Migraine Awareness Month – Is there a Gluten Link?

There are several diseases and conditions for which the medical profession in our country states there is no cure. IBS, eczema, depression and migraines are just some of those conditions. It’s frustrating enough to be plagued with one of these problems, but to be told there’s no cure and the best that can be done is taking a dangerous drug from the rest of your life, would truly make anyone depressed.

Since June is National Migraine Awareness Month, I thought that we'd share the success rate we have with migraines here at HealthNOW.

Over the two decades we've been treating patients with headaches and migraines, we have been delighted at the excellent results we achieve regardless of the severity and duration of the problem. We have vastly improved and eliminated many migraines that have been completely debilitating.

What's our secret? One thing it isn't is a pill. Drugs given for migraines can alleviate the pain but they are not a cure and they never resolve the underlying reason that the headaches have occurred.

We find that migraines tend to be multifactorial, meaning they have at their root cause more than one factor. The most common contributing factors, that once resolved, lead to successful migraine eradication are as follows:

1. A structural or neurological component that affects the nerves in the neck or head. This can occur from pinched nerves in the neck, head or TMJ (jaw). Whether it is due to an injury or just the build-up of minor life stress, we consider it mandatory that any migraine sufferer be evaluated for nerve irritation. Missing this can result in unsuccessful treatment.

2. Food sensitivities - whether it's gluten, dairy, MSG or some other food, we almost always find that a food is contributing to the condition. Gluten and dairy are definitely at the top of the list because they have known associations with nerve irritation.

The difficulty in determining what food is the culprit lies in the misunderstanding of how a food reacts with the nervous system. Patients, and doctors for that matter, often assume that a  migraine precipitated by eating a certain food would occur within an hour or so of ingesting the food in question. The facts are that when it comes to food sensitivities such as gluten and dairy,  it can be many hours or days after eating the food before a migraine is triggered.

Obviously this makes it difficult to determine the cause. But not impossible, of course, as this is one of the major issues we find affecting migraine sufferers. We prefer to do a lab test to rule out celiac disease or gluten sensitivity first, and then we follow-up with a 30 day elimination of both gluten and dairy products.

3. Hormonal imbalance - some women get migraines around there menstrual cycle (typically due to insufficient progesterone). These migraines are triggered at the time of the month when the sex hormones naturally fall, but in women with migraines the fall is too steep and the result is a migraine. Normalization of these hormone levels is not difficult and we see outstanding success in those women willing to make some lifestyle changes.

Hormonal imbalance can also originate from the adrenal glands, the stress glands, which can also precipitate migraines when malfunctioning. The good news is that the program to normalize the adrenal glands is a completely natural one, no drugs are needed.

These are the top causes I have seen time and time again that should be addressed when dealing with migraines. The success rate when these are normalized is quite high.

Some of the ‘classic’ migraine triggers mentioned in the literature such as weather changes, aged cheeses, bright light or loud sounds, we find, can be acting as an exacerbator, but are less the true cause than what we mention above.

Migraines are miserable. I personally suffered with them for over a decade. I was told at the time that I had them because my mother had them. Well, once we both removed gluten from our diets and got some great chiropractic care, guess what? Neither one of us ever had another migraine. My mother had been suffering for well over 4 decades by that time.

If you know of someone suffering with migraines, please alert them to this data. We are more than happy to offer them a free health analysis to determine if we can help. Our destination clinic treats patients from across the country and internationally. So you don’t need to live locally to receive assistance.

There is always a reason the body is giving symptoms. Migraines are awful. Find out the real reason your body is creating them and rid yourself of the misery!

Need Help? We're Here for You! 

If you felt as if I was describing you above, you are not alone. As I mentioned earlier, adrenal fatigue/exhaustion is almost epidemic. If you would like assistance and don’t have a clinician whom you feel can assist you, consider contacting us for a FREE Health Analysis. We are a Destination Clinic and treat patients from across the country and internationally. We would be delighted to help you as we have been doing so for over two decades.

Visit us at www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com. If you have questions or need any help, I’m here for you! Call 408-733-0400.

I look forward to hearing from you.

To your good health,

Dr Vikki Petersen, DC, CCN, CFMP


IFM Certified Practitioner

Founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic
Co-author of “The Gluten Effect”

Author of the eBook: “Gluten Intolerance – What You Don’t Know May Be Killing You!”