Episode 142
Meg Mill:
Headache Hacks: Simple Functional Medicine Tips for Lasting Relief
In today's episode I'm joined by Dr. Meg Mill a functional medicine expert who specializes in helping women manage and overcome headaches and migraines.
Join us as we delve into the importance of understanding the root causes of headaches, how conventional approaches differ from functional medicine, and the interconnectedness of diet, environment, stress, and hormones in contributing to this common health issue.
First Aired on: Jun 3, 2024
Episode 142
Meg Mill:
Headache Hacks: Simple Functional Medicine Tips for Lasting Relief
In today's episode I'm joined by Dr. Meg Mill a functional medicine expert who specializes in helping women manage and overcome headaches and migraines.
Join us as we delve into the importance of understanding the root causes of headaches, how conventional approaches differ from functional medicine, and the interconnectedness of diet, environment, stress, and hormones in contributing to this common health issue.
First Aired on: Jun 3, 2024
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
Key Takeaways and Insights
- Dr. Mill’s journey from conventional pharmacy to functional medicine and her personal health struggles that led to the transition.
- The prevalence and impact of headaches and migraines on people’s quality of life.
- Understanding the functional medicine approach which seeks to identify and treat the root causes of headaches.
- Exploring dietary influences, including common food triggers and individual sensitivities.
- The importance of stress management techniques in preventing and reducing headaches.
- How environmental factors like toxins, heavy metals, and allergens can contribute to headaches.
- Hormonal imbalances and their connection to migraines, particularly in women.
- Practical tips on how to start taking control of your health journey today.
Detailed Discussion Breakdown
Functional Medicine vs. Conventional Approach on Headaches
- Understanding the symptom-management focus of conventional medicine.
- The functional medicine approach to identifying and resolving the underlying issues.
Diet and Headaches
- The role of diet in headaches and migraines, including common triggers and individual food sensitivities.
- The concept of threshold and combination triggers for migraine attacks.
Stress and Headaches
- How stress physiologically affects headache occurrence.
- The “chain of pain” concept and strategies for breaking the cycle.
- Practical, accessible stress management techniques, including deep breathing and creating a parasympathetic state.
Environmental Factors
- The significance of reducing endocrine disruptors and toxins in your surroundings.
- Innovative products and apps to help monitor and minimize environmental health risks.
Hormonal Migraines
- Diving into the complexities of hormonal migraines and their connection to histamine release and estrogen dominance.
- The significance of proper estrogen metabolism and clearance pathways.
Actionable Tips
- Dr. Mill emphasizes the importance of proper hydration to combat dehydration, a known migraine risk factor.
Other Resources:
Connect with Meg Mill
Watch this interview:
Episode Transcript
Meg Mill:[00:00:00] mold can be invasive to so many parts of our body.
Meg Mill: One of the things that mold can do is actually stimulate the mass cells to release histamine and that's one of the other problems with the hormonal migraines is estrogen can also stimulate the mass cells to release histamine and histamine can be one of the triggers of migraines. So, what is in your environment.
Julie Michelson: Welcome back to the Inspired Living with Autoimmunity podcast. I'm your [00:01:00] host, Julie Michelson. And today we're joined by Dr. Meg Mill, a functional medicine practitioner, best selling author, and the host of the A Little Bit Healthier podcast. In her virtual functional medicine practice, Dr. Meg works with patients worldwide to heal the root cause of their health struggles through advanced diagnostic testing and personalized support.
Julie Michelson: Meg is particularly passionate about helping people end headaches and migraines, increase their energy, and restore mental clarity without drugs or overwhelming protocols with her proven EAT method. In today's conversation, we are talking about identifying the causes of headaches and migraines and some of the contributors that are common across the board.
Julie Michelson: Dr. Meg, welcome to the podcast.
Meg Mill: Thank you so much for having me.
Julie Michelson: My pleasure. I'm so excited for this conversation. Um, because I think it's, it's something that [00:02:00] impacts most people, at least in certain phases of life. Um, and, and definitely a big crossover with autoimmunity. So, but I would love to find out like, why are we going to be talking about headaches today?
Julie Michelson: Share a little bit of your journey with us.
Meg Mill: Yes. Yeah. So I come from, I was just telling you more of the conventional side. So I got a doctorate in pharmacy. I did a residency, was a clinical pharmacist, worked in hospitals and was seeing, you know, people, we're putting them on certain medications, certain protocols.
Meg Mill: And what I was kind of having two different things happen at the same time. One, I was seeing a lot of people just on a lot of medications, but not feeling better. So, you know, we're just sustaining, we're not actually getting better. And then at the same time, really what led me to this change was that I was having my own personal health issues.
Meg Mill: So, I was ha you know, I was a kid that had a lot of antibiotics, had terrible allergies, and then, you know, I'm in my [00:03:00] early 20s and I start to get so many GI issues, I couldn't even eat, I was getting anxiety. I had all of these different things that started, you know, I would get headaches sometimes, but that wasn't at that time my main symptom.
Meg Mill: Um, but I would, we moved around and I would go to a different gastroenterologist and they'd say, you're fine, you look great. And I'm like, no, I can't, like there's something wrong. And it wasn't until I found functional medicine. That I was really able to get those answers and it really changed my life and, and one of my connections, um, is histamine, which we can get, and this is an issue for people with headaches too, is histamine, um, that kind of connected a lot of my different symptoms, but we were, you know, really getting to the root causes of these, and so I opened, I have a virtual functional medicine practice where I see people all over the world, and I work mostly with women, and when I, um, Um, and I was starting to see people, you know, people are coming into me and I saw two patterns happen.
Meg Mill: One was that so many women were dealing with migraines, um, that, you know, so many people had [00:04:00] headaches and migraines. And, and then the second pattern, so they're either coming to me for that, or the second pattern I noticed were that people were coming to me for other things. And when I do this very detailed intake questionnaire and when I'm asking them questions, they're saying, Oh, you know, I have weekly headaches or I have weekly migraines and it's like not a big deal to them.
Meg Mill: And it's like, right. They don't have to. Yeah. This is not necessary. And so we'd work together and they would say like, Oh, my headaches are going on. I can't even believe it. I had these my whole life. My mom has it. My sister had like, they just think that they're just doomed with, with headaches or migraines and it would be life changing.
Meg Mill: And I thought, Wow. People need to know this. I mean, we need to spread awareness that this is something. So, you know, I started talking a lot about it and then I got a lot more people and we've just made these huge, I mean, it's so impactful because you can make these huge differences and in the way people's feel on the quality of life.
Julie Michelson: Absolutely, absolutely. And, and, you know, there's a difference between [00:05:00] what you're used to and what's optimal. So I love that. I find I was giggling because I find the same thing, you know, people are coming in for whatever their driver is. And they have like, you know, all these other things that are not okay and don't need to be, you know, a day, a daily part of life or a monthly part of life, whatever that may look like.
Julie Michelson: So let's talk a little bit about how the functional medicine approach, I mean, you kind of already gave us the, I know from personal experience, I suffered from migraines when I was in my late twenties, early thirties neurologist. Meds all, you know, just none of it really helpful, um, it's not a problem anymore as again, as I went after the autoimmunity, all the things I learned about the drivers of my inflammation [00:06:00] magically made my migraines disappear.
Julie Michelson: But so the, you know, let's talk a little about the two approaches because I'm, I would imagine this is certain, certain. Symptoms or, or illnesses. There may be a little bit of an overlap in like Western approach, functional approach. Um, and then some are like completely different. And I'm guessing this is going to be one of the ones that's very different.
Julie Michelson: And you're not just throwing meds at people. So, yeah.
Meg Mill: And that's the thing. The, so the, the, The conventional medical approach is to really decrease the pain. So we're saying, you know, okay, you have this, you're a migraine sufferer, you have constant headaches. You know, so what are we going to do to decrease your pain?
Meg Mill: And so, you know, while that provides you relief, it really does nothing to establish why you're getting this. So people are, okay, well, I have to, you know, take my medication. [00:07:00] Either all the time or when I'm getting the headaches and I'm just living on that and I have to save my not because I only get nine pills a month with my insurance and I have to make sure I keep them and you know, I remember at one
Julie Michelson: point I, I was on one that I think each pill was like, I don't even remember, maybe 60 or something.
Julie Michelson: And, and one drops in between the car seat and the console. And it was like, yes.
Meg Mill: You know, that's kind of the
Julie Michelson: approach, but it's symptom management then at that. Yeah. Yeah.
Meg Mill: So, and so what we're doing is we're really flipping that upside down. So we're saying, okay, you know, yes, you have the pain and you can still take that medication if needed, when you have the pain.
Meg Mill: And I don't say stop that right away. Or, you know, we work on actually really looking at why. So, so the way I work with people is why are you getting the migraines and another thing sort of about our conventional medical system is we're bucketed into specialties and we can [00:08:00] see why because you know you want that's a heart surgeon to know everything about the heart and learn you know that is their specialty but When we're looking at this, a lot of these things like headaches and migraines are full body issues.
Meg Mill: You're actually getting the pain in your head, but it's signaled from something going on in your body. And it's not just a head issue. And so we're taking all of these connections and we're saying, okay, what it's almost like a, I drew out a web one time and I'm like all these things and how they connect with each other.
Meg Mill: And, and actually, cause it was just like in my mind of, I, you know, visually seeing it. And, um, you're really putting those connections together and once we unravel, like unspool that web, then we start to see these migraines go away. And so what I often see the pattern is first the severity will go down and then we start to see the incidence go down.
Meg Mill: So usually it's like, okay, well, I could still get it, but it's not as bad. I'm not having to reach for that pain medication. I can. live through it. And then it's like, oh, wow, they're starting to go down. And it's really, yeah, it's really [00:09:00] amazing. So we're just taking all of the things which we can get into, and we're looking for the root causes and what we can do in order to bring your body back into balance and decrease that threshold of pain.
Julie Michelson: Which is, again, life changing and so empowering because once you can, once you get to those root causes, then we get to be in charge of our body and, and make decisions and know what, know what to expect. So let's talk a little bit about common root causes. Um, again, I know we're all bioindividual and I'm guessing you see a lot of what I see, which is a lot of overlap and it's never just one thing, not, or not usually just one thing.
Julie Michelson: Um, but there, I'm sure. Some things that are a little more common than others.
Meg Mill: Yeah. So one of the things that can be complicated when we're talking about headaches is diet because there are, there's [00:10:00] kind of two buckets when it comes to diet in, in this case. And so we're seeing, we know there are common foods that can trigger headaches.
Meg Mill: So we want to look at those foods, which we can get into. And then we also have individual food sensitivities, which are our. IgG antibodies, which are different for every person. And so we kind of have to look at it, this in this two prong approach now, when we're looking at all of these food sensitivities, the thing that can be difficult is some of these foods are healthy foods.
Meg Mill: So I mentioned histamine foods, so histamines are You know, things like aged cheese, fermented foods, and, you know, those, like, things even like avocados, bananas, things that are Phone broke! Yeah, yes, you're thinking, okay, everyone's adding avocados because they're a good healthy fat, but those could be triggering you.
Meg Mill: We have Tyramine containing foods, which are, are like cured foods. So we're looking at things, even salicylates can bother some people. That's citrus. We have nitrates, [00:11:00] MSG, aspartame, caffeine can help sometimes, but too much caffeine can, you know, be something that triggers you. So we're looking at all of these foods.
Meg Mill: And then we're also where it gets confusing is we're also looking at combinations. and threshold. So when you think of migraine, you want to think of what's putting, you think of like blocks stacking on top of each other and what's actually putting you over that threshold. So we're always trying to lower the threshold and sometimes it's a combination.
Meg Mill: So it could be That's why, again, I'm going to use wine as an example because that's a big trigger for a lot of people. And so sometimes people could have it say, well, I don't think it's wine because I can, sometimes I get a terrible headache, but other times I can have a glass of wine and I'm fine. Well, you know, are you having that glass of wine?
Meg Mill: When you have maybe some also some aged cheese or at a time when your estrogens higher or different You know, maybe had more stress or less sleep or what are all the other? Circumstances around that that actually put you over that threshold. [00:12:00] So that's where it can be tricky We have to actually really become health detectives and I think I have things in place for people to do that, but it's really actually just sort of starting to look at, okay, what are my triggers and what are my patterns?
Meg Mill: And then we can start to really see some significant differences once people can identify them. And, and, and you can, I mean, it really becomes enlightening when people start to see like, Oh, Wow, lemons bothered me and I never thought about that.
Julie Michelson: Right. I love, I had a feeling we were going to be so aligned, um, because especially this audience, um, you know, once we have autoimmunity, we know we have leaky gut.
Julie Michelson: We know there's food sensitivities at play. And typically they are those things that are healthy because people are trying, right? I'm eating lots of leafy greens. I mean, whatever, whatever it is, the healthy food, you know, Um, and I love that you say that that your explanation right there reflects my story.
Julie Michelson: And, [00:13:00] and again, other than just reducing inflammation, I could never understand. I had cyclical migraines as an older adult. Once my. You know, RA symptoms were out of, you know, I, I was a decade in, I think, you know, on 10 prescriptions, and not doing well. Uh, but I, oh, I had, because when I was younger, I, they were, I had cluster headaches that were way more, you know, often.
Julie Michelson: Um, but these really would follow my cycle. And I did just what we were just talking about. Like, yeah, you know, it's follows my cycle, just hormonal migraines, you know, chalk it up to that's just life. They disappeared when I stopped eating corn.
Julie Michelson: And it's because just because of what you're talking about that threshold, right. And, and, you know, no, I didn't know back [00:14:00] then anything about estrogen dominance and, um, You know, I, I can understand in hindsight what was going on. Um, and honestly, I don't eat corn, so I don't know if I were to eat corn. I don't.
Julie Michelson: I'm menopausal. So I don't know if it would trigger or not. I'm not, I don't, you know, there's no value for me in even trying to play with it. That's that control piece though. Right. That empowerment.
Meg Mill: And so corn for you. So corn is not one of our migraine trigger foods as far as like those foods, but it would be an individual food sensitivity for you.
Meg Mill: And that's where it, yeah, that's where it's like, okay, everyone's, I had someone who was Um, I run a group called headstrong. So for people like we go through this and one of the women in that group Um, said one time we do a food sensitivity and so she was eating, she was taking pea protein, [00:15:00] vegan protein, because you know, dairy is a common food sensitivity and we're so educated, it's wonderful, but you think, okay, I'm going to avoid dairy, so I'm going to get the vegan, which is a pea protein, well, we did her food sensitivity test and peas were her highest food sensitivity and switching out of that pea protein shake, And it really made such a huge difference for her.
Meg Mill: You know, it was one of those things of you would never think though, that that protein shake that you're actually trying to drink, to be healthy, to not avoid dairy, which a lot of people say, don't eat dairy. And so those things, but that was actually triggering her migraines. And so it's exactly what you're saying.
Meg Mill: It, it's really enlightening. Once you start to figure some of these things out,
Julie Michelson: It is. It absolutely is. And the. Because, you know, we're about positivity and inspiration, but if you think of it as the, the stacking the blocks and the threshold. Right. It's the same. I don't know what, what popped into my mind when you were talking about that was [00:16:00] toxins, right?
Julie Michelson: Like we're never not gonna, we're always going to be exposed to toxins. There's always going to be a top, uh, some load depending on, you know, who you are and it's just reducing it. You don't have to be perfect. It's getting to where it's below your tipping point and it's not driving inflammation. So I love that if there are several factors.
Julie Michelson: that play into the migraine pattern, you know, maybe you don't have to perfectly hit all of them. I don't know.
Meg Mill: Yes. Yeah. Well, it's different. I guess that would be, it's different for everyone. So, you know, there's, there's just so many different levels. It's, it can't, people say like, okay, well, what is the, the formula?
Meg Mill: And then the formula is unique to, you know, we have systems in place to figure that out. But, You may have, you know, I can do, I use a dutch test for hormones and I can do a dutch test for someone. We, like you're saying with hormones, we can get some of those pathways figured out and [00:17:00] they, there's some common pathways.
Meg Mill: I, you know, patterns I see hormonally with migraines, we get some of that and you're like, wow, never, you know, the headaches are gone or we could find a food sensitivity and there could be those like one off, like it was just that for, for a lot of people though. There's more pieces to that puzzle. And it's really putting all of those connecting things together that really start to see that change.
Meg Mill: So it just depends on your unique situation and how, how many pieces that you need to get really back in place before they go, you know, Which is individual.
Julie Michelson: Sure. Absolutely. And I love that, you know, but I do testing up front with my clients as well, including food sensitivities because people want results, you know, I used to do testing like later on because you could hit, you can get improvement with, like you're saying, you know, like, you know, I can give you a protocol and, and maybe, you know, most people will get improvement, but everybody wants improvement.
Julie Michelson: And so that's where [00:18:00] that having that individual data. And, and lifestyle, um, you know, understanding what people's lifestyle is, is really important. Yeah. So speaking of lifestyle, let's talk a little bit about how stress can play into migraines.
Meg Mill: Yeah, so I like to call this the chain of pain because Because the thing is when you think about stressors we think about our like our life and our to do list and things like that and those are stressors and so we need To work on all of the things that bring our body back into the parasympathetic nervous system, but pain in itself is actually a stressor because stressors can be biological too.
Meg Mill: So it can actually become a cycle where your headaches are painful and because, you know, you, you get the headache because you're stressed, it's painful, it's causing stress on your body. We can increase [00:19:00] cortisol. High cortisol can actually release another hormone called prolactin and prolactin can increase pain sensitivity.
Meg Mill: So you're getting more pain because you have more cortisol and it just becomes this. I'm going to talk about what's happening in the womb and how to do the massage. Um, and the reason we do it is because we're still in this, this sort of cycle of, of stress and pain. And so we need to do things that bring us out of that cycle.
Meg Mill: So what can you, you know, and some of these are things you can do at home. You know, I have a lot of things in place where we do different exercises and different things to really bring our body back into that parasympathetic nervous system, but even starting to do some deep breaths, you know, take a few minutes out of each day and.
Meg Mill: You know, sit in your chair and do some deep breathing. You can start to see if, you know, meditation is something that works for you. I find personally that when I, I love meditation, I think it's a wonderful tool. But when people are already very stressed and stressed and distressed, it's hard to jump right into something like that.
Meg Mill: So it's really finding what resonates with you and what you can do and actually get value of into it and kind of build [00:20:00] upon.
Julie Michelson: I think that's so important. Um, because yeah, it's and meditation is great. I have a practice. I love it. It was really impactful in my healing journey. Um, but I wasn't always in the place where that would have been effective.
Julie Michelson: I wouldn't have been able to be consistent with it. Um, I had one client who I think hadn't visited the parasympathetic state in so long that when she started a breathing practice, just a really simple breathing practice, She actually got a, like it would, in the beginning, it caused stress response in her because it was just such a, I think her body was like, Whoa, you know, um, this is, this is a really odd feeling, but she, she stayed consistent for, it only took maybe like a few days, but I remember the first time she did the practice, she was like, Oh, I felt so tense, you know, I was like, just keep with it.
Julie Michelson: So I love, I love [00:21:00] that it's, you know, there's so many different things we can do to incorporate into stress management routines. Um, that I love that you said, you know, it doesn't have to be. It's just like there's not one trigger. There's not one stress management routine that's better than another or, or technique.
Julie Michelson: So yeah, absolutely.
Meg Mill: You have to build the basically like the muscle memory, you know, you have to teach it. You're saying with your client that wasn't able to get back in the parasympathetic nervous system while you have to practice, because if you're just doing this, when you feel stressed, you're not going to get the same kind of benefits as if you're practicing.
Meg Mill: on a regular basis where your body can realize, Oh, that's how I feel when I'm calm. Oh, that's what I feel. And then you teach it to remember, okay, that's what I feel like when I'm calm. And then you can get there. Even when you're stressed, you can use your tools to get back to that place.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Uh, so such good advice there.
Julie Michelson: I love, and it is swipe. These are called [00:22:00] practices, right? Like we forget like, Oh, it, all of it is a practice, you know? So that's what are, what are some of you mentioned breathing and, you know, if someone's ready for meditation, what are some of your other favorite kind of entry level?
Meg Mill: Yeah, I think, I think that really working on this, the, the deep breathing probably is the most entry level.
Meg Mill: I am actually certified in something called hypnobreathwork. So we do some breathwork while we're doing some hypnosis work too. Oh, nice. It helps to do some reprogramming of neural patterns and things like that. A lot of people find that very helpful. Um, vagal nerve exercises, things like that, that, you know, and there's, there's even devices, you know, you can get, I was just gonna ask you heart math.
Meg Mill: You can get a v you know, there's like something that's called a sto that's a vagal nerve stimulator. So there's different things that people even depending on. What you, everyone's a little bit different, you know, in what resonates [00:23:00] with them, but there are even devices out there that can help assist you.
Meg Mill: And there's apps, you know, there's a lot of apps too, that you can follow.
Julie Michelson: I'm glad that you gave that. That was what popped in as soon as you said vagal nerve. I was wondering how you felt about some of the, the stimulators or the, you know, there's some good technology out there that can be helpful. Um, and then again, to get you just visiting.
Julie Michelson: Parasympathetic state so that then you can build on it. So
Meg Mill: yes, I
Julie Michelson: love that. And that's hard to look if you're like in the middle of a migraine.
Meg Mill: Mm-Hmm. ,
Julie Michelson: you're not gonna sit and meditate, , you're, you know, so I love No, but
Meg Mill: you, the more that you p Yes. So that's kind of where that practice, the more that you practice, the more control you gain over that response.
Meg Mill: And so you have more, you know, you have more power and, and so that, yeah, that adds and, and like we said, the stress. can cause the migraine too. It can trigger the migraine. So it's one of the, you know, one of [00:24:00] the triggers. And so it's, yeah, it's working on all of those things together. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. I know it's, I, and we are so trained as a society, not listeners because they know, you know, But all of us had spent however many decades in the, you know, the, the magic pill, you know, the quick fix.
Julie Michelson: And, and it's, we're just, you know, we're complex beings. So these, we need to hit things from different angles as well. So I've heard you say this before and I want you to share with listeners how and how surroundings can contribute to headaches.
Meg Mill: Yes. So you want to look at your environment. Now we even know that certain heavy metals like lead and cadmium, we know that, you know, mold can be invasive to so many parts of our body.
Meg Mill: One of the things that mold can do is actually stimulate the mass cells to release histamine and that's one of the other problems with [00:25:00] the hormonal migraines is estrogen can also stimulate the mass cells to release histamine and histamine can be one of the triggers of migraines. So, You know, we're looking, but going back to the environment, you know, we're looking at what, what is in your environment.
Meg Mill: Are you, you know, are you using endocrine disruptors? Are you getting, you know, I'm sure that your audience knows endocrine disruptors, but, you know, changing out your, your products. You know, looking at using glass instead of plastic because of the BPA, looking up all of the using E, you know, EWG. org.
Meg Mill: There's an app called Yuca. There's so many, you know, resources now, luckily that we, I have a list of actually 25 different apps that I send to people that you can use to check products. And so we're so lucky that we're getting more aware and there's just information people can use now, but what are you doing in that environment?
Meg Mill: So. You know, sometimes we do do testing to see do you have mold exposure? Do you have heavy metal exposure? Do you have [00:26:00] chemical exposure? But you can just do things like, you know, switch to organic, decrease endocrine disruptors. Get a water filter on your water get air. I like to say air filters in the bedrooms because I know it can add up But if you spend think almost half your day or you know in your bedroom So if you can think of a place, well, that's the place to start So put some some sort of air purifier to clean the air I was at a conference and they actually just recently and they had air Purifiers that you wear around your neck, which was an interesting concept.
Meg Mill: You know, you don't want to necessarily be walking around with your own air purifier. Maybe, but at the same time, if you are in an environment like, you know, that sometimes I work with people that don't have control over all of their environment. So maybe you can do that in your home, be going to work and you can't control the environment there.
Meg Mill: That's like, I was like, that's a really innovative product, like a product to be able to put around your neck, you know, and, and clean your air. So it's. [00:27:00]
Julie Michelson: It's great. And a lot, I know a lot of people I work with, and I'm sure a lot of listeners as well are, um, and not necessarily diagnosable chemical sensitive people, you know, but sensitive to fragrances and which I actually, you know, like you talked about seeing patterns correlates as toxins being a really big player in a driver in the autoimmunity anyway.
Julie Michelson: Um, and so that is always one of my, you know, it's like, well, how are you with the fragrance or chemicals? Oh, so, you know, I, I've had so many people say, oh, it's, it's, as I've gotten older, I've gotten more sensitive. And I'm like, well, you've accumulated more toxins. It's not actually age related. Um, and so I love that idea.
Julie Michelson: You know, I, I came to functional medicine through biohacking. And so we'll do some really weird stuff to protect our body. Um, and I, I would be one of those people that would be happy, you know, I wouldn't care. I, it was, it's a great [00:28:00] conversation starter, right? Can educate people.
Meg Mill: It's called Respiray is the name of that product.
Meg Mill: So if someone's interested, yeah, you know, I tried it on, it's actually very comfortable and you, you know, can put that on your, yes. Like, because it is, you're thinking, okay, I can control my home. We're never going to eliminate toxins from our life. We just can't. So it's like, what can you do to control your environment?
Meg Mill: Although you don't have control always over every environment. So that's thinking of, okay, when I'm in this situation, what can I do when I'm here? What can I do? How can I protect myself? Because we do see toxic exposure. We see heavy metals. We see certain things that are, you know, really accumulating that can be a, one of the contributors to getting regular migraines and headaches.
Julie Michelson: I love that you brought that up. I know people are probably like, Oh, gosh, all roads lead to toxins, but they really are. They're a player in any kind of issue you're having in your body. I promise. [00:29:00] And I love that you said, I say this, I do, um, toxin panels in my programs, but I always say, you know, I, everybody needs to work on toxins and you don't have to do a toxin panel to do just what you said, you know, create that haven in your home and start there.
Julie Michelson: So I love that.
Meg Mill: Absolutely. Yes. And you know, this isn't just something I was thinking as you were talking. So think about like this scenario. So a lot of times women start to have more headaches or hormonal migraines or what, during. perimetopause because you're becoming more estrogen dominant if progesterone goes down first.
Meg Mill: So here you have more estrogen dominance Another thing that happens is your bones start to change and like some, uh, lead is one of the things that can cause migraines. So your bones, as you have bone change can start to, lead is stored in bones. And so sometimes you can have lead exposure as a child that you've been storing in your bones, your bone composition change, you're releasing lead, [00:30:00] you're estrogen dominant, you have all.
Meg Mill: And so it's like looking at all of these symptoms, things that start to happen That it's like, Oh, wow. And like you're saying, okay, now I'm so much more, you know, I had this, I was under control. Now I'm so much worse. And so that's not always the case, but we do see those kind of patterns happen. And you can see why it happens.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, I'd love that. And, and again, that's that time, you know, the traditional medicine will say, you know, well, your perimenopause, like the headaches, maybe it'll go away once you've been, you know, go through menopause. And it's like, well, wait, what years? Yeah. So You brought it up. I'm guessing you have a little more to say about hormonal migraines for women.
Julie Michelson: And, and I don't know at, at this point now I'm like suspect even with hormonal, you know, is it really hormones? I definitely estrogen dominance can, [00:31:00] can be a bear, um, as somebody who lived with it for a long time until she found functional medicine. So, um, but any advice for women out there that have been told like, Oh, you know, it's just hormonal.
Meg Mill: Well, I do. So yes, I definitely do. There is definitely a hormonal component to migraines, especially if you're a woman who's having them like you're saying at that same time each month, you know, if you're like, okay, every month at ovulation I get a migraine or every month right before my period or during my period I get a migraine.
Meg Mill: Well, you know that there is pattern to that that you look at you want to look into hormones and we see some different Common hormonal patterns. Now, when you think of estrogen, you want to use it and lose it. You want to have enough estrogen that you have it in your body, but then you need to metabolize it.
Meg Mill: If you're not metabolizing it, The right way then you can have some of these metabolites that are even stronger in your body that are creating these estrogenic effects So we don't you know And this is where it's tricky because if you [00:32:00] went in and you told your doctor that they're gonna do a blood draw of estradiol Well often I'll see low estradiol.
Meg Mill: It's not always an estradiol issue. Estrone. I would imagine. Yeah Yeah, it's it. It's an it's often the metabolites and so it has to do with the way you're metabolizing You your estrogen. And so we need to look at all of those factors and see in order for you to make sure you're actually clearing. your estrogen out of your body.
Meg Mill: So think of it like think of your estrogen like a bathtub. This is an analogy and I liked it. Um, you know, so you have two phases of metabolism liver and one in the gut. So you have to make sure you know, it has to be nicely packaged. It connects to bile and go out. So if you if you have that drain clogged and you know, you're not going to the bathroom daily, you have high beta glucuronidase, you have issues with your gut health.
Meg Mill: Maybe you're not even excreting the estrogen. Maybe your liver is metabolizing it fine, but it's just getting reabsorbed. So we have to look at that aspect. We have to look at, are you methylating, you know, how are you processing phase two? And then we need to look at, okay, what [00:33:00] pathways are it's going down?
Meg Mill: So we need to really look at all of these things and make sure that you're metabolizing your estrogen, that you're balanced with progesterone. You know, some another, like I've been bringing up histamine because estrogen can actually release histamine from the mast cell. Histamine can be a trigger.
Meg Mill: Progesterone actually helps promote DAO, diamine oxidase, which helps break down histamine. So we're just, there's, there's a lot of intricacies here, but, and that's where I feel like if you, you know, sometimes it is worth it. to do the test, not guess approach when it comes to hormones, because if you're getting the right testing, we can just say, okay, look at this pathway.
Meg Mill: Look, I can help you move the things the way they need to be done to get that, to get it to metabolize. And it can just make such a huge difference.
Julie Michelson: And I love, thank you for explaining that because so often, you know, if a woman goes to her PCP, like you said, they're going to do a blood test. They're going to, you [00:34:00] know, even if they looked at.
Julie Michelson: more than just estradiol in, in range doesn't mean in balance. And so they're going to be like, no, you're fine. You know, estrogen dominance doesn't have to mean you have high estrogen levels. Um, it could be, you know, I, I joke when I comes to toxins and used to be estrogen too. I'm a, I'm a collector. I like to keep everything.
Julie Michelson: Um, and, and so, you know, and, and, and sometimes it can be like really simple. Right. Like for me, you know, a little bit of dim was went a long way. So I love that approach of like, okay, let's see what's really going on. Um, and the whole point is you're not stuck, you know, there's this is. It's almost training that starts as girls with like, Oh, that's just part of being a woman.
Julie Michelson: Oh, that's, you know, no, you don't have to have migraines related [00:35:00] to cycle. It doesn't have to be that way. It's a, it's a symptom that something's out of balance.
Meg Mill: It is. It's a sign you're you. If you have that, you need to think why am I having this pain? And so, and what can I do to stop it? Cause it's your body.
Meg Mill: It's really your body giving you a message.
Julie Michelson: Right. Right. And there's that question again, that you, that you ask and answer, which is why, right? Why? Yeah. I love it. Oh, like what is one step? This is sometimes can feel like a trick question, but one step that listeners can take today to start to improve their health.
Julie Michelson: It could be headache related. It could be not whatever magic you want to lay on them.
Meg Mill: Yeah, I can give an easy one when it actually comes to headaches. So that's good. That's an easy question. So I would say drink more water. Dehydration is an independent risk factor for migraine. And so we want to make sure we're staying hydrated and we want to make sure we're staying hydrated on a sunny day.
Meg Mill: cellular level. So you want to drink your [00:36:00] water throughout the day. You don't want to just drink like, okay, you know what? I'm so thirsty. I'm going to chug water. A lot of that could actually pass through you. So we want to just keep you hydrated and kind of have that glass of water or that water bottle.
Meg Mill: I'm not saying the plastic water bottle, but whatever glass one that you use right beside your your desk or you know with you and make sure you're sipping water through the day because that's an easy thing to do that can actually be something that can be affecting your headaches if you're dehydrated.
Julie Michelson: I love that. And it is the, that's the best, I think that's the best advice ever. What? There's so many things to choose from. Um, but we had this conversation, uh, you know, and kind of giggled about it a lot, but it's such a, it's so essential and so basic. And, you know, we're talking about headaches and migraines and, and like you said, it can be just singular cause.
Julie Michelson: But also so many other [00:37:00] things, constipation, you know, fatigue, like pretty much you name it, dehydration could be a factor. Um, and it's often overlooked and, you know, people are looking for the, what's the, the popular saying, you know, if you hear hoof beats, don't think zebra. Um, you know, but we tend to always be looking for the zebra and sometimes it's just like, oh my gosh, you know, water, water, water, water, clean water out of a glass bottle or glass.
Julie Michelson: Love it. Absolutely. Uh, before we wrap up. Where is the best place for people listening on the go to find you?
Meg Mill: Yes. Well, I actually have a podcast too called a little bit healthier. So on that podcast, we talk about all sorts of different ways you can be healthier in your life. And then I'm over on Instagram at drmegmill.
Meg Mill: It's just D R M E G M I L L. And my website is megmill. com. [00:38:00] So on that website, It's a way if you, you know, I do offer free calls to talk through your health issues. So if you want to connect, and there also is a program that I have going called headstrong. So it has all of the education around headaches and migraines.
Meg Mill: So you can head over there and you know, I have articles on headaches and everything's resources over there. Lots of
Julie Michelson: resources. I love it. Oh, Meg, thank you so, so much. You gave us amazing gold today. Well, thank you so much for having me. For everyone listening, remember you can get the transcripts and show notes by visiting inspiredliving.
Julie Michelson: show. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week. [00:39:00]
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My Guest For This Episode
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Meg Mill
Dr. Meg Mill is a Functional Medicine Practitioner, bestselling author, podcast host and speaker. In her virtual Functional Medicine practice, she works with patients worldwide to heal the root cause of their health struggles through advanced diagnostic testing and personalized support.
After seeing hundreds of clients worldwide make incredible health transformations. She started her podcast “A Little Bit Healthier” to share how there are choices you can make every day to significantly improve your health and longevity.
She has been seen on Fox News Channel, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, in Reader's Digest, Health Magazine, and has appeared on many podcasts. In her podcast A Little Bit Healthier she discusses simple things you can add to your life every day to live a healthier, more fulfilled life.
Meg is particularly passionate about helping people end headaches and migraines, increase energy and restore mental clarity without drugs or overwhelming protocols with her proven E.A.T. Method.
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