CONTRIBUTED CONTENT: Understanding the root causes of migraines

Migraines affect millions, yet standard treatments usually focus on stopping the pain after it begins. While medications can provide much-needed rescue relief, they rarely answer the more important question: Why is the body producing migraines in the first place? A migraine is often a warning sign that one or more body systems have become overwhelmed.

One commonly overlooked contributor is liver function. The liver processes hormones, medications, environmental and food-related chemicals, inflammatory compounds, and metabolic waste. When its workload becomes excessive, these compounds may linger longer in the body, or accumulate, increasing the likelihood of triggering a migraine. This also helps explain why some people find themselves caught in a difficult cycle. Frequent use of medications may be necessary for symptom relief, but those medications must also be processed by the liver. For some individuals, relying on medications alone may unintentionally add to the body’s overall burden, resulting in more migraines, without addressing the underlying reasons the migraines continue to occur. Medications can be extremely helpful — but lasting improvement often requires reducing the reasons the body keeps producing migraines.

The liver is only one piece of the puzzle. Chronic stress and poor sleep can overwork the adrenal glands. The adrenal glands help regulate the body’s response to stress and play an important role in emotional resilience. Hormonal shifts involving estrogen, progesterone, thyroid hormones, and cortisol frequently influence when migraines occur, particularly during menstrual cycles or menopause. As cortisol becomes dysregulated, the nervous system often becomes far more reactive. Blood sugar instability is another common contributor. Skipping meals, eating excess sugar or processed carbohydrates, or relying heavily on caffeine can create rapid swings in glucose that place additional stress on the brain. At the same time, deficiencies in magnesium, B vitamins, and other nutrients can reduce the brain’s ability to produce energy efficiently.

Digestive health also plays an important role. Food sensitivities, poor digestion, and intestinal inflammation increase the body’s overall inflammatory burden, while chronic tension in the neck, jaw, shoulders, and upper back can irritate nerves that contribute to migraine pain. Hidden infections and chronic inflammation elsewhere in the body may add to this cumulative burden until the nervous system reaches its threshold.

Because every migraine sufferer has a unique combination of contributing factors, lasting improvement requires looking beyond pain relief alone. Acupuncture helps regulate the nervous system, improve circulation, support the release of pain reducing chemicals in the brain, reduce inflammation, and relax muscle tension, allowing the body to become less reactive over time. By restoring balance while also addressing nutrition, blood sugar, stress, digestive health, and other underlying contributors, many people experience migraines that become less frequent, shorter, less severe, and many disappear altogether.

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Holly Carling is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, Licensed Acupuncturist, Doctor of Naturopathy, Clinical Nutritionist and Master Herbologist with over four decades of experience. Holly is a “Health Detective.” She looks beyond your symptom picture and investigates WHY you are experiencing your symptoms in the first place.

Holly is currently accepting new patients and offers natural health care services and whole food nutritional supplements in her Coeur d’Alene clinic. Visit her website at www.vitalhealthcda.com to learn more about Holly, view a list of upcoming health classes and read other informative articles.

Holly Carling can be reached at 208-765-1994 and would be happy to answer any questions regarding this topic.