122. Why Fibromyalgia and Migraines So Often Show Up Together

In this episode, I talk about one of the most common questions I hear from women with chronic migraines: “Does anyone else here also have fibromyalgia?”

I explain why I don’t see these as two separate problems happening at the same time, but as two expressions of the same deeper issue in the body.

I walk through the connection between widespread pain, migraines, substance P, and what I believe is really going on underneath both conditions.

If you’ve ever felt like you were unlucky enough to have both, this episode will give you a very different and much more hopeful way to understand your symptoms.

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 physician
former chronic migraine sufferer
and I've dedicated my life to helping
other women with chronic migraines
rediscover a migraine free life
so welcome to the podcast
I am recording this in June
and June is Migraine Awareness Month
so
I've been doing sort of a special series of podcasts
because I want to bring real awareness
to chronic migraine suffers
not the kind of awareness that the industry sponsored
Migraine Awareness Month with the purple ribbons
and the hashtags and the migraine merch
today I want to cover a topic that comes up a lot
both in my practice with my clients
and also in my free Facebook group
Healing Migraines naturally with Leslie Cesarendi
and so this is actually
one of the more common questions that
people in the Facebook group
post so
this doesn't just apply to June
and Migraine Awareness Month
this does come up all year long
and this is how the questions typically come in
does anyone else have fibromyalgia
you know I have chronic migraines
and I'm wondering maybe I have fibromyalgia or
you know I have chronic migraines
does anyone else here have fibromyalgia
I just got a diagnosis
so I wanted to talk about this
because I've seen in my clinical experience
that these two conditions sort of go hand in hand
and on the podcast I have highlighted some common
other conditions or symptom patterns
that are very common amongst chronic
migraine sufferers and fibromyalgia is one of those
here's what I want you to understand
by the end of the podcast
if you have chronic migraines
and you also have fibromyalgia
or you suspect that you might
you're you're just not doubly unlucky
the um it's not actually two separate problems
or two separate conditions
that just happen to be in your body at the same time
there's a reason why
chronic migraines and fibromyalgia sort of
travel together
and once you understand the reason behind that
I think it's gonna make a ton of sense to you
let's get into it
first I wanna talk about sort of the
the Odyssey that both of these share
so
I wanna start with something that might surprise you
if you have chronic migraines
there's a fairly good chance
that it took you a while to get that diagnosis
maybe a long time
you might have spent years being told that you had
sinus infections
tension headaches stress or anxiety
maybe you were given antibiotic after antibiotic
for sinus infections that weren't really there
maybe you left your doctor's office with
your concerns minimized
or with a prescription that didn't help
or just with a shrug
I have a client right now
who spent years being misdiagnosed with chronic
sinus infections multiple rounds of antibiotics
and they weren't infections
they were migraines
so the antibiotics did nothing for her head pain
and what they did do was tear up her digestive track
which made her overall situation harder to address
so sometimes
misdiagnosis doesn't just delay the right answer
it can actually cause you more problems
fibromyalgia patients
many times go through the same thing
the average time to a fibromyalgia diagnosis
so from sort of the first
experience of the symptoms to a confirmed diagnosis
is somewhere between two and five years
women are told that their lab work is normal
they're told that their pain is psychological
they're told that they're too anxious
deconditioned depressed
drug seeking
they get passed from specialist to specialist
accumulating diagnoses that don't quite fit
well the real picture goes unnamed
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 we have two different conditions
two completely different names
two different departments at the hospital
two different specialists
and the same exhausting demoralizing road to get there
so what actually is fibromyalgia
so let's spend some time on what fibromyalgia is
because I think a lot of people
are working with a loose version of the term
so in everyday usage when people say fibromyalgia
they usually mean
my body hurts and I'm exhausted all the time
everything aches muscles
joints and no amount of sleep makes the fatigue go away
that's the general picture
and honestly that's pretty accurate
the clinical diagnosis is more specific
so for decades
fibromyalgia was diagnosed using the 1990
American College of Rheumatology
criteria so
this is the specialist
that sort of takes care of the fibromyalgia condition
and so this
diagnostic criteria required a physical examination
of 18 specific
tender points on the body
you had to have pain at 11 or more of those 18 points
when the physician pressed on those points
you had to have pain in all four quadrants of the body
so upper left upper right
lower left lower right
plus your spine
and it had to have been present for at least three
months
so the problem with this diagnostic criteria
was that it required a rheumatologist
to do the exam correctly
like these aren't just 18 random spots
they're specific spots
so most primary care physicians didn't do it
they didn't know how to do it
or they didn't bother
so a lot of people fell through the cracks
you know
you really required a referral to a rheumatologist
to get this exam done and rheumatologist
they're notorious for you
having to wait a long time to get an appointment
so in 2010
the criteria was revised
so the tender point exam was dropped entirely
the current criteria uses two things
so a widespread pain index
so how many of 19 specific body areas are painful
and a symptom severity score that assesses fatigue
unrefreshing sleep in cognitive symptoms
so like brain fog the inability to find words
walking into a room
and having no idea why you went there
symptoms
need to have been present for at least three months
and with no other condition
that better explains the whole picture
so fibromyalgia is not just pain
it's widespread pain plus fatigue
plus cognitive dysfunction
plus sleep problems
so all together chronically at the same time
bone deep fatigue
waking up exhausted no matter how many hours you slept
a body that aches everywhere
not one joint from one injury
not one muscle from one workout
but everywhere
and the kind of tired that isn't fixed by rest
so let's read that symptom list again
fatigue brain fog
widespread pain
hypersensitivity sleep that doesn't restore you
does any of this sound familiar to you
right for most women with chronic migraines
right does this sound like a
a bad week before a migraine
does it sound like the migraine hangover
does it sound like last Tuesday
and so again
I'm gonna tell you why this is not a coincidence
in a few minutes so here's the co occurrence data
and this is where my jaw dropped
because I knew just from my clinical experience
that this was common amongst migraine sufferers
but when I actually looked at the data
I couldn't believe it
so among migraine sufferers generally
one in 10 also has fibromyalgia I mean
that alone is significant
that's what I was kind of expecting to see
but amongst chronic migraine suffers
right
women who are experiencing 15 or more migraine days
or head pain days per month right
I mean this is high impact migraine suffers
that number rises
to somewhere between 1 in three and 1 in five
up to 35% of people with chronic migraine
also have fibromyalgia
that's just the people diagnosed right
so in my clinical experience
I was thinking about this from the women that told me
yeah I've been diagnosed with fibromyalgia right
I knew that there was a connection here
right that it there was a high co occurrence you know
I wasn't even thinking about it from the perspective of
just you know
I'm fatigued I sleep and I don't wake up well
I can't sleep well in the first place
I have a ton of brain fog my body hurts all the time
right like I
I frankly have become so accustomed to my
clients feeling like that
in general that I'm not even like thinking
oh fibromyalgia diagnosis right
I'm just thinking yeah
this is what it feels like to have chronic migraines
but when you actually apply that to the
official diagnostic criteria
that's now in effect since 2010 right
this is where you get up to 85%
of chronic migraine sufferers
also have a fibromyalgia diagnosis
or could be diagnosed with fibromyalgia
I mean that's staggering
absolutely staggering
if you come at this from the other side right
the first survey that they did was looking
you know asking chronic migraine suffers
now why don't we ask the fibromyalgia folks right
so sort of a different way of approaching the survey
so when you look at this from the fibromyalgia side
when you ask fibromyalgia patients
how many of them also have migraines
that number runs between 45 and 80%
so these two conditions
are not sort of occasionally bumping into each other
they're traveling together at very high rates
and the rate goes up as the migraine burden increases
so the more entrenched the migraines
the more likely fibromyalgia is also in the picture
so that progression
from occasional migraines to chronic migraines
to chronic migraines
plus fibromyalgia is a map of something getting worse
and I'm gonna tell you what that something is
so here's
something else that I've noticed in my clinical work
that I also want to bring to the forefront here
so when I have a new client
who has a diagnosis of fibromyalgia
of course all of my clients have migraines right
so we
that's universal everybody has a migraine diagnosis
but when I have clients with an official
fibromyalgia diagnosis as well
there's almost
always a difference in how they feel
about the two conditions so they have migraines
but they have some hope around their migraines right
you know they found me
they reached out they showed up
they believe on some level
that something can be done for their migraines
otherwise they would have never reached out to me
but the fibromyalgia they've many times written it off
they've accepted it as a permanent feature
of their life so they say things like
I know the migraines might get better
but the fibromyalgia I've been told
there's nothing that anyone can do about that
and I just have to live with it
so I understand why my clients land there
because
that's what conventional medicine is offering them
so migraines have an entire treatment industry
there are drugs developed specifically for migraines
right triptans
CGRP receptor antagonist Nurotec Ubrelvy
Aimovig Botox
a whole class of preventative medications
we've got headache specialists
we've got headache clinics
whatever you think of those treatments
and I know
you've heard me talk about how I feel about them
at least the message from conventional medicine is
we've got options we're working on this
there's tons of things to try right
we we've got this
now let's take a look at fibromyalgia
there are four FDA approved drugs for fibromyalgia 4
two of them are antidepressants
one of which is Cymbalta
Symbalta is an antidepressant
that is extremely difficult
to wean off of
and many people experience
side effects when they start Sembolta
so Sembolta
in my experience is one of the least tolerated
antidepressants on the market
we have Lyrica which is an anticonvulsant
and then we have a muscle relaxant cyclobenzaprine
right which many times
migraine sufferers are given that as sort of a
a kicker for their abortives right
none of these were developed for fibromyalgia
they were repurposed from other conditions
depression nerve pain
muscle spasm
and their results in fibromyalgia patients are
let's say modest at best
so your rheumatologist your primary care doctor
they genuinely do not have much to offer you
if you have fibromyalgia
and when a doctor doesn't have that much to offer
what do the patients hear
even when the doctor doesn't say it out loud
they hear
we got nothing for you you're
you know this is how it's gonna be
you know manage it
cope with it there's no way out of this
and so patients internalize this
they stop expecting this to get better
they start organizing their lives around the pain
and fatigue instead of around getting well
and that's not the truth
this is a reflection of the limits
of conventional medicine
and their prescription tool kit
and they're not the same thing
what I do when I help my clients restore their health
is a totally different approach and tool kit
than what your rheumatologist is offering you
let's talk about what the research actually shows
because this is where I get fired up
so both migraine
and fibromyalgia are associated with elevated levels
of a neuropeptide called substance P
substance P
is a neurotransmitter that plays a major role in pain
transmission
so I know a lot of you listening to the podcast
you're very well versed in these types of things
because
you've had to kind of take things into your own hands
right and you've been doing a lot of research
so you've probably heard of substance P
so it amplifies pain signals
it's part of how your body says okay
this is bad pay attention
so in fibromyalgia patients
substance P in the cerebral spinal fluid
the fluid surrounding the brain and the spinal cord
is elevated to approximately three times the level
found in so called healthy controls
so this is not a small difference
that is a landmark finding first published in 1994
and it has been replicated consistently since
so let's take a look at migraine sufferers
so plasma substance P
is also significantly elevated in migraine sufferers
so studies
comparing migraine patients to so called healthy
controls found substantially higher substance P levels
and this is true not just during an attack
but between attacks
during the headache free period of time
when people feel relatively okay
that substance P is still running high
so we have the same neuropeptide
elevated in both conditions
now
I want you to check this out
research has found that after ammonia exposure
substance P levels in serum that's in your blood
elevated significantly
and research has shown that after
organophosphate poisoning
so that's a class of poisonous chemicals
that includes certain pesticides and nerve agents
the trigger massive neuroinflammation
substance P is also elevated
so we have data showing that
when the human body is exposed to known toxins
things that everyone agrees are poisons
substance P goes up
and we have data showing that substance P is elevated
in fibromyalgia and in migraines
conventional medicine doesn't put this together
what they say is that
you have central nervous system sensitization
your nervous system is more sensitive
you're wired to feel more pain
you have a migraine brain
that is a description it's not a cause
why is substance P elevated
nobody in the conventional medical world
is asking that question or answering the question
and I'm going to answer it
so I wanna talk about the framing
that is spreading rapidly in the migraine world
right now especially during Migraine Awareness Month
because it matters enormously
what you believe about your migraines
the phrase is you have a migraine brain
your brain is more sensitive
you are neurologically different
your threshold
for a migraine is lower than other people's
for fibromyalgia
there is an equivalent your pain sensitivity is higher
your nervous system is wired to feel more pain
central sensitization
your brain's pain processing system
has become overly sensitive
and stuck in a heightened state
this frame it sounds scientific
when people say this they sound compassionate
they sound like they're validating you
but what they're actually saying is
this is just how you are your brain is different
your nervous system is wired wrong
there's no root cause to find
the only thing we can do is manage it
and if you believe you have a migraine brain
a brain that is fundamentally
neurologically more sensitive
what are you working towards
you're managing you're surviving
you're not getting out of this
but your brain is not more sensitive
because it's broken and I'm gonna prove it
pain is not a mistake pain is not your body misfiring
pain is information
and it is one of the most important signals
your body has so
I want you to think about
when you put your hand on a hot stove
your skin is being injured okay
that injury generates pain
the pain activates a reflex instantaneously
right before you're even consciously
aware that your hand is on that hot stove
your reflexes pull your hand away
it's the pain that saves you
without it you would keep your hand on that hot burner
and without that pain signal
you wouldn't just like
get a blister that heals in a day or two
you could lose your hand I'm not being dramatic
this is a documented clinical reality
people with certain types of nerve damage from
like severe burns from leprosy
from diabetic peripheral neuropathy
lose the ability to feel pain in affected areas
so diabetic patients with neuropathy in their feet
they can have like a cut
they could get like a little blister on a toe
their heel their
the shoe is rubbing on the back of their ankle
tissue gets damaged and they don't feel anything
and they keep walking on it and they don't
you know oh
I need to put a Band Aid on this
I need to wash this right
I need to check this I need to monitor this
they're not aware of anything because it doesn't hurt
the elevated glucose associated with the diabetes
has damaged the nerve
so there's no pain being transmitted
if that wound gets infected
the infection spreads and because they can't feel it
they don't respond
what ends up happening is amputation
they can lose a foot sometimes the whole leg
this is a very real risk for diabetics
that have lost that nerve signaling
so
there are documented cases of people with nerve damage
who have placed a hand on a hot surface
and left it there not because they chose to
but
because the signal that should have told them to move
was gone the pain that should have been protecting them
had been destroyed and the consequence was catastrophic
you know not a
not a blister major permanent damage
so the ability to feel pain
it's not a flaw it's Protection
and when it fails people lose limbs
so when a neurologist tells you that your pain
sensitivity is too high
that your body is generating too much of a pain signal
that you're overreacting to things in the environment
here's what that framing assumes
it assumes that the pain signal is wrong right
it assumes
that there's something defective in the alarm system
it assumes that there's no fire
and that the fire alarm is misbehaving
and I completely disagree
there is a fire
your body is responding correctly to a real problem
and the question we should be asking is not
how do we turn down the alarm
but what is causing the fire
so here's what I believe is actually happening
and this is the core of my clinical framework
your body is continuously producing
what I call metabolic waste material
other people I call these things toxins
every single cell is when it does its job
making hormones making neurotransmitters
making enzymes making cellular energy
every single cell generates byproducts
metabolic waste toxins
the cells produce it constantly around the clock
as a normal part of functioning
on top of our own internal production
we are taking in toxins from the environment
the food supply the water supply
the air supply and I really want to be clear about this
because in this day and age
people hear toxins
and they immediately think man made chemicals
pesticides plastics
industrial pollution
and yes those are very real
and they do come into our body
and they add to the load
hi there I want to 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
but here's what I also want you to think about
we have never lived in a pristine environment okay
not ever
even before humans
started manufacturing toxic chemicals
the natural world it's full of poisons okay
haha it's still full of poisons
even though
we're not actually out in the natural world
as much as we used to be
so plants produce toxins bacteria produce toxins
mold produce toxins
heavy metals occur naturally in the soil
and in the water
our own cells produce waste
material that's toxic so this is not new
this is the condition that we've always lived in
and this is why your body came equipped
with the machinery to handle it
you have a liver you have kidneys
you have a lymphatic system
you have lungs your body was built to detoxify
because detoxification has always been necessary
so the question is never
whether you're being exposed to toxins
you are always being exposed to toxins
the question is
whether your body can clear them fast enough
so I like to picture like a bucket
like we have this little trash can
this little toxin bucket
everything that needs to be cleared
goes into that bucket so we are continuously adding
to that bucket via what we are making ourselves
and what's coming into our body from the environment
whether it's a naturally occurring environmental toxin
or a man made toxin
but at the bottom of the bucket
there's a drain your liver is the primary drain okay
so I'm just going to reference the liver
as we talk about this so when the drain is
is working
and the incoming load is not overwhelming it
the bucket never gets too full okay
stuff comes in stuff drains out
it's never gonna be totally empty because like I say
we are continuously adding to this but you know
if the bucket is just half full we're gonna feel okay
but here's where it's get edit this
but here's where it gets critical
and this is something
I don't hear anyone else talking about
in order for your liver to drain that bucket
it needs two things it needs nutrients
raw materials to run its detoxification pathways
and this is what I call the first principle
or the first thing our body needs
in order to restore itself back to health
and maintain a state of health
we have to have the nutrients that our cells need
at the cellular level
this is different than just eating a healthy diet okay
but that's what I call the first principle
getting the nutrients that your cells need to the cells
so your liver has to have
particular nutrients
to run the detoxification pathways
to process these toxins these waste materials
so if your digestive track isn't functioning well
you're not absorbing what you eat
if the blood isn't delivering the nutrients
to the liver efficiently
and this has more to do this is more than just
you know is my heart pumping okay
your liver doesn't have the fuel
it needs the nutrients it needs to do its job
the second thing that it needs is cellular energy
cellular voltage
and that's within what I call the third principle
what I call our own resilience and vitality
at the cellular level
our cellular energy is the voltage that runs things
and that's ties into what I call vitality
so if there's only 50% cellular energy
in the cells of your liver
your liver is not going to run at 100%
it's going to run at 50%
so a liver running at 50% and doesn't have the
all of the nutrients that it needs
is not going to keep up with the incoming load
the drain is going to get smaller and smaller
and smaller
so what what happens to people
they develop deficiencies or blockers
within the first and the third principle
their digestive function goes sideways
their vitality gets depleted
their liver slows down and the bucket starts to fill up
not because the world is uniquely so toxic right now
but because the drain has gotten sluggish
this is important because I see people out there
waiting for the world to get cleaner
before they can get well
waiting for the government to fix the food supply
ban certain chemicals clean up the environment
and I understand the frustration listen
I want the environment to be cleaner too
I want certain chemicals banned
there's a legitimate fight
I'm not dismissing that but
do we just wait around and lay in a dark room in agony
until the people in charge decide to act
I didn't wait around and neither should you
your
path to health is restoring the function of the drain
you already have inside you
you have a liver let's get it working now
when the drain is sluggish
and the bucket starts to fill
your body sends signals early signals low level signals
a common one seasonal allergies
I've talked about this before on the podcast
your body is recruiting the sinuses
and the mucosal system your immune system
to help with elimination
when the liver is getting backed up
skin breaking out this is another common symptom
a runny nose after we eat
water retention brain fog
fatigue that shouldn't be there
these are toxicity symptoms
real ones but they're the body saying that the bucket
it's getting full okay
instead of you know
a nice steady halfway Mark 'cause like I say
that bucket is never gonna be empty
it's inching up it's inching up
as it starts to inch up we start to develop these
type of relatively minor symptoms
migraines are a different category entirely
and I've said it before and I'm gonna keep saying it
migraines are a hangover without the alcohol
when you're hungover you're poisoned
alcohol is the poison alcohol is a toxin
your liver is overwhelmed
processing it on a Saturday morning
and the by products of that process
produce every symptom
the head pain the sensitivity to light and the sound
and the complete inability to function
that is what it looks like
when your body is dealing with a toxin load
that it cannot clear fast enough
now
imagine you feel that way and you didn't drink a thing
that's a migraine
the bucket tipped over
not because of one drink on a Saturday night
but because the bucket has been too full for too long
and the load
finally exceeded what the body could contain
what that bucket could contain and fibromyalgia
widespread pain bone deep fatigue
brain fog hypersensitivity to everything
that is what it looks like
when that same overload is not acute
it's chronic
the bucket isn't tipping over in one dramatic event
but it's been sitting near the top for so long
that the body is in a continuous state
of toxin overwhelm every day
all the time
so let me explain the mechanism
because this is where I wanna push back on
you know
this theory of central sensitization as an explanation
so toxin molecules injure cells
not in like one dramatic way
not like a surgery or a car accident injures you
they cause what I think of as like a million tiny cuts
constant low level
cellular damage
from a load that the body is struggling to clear
and to repair those cuts
the body mounts an inflammatory response
everybody's talking about inflammation
in this day and age like it's a bad thing
inflammation is not a malfunction
it is the body's repair process
so when you cut your finger
the area gets red and swollen and warm
that's inflammation doing its job
sending the immune system
cells and repair resources to the site of the cut
without that
you're not gonna heal that cut
but when the cellular injury is constant
when the toxin load is continuous
and the body never fully catches up
inflammation is also continuous
so a chronically inflamed body is a reactive body
an inflamed body generates more pain signals
an inflamed body becomes hypersensitive to stimuli
now listen to this research on fibromyalgia patients
has found that they are hypersensitive
not just to pain but to sound
to odors to light
does that sound familiar haha
if you have chronic migraines
you know exactly what that feels like
many chronic migraine sufferers
don't just experience that sensitivity
during an attack
they live with light sensitivity
and sound sensitivity
and odor sensitivity as their baseline
even between attacks every day
it's not just a migraine symptom
it's the state that their body is in
fibromyalgia patients
live with that hypersensitivity all the time
chronic migraine suffers
often live with it all the time
it's the same picture it's the same inflamed body
it's the same toxin load different label on the chart
and now connect it back to what I just told you about
substance P
substance P is elevated in fibromyalgia
substance P is elevated in migraines
substance
P is elevated when people are exposed to known toxins
ammonia organophosphates
the research has all of these pieces
no one has put them together this way
I'm putting them together
elevated substance P
is what it looks like when a body is being poisoned
fibromyalgia and migraines show the same elevation
your brain is not more sensitive
your body is not wired to feel more pain
your body is responding exactly the way a
body responds when it's carrying a toxin load
it cannot clear your substance
P is elevated for the same reason
it's elevated in a poisoning case
because that's what's happening
the label is different the mechanism is the same
now I want to address something directly
because I hear it all the time
goes something like this
my brother in law eats like garbage
and he never gets a migraine
I eat so carefully and I'm still getting them
it's not fair I know it's not fair
I'm not gonna tell you that it's fair
but I want you to have the full picture
some people are predisposed to migraines
and some people are not
some people are predisposed to fibromyalgia
and some people are not
we have genetic tendencies
we inherit particular vulnerabilities
and what I believe
what I've seen consistently in my clinical work
is that those tendencies
don't express themselves
until the body falls out of a state of health
so the predisposition that we inherit is the loaded gun
but it's not just the toxin overload
that pulls the trigger
it's the deficiencies and blockers
within all three principles
working together that pulls the trigger
when the nutrients aren't getting to the cells and then
you know your liver doesn't have the nutrients
and the cellular energy or voltage or vitality
it needs to drain the bucket
that's what pulls the trigger on the predisposition
so your brother in law eating whatever he wants
not getting migraines
he's not predisposed to migraines
his bucket may be just as full as yours
but his bucket doesn't express that overload
as a migraine it expresses it as something else
so here's what I want you to understand
even though your brother in law doesn't get migraines
your brother in law is not okay
three and four American adults
75% have at least one chronic condition
over half
200 million Americans
have two or more chronic conditions
among adults over 65
more than 90% have at least one chronic condition
and the numbers are rising
among young adults the prevalence of chronic conditions
increased by 7 percentage points
in just the last decade alone
so the toxin
overload burden
is not something that women carry more than men
everyone is carrying it
the entire country is carrying it
people just express it differently
based on what they're predisposed to
so men are predisposed to different conditions
heart disease
men develop it a full decade earlier than women
on average diabetes
men are significantly more likely to have pre diabetes
and go to develop type 2 diabetes
gout four times more common in men
kidney stones three times more common in men
Parkinson's disease certain cancers
so your brother in law's bucket is full
his predisposition
just gives him conditions that can simmer quietly
for years before they announce themselves
you know I hate to say it
but right up until they announce themselves
as a heart attack or a stroke
or a gout attack that puts them on the couch
or a diabetes diagnosis at 52
so the migraine sufferer we can't ignore the overload
the fibromyalgia patient can't ignore it
the brother in law
he can ignore it right up until the moment he can't
migraines are obvious they take you down
you're in bed you can't function
you can't fake it
the person with migraines knows something is wrong
because the migraine is not gonna let them predict
the person with migraines right
we know something's wrong
because the migraine is not gonna let us pretend
otherwise
other people they can power through
they can attribute the fatigue maybe
oh you know
I'm getting older the gut problems to stress
or you know everybody has heartburn
don't they the brain fog
well you know
I haven't been sleeping well
but they're not fine they're faking it
and the migraines as awful as they are
at least
they give us the clarity
that something needs to change
now
why are women more prone to these particular conditions
migraines fibromyalgia
autoimmune diseases conditions that are loud
undeniable and impossible to push through
I have a hypothesis about this
and I want to be clear
that this is my original thinking
this is not you know
settled science
but I think it's worth just mentioning here
so from an evolutionary standpoint
female reproductive capacity is the rate limiting
factor for population survival
a woman can have one baby every nine months
that's the bottleneck
and this is established evolutionary biology
it's called Bateman's principle
the implication is that female
health has always been more critical
to the survival of the species
than male health
just from a pure population mathematics standpoint
so this is my hypothesis
women's bodies may have evolved to generate louder
more undeniable health signals
precisely because the cost
of a woman ignoring her health is higher
the migraine won't let you ignore it
the fibromyalgia won't let you ignore it
maybe that's not a design flaw
maybe that's a feature
maybe the signal volume is turned up in women because
by design
because historically
a woman who's ignoring her body's warning signals
paid a higher price than a man who ignored his
and then society ultimately pays a higher price
so that's my thinking so it's a theory
it's a hypothesis something I wonder about
take it for what it's worth
but I find that pretty compelling
so if you have both of these diagnoses
if you've been told that you have fibromyalgia
on top of migraines I know what that felt like
you probably left that appointment feeling like things
now it's even worse
now I've got two incurable conditions instead of one
and I wanna reframe that having both
does not mean that you have two separate problems
to solve it means you have one problem
a sustained significant toxin overload
compounded by deficiencies within the first
and the third principle as well
expressing in two different places simultaneously
the migraine is your brain and your nervous system
screaming about it the fibromyalgia is your entire body
screaming about the same thing
so it's one problem two different expressions
same root same solution
so here's what I see in my practice every week
when clients come to me with both diagnoses
they are almost always resigned about the fibromyalgia
they've accepted it they say
you know
I know you might be able to help me with my migraines
but you know the fibro
I know I'm gonna have to live with that
here's what I tell them when we address the root
both get better not one
both because they're not two different problems
they are one situation
the body's expressing in two different ways
so when we work to drain that bucket
to restore the liver's capacity
to process and clear the toxin load
to rebuild the nutritional foundation
so the first principle is working
to restore cellular energy and vitality
so that the third principle is working
the migraines improve and the fibromyalgia improves
the widespread pain decreases
the fatigue lifts the brain fog clears
this is not you know
just sort of an accident
this is exactly what you would expect to see
when the root of both conditions is the same
you didn't get two diseases
you got one situation your body expressed in two ways
the path forward it's one path
your body is not broken your brain is not wired wrong
your nervous system is not permanently sensitized
what you have is a bucket that's been too full
for too long and buckets can be drained
so if you're living with chronic migraines
with or without fibromyalgia
and you're ready to understand
what's actually driving it
and what you can do about it
I'd love to talk I offer a free consultation call
the link is in the description
and we'll talk about your migraines
any other health conditions you have
and we'll put together a game plan
to get you feeling better
it's going to be no joke
the best 30 minutes you've spent
on your health in a long time
so thanks so much for being here
and I will talk to you soon