353: Hacking Your Headaches w/ Dr. Meg Mill
Life can feel unpredictable for those suffering from chronic headaches or migraines. On today's show, you'll learn some of the best natural ways you can combat your headaches through the lens of a Functional Medicine practitioner.
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.
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Vaginal Yeast Infection Coconut and Essential Oils Soother
From: Amy Dyer
Ingredients:
1/2 cup Organic Virgin Cold Pressed Coconut Oil, semi-melted but not hot
7 drops of Young Living tea tree oil
7 drops of Young Living lavender oil
Directions:
Stir in small glass container. Take a tampon and sort of open up some of the folds and rub your oil mixture into some folds. Put tampon back to its original shape as much as possible. Then, roll outside of tampon around in oil mixture. Insert into vagina and use your fingers to rub mixture onto the outside part. Do Not Get Close to your Urethra! I just repeated every time I had to go to the bathroom and made sure I had a fresh one in at bedtime.
**If you prefer to use as a suppository instead of using a tampon, you can do that by pouring mixture into waxed paper that has been pushed down inside a container so that when mixture hardens it can be used like a suppository. Refrigerate until firm before first use and store the rest of them in the refrigerator. You'll want to wear a pad or cloth if you use the suppository.
“It only took me 3 days of using this until the infection was gone!”
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Episode Transcript
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0 (2s): When we change our thoughts, we will change our experiences. Michael Thomas, Sunni Borg,
1 (9s): Empowerment in Education. Two powerful elements that will help you break free of convention and transform your passion for wellness tool level beyond the status quo, the essential oil revolution where you're given the tools to supersede an ordinary everyday lifestyle, inspiring speakers, DIY recipes, healthy living tips, and more. You'll discover it all here, so tune in and get ready for a wellness revolution.
0 (40s): Hello. Hello there. I am Samantha Lee, right your host here at the Essential Oil Revolution. Thanks so much for tuning in today. On today's program, we will be diving into the world of headaches and how to heal them naturally. If you're someone who suffers from chronic headaches or migraines, this episode is going to have so many helpful tips for you. We also highlight exactly what a functional medicine practitioner does compared to a conventional practitioner, and it's a very helpful distinction. You'll, you'll hear in this episode why I am such a huge fan of functional medicine practitioners, and of course you'll walk away with lots of helpful essential oil tips as well.
0 (1m 25s): That's today on our show. But first, let's pull a recipe out of our d I Y dugout. Today's DIY dugout recipe comes from Amy Dyer and her recipe is for a vaginal yeast infection, coconut and essential oil's sooth. Now this is a bit of a long recipe, but for those who suffer from yeast infections, you will thank me later because this stuff works, trust me. So to make the yeast infection soother, you'll need a half a cup of Virgin Cold Press, coconut oil, semi melted but not hot. Seven drops tea tree essential oil, and seven drops lavender essential oil.
0 (2m 9s): Stir in a small glass container, all of the ingredients above. Then take a tampon and sort of open up some of the folds and rub your oil mixture into some fold. Put the tampon back in its original shape as much as possible. Then roll outside of tampon around in oil mixture. Insert into vagina and use your fingers to rub mixture onto the outside part. Do not get close to your urethra though, and she says she repeated every time I had to go to the bathroom and made sure I had a fresh one in at bedtime. Also, if you prefer, you can use a suppository instead of using a tampon. You can do that by pouring the mixture into wax paper that has been pushed down inside a container so that when mixture hardens, it can be used like a suppository refrigerate until firm before first use and store the rest of them in the refrigerator.
0 (2m 59s): You'll want to wear a pad or cloth if you go with the suppository route. It took me three days of using this until the infection was gone, she said. Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that with us, Amy Dyer, we appreciate you. If you have your own success story, testimonial or recipe that you'd like to share with our audience, we'd love to hear it. Just email it to us at diy revolution oils podcast.com. Support for our show comes from HelloFresh, as I'm sure you can relate. Trying to catch up after the holidays is a lot.
0 (3m 43s): The last thing that I know I wanna do around this time is go to the grocery store and figure out what's for dinner. That's why my favorite time of the week is when I open my door, I look down and I see that beautiful big brown box from HelloFresh full of easy to cook, delicious meals. Now I've tried a lot of different meal kit services over the years and I can see why HelloFresh is America's number one meal kit. They have over 35 weekly recipes that you can choose from. All of them are customizable so that you can get exactly what you and your family need to eat.
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0 (5m 58s): The biosensor captures your glucose levels in real time so you can see how your body reacts to things like stress, certain foods, exercise and sleep. Then your personal dietician helps you interpret that data to give you actionable steps for reaching your health goals. I'm so pleased with my experience with Nutrisystems. The staff have been so kind, easy to work with and truly caring. Visit Nutri senses.io/revolution and use code revolution to save $30 on any Nutrisystems subscription plan and get one month of free dietician support. Again, that's N ut R I S E N S e.io/revolution and use code revolution to save $30 on any nutrition subscription plan.
0 (6m 44s): Plus get one month of dietician support free. Well, I'm here with Dr. Meg Mill, who is a functional medicine practitioner, a best selling 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. Welcome to the show, Dr. Meg Mill. How are you?
4 (7m 18s): Good. Thank you so much for having me.
0 (7m 20s): I'm super excited for you to be here. I love functional doctors. Y'all are just the best, you know,
4 (7m 26s): I
0 (7m 27s): Can say that cause I don't have any, any close connections to other doctors, but it just seems like out of all the different fields of medicine you could be in, like why not pick functional medicine? It just seems like the most practical, getting to the root cause of things using so many of the amazing, it's the perfect blend between like western tools and just common sense medicine as I like to call it.
4 (7m 51s): Yes, I agree. You can take both and merge them sort of to, to really focus on getting the root so you can actually see people make this trip. One of the best things that I love about it is that I really every day get to see people make these huge health transformations that I think just the conventional system is not set up to do.
0 (8m 9s): Yeah, tell me more. Like what's an example?
4 (8m 13s): So I think really, you know, it, it just comes in, I work with people for all different reasons. So I have a vir private virtual functional medicine practice and I do focus a lot on headaches and migraines and we can dive into that, but just even from every across the gamut really. I mean you can see people that come in with skin conditions that they have rashes all over their body or have lived and living with these skin conditions that have healthy, beautiful skin after really making some simple changes. And sometimes we just need to find those underlying root causes and, and really heal some things. And I think there's just so much information out there that try this, try that, try, and then they're trying so many different things and feeling frustrated like nothing's working because a little bit of this and a little bit of that doesn't give you the whole picture.
4 (8m 58s): But once we really look at the root cause and we find all these connections and just put the right pieces in order for people, you can really just start to see your body making these transformations where you know, your inflammation's gonna calm down, your immune system's gonna calm down, and then, you know, once that happens, once your gut health is restored, your hormones go back into balance and then your headaches go away and it's a cascade of all of these things. You get energy, it's wonderful.
0 (9m 23s): Yeah. And do you see this happen often? You know, like what's the success rate of functional medicine for, for all these things?
4 (9m 32s): I, this is pretty high. I mean, if you, there is some with functional medicine, the one difference is that there is a little bit of, you have to be motivated self-motivation, I guess I would say because we're, we're, you know, we're giving you a path, but there is, there are things that you actually need to do. So you if you know, we're saying, look at these or stop doing. And so when people actually do those things, I see a tremendous success rate. You know, some, most of the time if people aren't seeing a success rate, it's because they're not able to really incorporate some of those things in well and or are not motivated to make the changes. But once you really start doing that and you're committed, it's, it's pretty high.
0 (10m 14s): Yeah, that's awesome. Well, we're here today to focus mostly on headaches and migraines. So let's, let's pivot over there and talk about headaches and migraines, you know, what, what has made you wanna focus on this topic? I guess let's start there.
4 (10m 31s): Yeah, absolutely. So I really, when I open, so I, my background is in the conventional side of medicine, so I was getting, you know, really working with patients and seeing people really just more like surviving rather than thriving and really wanted to, you know, get into the space of functional medicine to make that change for people. And when I opened my functional medicine practice, I, you know, like I said, see people for all different reasons and I noticed this trend. So I either would see, particularly women coming to me for headaches and migraines that were suffering had been on medication. Usually by the time people get to me, they've already tried some, you know, other things and that aren't working.
4 (11m 11s): And then I would notice if we've worked together, they would say, oh my gosh, I can't even believe this. I've had headaches my whole life. I've, I've been suffering for migraines all this time and now I don't have them. Then another trend I was noticing was that even when people weren't coming to me for headaches and migraines, they, they fill out a very detailed intake questionnaire and symptom questionnaire before we start working together. So I would see on these forms that a lot of women would be having headaches and or migraines for years or on a regular basis and treating it with things like Advil or Tylenol or even prescription medications that were causing other health issues. But it was so normalized for them that they weren't even considering this to be an issue.
4 (11m 52s): It was just like, like, oh, I ha this is just something I live with. It would be like, you know, they're coming to me for something else, but they just think they have to live with this. And then we'd again work together and they'd say, I can't even believe I, I haven't had a headache. My headaches are gone. And so I really wanted, I felt like this is just something that in the conventional space are, we're really treating it more with a bandaid effect. We're really just covering up the pain, but we're not doing much to really decrease incidence and severity of the headaches in migraines. So when we do that, when we flip that model upside down, then we can start to see this amazing change and I really just wanted more people to know that this is possible. It's, it impacts your life so much when you have a headache.
4 (12m 33s): You know, especially when you have a migraine, you, I just hear every day like relationships are affected and plan, you can plan your daughter's birthday party for example, and then that's the day you have a migraine and, and it just disrupts your life so much. It can be life-changing.
0 (12m 46s): Yeah, absolutely. What, why are some people, or are some people more prone to migraines than others? You know, what puts someone in that boat?
4 (12m 57s): There are genetic factors that can make you more, have more propensity. So there is not really a headache gene per se that you'd say. Like, I have had people come, well I have, they're all through my family, we have a headache gene. I'm like, well you don't really have a headache gene, but you can have genetics like maybe you don't methylate as well or maybe your d a o enzyme in your, your gut that actually has to degrade histamine isn't, doesn't work as well, you know, so there's things that can set us up to have more propensity, but the great news is that we can actually overcome those things. So it's really about finding your unique triggers. So that's one of the things we really work on is discovering what your unique triggers are, because everyone's different.
4 (13m 39s): We know there are trends, but everyone has different triggers and so once we can identify as those for you and then eliminate them or give you the right nutrients to overcome some of those deficiencies, we can really see this change and see that headache, you see those headaches go down.
0 (13m 55s): Mm. Yeah. When are there different tests or experiments that you would do to try to rule out, hey it's, it's certain foods you're eating or things you're drinking or, or chemicals around your house, you know, where do you even start?
4 (14m 10s): Yeah, so what we actually, the place I have most people start is that, and you can do this, this is a good tip for everyone. So listen to this, listen up. What you can start by doing is printing out a blank calendar and then you can see now it's a little bit harder for people who are, who are having chronic headaches, but if you print out a blank calendar and then you write down what you ate, like if you get a headache, write down what you ate the day that day and the day before. Write down the time of month, write down like if there was anything different, like in your stress level, something happened that was a, a change, write down how like your hydration and how much sleep you've had and that those are things that you can start to look at patterns.
4 (14m 51s): So we can start to identify the patterns. Now let, we'll d let's dive into food a little bit more here. So with food, we know there are certain foods that do trigger headaches and migraines. So things like histamine containing foods which are like aged cheeses, fermented foods. We have tyramine containing foods, which again are aged curd foods, solicitate, which are actually found in citrus foods. We have nitrates which are like hotdogs, bacon, and then we have things like that are like M S G in prepared canned processed foods. We have asam, which is our in diet sodas, artificial coloring and flavorings and even caffeine. While caffeine can be used sometimes to treat headaches, there's also a rebound effect if you're having too much caffeine.
4 (15m 35s): So what is complicated here is that not all of these are gonna trigger headaches for all people. So we wanna look at these foods almost like you wanna start to get an idea with the foods and, and think of where it's complicated is it can be also combinations of food. So we'll use something like I wine is a, has a combination of some of these. So it's a good example cuz sometimes people will say, well I had a glass of wine and I had a headache. And then they could say, well, but I had a glass of wine another day, but I, and I had nothing. So I don't, it's not the wine, but it could be the wine in combination with an aged cheese or the, the amount or sometimes there's thresholds and so if we get over that threshold, we'll start to get the migraine.
4 (16m 18s): So we really need to look at the foods at the, sometimes the amount in combination of the foods to see what, how we're experiencing this. There's an, and then there's also another bucket when it comes to foods which are food sensitivities and those are individual for each person. So a food sensitivity you're gonna measure, which we can test an IgG antibody and they're, they're, they're different than food allergies because food allergies are IgE antibody reactions. Those are when you're gonna get the hives, the shortness of breath. Those are the severe ones that we really have to eliminate forever. But we're looking here at a food sensitivity, which is an IgG antibody and that is can show more non-specific symptoms.
4 (16m 60s): So you could have, you know, some gut issues, you could have skin issues, headaches and migraines are another thing. So we wanna look at those for the individual person and those can show up four to 48 hours after you eat the food. So it, it can be very confusing for people sometimes when they're trying to figure this out because it, it can be food, you know, you're not expecting that maybe the food that you ate yesterday afternoon could be triggering your headache, but it actually can.
0 (17m 27s): Yeah, that's so interesting. And do you find that food is the number one culprit for most people? For headaches?
4 (17m 35s): It depends. It, I think starting there is a good place. I do see hormones a lot though, so Okay. Hormonal imbalances are a big one.
0 (17m 45s): Yeah. Yeah. So there it can be a lot of thing that I imagine like chemical exposure could be a big one Exactly as well. So yeah, there's a lot of different, a lot of different factors going on. So for someone that's really suffering, it can feel overwhelming I'm sure to be like, I don't even know where to start. Right. But yes, starting with, starting with just journaling, I think that always coming back to, you know what, like I don't, I don't need to try to figure out all the answers right away, but I do need to take the responsibility of actually journaling and Exactly. And documenting, right, because that is gonna allow you to then take a step back and look at things in a much clearer light.
4 (18m 26s): Yes. And that's why I think doing the calendar or, or the journal, I mean you could, I just say calendar cuz sometimes people like to like see it on that space, but the journaling is the same thing. If you can start there and you can get this, I, it's just so interesting when people start to do it. The things that I've seen, I mean sometimes it's lemons for people. I mean, you're not thinking people can even be drinking lemon water because it promotes detox, you know, doing that for health benefits or somebody came back and was saying like, every time I eat olives I notice it, olives are on one of the lists. So it's just these little intricacies sometimes that can start to show up when you actually pay attention. 0 (19m 3s): Very interesting. Well relate this to essential oils for me. Do you have any advice for oils that help with headaches or how, how essential oils might relate to this topic?
4 (19m 15s): Yes, so I really like peppermint oil for headaches, peppermint and lavender. And what I'll usually have people do is put them on their temples. And so if you're g if you get a headache, so we're talking about ways that we want to decrease headaches, but if you do get, you know, what do you do? I don't get that question all the time, what do I do? But when I do get the headache, you're trying to avoid medication. So what I have you do is take a drink, a full glass of water because hydration is another independent risk. Dehydration, excuse me, is another independent risk factor for headaches and migraines. So you wanna try to make sure you're hydrated. And then I would suggest to put some peppermint or lavender or a combination, you know, there's combination whales that are good that for this too, on your temples and maybe across your forehead.
4 (20m 3s): And then lay a cool cloth over it and just wrap, you know, lay down and try to get to a quiet space if you can. I have seen a lot of people have a really huge success with that, especially if you catch it right away. So you don't want to wait until you're already full-blown headache. If you can start when it's coming on, when you're starting to get that migraine, then you can, you know, bring it down.
0 (20m 27s): Yeah, that sounds that, like even just walking through those steps in my mind that sounds like, ah, that would feel really great.
4 (20m 35s): Yes. Do you ever try peppermint when you have a headache? I feel like that's one of the most successful ones that I
0 (20m 42s): See I do. And sometimes I'll just drop it right on my tongue, like one drop on my tongue and then then I'll push the tongue to the roof of my mouth and, and that seems to really help, that helps me with nausea a lot. I don't get a ton of headaches, but, but when I do, I'll try that and it does help a lot. Yes. It's just got this really cooling sensation, like sometimes a headache can just feel so hot in your head and peppermint has a wave of really cooling things down and
4 (21m 9s): Yes, and I, that's funny that you're saying that nausea, because I actually keep a bottle of peppermint in my car, so when the, if anyone gets car, you know, when we're tra traveling, if anyone starts to get cars saying I pass the peppermint, I'm like, okay, if they, they alert me if anyone's starting. So I feel like when you, when you're getting that and you pass the peppermint around, that's like a lifesaver too.
0 (21m 30s): Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Is there anything you, you wanna say on the topic of like chemical exposure and how essential oils can sort of lower that toxic load as well, which I imagine can contribute to a lot of people's headaches and migraines?
4 (21m 45s): Yeah, so you wanna look at your environment. So we wanna try to take, we have our environment is called our exposome. So we are exposed to chemicals all the time. We can't avoid them really where we are in life now they're around. So what you have to do when it comes to chemicals is you wanna look at everything that you're exposed to and then you also wanna look at your ability to process the, the toxins basically. And so we, so really the focus is decreasing exposure, increasing your ability to process and really detoxify. And so what can happen is, you know, when we're not able to detoxify things well then we can get these, you know, build up of chemicals and we, we look at them in different buckets so you know, you can look at allergens.
4 (22m 33s): So those are things in your environment that you know, so that you need to make sure that you're having clean air, that you're not exposed to a lot of things that are a allergens because histamine has a strong connection with headaches. So we wanna make sure that, that we're cleaning up our environment. We also wanna look at heavy metal exposure too, because we know certain heavy metals like lead and cadium and different things can also be factors in headaches and migraines. So you wanna make sure that you are really checking to detoxifying and making sure that you're not exposed to over load of heavy, heavy metals. Sometimes with heavy metals too, it can be a little bit confusing for people because the heavy metal exposure could have been from past experience.
4 (23m 14s): So let, for example, lead is something that if you were exposed to like lead pain as a child or at some point in your life, sometimes as women age and our bone density changes lead is stored in the bones. And so sometimes that can relate, start to show up more as we age and our bone density changes. So when we're experiencing some of these things they may not be exposure from right now, they can be past exposures. So we just have to pay attention to that.
0 (23m 43s): Yeah, that's really tricky. One, one tip tip I wanna throw out there. I remember a previous interview with someone talking about the importance of dusting, keeping dust out of your house because that is a place that lead or o other heavy metals can sit and get stored is in the dust in your home, which I'd never thought about that before, but I thought, oh wow, that's, that's kind of scary thinking to
4 (24m 9s): Think yes, I know because you're not thinking about, you're just thinking like, oh dust, it's not, it's natural,
0 (24m 13s): Right?
4 (24m 14s): Yeah, yeah. But no, yeah, that, that is a place where chemicals collect, so you wanna make sure that you're dusting, that you're cleaning, that you're cleaning your air. I think even one of the things that I really do suggest to is if you're gonna get, get an air filter for your bedroom, like an air purifier, you can get them pretty inexpensive at a lot of stores now and really put those in your bed, start to put those in your bedroom. Sometimes that can make a big difference. Just, we spend almost half our day sleeping so it, it's hard to get them maybe for every room in the house, but if you have them even for your bedrooms, it can start to clean the air up there. I know whenever I was saying I wanted to get the air purifier, my husband's like, we have a filter on our furnace. What, you know, we don't need that.
4 (24m 54s): And I was like, I'm just still getting it. And then whenever you clean it, I showed the first time I, you know, cleaned the filter. I was like, look, this is, look how much more we're getting, you know, cleaned air from there. And I, and you can start to notice a difference.
0 (25m 8s): Yeah, absolutely. Clean air. I mean, we spend so much time indoors, we, I don't think naturally we're not meant to spend this much time indoors. You know, our ancestors didn't have houses that, that were,
4 (25m 21s): Yes. And
0 (25m 22s): You know, they were outside a lot and from someone I, I used to live in very rustic situations. My when in my, you know, I call it my like early hippie days in my twenties, you know, my now husband and I, we traveled a lot. We lived out of our tent for a while. We lived in a tepee for a while. We lived in little 10 by 10 off-grid cabin in the woods, you know, all off-grid, all you know, you pee, you poop outside, everything's outside. And even in the middle of winter, you know, your body adapts to your environment really, really well. And so people get, I think people are kind of scared of their outdoor environments, right?
0 (26m 2s): Yes. They're always seeking the shelter of inside because that's our, that's human nature, right? It's human nature to go towards the safety, the easy, right? Our bodies naturally want to lounge around all day and not burn calories if we don't have to. That's just human nature. That's what we're ingrained to do. The problem is our modern lifestyle has changed so rapidly, so much that it is becoming that the, the very thing that is designed to keep us well and to keep us alive is really starting to backfire on us. I heard, I heard the other day this, the expression that sitting is the new smoking and I thought that was really interesting, you know, that it, it has, we've adapted into this lifestyle where we can really go through an entire day sitting down, never having to really move our bodies, never having to go outside.
0 (27m 3s): And it, this is a long way of me saying, just open your windows more and go outside more. Yes,
4 (27m 10s): Exactly. Yes. Just let the air, you know, open the, let an air blow through your house at least once a week to clear out those toxins. It's really important. The other thing you mentioned, I think another thing to piggyback on this is when we're not going outside, when we're not in nature, we're not, our microbiome needs that in order to real, to really have a, a healthy microbiome in our gut. So we need to be exposed to dirt and things outside that build up our immunity. And we're such a indoor clean and, and society that we're not really getting exposed to those. And the actually the gut can be another reason that you're having headaches. We're not thinking of it in that term, in those terms a lot of times, but once, sometimes we need to actually investigate your microbiome, investigate your gut health because that there is a strong connection too with headaches and migraines and gut health.
0 (27m 59s): I that huge, huge, huge everything in gut health. I'm a, I'm a huge proponent for probiotics, gut, gut health. There's a link between your emotions, your gut, your immune system, your gut, your headaches, your gut, your skin, your gut. I mean everything from a functional practitioner's standpoint, you know, where do you try to get people to start as far as rehabilitating our gut health? Cuz I'm sure 99% of, of at least Americans are struggling with their gut health because of the standard American diet.
4 (28m 34s): Yes. Yeah. So, you know, in my practice we do testing for the gut, look at the microbiome in order to see what your specific needs are. Because sometimes I say, you know, there's things you can do on your own that really start. So you can start taking, you know, a pro, a good probiotic, you can start focusing on prebiotic foods. You can maybe eliminate some of the, an, the inflammatory foods from your diet, eliminate sugar, you know, we can start to do some of those things. But if you have something underlying, and I think this is what, what I see a lot is that if there is something underlying, you can't necessarily eat your way out of it. So like I say, you know, if you have a parasite, you can't eat your way out of a parasite. You actually need to treat that in order to really restore that microbiome.
4 (29m 16s): So I think it's, it depends on where you are in the spectrum. If it's something where you feel like you are having a lot of these issues, like you said you are having skin issues or you're having gut issues, you feel like you've been labeled with i b s or you're having even sometimes hormonal imbalances or headaches or all these things and you know, you might wanna look into your gut health and see what is going on, what needs to be treated. Because once we can get that rebalance then you can go go on long-term and actually expand your diet. That's what, it's interesting because sometimes we, you think of like, oh well I don't wanna do this because I'm not gonna be able to eat anything. And sometimes there is a period where you need to watch what you eat in order to really guide us. You know, we need, we have a specific things to help you feel better, but then my whole goal is for you to actually be able to expand and feel comfortable with your food once we get everything back in balance.
0 (30m 7s): Hmm. And that's where I think testing really comes into play here. Would you agree?
4 (30m 14s): Yes. Because then we can find out your, what your exact needs are. So it's harder to say because sometimes things with food, sometimes things that are healthy just aren't good for you right now. So you're trying these things because you've heard somewhere that, okay, this is good for me or that I should be doing this or someone recommends that you admire and while they mi it might work for them or it might be good for you eventually it might not be serving you right now. And, and depending on your individual health needs, that's hard to know sometimes.
0 (30m 46s): Yeah, yeah, really good point. Thank you for saying that. Well, something you had mentioned earlier was hormones and headaches and migraines. So can we talk about that for a little bit? Cuz I'm sure that's also something that can be addressed with functional practi practitioner testing and different ways to look into what's happening in your body and if there's a relationship there.
4 (31m 10s): Yeah, so I often see hormonal migraines being a problem for many women. And you wanna think of this if you're really getting them at the same time every month. I mean, the most common time is that week before you get your period sometimes ovulation. And the two most common challenges regarding hormonal migraines are ra either a rapid change in hormones or estrogen dominance. And so what we need to do is, and that's why with hormones, sometimes we do say tests, don't guess because we need to find out if you're estrogen dominant, why your estrogen dominant, do you ha have high levels of estrogen? Do you have actually low levels of progesterone because we need to have the estrogen and progesterone and balance with each other to feel our best?
4 (31m 52s): Or do you have a fine level of estrogen but you're not metabolizing it well? So what we need to do with, when it comes to estrogen is we need to be able to use it and then lose it. We need to have enough estrogen to give us the effects that we need for our health, but then we also need to be able to have it removed from the body. And so there are three phases of metabolism when it comes to estrogen. Two are in the liver and then one is in the gut. And so what happens sometimes I see often with people who are having headaches is that you are not, they're not metabolizing estrogen the right way. So we need it to go down certain pathways in order to be metabolized out of the body and will, it will go down the wrong pathways.
4 (32m 32s): And then we get build up of these metabolites and they're sort of hanging around in our body. And once we do that, then we're, we're getting this, these estrogen dominant symptoms, one of which is the headaches. So we just need to work on creating balance when it comes to hormones and sometimes what you do need to test to see what those exact things are. But another thing that is so common for everyone right now is just really being exposed to a lot of endocrine disruptors. And when we're exposed to endocrine disruptors, that can actually be another thing that pushes us into this estrogen dominant state. So something you can do right now is just take a look at your products, you know, you wanna look at your skincare products, you wanna look at your, one of the biggest things I see is people cooking in plastic containers.
4 (33m 19s): And when we're cooked, BPA in the plastic has is an endocrine disruptor. And then whenever you put that in the microwave or the dishwasher, you're actually breaking that down and then when you break that structure of that molecule down, it's more likely to be absorbed in your food. So one simple thing you can do to get started is just switch out your plastic containers to glass containers and store your food and glass. So just making some of those small changes every time you use a product, potentially switch it out with something clean. You can go to the ewg.org skindeep site, they can recommend they give you a rating. So if you aren't sure about your products, you can look at it and it gives you a rating of what's in your products.
4 (34m 3s): And it can also give you some ideas of cleaner products to use.
0 (34m 8s): I'm a huge fan of the E W G website. It's a easy database. And they have an an app that you can scan with as well? Yes. Or
4 (34m 18s): Yeah, it's just a great resource because it is, I mean, when you're looking at those chemicals on there, you're like, well, I'm not sure if mine is, is has, you know, chemical like endocrine disruptors or what's in it, right? And so whenever you're looking at it, it's a good resource to be able to see like, okay, are you using something that's clean? Do you need to switch it out because things can be mislabeled. You know, I, I run actually a group, a program for headaches and migraines and we were meeting a few weeks ago in a discussion of actually our pans and the, the chemicals and people were actually showing how the labeling will show that it's free of all these things.
4 (34m 58s): So they're gonna be advertised like free of, I'm not sure exactly, can't remember what they were saying, but they were different. No, Teflon, Teflon, but all, even other things like listing certain things. So then they were asking me like, is the safe? And so then I had to go into like the small print of what it says is made of, and then I had to search that and then it came up that, you know, there aren't chemical that those things aren't good for you and there are chemicals in that, but it's so misleading because it's being advertised as safe and clean and like this is your good alternative when you just have to dig deeper into figuring out what's actually in it, because it's not, not always transparent what what is in place of the things that they're listing that it saves for.
0 (35m 42s): Exactly. Exactly. Well, and marketers know now that that's people are looking for the healthy option, right? Like it's, yes, it's no longer a secret that your lifestyle impacts your health, the things you eat, the things you use, the things you buy impact your health. And marketers know that. They know that you're, you're going to be willing to spend a little bit extra for the thing that you deem is safer. And so of course they're gonna put all over their packaging like, oh, we're free from this and there's no this and there's no that, but it, it doesn't mean that they're necessarily not putting these other things in there that you just don't know to look for yet. That's, it's kind of, it's sad.
0 (36m 23s): It's sad, but that's a good, a good alternative to when you are looking into your products and the things that might be harming your health. You know, it's so easy nowadays to just Google, you know, d i y shampoo, diy, you know, face cream or whatever, and I guarantee you there's gonna be a solution out there that's more affordable, safer and healthier if you have the time to put into the DIY side. And if not, there are really good companies making really good products out there. You just have to be willing to do a little bit of research for them. Yeah,
4 (37m 1s): And I've made the laundry detergent with essential oils, you know, you can make, you can do so many things with essential oils to just really create these great products that are diy.
0 (37m 12s): Yeah, absolutely. It, they're really handy tools that they have so many benefits as well. So not only are they free from the bad stuff that might be contributing to your headaches or your health issues, but they have so many benefits as well. So. Well, Dr. Mill, this has been so much fun. Thank you for taking the time to come on here today and, and walking us through some of the steps that people can take when they're struggling with headaches and migraines. I think if we were to put today's episode in a nutshell, it would be go find a functional med medical practitioner and get some testing done, right?
4 (37m 54s): Yes. Yeah. You mean sometimes you need to look into it and actually get the guidance, you know, because it really, what what we can do is we can cut down all of the overwhelm and give you a clear blueprint. We can do the testing, we can, you know, really customize everything exactly to your needs, but you also can do things like, you know, print the calendar. You can really work on staying hydrated. You can work on getting a night's sleep, you can do all these foundational things that are just good for your overall health, but they can also really impact that, the ability to just start to decrease some of those
0 (38m 28s): Headaches. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you for, for sharing all of that. Before you go, we always love to ask our guests a couple couple closing questions. And the first is, what's one or two self-care practices you try to do every day to stay healthy?
4 (38m 43s): Yeah, well, you know, one of the things I really make sure that I do is stay hydrated because dehydration has so many impacts on our health and I think sometimes it's easy to just, you know, really kind of go through your day without drinking enough water. And so I keep a glass of water by my desk all the time, so I'm always sipping water and I'm actually sipping wa this little tip you wanna sip water through the day so that you stay more hydrated at a cellular level rather than chugging it in periods like big gulps and periods of time. So I try to really try to keep that cellular hydration that's good for headaches and migraines. And I also, another thing I do is take breaks. I, you know, I wanna stay moving so I can't always get in a full workout just due to my busy schedule, but what I will do is take breaks and I'll just do a walk around the block or something in between meetings or just to like do what we were saying before, get fresh air or be outside in nature and get some movement.
4 (39m 38s): So I do try to incorporate movement every chance I can get through the day.
0 (39m 43s): Well lastly, what's just one thing we should all ditch completely and replace with something healthier today?
4 (39m 51s): I think if you can ditch refined sugar, I know that's sometimes hard, but really the, so many things are affected by your, your overall sugar level, the inflammatory aspect. So if you can make a switch from getting the refined sugars to more of a natural sugar like honey or monk fruit or something and, and really get your sweet tooth from even natural sugars like fruit and other things in your diet, it can make a big difference in your overall health and the way you feel.
0 (40m 20s): Yay. Great. Well for people that want to be more a part of your world, do you take online clients as well and what's the best way for people to get in touch with you?
4 (40m 30s): Yes, I have a virtual practice, so I actually see people all over the world. So my website is meg mill.com, that's just www.megmill.com. I have a free guide if you are someone who has headaches and migraines, you can go to help my headaches.com and download the free guide. Those are tips you can start right now to get, start getting rid of your headaches and migraines. And I also actually have a podcast too called a little bit Healthier. And that is just tips you can do every day in your life to, to really add things that can be healthier overall. And I am over on Instagram at Dr. Magilla, it's just Dr. Meg Mill,
0 (41m 11s): Right? I I love that domain. What was it again? Help my headaches.com. Yeah, 4 (41m 14s): Help my headaches.com.
0 (41m 16s): Help my headaches.com. Love it. Love it. Awesome. Thank you so much again for being with us here today and sharing your wisdom on the essential oil revolution. We so appreciate you.
4 (41m 27s): Thank you so much for having me.
0 (41m 29s): The essential oil revolution is created by me, Samantha Lee. Right. Thank you so much for tuning in with us today. As always, go to our website, revolution oils podcast.com. If you are looking for resources, swag, or more, you can also submit your DIY dugout recipe there or by emailing us at diy revolution oils podcast.com. We'll catch you next week. In the meantime, keep on learning, keep on discovering, and most importantly, keep on treating yourself well. You are worth it.