115. The Real Reason Foods Trigger Migraines (A Personal Story)

After a family dinner out, I woke up the next morning with a few unexpected symptoms, and instead of being a problem, they were actually my body doing exactly what it’s designed to do.

In this episode, I walk you through what was going on under the surface, why your body sometimes reacts to certain meals more strongly than others, and how this connects to the bigger picture of why migraines show up in the first place.

If you’ve ever felt confused or frustrated about your body’s reactions, this one will give you a much clearer way to understand them.

Check out the podcast episode about trigger point injections:

Trigger Point Injections and Migraines. What Nobody Tells You

If you’re ready to address the root drivers of your migraines, you can book a free consultation at the link 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 sufferer
and I help women all over the country
rediscover a migraine free life
so I wasn't planning on doing a podcast today
but something happened to me this weekend
it's personal it's not very glamorous
but I think it's one of the best illustrations
of the core framework that I come back to again
and again on the podcast so I'm jumping on today um
to share this with you
I really hope you get a kick out of this
what I what I went through yesterday
I hope you get a kick out of it
and then also I hope that you really
I hope that it brings a deeper understanding
as to the symptoms that your body is generating
so let's get into it okay
so I'm gonna set the scene here for you
so you know again
yesterday was Mother's Day
so on Saturday
we actually went out to dinner with my in laws
so not just my mother and father in law
but my sister in law her husband
her two girls
they are very close in age to my daughter
so the three of them are really close
so
you know this wasn't just like a little
you know family dinner
this was the whole crew okay
so it was so fun it was so special
my daughter and then one of her cousins
they share the same birthday one year apart
but same birthday which was which just occurred
so it was like super fun
we went to a hibachi grill
so if you've never been hibachi is that style
it's like a Japanese steakhouse
where the chef cooks right at your table
there's that big like stainless steel huge griddle
right that you're sitting around and you know
they light things on fire
they clank the knives and the spatulas
and they sing and everything else right
the chef flips the shrimp the broccoli
you know into your mouth and and so on so
you know super fun
the kids were losing it
my sister in law is a real hoot
so she I was sitting next to her
she had a great time it was loud
it was fun
we were celebrating happy birthday the whole
the whole bit
I wasn't thinking about my health at all
I wanna be upfront about something right
and you're probably already thinking this
if you're a migraine sufferer
hibachi is notorious in the migraine community right
I mean I know this
I've gotten migraines
after eating this type of food before right
so but I went in I was confident
I really didn't even think about it
you know when we were ordering
I didn't pull the server aside and you know
ask him what type of sauce do you use
you know is is there gonna be MSG in this meal
of course there's gonna be MSG in this meal
you know what kind of oil
what's in that golden butter
or I hate to say golden butter is like orange butter
radioactive orange butter
that you're going to drench everything in
I didn't ask any of those questions
I just ordered right off the menu
and I definitely don't regret it
it was a great time we had a lot of fun
and then I woke up Sunday morning
and I walked into the bathroom
and I looked in the mirror and uh oh boy
so my eyes were absolutely watering
the bags under my eyes
literal dark circles under the eyes
and my nose was running continuously
I mean like a faucet all right
just a complete watery constant dripping nose
such that if I went to go do anything
you know unload the dishwasher in the morning
my nose is dripping
I had to hold a tissue under my nose
it was dripping so much and to add the final insult
I literally had a little pimple on the side of my nose
okay
so I want you to sit with this picture for a minute
because
I know what a lot of migraine sufferers would do
in that moment
they'd reach for the antihistamine right
the Benadryl the Allegra
they think I must be coming down with something or
you know it is may
we're in the peak of allergy season
you know maybe the pollen count is really high
maybe the mold count is really high
let me take something for this
because I've got a whole Mother's Day plan now right
that was with my in laws the night before
I've got a whole
lunch
plan with my parents that we're gonna be leaving for
right so but that's not what I thought
oh yeah these are toxicity symptoms okay
and there's a really important distinction here
that I wanna draw
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're 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
an allergy implies that our immune system
has somehow gotten confused
has gotten off track
and it's overreacting to something innocent
like the pollen or the mold or the cat
or whatever it is
but what I was looking at in the
mirror
had nothing to do with my immune system misfiring
my body was doing exactly what it is supposed to do
it was
our body has multiple channels for getting rid of waste
okay and our
our liver does the work of detoxification of waste
material molecules or toxin molecules
but then we have to eliminate
those molecules from the body
so the way that we eliminate them is through our skin
through a nasal discharge
by generating a watery eye discharge right
we eliminate things in that way
so if the liver
has more of an overload than it can handle
the elimination processes are really going to kick up
they're going to go into overdrive because it's like
okay if the liver can't handle this
let's really try to flush as much out as we can
to help out it's basically recruiting the backup crew
all of those elimination channels
those were on full display in my face
okay those channels were running at full capacity
let's go through
what's actually in a typical hibachi grill meal okay
because I know a lot of people would have no idea
I think
perhaps those of us that are prone to migraines
and concerned about migraines
we might be a little bit more dialed in
but just in case
you're not aware of what's typical at a hibachi grill
okay so first of all
let's talk about the stuff that looks like butter okay
the chef came out right they wheel out
like a cart with all of your ingredients and so on
and there was a a like a tub
like a VAT of this mound of this
like
radioactive orange stuff that is apparently butter
mixed with seasonings and stuff like that
and the chef puts this on everything right
this is the main sauce so
almost never real butter hahaha
this did occur to me when we were sitting there
and I was thinking I wonder if that's actually butter
that's probably margarine and um
I did look this up it is typically margarine
or they might blend margarine with like
you know kind of cheap butter
um so margarine right
this is a like a
you could call it like a fake food right
it's partially hydrogenated vegetable oil
and that process
turns the liquid vegetable oil into a solid
like the texture of butter
it's not good for you OK
it's a type of fat that um
you really don't want to put into your body
very frequently if you do it occasionally
your body will work it out
but it's really something that you want to avoid
it's never anything that I would buy
and use to cook with or have in our home
but if you go to a restaurant
you're you're
you're likely to be exposed to partially hydrogenated
oils
so then you know
they've got the salt in there
the garlic powder soy sauce
definitely
I don't think it was that
radioactive orange color on its own
that was probably a food dye that was in there
so we've got a lot of additives
a lot of you could say chemical toxins in the food
and like I say they put this on everything
it's not like it's just a little touch
everything that we ate was cooked
and marinated and drenched
he kept taking his big spatula and dolloping um
this stuff onto the grill
so then there's the cooking oil itself
so you know
he had sort of like those squeeze bottles right
and he's you know
squeezing the oil and so on again
this is not you know
extra virgin olive oil this is probably a seed oil
not the best oil it's a highly refined oil
that's going to have solvents in it
and so on so again
more toxins within the food that you're eating
then we're cooking the food in really high temperatures
right the grill is just steaming right
everything is sizzling in fact
when you put the rice on the grill
it actually was like
it was like popping like like it was popcorn
but it was rice
it was literally like jumping up off of the grill
cause it was so hot
so then you're charring and really burning the food
that generates
sort of natural toxins that you're going to eat
then we've got the other seasonings
squeeze bottles of
I'm sure it had soy sauce in it
some sort of marinades right
the whole bit right
and this whenever you say soy sauce
to a chronic migraine sufferer right
it's like uh oh
we're in trouble right
so we had all of that and then
you know when you go there again
it's not a little tiny bit you're eating
it's a big meal
they're drenching everything in this stuff
so it really stacks up
so again I'm not saying all of this
because I am telling you to never go to a hibachi
restaurant or that this is horrible
and you should never eat this food
I went I would go again
if I went every week I'd probably run into problems
uh you know
more
significant problems than what I experienced yesterday
but again I went
I would go back certainly my in laws loved it
we might be going back again
for another special occasion
but what I want you to understand is that your body
is actually processing all of these
if you want to call them additional toxins
in the food when you do go to the restaurant
and so here's what happened in my body
my liver has a threshold I like to think of this as
we sort of have this little trash can
this little toxin bucket
and we're continuously putting waste materials
and environmental toxins into the bucket
and our liver is sort of
like a drain at the bottom of the bucket
so as we're putting stuff in
which is continuous you make waste material
so even if you try to
live in some sort of pristine environment
you are making waste materials all the time
and then also
yes there are definitely
man made toxins in the environment
in the food supply the water supply the air supply
but we have never lived in a toxin free environment
there are naturally occurring
toxins in our environment
so we're designed to be able to drain that bucket
as things are getting added to the bucket
our liver is sort of like the drain
at the bottom of the bucket
so if we can drain the bucket
as we're adding to the bucket
we're not gonna have any problems
you're not gonna really feel anything
you're not going to have toxicity symptoms
you're just gonna live your life and feel good
but when that incoming load
is more than the liver can handle
when you're adding more than what the drain
can accommodate then your body says
uh oh we've got an overload
what how can we help out right
cause our body wants to get these molecules
out of our bloodstream they're toxic
how can I help my liver get them out
well I can recruit a
additional elimination channels that I mentioned
and when all those channels are running at once
the runny nose the watery eyes
the bags and the dark circles under under your eyes
the pimple it's not a mystery okay
it's a coordinated response
each one of these symptoms is telling you something
very specific
now here's why this matters so much
for anyone who's living with migraines
a migraine is also a toxicity symptom
and this is a statement that deserves its own episode
and we've talked about this before
we will link to the major episode that I talk about
this phenomenon in the description
but the short version is this
when your toxin load
exceeds your body's ability to clear it when the bucket
overflows when you can't drain the bucket
as fast as you're adding to it
your body is going to generate toxicity symptoms
those include migraines
and they include things like runny eyes
and a dripping nose
and even that little pimple on the skin
the runny nose
and the migraines are not different problems
they are different expressions of the same problem
your body is overloaded and it's trying to tell you
but here's what makes this story more than just a story
about a restaurant
a year ago
I probably could have gone to that same dinner
eat the exact same food and wake up just fine
or at least not not like that
okay so what changed
Last July I was bitten by a tick
and I have a tick borne bacterial infection
this is the first time I've shared this publicly
and I'm sharing it now
because it's directly relevant to what happened
on Sunday morning
and I think it illustrates something that is true
for a lot of people
who are dealing with chronic migraines
and can't figure out why their body is so reactive
for the past 9 months
my immune system has been working to eradicate
this bacteria and that work
that constant immune activity
generates metabolic waste byproducts
so my body is processing not just my normal daily load
but the ongoing output of an immune system
that has been fighting this bacterial infection
since last summer okay
so think about the bucket again
my bucket has been filling
been filling up steadily for nine months
and I knew that I knew that that was happening
I had to assume that that was happening
and I can feel
sort of the ebb and flow of various toxicity symptoms
um you know
as my body has been fighting this infection I've
you know I've um
I've felt the changes
I've noticed the symptoms decrease
as we're making progress I've had a couple setbacks
when I've gotten a little cold
you know some seasonal colds
I've had a little setback
but right now I'm actually very much on the mend
but I know that yep
I have to have more of a load in my bucket
that is what is typical for me right now
because I've been working through this
for the past nine months
so
Sunday morning okay
I didn't have to guess anymore
I didn't have to wonder anymore
it was very obvious by how I woke up
so the hibachi dinner didn't really cause the problem
okay
it pushed a bucket that was already close to the top
over the edge
because of this ongoing increase in metabolic
waste material as my immune system
is also doing what it's designed to do
to get rid of this bacteria
so same meal different body than I had a year ago
completely different result
and I want you to hear this part because it's for you
too not just for people that have had a tick bite
most people living with chronic migraines
are walking around with a fuller bucket
than they realize it might not be
you know from a tick borne infection
but it might be from a
digestive tract that's been struggling for years okay
environmental exposures nutrient deficiencies
um if the point isn't what's filling your bucket
the point is that when someone says
I don't understand
why I react to things that don't bother other people
often the answer is simply your bucket is fuller
same input different threshold
different result
yesterday morning my nose would not stop
I mean it was like a faucet
it was dripping constantly
I was getting concerned
because we had to leave the house to meet my parents
for
and so I was like I gotta take Kleenex in my purse here
like how am I going to go in this restaurant
and everything else so
I stuffed all of this Kleenex in my nice
little purse that I was bringing to match my outfit
so we get ready to go
I've got my stockpile of Kleenex stuffed into my purse
but then as we were getting out the door
as we were driving to the restaurant
oh it started to lift
my nose stopped running con constantly
I could feel the congestion start to clear
my eyes started to feel a little bit better
everything started to ease up
not you know
all at once not like a switch was flipped
but noticeably things started to improve
and I stopped and thought for a second
this is exactly what a migraine does
it's so fascinating it flares
it peaks and then when your body has done the work
when the liver has caught up
when the bucket has drained down far enough
it remits
the migraine lifts and you feel like yourself again
and then you think where did it go
what my migraine went away
it didn't just evaporate it didn't just go somewhere
your body finished the job
a migraine is a toxicity symptom
my Sunday morning running nose was a toxicity symptom
and my body handled both of them the exact same way
it recruited every elimination channel it had
it worked as hard as it could
and when the load came down enough
the symptom resolved
the reason I love this example so much
is that a runny nose
is something that you can more easily watch
you can observe it in real time in a way that
you can't always observe a migraine
because when you're in a migraine
you're just surviving it right
you're not you know
studying it but a runny nose
you can track it it's a little
you know it's not so uncomfortable it
it was unpleasant
but it's something that you can kind of
observe a little bit more easily
so you can feel it flare you can feel it peak
you can feel the moment it starts to turn around
and when you understand what you're looking at
that process stops being frightening
and starts being information
and here's something I want you to really think about
if I had taken a Benadryl or an Allegra that morning
I would have thought
the drug made my runny nose go away
I would have given the drug the credit
but the drug didn't do anything
except interrupt the process
my body was always going to clear that load
that's what bodies do
the elimination was going to run its course
whether I took an antihistamine or not
the difference is that
suppressing it in the middle of the process
forces your body to find another exit
or to hold on to the load longer than it needs to
the running nose wasn't the problem
the running nose was the solution
and if you take a drug to stop it
you're not solving anything
you're getting in the way
it's a hard thing to sit with
because we're conditioned to believe that
if a drug made the symptom go away
it must have been working
but sometimes the symptom was already on its way out
and the drug arrived just in time to take the bow
so next time you feel a migraine lifting
this isn't random your liver caught up
your bucket drained
your body did what it is designed to do
the migraine didn't just go away
you cleared it
I wanna go to dinner with my family
I wanna be at that table
watch my daughter laughing with her cousins
watching the chef toss broccoli pieces into our mouths
and just be there fully there
without running a risk assessment on every ingredient
that matters to me
being able to eat with your kin is a human experience
worth protecting
and I think a lot of migraine sufferers
have quietly taken that experience off the table
out of fear and I understand why
I just don't think you have to
what I do think is that you deserve to understand
what's happening in your body
when you make those choices
not so that you can be afraid of it
but so that you're not confused by it
so that by Sunday morning
instead of reaching for an antihistamine
and wondering what's wrong with you
you can look in the mirror and think
I know what this is my body is working
before Saturday night I knew I had a tick infection
I knew my bucket was probably fuller than it used to be
I presumed it
but Sunday morning I didn't have to presume anymore
I knew my body showed me exactly what it was carrying
and that's really good information
and now I have a decision to make
do I keep doing what I'm doing
or do I make some changes
and I'm gonna make some changes
your symptoms are not random
your body is not broken it's communicating
and it's telling you exactly how full your bucket is
thanks so much for being here I'll see you next time
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