Lesson 1: Welcome and Introduction to Natural Migraine Relief for Women

Welcome to Natural Migraine Relief!

I’m pleased that you have joined me for this subscriber only course, and I’m excited about what you are going to learn. This first lesson is also free to all my Substack subscrigbers. My goal in this course is to explain and summarize for you the underlying factors specific to your story and in that process help you to manage your migraine headaches more effectively.

Migraine headaches are an extraordinarily common problem that affect 1 in 10 people, and 1 in 4 households. It is the sixth leading cause for disability worldwide, affecting over one billion individuals-roughly two-thirds being women, who live, or should I say survive, with migraines. Women are more than three times more likely to suffer migraines then men, which is why this course focuses on the underlying factors that are most likely to affect women. If you have migraines, you know full well how devastating the effect can be on you, the ones you love and your work or your career.

As you are almost certainly aware, the key defining symptoms of migraines are:

1) a moderate to severe headache lasting between 4 and 72 hours

2) with pain that is most often, but not exclusively one-sided, and

3) often having associated symptoms like visual changes, nausea, and sensitivity to light and sound.

Migraine is a complex neurological disease about which much remains unknown. However, there is much we can learn about the person who has migraines, and that is what makes this course unique. The lessons we will cover are designed to better understand your story and the specific root causes that underlie your migraines.

Through this course we will aim at discerning your key root causes and then choose from a broad array of non-drug interventions to find the ones best suited to your migraine story. This course exists to add to what you may be already doing for your migraines, so you can combine root cause directed prevention along with individualized non-drug therapy to complement any prescription therapy you may find helpful or are currently using.

Who I am and how I came to write this course.

I’m Jeff Baker, a practicing M.D. physician with additional Master’s degree training in physiology and immunology. My research-based experience during my medical education left me with a lifelong interest in the underlying biochemical causes of health problems. Over the years I’ve specialized in Family Medicine, delivered babies, assisted surgery, sub-specialized in Sports Medicine and also have 25 years of ER work experience. In all, almost 40 years of day in and day out direct patient care. From within this experience, I’ve spent almost 35 years directing the individualized use of bio-identical hormone therapy, primarily for women. It was the use of this tool that originally sparked my interest in migraines, as most of my migraine patients were women, and many of them had some degree of direct hormonal influence of their migraine expression. At the same time, I also cared for hundreds of patients with migraine headaches, in both clinic and ER settings. Over these decades, I integrated what I had learned about both traditional and alternative care for migraines with hormone support and additional non-drug therapy options. In the past few years I condensed and refined a “finding the root cause approach” to individualizing non-drug options for migraine headaches. The result is this course which allows me to share these concepts and therapy options with those of you that I would not otherwise be able to meet with personally.

Migraine care: Is there something beyond drug therapy?

As you know, migraines are typically managed with drug therapy. The medical profession is trained to use pharmaceutical agents to manage medical problems, and migraines would be a typical example of this. Unfortunately, many times drug therapy works to manage symptoms without getting at the real reason the problem may be happening.

In the process of looking at why migraine symptoms happened, I found 10 major categories of root cause factors that promote the frequency and intensity of migraines, and over 90 potential applications and interventions to address them. These root causes and their therapy options are the core of what we will cover in this course, along with your use of the Migraine Action Plan, which I refer to as the MAP, will help you to self-individualize specific treatment options, out of the many we will discuss.

I’ve spent almost two years putting together my experience of over three and a half decades of migraine management into the contents of this course and I am optimistic about what it can do for you. Every migraine has a different combination of root cause factors. I have no doubt that you have read about or tried several over-the-counter remedies for your migraines, most likely with limited success. A common reason for this is that, without exception, every person’s migraine has a differing combination of root causes that precipitate or perpetuate the vicious cycle of the headache process. This is not new information, but it is not taught in medical schools. The medical profession is united in admitting that we don’t fully understand the causes of migraines. Doctors mostly address migraines with prescription medication, which are typically expensive and often side effect prone, but do have some beneficial effects sometimes for some people. Their major failing? With rare exceptions they do not address root cause factors for migraines.

Doctors and patients also discuss trigger factors, which can be helpful to identify and avoid, but are not the actual cause of migraines. Let me repeat that. Trigger factors are not the underlying cause of your migraine. Too many people think that if they get rid of their migraine triggers then they have tackled their migraine’s cause. Have you noticed that every month a major magazine or blog will feature a story on “how to avoid your migraine trigger factors?” Keep in mind that trigger factors are just the tip of the root cause iceberg, rather than being key root factors themselves.

The 'full cup' theory of migraine expression

Think of the clinical expression of a problem, such as a migraine headache, as the overflow of an 8 oz cup.

It’s almost full! Overflowing = migraine Lots of reserve!!

You may have already seen me demonstrate this concept in a video promoting this course. I use the analogy of pouring yet another ounce into an 8 oz cup that already has slightly more than seven ounces in it, and when we do this, the cup will overflow.

Think of this overflow as being the clinical manifestation of a migraine headache and its associated symptoms. One might ask, which of the eight ounces in the cup caused it to overflow? The right answer is all of them. You could consider that last ounce to be the trigger that we think caused the migraine. The other underlying ounces are the root causes that fill the cup to where a seemingly casual trigger event is ‘the last straw.’ That trigger could be a weather front, a certain food, glare from headlights, “that time of the month,” or a dozen others. But, if the cup is almost full most of the time, it doesn’t take much more to overflow. Anything could push it over the edge, multiple times a month and for multiple different “reasons.” But, if we could identify your specific root factors and reduce the volume in the cup to only one, two or three ounces, we now have built in a reserve where it would then take a much larger volume of triggers, say five, six or seven ounces in this example, to hit your headache threshold.

It would be inaccurate to say that any regimen will cure your migraines. But if we can reduce your specific root factors, so “your cup won’t easily overflow,” we can aim at dramatically reducing the frequency and intensity of headache events. And if that is the case, the medication you currently take, along with its cost and side-effects might work better, be able to be reduced or even eliminated.

Finding answers for you and the ones you love

I’ve had many migraine patients say, “I’ve always known there was more to it than ‘here’s a drug for your symptoms,’ “ or “now that I understand more of why I have migraines, choosing the right treatments for my root causes makes all the sense in the world.” Even more so, if you better understand your own root causes for migraine, you may be better positioned to help other family members; a mother, a sister, or a daughter who also suffer migraine headaches. The vast majority of those with migraines have some positive family history for it. If you have a parent with migraine, your risk for migraine is about 50%, so there’s clearly some genetic components involved. If you and other family members share similar genetically coded migraine root cause factors, you may also share some of the same potential solutions. So, you can see why the key goal in this course is for you to understand the root causes of migraines in general, and more specifically, those affecting your own migraine story.

As we put together interventions specific to your story as you go through the course, you will put together the basic interventions most specific to your story which can reduce the frequency or severity of your headaches. I call this the Migraine Action Plan, or the MAP ©. It’s true that one can find the facts I present in this course somewhere out there in the online world.

If you review the available literature on this topic, you will find an immense, and even overwhelming knowledge base on migraine headaches. Now, this isn't “hidden information,” but even if you are a master of the internet search, the applicable details can be hard to find, difficult to understand and then to apply accurately in a way that addresses your specific situation. Unfortunately, the medical literature is a challenge for the average person to search and understand, and for better or worse, many of the internet-based sources that promote non-drug therapies are incomplete or driven at least in part by marketing priorities.

How many root cause factors can we remove from your cup?

My goal in this course is to give you science-based information that is clinically applicable to real life people who need help with their migraines. We need to understand the why of your migraine before you try to treat your migraine.

Since no two people have the same migraine root causes, no two will have the same journey to reducing them and finding relief. Through this course, we will be focusing on the multiple key root causes related to migraine headaches. Every known medical or health problem has its biochemically based root cause explanation. Some are genetic, some are nutritional deficits, some are inflammatory driven, some have hormonal roots, some are cellular energy deficit related, and others have structural or lifestyle related origins. And yes, there are no doubt some science based root causes that still elude full definition and management. But whatever their source, when we understand the root causes related to your migraines, we can then look for non-drug interventions that can help to manage your migraine root causes.

Pharmaceutical and non-drug therapy options

While it had been exciting to see the new options in drug therapy for migraine over the last 3-5 years, these drugs are usually expensive, all have potential side effects and may only work for 30-50% of migraines. You may already be on medications to help with your migraines. The fact that you are here seeking more information tells me that you have root cause factors that have not been fully identified and addressed. Through this course and with time, our goal is that you may be able to reduce or eliminate some of your prescription therapy, while having fewer migraines. While drug therapy can be a useful and even critical part of your therapy, this course is about finding non-drug support options to address the root cause factors for your migraines.

In that process, I would recommend that you DO NOT discontinue any medication that is currently prescribed for you until: 1) you are clearly making progress with reducing migraine events and 2) you review your progress with your prescribing physician and make sure that any tapering of dosage is done with consideration for your overall medical history and condition.

Help your doctor help you

Please keep in mind that this lecture series is not designed to replace your doctor or a thorough initial workup for your headaches or to give you one-to-one medical advice. Our goal for you is know your whys, then chart your journey to recovery.

When you better understand yourself, the roots of your health challenges, and then your best therapy options, you become educated and empowered to be your own best advocate in the healing process. That is my primary desire for you, and the reason that this course exists.