100. Are Migraines Genetic? What Your Doctor Isn't Telling You

One of the most common questions I get is: are my migraines genetic?

And I completely understand why:

Most people are told by their doctor that migraines run in the family, which is really just a polite way of saying you're unlucky and there's nothing to be done about it.

In this episode I explain why that answer is incomplete, and why it's keeping so many women stuck.

Here's the truth: there is no migraine gene.

Yes, there is a genetic predisposition, but whether those genes actually express themselves and generate migraines depends entirely on the environment your body is in.

his is the science of epigenetics, and it changes everything. We have roughly the same number of genes as an earthworm.

What makes us complex isn't the genes themselves,it's which ones get switched on and which ones get switched off based on your environment.

Your symptoms are not a malfunction. They are your body's way of adapting to conditions that are less than optimal. And if you change those conditions, by giving your cells the nutrients they need, clearing metabolic waste, and restoring your resilience and vitality, your body no longer has a reason to generate migraines, regardless of your family history.

If you're experiencing 8+ migraine days per month and ready to address the root cause, schedule a free consultation below:

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

Connect with us:

Website: https://www.drlesliecisar.com/

Free Facebook Group: Healing Migraines Naturally, with Leslie Cisar, ND

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 there
welcome to the Healing Migraines Naturally podcast
I'm your host Doctor Leslie Caesar
and I'm a licensed naturopathic doctor
former chronic migraine suffer
and I've dedicated my life to helping other women
with chronic migraines
rediscover a migraine free life
so welcome today today we're gonna talk about uh
genetics and migraines this is a very common question
are my migraines genetic
if this is your first time welcome
if you're returning and you're
enjoying the information here on the podcast
please subscribe
it really helps us quite a bit get the message out
one of the No. 1 questions that people have is
why am I getting these migraines
when I went to my doctor
I thought that's the question we were gonna answer
and so a lot of people
either go into their primary care doctor
or their neurologist maybe even
you know
like a specialty center like the Cleveland Clinic or
you know a regional headache clinic with the question
why am I getting these migraines
and many people are told that they are getting
migraines because of
genetics
your grandfather had migraines
your mother has headaches
so your migraines are genetic
that's why you're getting migraines
this is something where people at first they go okay
well
I guess that sounds reasonable
but then the more they think about it
they start to wonder if that's really the
the right answer for me I have
migraines and headaches on both sides of my family
so my mom when I was growing up
my mom had a headache every day
so by the kitchen sink she had like a
her little
little bin of her headache pills haha
and so I remember as a kid
like I would hear her clink the little bottle
to take her over the counter medication
she took Excedrin every day
for years and years and years
I never thought twice when I was a kid
I thought it I thought everybody had headaches
I thought it was just like a normal part of life
my best friend growing up
I remember one time we were playing like a
like a board game during the summer on our back deck
and I was like oh
I don't know if I want to play this game
I have a headache and she was like
a headache what is
what is that what does a headache feel like
I was like what are you talking about
I was like you've never had a headache
and she was like no
I've never had a headache
I was completely floored
I thought everybody had headaches
I thought it was normal for humans to have a headache
and so you know
I was probably I don't know
maybe we were 13 14 years old
I don't remember exactly how old we were
when we had this conversation
but like looking back it's like yeah
by that time I would have headaches
I certainly wasn't having headaches every day
but I would have periodic headaches
and I thought it was just normal
because every day
I heard my mom clinking her little bottle of excedrin
and getting those little pills clinked out of there
my grandfather grew up in Berwyn
Illinois kind of um
working class family and his father
my great grandfather
got such horrible migraines
that he would pound his head
against the wall in their home in Burwin
Illinois in an attempt to try to alleviate the pain
and that sounds
crazy to somebody that's never had a migraine before
but I think a lot of us can relate to the horrible
horrible pounding pain and like the desperation
and what if I just pound my head on the wall
you know it's like
maybe that would feel better
if I just created some external pain
rather than the internal pain
um that I'm dealing with
hi there
I wanna jump in real quick and tell you about my client
Beth she was getting 15 to 20 migraines
and headaches per month and as you can imagine
this was impacting her work performance
and her confidence she also has two small children
and she was
starting to feel like she was a horrible mom
because she had nothing left for them
at the end of the day but she reached out
and she booked a free consult call with me
and after I asked her about her migraines
and her health history
I felt confident that I could help her
I help women uncover
the root drivers of their migraines
and follow a step by step plan to dramatically reduce
the frequency by up to 90%
without adding more medication
or taking a bunch of supplements
so we built her personal migraine map
followed the plan
and now she will get one to two migraines per year
which she uses ibuprofen to treat if she needs to
verses up to 15 to 20 per month
when we first started working together
that weren't responding well to any medication
she just reached out to tell me that
she got a promotion at work
she's on top of her career again
and has been able to come off all of her migraine
medication but most importantly
she's a confident mom again
and she's attending birthday parties at Jump Zone
with her kids and saying yes
instead of saying maybe later
I've worked with women like Beth
from all over the United States
who were told this is the best we can do
but they were still willing to dig deeper
so
if you are serious about changing your migraine story
go to Doctor Leslie Caesar dot com slash apply
or tap the link in the show notes
and on our free consult
we'll map out why your migraines keep coming back
and the first three steps you can take
over the next 30 days
I do cap new client spots each month
so if the calendar is full
the doors are closed for now
but if you're done feeling helpless
and ready to do the work to heal
pause this episode for 30 seconds
and book that console call now
so my grandfather would talk about this a lot
because ultimately
his father's migraines got so bad that his doctor said
you've got to leave the city
you've got to go out into the country
and get out of the city for a period of time
that's the only thing that
is going to help your migraines
and so he had six kids my grandfather was the oldest
and so they packed up
and they moved to a homestead in Minnesota
where my great grandmother's brother was homesteading
there this was when my grandfather was sort of like
late elementary middle school age
according to him apparently
it did help his father's migraines
so you know
pretty significant family history for me on both sides
and again I just kind of
grew up
taking it for granted that people had headaches
it never occurred to me
that this was something that was
unusual or a symptom or or anything like that
you know certainly I can look back and I could say
oh well
my it's my genetics
right that gave me my migraines
and like I say
a lot of migraine suffers are told by their doctors
well
the reason you have this is because of your genetics
can look back on the medical literature
you know now
here in modern America we think that medicine
has only been around for 100 years
or something like that but that's not the case
I mean
we can read the writings of the ancient Greek doctors
in Europe in the 1500s
the 1600s they were writing
in they had what we would call a medical journal
where doctors would write up case reports
share cases talk about different treatments that they
that they were using you know
in the west
we have hundreds of years of writings from physicians
and then certainly other cultures
notably the ancient Chinese
ayurvedic medicine
which is the native medicine of India
these go
these systems of medicine go back a long time as well
and we have documentation
so we have a long
record of how physicians have looked at disease
from multiple cultures
and certainly these ancient physicians they
they were no dummies okay
they were very very good observers
and they certainly would observe that in this family
right it's
you can see these patterns
you can see that people in this family are predisposed
to certain symptoms or certain diseases
or certain health concerns
this isn't a real big shocker
even before we knew what a Jean was
um what DNA was
humans you know
they were breeding plants
they were breeding animals
they had an understanding of heredity
and so certainly ancient physicians saw these patterns
now
we kind of think that nobody knew anything until some
of our modern technology and laboratory sciences
and so on but that's not the case
certainly
there is a genetic predisposition to certain diseases
or symptoms right
so you know
diabetes
you can see that you know
there are some families where
you have a lot of people who have
gotten diabetes right
or high blood pressure right
there's a lot of families
where a lot of people in that family
have hypertension there's a lot of families
where a lot of people in that family
they get migraines and headaches
and this is the critical piece
that people are not being told
when someone is told that their migraines are genetic
this is basically a fancy way of saying you're unlucky
OK let's be honest
basically you're
you've got migraines because you're unlucky
you've got these bad genes
we don't have symptoms because we're unlucky
so when our body is in a state of health
it doesn't generate symptoms
symptoms are
what the body does
when it is adapting to less than optimal conditions
so we humans we are highly adaptable
uh organisms
many things on the planet
have to have a very particular environment
in order for that organism to survive
there are some bacteria
they don't survive
in an environment where there's oxygen
plants
you can take a look at all the different plants
on the planet
plants are organisms
that require pretty specific environments
or they're not gonna make it
they're not gonna survive
animals again
animals have a certain environment that they
will survive in
but maybe they're a little bit more flexible okay
but if you take a polar bear
and you move them down to the equator
they're not gonna survive for too long right
they only survive in sort of artificial environments
like zoos and so on right
where we're putting in a lot of effort
to keep them alive but if you just take a polar bear
and drop them to the equator
they're not gonna they're not gonna make it too long
but we humans we can survive and
thrive in a lot of different environments
were highly adaptable
so we can live from the Arctic to the equator
we can live on top of a mountain
we can live at sea level we can eat a wide you know
a wide variety of different types of foods
and we can flourish but there are limits okay
there are some limits
and when we are in an environment that is not optimal
our body adapts makes some compromises
and it doesn't function
as well as it has the potential to
and when that happens
it generates what we call symptoms okay
and so there's a physical environment
and then there's a mental and
emotional environment that we're in too
so even when I use the word environment right
it's a pretty complex
concept that we're talking about here
so all of that our physical
mental and emotional environment that we
are in our body is going to adapt to that environment
thank goodness we don't just um drop dead
if we're in a less than optimal environment
we will survive but there will be some trade offs
there will be some compromises
so the types of compromises that our body makes
there
has to be some sort of genetic predisposition to that
that's very clear
so one person in environment a that's not too optimal
they're gonna get diabetes
and another person in that same environment
that isn't optimal they're gonna get migraines
and you're gonna see that family history
so what I like to say is that we're genetically prone
to certain
symptoms or certain conditions or certain diseases
but first
we have to sort of not be in a state of health okay
the environment the physical
mental
and emotional environment that we find ourselves in
has to be far enough
out of alignment from our good flourishing
that our in
our body has to make enough adaptations
and compromises to survive in that less than
optimal or less than ideal environment
and those compromises
are going to come in the form of symptoms
and the type of symptoms that we're prone to
there's a genetic component to that
so this is what we wanna focus on
because we can't change our genetics
our genetics
are determined at the moment of conception
can't change them
but we can change the environment
this is where we do have some agency
and some control over
and that's what we should be focusing on
so when people go into the doctor looking for the
you know the answer to the question
why am I getting these migraines
instead of just telling people well
you know you're unlucky
you got these genes you know
what do you expect you've got this family history
we should be encouraging people to identify OK
aspects of the environment
are not optimal for my best flourishing
and where can I exercise some control
to make some changes
we can't completely
change the environment that we're in
my grandfather you know
his parents
this is how desperate
desperate my great grandfather must have been
and you know
his poor wife right
because this I mean
I know that this impacted his ability to work
my grandfather would also talk about that
so you know
you've got a wife you've got six kids
and then to pack up and change the environment
right and go up to a homestead in
in rural Minnesota
you know this was a radical change in the environment
that they made
and I'm sure that it came at quite a cost
change
recommendation that I'm sure through great sacrifice
they made and they were able to do
and apparently that helped him
but what I have found in my work
if someone is susceptible
say to weather related migraines
we don't actually have to pack up and move
somewhere where there's no weather
pretty hard to do because everywhere on the planet
there's weather right
but um a lot of people think you know well
maybe I'll move to Phoenix or something
because they don't have as many storms and so on
but you know there there is some weather in Phoenix
I live there for nine years
there is weather in Phoenix
and people do get migraines in Phoenix
we don't have to make these types of drastic
changes to our environment
so we want to identify
what aspects of the environment that we're in
they're less than optimal enough
that they're undermining our health
we are very adaptable
we can flourish in a lot of environments
but there are limits
and so part of the healing process
and when I work with my clients
part of this process is to identify OK
what what is in the environment here physical
mental and emotional environment
that is far enough out of alignment
from what is optimal
that it's undermining our health
and then once we've identified those things
or at least you know
we may not know for certain out of the gate
that this is causing an issue
but we've got some leads right
we've got some leads
and we're gonna run down some leads
and investigate things
and then OK
what are some doable changes
you could make
that's going to bring the environment back into
better alignment for your body to flourish
in that environment
and that's what we should be focusing on
but we're not focusing on that right
we're just telling everybody that it's genetic
you're doomed you're unlucky
you got bad genes
and so here's some more medication for you
and this is not what people want
nobody wants to take medication
I know if you're taking medication right now
you're taking it
because you're stuck between a rock and a hard place
right between having to function
and taking care of the things
and the people that you need to take care of
and that's a tough place to be in
I've been in there I've been in that spot myself
hi there
I wanna jump in real quick and tell you about my client
Beth she was getting 15 to 20 migraines and headaches
per month and as you can imagine
this was impacting her work
performance and her confidence
she also has two small children
and she was
starting to feel like she was a horrible mom
because she had nothing left for them
at the end of the day but she reached out
and she booked a free consult call with me
and after I asked her about her migraines
and her health history
I felt confident that I could help her
I help women uncover
the root drivers of their migraines
and follow a step by step plan to dramatically reduce
the frequency by up to 90%
without adding more medication
or taking a bunch of supplements
so we built her personal migraine map followed the plan
and now she will get one to two migraines per year
which she uses ibuprofen to treat if she needs to
verses up to 15 to 20 per month
when we first started working together
that weren't responding well to any medication
she just reached out to tell me that
she got a promotion at work
she's on top of her career again
and has been able to come off all of her migraine
medication but most importantly
she's a confident mom again
and she's attending birthday parties at Jump Zone
with her kids and saying yes
instead of saying maybe later
I've worked with women like Beth
from all over the United States
who were told this is the best we can do
but they were still willing to dig deeper
so
if you are serious about changing your migraine story
go to Doctor Leslie Caesar dot com slash apply
or tap the link in the show notes
and on our free consult
we'll map out why your migraines keep coming back
and the first three steps you can take
over the next 30 days
I do cap new client spots each month
so if the calendar is full
the doors are closed for now
but if you're done feeling helpless
and ready to do the work to heal
pause this episode for 30 seconds
and book that console call now
I know that intuitively
particularly if you're listening to this podcast
yeah if I just knew what steps to take
I think I would feel better
I think my body would respond to that
so that's really what we should be focusing on
it's great that we have the technology that we have
today certainly when people are you know
at a 10 out of 10
thank goodness that we do have some medication
that can help people
so
with the information that we have now about genetics
you know
and there's a lot a lot that we don't know yet
there's a lot of discoveries yet to be made
but you know when
when they develop the technology to actually sequence
the genome of different organisms
this was very exciting
so at first they started sequencing the genome
you know simple organisms right
then in the 90s in the early 90s
they started the Human Genome Project
and this was to you know
sort of crack the genetic code
we're going to sequence the human genome
and because they had already sequenced done some
some complete sequences on less complex animals
I I can use like an earthworm as an example okay
so they had sequenced all of the genes of an earthworm
and so we are a lot more complex than an earthworm
and so it was anticipated that we would have you know
orders of magnitude more jeans than an earthworm okay
so they were like
expecting this human genome
project to take a long time because
you know
based on how long it took us to do an earthworm
we're gonna you know do doing a human is gonna be
you know four five
six times
you know 10 times of that amount and lo and behold
we really don't have that many more
genes than an earthworm in fact
there's a lot of different species of worms
but we have about the same number of genes that a
that a worm has
so this was a real shock um to the researchers right
cause you're there thinking this is
you know we we must have this
you know huge uh
genome and really
we don't have that many more genes
than a simple earthworm so then they had to go into OK
so what's actually going on here
and the field of epigenetics
I I believe it was
the field of epigenetics was in place
uh before the human genome
but it really became critical to understand
what's called epigenetics
when they realize that we don't have that many genes
so how do you have this really complex organism
not have that many genes
and the answer is what's called epigenetics
so what they have determined is that
depending on the environment that the organism is in
certain genes will turn on
and certain genes will turn off
and our genes are sort of
like the recipe book for our cells
so our cells constantly have to do their work
produce hormones they have to produce uh proteins
they have to produce signaling molecules right
our cells are constantly making stuff
so the recipe book for what they make is our genes
so
epigenetics
refers to the phenomenon where certain genes
will turn on and turn off
depending on the environment
so sort of like we have this recipe book
and depending on the environment
certain recipes are gonna get ripped out of the book
and certain
recipes are gonna be put back into the book
and so
that is the physical mechanism
behind how our body adapts to different environments
physical environment
mental and emotional environment you know
our emotions can turn genes on and off
this is where right
our environment it's not changing your genetics
but it's turning different genes on and off
and if the gene is off
that's gonna change the recipe book if the gene is on
that's gonna change the recipe book
and so
that's sort of how it's believed that our bodies
execute this adapting to the environment
so and and there is no migraine gene okay
this is the other thing that you know
they were hoping that when they did the human genome uh
mapping or project
that they were going to discover like
here's the gene for migraines
here's the gene for epilepsy
here's the gene for diabetes
but it's that's not the case right
diabetes comes about because of all of the different
on and off genes right
the particular
these genes are on and these genes are off
and the particular combination of those on
off patterns that is what produces ultimately
the thing that we call diabetes or migraines
or high blood pressure right
so it's not so simple that there's just like
this one little on and off switch
and once that gets flipped
now you're doomed
it's the combination of all of these different
on and off switches and how your body expresses that
that is ultimately
gonna lead to the symptoms that you experience
so with all of this complexity
it really comes down you know
when you're dealing with a complex system
and we humans
we are extraordinarily complex systems are never
you're never gonna get anywhere if you try to find like
that one specific on off switch
the one specific gene
the one specific thing that's causing it
because it's never one specific thing
when you're dealing with a complex system
and when you go into a complex system
and you try to make a change
you have downstream consequences
that you're not going to be able to understand
predict
mitigate ahead of time
when you're dealing with complex systems
you have to go down to fundamentals
you have to go down to first principles
and intervene in a different way
with modern medicine and with pharmaceuticals
we're trying to manipulate a very complex system
and at first it seems like it's working
until it's no longer working
you wanna go down to first principles
to fundamentals
and this is what I call the three principles so
how do we flourish
in the environment that we find ourselves in
what what are the first principles
what are the fundamentals of what our body needs
to maintain its state of health
even within the very diverse environments that we
humans find ourselves in
so these three principles are as follows
No. 1
we have to get the nutrients that our cells need to
the cells our cells don't function on Frappuccinos
and unicorn dust everything that our cells do
requires nutrients to get that work done right
so if you're thinking of a factory
in order for that factory to produce goods
you have to have the raw materials
coming into the factory
if the raw materials are held up
if the train doesn't deliver the raw materials
to the factory
the factory is not going to be able to produce
the goods so the first principle
the first thing that our body needs
is it needs the nutrients
required to function optimally
the second principle is
we have to remove metabolic waste material
and other toxins from the cells
and ultimately from our body
so again you know
at the end of the day
and the factories done all of this stuff and and all
all the goods have been made
there's gonna be a lot of trash that's produced
and you can't just leave all that trash laying
around on the factory floor
you gotta come in
every night and you gotta clean up right
because the next morning
things are not gonna go too well on the assembly line
if there's
all this trash laying around from the day before
so we've got to take the trash out okay
we've got to get that out of the cells
and ultimately out of our body
and the third principle is
we have to restore our resilience and vitality
so that we can weather the inevitable stressors
that are bombarding us all the time
we are continuously being bombarded by stressors
in the migraine world
we sometimes call these things triggers so the sunlight
the barometric pressure changes
the maybe uh
the MSG in the food that we ate at a restaurant
all of these physical stressors
that are hitting our body
there are these are relatively small physical stressors
but if you're prone to migraines
you can really feel them larger
physical stressors would be something like an injury
an accident a surgery
uh you know
major illness like a bronchitis or bad flu
something like that
and then we have things that we call stress
like mental and emotional stress
those stressors are sort of
knocking us out of homeostasis
out of balance out of health
we have to have enough resilience and vitality
to stay in balance to stay in homeostasis
to kind of stay upright
in the face of all of these stressors
so we have to restore that resilience and vitality
otherwise we're
going to be just sort of at the whim
of all of these little stressors
or what we typically call triggers
in the migraine world
so those three things are where we want to intervene
instead of trying to you know
manipulate this very complex system
we actually want to first take a look at okay
what's missing here within these three principles
and then how do we want to address those deficiencies
or those missing pieces or those blockers
and then when we do that basically
I call that
giving your body what it needs to function optimally
the body will take that sort of raw material
and then do with it
what is going to be the best thing for us
in the particular environment that we're in
so that's what we should focus on
instead of our genetics that we have no control over
and again it's not like there's a migraine gene
there's there isn't a gene for the vast
vast majority of different health concerns
like this is the gene you know
that causes migraines it's just not the case
it's much more complex than that
but the good news is that
because it's not just one gene
that predisposes us to things
it's not a death sentence
how am I sitting here in front of you today
with the type of family history that I have
and I haven't had a migraine in a very long time
so how is that possible
if it was because of my genetics
that wouldn't be possible
but I'm sitting here today
because I now know what my body needs
in order for it to adapt
to the environment that I'm in
I'm a fifth generation Chicagoan
so in that you know
Chicago environment one man had horrible migraines
where he's banging his head against his wall
and now over 100 years later
his great granddaughter is
not banging her head against a wall with migraines
right
it's helping other women recover from migraines too
right so
um I hope that this gives you a lot of hope
so just because you have a family history of migraines
you're not doomed
we don't have defective genes
what we want to do is we want to identify
what does your body need
to flourish in the environment that it's in
so I hope you enjoyed the podcast today
again if you did
please give us a like and a subscribe
on your way out here and if this resonates with you
I would love to talk with you further
on a free consult call so
if you'd like to get on my calendar
and talk with me about your migraines
and talk about getting a game plan together
to get you feeling better
go ahead and click on the link in the description
and I would love to talk with you
so have a great day everybody
I will talk to you guys soon