117. What This Neurologist Got Wrong About Your Migraines (Again)

I clicked on one migraine reel a few weeks ago, and now my Facebook feed will not let me forget it. Dr. Painkiller is back, this time telling women that the things you think are helping your migraines are actually making them worse. Sleeping in. Skipping meals. Not taking your meds fast enough. And of course… your “migraine brain” loves routine, not chaos.

In this episode, I’m breaking down what he gets wrong and why this kind of advice keeps women stuck. You don’t have a defective brain. You have a body that has lost its resilience, and the standard neurology playbook of “take the medication early, never miss a dose, stay on a perfect schedule” is exactly what turns episodic migraines into chronic ones.

I share what’s really going on when sleeping in or waking up too early triggers a migraine, why “rebound” isn’t a personal failure, and what your body is actually asking for instead.

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

all right he's back
so um
like I've been talking about a few weeks ago
I made a mistake of clicking
on a migraine reel on my Facebook feed
and now Facebook um
keeps showing me these things over and over again
and I keep getting triggered
so here we go doctor
painkiller is back in my feed
and we're going to take a look
some of the things making your migraine worse
are the ones you think are helping
No. 1 over sleeping or sleeping in
while sleep deprivation is a well known trigger
over sleeping is also associated with migraine attacks
he's talking about getting up too early
undersleeping or oversleeping right
obviously these are notorious issues
for chronic migraine sufferers right
so you know
oh boy I'm gonna try to catch an early morning flight
so I've got to get up at 4:00am
oh great I'm probably gonna get a migraine as I'm on
you know on this trip or
you know I would love to be able to sleep in
catch up on a little sleep
just relax on the weekends
but I can't if I sleep too late
oh no no
I'm probably gonna get a migraine
so what he's saying is you know
most migraine sufferers are aware of this early morning
uh issue with migraines
but he's saying that you know
a lot of people don't expect that if you sleep in
this could give you a migraine too
I mean
I think a lot of migraine sufferers are aware of this
he's presenting this
let me keep playing because I think
does he say migraine brain
this is really gonna
this is gonna really set me over the edge
I know he says it at one point here
I think it might be on this one
the migraine brain loves routine not chaos I'm OK yeah
the migraine brain loves routine and not chaos OK
oh my goodness so you do not have a migraine brain
I do not have a migraine brain
you and I are prone to migraines
everybody is prone to certain symptom patterns
when they are not in a state of health
you and I have something in common
we are prone to migraines
but first we have to get out of a state of health
we do not have a migraine brain
this is the most ridiculous meme
that is becoming more and more prominent
in the migraine community
do not buy into this
do not believe this this is not true if it were true
how how would I be sitting here staring
as I'm recording this staring into bright light okay
I it it has nothing to do with my brain okay
so
what this comes down to is our resilience and vitality
and I talk about this on the podcast
so part of the recovery process
part of the process to restore your health
is to restore your resilience and vitality
so that you can weather stressors
routines conserve stressors
so what routines do is the body prepares for things
okay when we're in the routine of eating lunch at noon
every day
our digestive track prepares for that routine
About 11:30 our digestive tract says
you know what she usually eats around noon
so we're gonna start making hydrochloric acid
we're gonna start making enzymes
we're gonna get moving here
because she usually eats at noon
if we have no routine
then everything is just chaos right
at any moment in time
I could be putting food in my stomach
and then the stomach isn't prepared for that
so routines whether it's you know
our meal time routines it's our sleep routines
drive the same amount of time every day to go to work
these routines the body acclimates to them
and so
instead of just pure and constant chaos all the time
the body starts preparing for things ahead of time
so that conserve stress
the more chaos and and lack of preparation
that's gonna be more stressful on the body
stressors have to be countered
by our own resiliency and vitality
so when you have to wake up a little bit earlier
than your body is anticipating
that puts more stress on the system
that can that stress can push you into
what I call your migraine zone
but if you have enough resilience and vitality
to keep the needle up out of your migraine zone
you're not going to get a migraine
if you wake up early to catch a flight
if you sleep in late to just
you know enjoy the weekend a little bit
it's nothing to do with your brain
stop stop believing this in fact
I just went a couple months ago
we took a trip because my cousin got married in Phoenix
it was a wonderful occasion
I used to live in Phoenix
I really enjoy visiting so um
when we were coming back there was a very
very severe
storm system that was coming through Illinois
and it was going to significantly impact O'hare
and so we decided the day before that
we were going to change our flight
and so guess what the only flights that were open were
the ones that nobody wants to take
and so we had to get up at 2:30 in the morning
to catch that new flight that we had changed to
and guess what I didn't get a migraine okay
so do I have a migraine brain
or do I not have a migraine brain
because I just did this and I didn't get a migraine
now I
it's not that I didn't know what I was walking into
right when we had to change our flight and I was like
we gotta get up at 2:30 in the morning haha yeah
it crossed my mind right because again
I used to have chronic migraines
I know what the deal is I know
you know if my vitality is low
I could have a problem
waking up at 2:30 in the morning
it's going to be a significant disruptive
disruption in my routine
that's gonna generate a stress around my body
I have to have enough resilience
and vitality to withstand that
I had already been on a a nice trip to Phoenix right
where there were a lot of you know
the the weather was totally different
we were at a wedding right
there were a lot of things going on
but I didn't get a migraine
I didn't get a headache nothing bad happened to me
I was at work the next day
so it's this is right it's not
the waking up too early is not waking up too late
that's not really the root of it
the root of it is our own resilience and vitality
so that we can weather
the stress that a disruption in our routine generates
okay
that's what I want you to take away not not this okay
not doctor painkiller
No.2 constantly pushing through pain
instead of respecting early warning signs
early treatment in the headache phase
has a higher success rate
and there's even recent research
showing that treatment in the prodrome phase
might be even better so okay
so he's a neurologist
so this is what the neurologists always say okay
he's telling you to take your abortive medication
the instant you get what I call the uh oh moment right
the uh oh moment you could call it the Prodrome moment
the uh oh moment is uh oh
I feel something brewing right
sometimes it's even hard to articulate
but I know
if I kind of have this little thing that I feel
that I can't even describe to anybody
uh oh I know that a migraine is probably brewing
so what he's saying is take that medication
you know don't try to push through
take that abortive medication as soon as possible okay
now
why do migraine sufferers not take the medication
the instant they feel an uh oh moment
well we're gonna find out why in the next
his next little No. 3 here okay
but what I wanna say about this is yes
do migraine sufferers push through
when they start to get those signals
uh oh something's brewing here
do a lot of migraine sufferers push through
absolutely they do that's because of the panic right
uh oh I have a lot of things I wanna get done today
and if I go down for the count
none of them are going to happen right
so we start to develop sort of like a anxiety around
you know around
I know what's gonna happen next
I know how bad this can get
let me try to get everything done
um many times
people will also go into a little bit of a denial right
maybe this time it won't be that bad
so that's actually what's going on
when we start to have that uh oh moment
but I wanna I wanna go to this third point here
because he is saying in the second point
take your abortive medications as soon as possible
as soon as you have an 0 0 moment
take that medication right now
what does he say in the third point
so don't wait for the migraine to declare itself
just do it No. 3 overusing pain meds
what starts as relief can turn into rebound headaches
rebound right ha ha ha
this is where people just want to
strangle their neurologist right
so the neurologist first says
take it as soon as you have any uh oh moment right
and then when you go back
you know six months later and you say
well I took my abortives
like you told me to the very first uh oh moment
I took my abortives and now I've had a 10 day migraine
I can't get out of
I think I'm in rebound and the neurologist says
well you can't take that many
why'd you take so many right
you you know what are you doing here
you're taking too many abortives right
so on the one hand he says
take it right when you have that first uh oh moment
and then he gives you the standard lecture that
you know you can't take too many per month
or you're gonna go into rebound right
so this is where people start to get really
really infuriated
frequent use of acute migraine medications
can actually worsen migraine frequency
and lead to progression from episodic to chronic
migraine
okay do you hear what he just said there
frequent use of abortive medications
make your migraines worse hello
right that's what happened to me
that's what happened to every client that I work with
when migraines first start to occur
for the vast majority of people
the migraines don't happen that frequently
maybe a few times a year right
you take some Advil you take a nap
you bounce back but
because you're not addressing
the underlying conditions
that are generating the migraines in the first place
they start to become more and more frequent
so you start to take more and more Advil
over the counter etcetera right
you start to ramp up the medication
because things aren't working as well
you can't just take a you know
a little Advil
a cup of coffee and a nap and bounce back in two hours
right this is lingering on and on
so then you go into the neurologist
you get the prescription abortives
you start taking those it continues to get worse
he just said that
he just said that if you take the abortive medications
your migraines go from episodic to chronic
so hello
can we stop the insanity here
the threshold is lower than many expect
as few as five days per month for some medications
migraine isn't random
as few as 5 days per month
for some abortive medications can put you into rebound
so what's next oh
preventatives right now we gotta go on preventatives
say thrush or disease
and these habits quietly push you over the edge
I I mean can can we can we stop the insanity here
you don't have a migraine brain but but see this
this is the problem okay he's coming into the clip
telling you that you have a migraine brain
so if you have a migraine brain
everything flows from here right
you've got this defective brain that's over sensitive
can't even get up early can't even sleep late
got this faulty wiring and then you know
we'll start you on the abortives
but that inevitably is gonna make this thing worse
not because of the abortives
not because you're further suppressing the symptoms
and adding toxins to a body
that's already overloaded with toxins
oh no it's because your brain is faulty
so now thank goodness we have preventatives
I hope we can have the you know
the the Migraine Awareness Month
raise some money for new drug development new uh
uh methods to prevent these
this these horrible symptoms that are being generated
because you have a faulty brain
please please stop the insanity
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