/map

In health,
Dr. Leslie Cisar

Episode Transcript

hi everyone
welcome to the Healing Migraines Naturally podcast
I'm your host Doctor Leslie Caesar
and today I'm talking with Cynthia
and Cynthia is going to share with us
her healing journey from chronic migraines
welcome Cynthia welcome
thank you so you and I
I checked my notes you and I started working together
so almost two years ago now
I can't believe how the time goes
so uh
tell us what was your life like back then
so I didn't start getting migraines until my mid 30s
but by the time I was in my mid
late 50s mid late 50s
they were getting much much more frequent
much worse so that it had gone from just
there were days that on a Saturday
I didn't get to do anything
cause I was lying in the dark
to times I had to cancel meetings
or not go to an event for work
um and partly because they had gotten so bad
that there was I was vomiting sometimes
and so like that's the one thing
it's like well
I guess I'm not going to this meeting right
I just was getting really frustrated with the fact that
why is my body doing this right
it just didn't make sense to me
that a body should do this
there was clearly no purpose it was serving
other than to get me to go lie in the dark
so what was that about
and I was just getting more and more frustrated and
and more and more often feeling awful
and the headaches would be more and more close together
so that then
you can't even really think about what's causing what
because you don't kind of
know where one ends and another begins
sort of yeah
so you know
it's so interesting how similar these migraines start
for most people right
they start you know
for most of us they're not starting when we're 5
although you know
children can have migraines
but usually
they're starting when we're sort of in young adulthood
and they're not that frequent
and they get worse and worse and worse over time until
you know you can't attend a meeting
because you're afraid you're going to vomit
in the middle of it
um and so you have that sort of very common uh
progression uh
where you know
I'm a uh
if memory serves
when you first started getting migraines
you were taking like an over the counter
maybe even an excedrin or
or something like that feeling relatively well
kind of putting it out of your mind
does that does
does that yes
sound right
yeah so I carried around Advil
increasingly
important to carry around Advil all the time
and a lot of times that would work um
for a time and it would come and go over several days
and then it would be gone and
and I would just need to have the
the Advil with me all the time
but that actually started leading to vertigo
so then I was getting vertigo with the headaches
and I read somewhere that the AB
alone with the vertigo so then I was using Tylenol
which sort of worked and sort of didn't
and then I had finally
I had been reading things
I had read a a book by an MD who focuses on migraines
who's in Boston which is not far from me
um and I finally made an appointment with her
and she put me on a beta blocker and a naratriptan
um and those were sort of helpful for a while
the idea was that the beta blocker
would maybe reduce the frequency
and of course that's really hard to measure what
you know what
what effect it's having
and I was getting like maybe a tiny change
um and then the naratriptan would work
you know
it might work for 12 hours or something like that
but then what I would realize is
what would have been a four day headache
of feeling horrible the whole time
was now a 10 day headache
with some breaks from feeling horrible
um and then again
and then it just becomes harder and harder to know okay
is this the same headache or is this a new headache
or what you know what's
what's happening and so after I started with you
I tapered off I think
I might have right away stopped using that medication
I'd gone off the beta blocker a while earlier
cause it wasn't clear it was doing anything
um and I um
I think I might have stopped the naratriptan right away
as soon as we started working together um
but anyway certainly
very quickly stopped using that
and started using only the occasional aspirin
and that's now what I do
along with the
homeopathic remedy that you provide to me
mm hmm yeah
this is um you know
the unfortunate progression I
I try to get this message out
that when you suppress the symptoms of the migraine
right the the body starts generating it
it it starts fighting that suppression
and it starts generating
more and more of the migraine symptoms
and so you know what turned into well
you know I'm gonna miss a half a day of of work
now you're going 10 days
you know
wondering what you know is it the same migraine
am I in rebound am I just not feeling well
you know what's what's going on here
it's a very very common progression um
so I I actually have a new new client and um
she was telling me that you know
this has happened to her and she
and when she tells her neurologist
she's been to multiple neurologists you know
I start some you know
you recommended this I started it
it worked for a little bit
but it's not working anymore
the neurologist act like
I've never heard of this before
you're the only person that this has happened to
and when she was telling me this
I was kind of dumbfounded because it's
it happens all the time
I don't know why a neurologist wouldn't be seeing this
you know so
so you kind of um
got to the point where your intuition
you kind of had this intuitive knowing
if I could just get to the root cause of this
and somebody could help me address this
my body would stop generating these migraines
is that kind of the point that you got to exactly
yes exactly
and while I was going I I eventually started
while I was having these long headaches
right and you can't watch anything
you can't read anything
and I started listening to podcasts to try to find
you know about migraines
and to
try to find people talking about something like this
and I eventually found yours
but I first found a lot that were
by men who were maybe also neuroscientists
who were maybe vegan who were
you know
who had this whole other direction they were going
and I thought there's something wrong here
because it's more women than men who
who get these and I just it's
you know wasn't fitting
and eventually
through that search is when I found your podcast
and you were sort of speaking that language of
your body knows what to do with this
we just need to help it figure out how to do that
yeah so what uh
what motivated you to do the crazy thing
of reaching out to somebody
who wasn't local to you
and you had only listened to hahaha over the internet
what uh
what motivated you to do something like that
I mean what motivated me was just how extreme this was
and feeling like I am not
I can't do this anymore you know
I'm not I'm not going to live this way anymore
and I will say I was quiet at first
about the fact that I was doing it to
to explain to other people that I'm
you know reaching out to this other person
it was you know
several years post pandemic
my job was completely virtual
so the idea of working with someone virtually
that wasn't so foreign um
but for this intensity of care
it was like alright
that's maybe a lot um
and uh
but I just was ready to take the risk
and I felt pretty well rid and
and pretty much as if I had um
enough ways of sort of verifying that you were real
your degree was real all
all of those sort of things
yeah that's so interesting
I I uh
I I
I didn't know that you didn't tell anybody
but that's so common
like I've heard that from other clients
they're like I'm not telling
you know I'm not telling my sister I'm working
you know she think I was crazy
you know she would say you found her on Facebook or
you know so I will have clients that say
you know
I'm not telling these particular people that I'm
doing this yes
at least for a little while yeah
uh huh and then um
really like you say
it was just the you
you couldn't live like this anymore basically
yeah I just did not want to do it anymore
and I was always very
I hated even using the word migraine
I hate it to be you know
uh one of those people who gets migraines
and I and like I say
I just had this idea that there had to be
and I was sort of fascinated by finding
I think the explanation
you know and
and figuring that out and
you know I've had this idea that okay
I could see some evolutionary purpose
that if someone is sort of so exhausted
and feeling so poorly
what you would want them to do is go hide in the cave
in the dark
while everyone went off on the hunt and then came back
right so I get why it might be adaptive
but it's not adaptive to my world right now
you know and um
there's got to be a way to figure that out
well I
I love that you say that because
one of the core tenants of naturopathic medicine
is that what we call symptoms
what we're trying to get rid of
is actually the productive adaptation
that
the body is making to the environment that it's in
our body is always trying to survive
and it's trying to flourish
in the particular environment that
we have put ourselves in ha ha
either through our own doing
or due to forces outside of our control right
so but our body is always trying to flourish and adapt
and continue to function
even if the conditions are less than optimal
whether the physical conditions
or the mental
or emotional conditions are less than optimal
the body's always adapting to that
and it's trying to flourish
it's trying to function
so in order to continue to function
it has to make some accommodations right
we can't have it all we can't have an environment
that maybe isn't conducive to our health
and flourishing
and yet still feel healthy and still flourish right
we we want to have it all
but we can't have it all
so the body is trying to survive and it's adapting
accommodating to the environment that it's in
but the trade off is what
you know sometimes
we have these symptoms that are causing us suffering
and are very unpleasant
but we're so from the body's perspective
it's like well
at least I kept you alive
haha
you didn't just drop dead in this environment
like we're still going we're still going
but yeah can be very unpleasant
that's for sure yeah yes yes
so I like how you pull in that adaptive response
you were tired of the adaptive response basically
yes yes
yes exactly yes
so um
what uh
what were you uh
were you nervous to start
were you worried like
sometimes people are afraid that I'm gonna recommend
you know crazy things or things that
you know they might not be able to do
were you nervous
I think
probably my biggest fear was that it wouldn't help
um I think I was ready to and
and I think I was a little bit
already sort of prone to thinking the way you describe
as in the naturopathic thinking
and all of that sort of stuff
so that felt relatively comfortable to me I um
so yeah I
so I think I
I didn't want to be proven wrong about that I would
you know so that was maybe my biggest fear yeah
that it wouldn't work you wouldn't feel better
yeah and what was the most surprising thing to you
about the whole process of restoring your health
so there were tons of surprises
I have um
so many pages of notes and drawings and um
then my thinking about my notes after
afterward because
I was learning all these things from you
about nutrition and really much
you know sort of metabolic things
and much more about how circulation works
and how nutrients get distributed
and all those sorts of things
that were I I
I'm sure I didn't need to take all the notes
and follow that in as
much depth as I did in order to be helped
but I found that fascinating and completely surprising
so um
there were just a lot of pieces of that
that I feel like are why don't
why don't we know this and I guess we don't all know it
because it's kind of complicated to explain but um
so that sort of
what the answer turned out to be
is exactly what we were talking before right
this is the body's adaptive response and these
this is the sort of
the internal environment that it's responding to
all the pieces of that um
the liver overload and the
you know internal toxins
and trying to get nutrients to the cells
and all of those things that go way beyond
just being a vegetarian and eating lots of good food
which is what I was doing right
so it felt like I was being really healthy and in fact
it just was far off so all of that um
was really surprising
the other surprising piece was the mental
emotional part of it um
which again I'd
I was in therapy at the time
still am I'm a therapist
I've been in therapy before um
but there was work that we did that sort of
cut to the chase of things that
I hadn't cut to the chase of before
and that were really critical in this
and so that was really interesting and surprising too
yeah you know
I have uh you know
I I have had clients that are therapists and I
I love working with therapist clients because
um
we're working you know
for most of my clients
we're also working on the mental and
emotional component
that's contributing to the migraines
and um
a lot of uh
a lot of clients like who aren't therapists
they'll that
when I talk about the mental and emotional component
they'll ask me well
is it like therapy are
are you like a therapist you know
and I'm like well no
I'm not a therapist
and you know
um but it is work that I it
you know I'd be curious genuine
you know
I'm genuinely curious your perspective as a therapist
but it's sort of under that sort of same umbrella
would you
would you say that that mental and emotional work
yes and I think my
of course I'm only one client
I only have experience with you
with one client being me
but my sense was that there are some
common patterns that you see in your clients
and so that allowed you to sort of
go right to some key questions
that
it might take a really long time in therapy to get to
because
you'd be working on all kinds of different things
and you're not going after this particular symptom
um so
so yes
it was very similar to the work you might do in therapy
if you handed your therapist a map and said
I wanna work on fixing this right okay
yeah okay
yeah that makes sense
that makes sense and this is
you know this is what I will tell uh
you know like
perspective clients that are reaching out
and they have questions around this
I will say you know
I I'm very honed in
as to just the mental and emotional peace
that's contributing to your migraines
but in therapy
you might be addressing any number of things right
and so um
what I found in my work yes
you're absolutely right there's some recurring themes
there's some recurring patterns amongst US
women who are prone to migraines
and that does kind of give a
a a inkling into a roadmap
sort of a you know
kind of a
a well worn path
a path that's a little bit easier to see through
the wilderness rather than
you know you as
as a therapist working with a new client right
you're more kind of like okay
where's you know
I just I just have a jungle in front of me here how
you know where are
where's the destination
where's the route through things
um does that
does that resonate
yes I think that makes perfect sense
and I think too you know
somebody might be going through
say a divorce
but that may not be contributing to their migraines
but they might be going
yeah right
but you might be going to a therapist
because you're going through a divorce
and you you know
need to work on things relative to that
but if it's not contributing to your migraines
that's what I'm looking for
what are the mental and emotional factors
that are actually contributing to the migraines
and if it's if you wanna talk about your divorce
yeah you know
see a therapist
but we're probably not gonna get into that
because it's not really contributing to the migraines
some you know
it's it's a different piece
yes and I'm sure the mental
emotional
peace stuff that we worked on helped with my migraines
and also contributed to other therapy stuff right
it's not that it's entirely separate
um but it was just like
pulling on a very particular thread yeah yeah
interesting interesting
and how are you feeling now
what's life like for you now
so um
very different I mean I
I still occasionally get headaches um
usually
what happens now is I'll get a little bit of something
and I'll be able to use the homeopathic remedy
and that might take it away completely
occasionally I will still get one
that's nowhere near as bad as it used to be
but uncomfortable for a day or even a couple of days um
but it's much less severe
and because they're so far apart now
now I'm able to look back and say like
oh yeah I see what I did there right
I did not need to do that extra workout
on Friday morning after I was already exhausted
you know feeling all these things
it's like yeah
and so that's helping me um
to at least feel I have more to control
even if ultimately
I'm still getting a few here and there but um
spending a whole lot less time
and I and I also
they just don't get to the point where
I'm in a dark room
with the sound turned all the way down
you know they don't get to that point
I might need a really quiet day or something like that
but it's just not the same
um and in the meantime
that's on top of right
so I I have their bit of stressful things
caring for aging parents and um
I'm just starting a psychotherapy practice
at the age of 62
um and um
so you know a lot going on
and still feeling really good
I think the most dramatic thing I noticed recently was
over Christmas
I traveled to see my children who are adults
um and it involved flying
it involved being at high altitude
um I was waking up too early
because of the time zone change
and not sleeping well because of the high altitude and
um hiking
you know doing all of these things
and I was fine
I was even fine like after I flew home and
you know all those sorts of things
and I think one of the most important things I did was
I you know we
we were renting a house and so
we went to Whole Foods and got eggs and greens
and a couple of other things
and so every morning
I had my giant pile of greens and my two eggs
and then I just at other meals
just did my best to eat as well as I could
but I knew I had done that
and so I think that really helped me too
and that just would never have occurred to me before
you know before doing this work
that's fantastic I mean
you listed some of the most common haha
migraine triggers right
I mean getting up early to catch the flight
uh oh
now I've got a migraine right now
I'm on the I'm in the airport
oh my goodness
the smells the chaos right
the stress the airplane
the altitude I mean
it's just like a checklist for a migraine uh
to occur so I love that yes
I love that you were able to
enjoy that time with your family and
and feel good through all of that
travel is so stressful
yes yes
it was really amazing and so I was
it would have been well worth it
if I ended up with a headache
but I was like wow
I just got through that without a headache
well and then two
like what I'm hearing is okay
I'm going to make sure that I'm starting my day out
on a good footing
right and then if I have that good footing in place and
you know lunch is
you know a little a little sketchy
it's a McDonald's drive through or
you know whatever it's catch as catch can
at least I have that good foundation that I laid down
and you know that sounds so simple and and sort of like
you know oh well
no brainer right
but here's the thing like when you're traveling
and it sounds like you were
maybe in an Airbnb with family members
so it can be very difficult
to take good care of ourselves
when there's other people with other agendas
other priorities other things that they want to do
it can be very challenging to say
you know what I need to have a breakfast
we need to have eggs on hand
I need to have my vegetables
you know that can be very
very difficult to actually implement
and so this is part of
you know to um
to take good care of ourselves having the
you know whether it's the confidence um
you know a lot of us who are prone to migraines
were more on the people pleasing side
that's a recurring dynamic
you know we
we put everybody ahead of ourselves
we're the last person that we're gonna take care of
and so changing that pattern for a lot of women
is something that's necessary for them to just
you know eat a breakfast
while they're sharing an Airbnb with other people
who maybe say breakfast
I'll I just have my coffee right
we don't you know
I don't have time for that or let's get going or
you know we'll eat on the run or
or that type of thing now
I'm not saying that you know
your family is like that but just
you know as an example
how difficult just doing something like that can be
for a lot of people
yes it really can be hard
and in this case
everyone was sort of totally willing to go with that
but I was it helped that I was really clear
what I wanted and need you know
I thought it through ahead of time
okay what do I need
what do I wanna make sure I do
and then I could be really easy going on the
on the rest of it and
and for the most part
everyone was happy to join me in my eggs and vegetables
for breakfast right
they're like oh yeah
some people are like oh good
I can actually eat
yeah well
and I love to um
because certainly you know
we have to we have to eat in a health supporting way
you know we have to have a health supporting
health supporting eating habits
I don't think this is a big surprise to people
um and that's how I teach my clients to eat
but also we have to be flexible
we have to be able to enjoy our life um
we have to be able to go on a trip
and eat in a restaurant or get
you know heaven forbid
fast food sometimes you know
eat the food in an airport
and so I like um
how you were able to you know
kind of lay that foundation
and then feel confident that you didn't have to stick
with like a regimented
you know so
so called migraine diet you know
food trigger avoidance diet
you could kind of go with the flow
right for lunch and dinner
you know with the rest
oh you wanna eat there
okay great
you know I'll eat there
and it's not you know
the constant you know
oh well
you guys eat and I'll get something later or
you know you're at the table
oh what's in the sauce
you know a 15 minute conversation with the waiter
what's in the sauce can you make it like this
you're just like yeah
you know what
I'll be
I'll be able to weather this for lunch and dinner
yep exactly
that freedom to I'll be able to the
I'll be able to
find a way to function in that environment right
it's like yeah
for that short amount of time
yes and not that whole thing of looking for the food
I don't know if you would phrase it this way
but it's sort of like
looking for the food that I do need
as opposed to having this list of 500
things that I cannot have
and trying to find the food that isn't those things
is a really helpful yeah
I love how you put that yeah
that really is the flip right
because 1 the
the food list
the food trigger list is coming from like an anxiety
oh does
does is this gonna have it in there
you know I have to avoid this rather than oh
what what do I just pull in
you know onto the plate
what do I you know
put into my shopping cart
what can I eat you know
from all of these things here
what am I able to eat I'll eat that yeah
it's a great shift it's a great shift
and I I like too that um
you are still occasionally getting some headaches right
so this is you know uh
this is another thing that I think is important
um this is not like a miracle cure for migraines
where we waved a wand over you and you never have
you know a headache again in your life
you never have any other symptoms
of some sort of magical pill
you know our health is in continuous flux right
we have to maintain our health um
you know we can our
our health can take a big hit
through an accident or an injury through
you know no fault of our own
so
it's really just the process of living and continuing
to
you know to uh
main you know
maintain our health take good care of ourselves
and also when you're not having
you know 15 days of head pain in a row
and you're having a little bit of a head
you know
a little bit of a head pain flare you can say hmm
you know oh okay yeah
I worked out a little bit too much
I put too many stressors sort of on myself
and it overwhelmed my vitality
and now I'm feeling that right
so it you know for most people
they're gonna feel like they have more control
they have more agency instead of
you know
this thing that's just sort of coming out of nowhere
striking me down like I'm being punished by Zeus
it's like oh
you know I can kind of feel where my body is
and maybe this would be a little bit better
thing for me to do today
than this thing that I had originally planned
because I I can feel that my
my resilience
and my vitality is a little bit lower today
so I'm going to honor that
and and some days are easier to do that than others
and some days we miscalculate and we go oh well haha
I guess that was a little too much yes
or like the nervous energy over takes all that
and I'm just not listening to myself
or don't wanna hear right
and there you go right yeah
right but but is that because you know
so then are you having the head pain
because your body is defective
and you're doomed or is it that interplay right
between our free will
unconscious factors and the environment that we're in
yes which is so
so reassuring to feel that that's how it works
and then it becomes sort of interesting to figure out
as opposed to just like like you said
like feeling you've been struck down by Zeus or
you know that there was something in the sauce right
yeah or did you know yeah right
well good
so uh
you know when you and I were working together
you were in school you were in a major uh
life transition and I'm just thrilled to hear from you
and you're in practice now and uh
it sounds like your practice is flourishing
yes yes
so that's been really exciting
I'm sort of in my second year of seeing clients
and feeling really you know
now it sort of rolls off my tongue to say
I'm a therapist
which is you know
something that I just wanted to do for so long
and but going to grad school to
you know feel like the old person who's doing something
you know well
that was a little hard when I was you know 58
59 60 years old so um
it's exciting to now be through it and
and
starting this thing that I really feel like I'm gonna
be doing into my 80s
that was part of the reason why I
you know turn to the change now
um and now I really feel like yeah
I will have that energy to be able to keep
keep doing this and get really good at it over the next
you know 20 years
yeah that's
that's why they call it a practice right
it's constant practice hahaha yes
yes well
I mean just
just uh
amazing uh
all the people that you're going to be able to help
that you've already helped
and are going to continue to
to be able to help and you wouldn't be able to do that
if you were trying to focus on a client
and trying not to vomit and
and you know
yeah brain fog and everything else
so I'm really happy for you
yes thank you
and I'm so grateful for your work
well wonderful
thanks so much for sharing your story
I'm sure a lot of women will resonate uh
with what you've
what you've gone through with your migraines
and I can't wait to hear from you
you reach out every so often
let me know how you're doing
and I can't wait to continue to hear how you're doing
great thanks so much
thank you
alright alright great thank you so much