Amy Nett: Amber says, “Do you have a lot of success [in] treating migraine headaches? What do you think are the main underlying factors contributing to migraines?”
Another great question. I think that migraines are so multifactorial. Yes, I do have success in treating migraines. I have one or two patients that, boy, [are] really difficult to treat. I know one of Chris’s patients, I haven’t followed up with her in over a year, but she had really difficult migraines. Underlying contributors could be hormonal imbalance, so you can certainly have menstrual migraines. I’ve seen [in] some patients, heavy metals have been a contributor, mold, and mycotoxins. [For] some patients, it seems to be the limbic system dysfunction is the trigger. I’ve had one patient [who] had debilitating migraines where she would just go into the bedroom, turn off all the lights, get under the blanket, and try the next day—that’s just kind of where she was to get through it. She did the DNRS, or dynamic neural retraining system, program and that’s pretty much cleared her migraines almost completely. For some people, [it’s] probably limbic system dysfunction. For more acute treatment, I often use Butterbur Extra from Vitanica. The brand is Vitanica and the actual supplement is Butterbur Extra. Butterbur is a botanical that’s good for migraines; vitamin B6 is really good for migraines and I think that’s included in the Butterbur Extra. You also want to make sure that patients have adequate magnesium. Think about some of the nutrients. Also from migraines, really look at hormones, if this is a female patient, particularly a cycling female patient. Sometimes, some progesterone can be really helpful, so look and see where their sex hormone levels are. But again, I think [it’s] so multifactorial in terms of causes of migraines. You really have to look at when they are occurring, what the pattern is, what the triggers are, and then after, you know the routine by now, so after you’ve treated the gut, you’ve looked at the hormones, what’s going on in terms of toxic burden, whether you want to do heavy metals testing and molds-related testing. I think those are some of the next steps in terms of where to go.