Transcript Of Today's Episode
Announcer: You're listening to The Doctor is In podcast, brought to you by martinclinic.com. During the episode, the doctor share a lot of information. As awesome as the info may be, it is not intended to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent any disease, it's strictly for informational purposes.
Dr. Martin: Well, good morning everyone. We're going to talk about headaches, what are the causes, certain causes of headaches. Always interesting because I get probably asked every day. [00:00:30] We're going to talk about headaches this morning, and I got six major causes of headaches.
Dr. Martin: When people have headaches, recurring headaches, there's always a cause to it, and people live with headaches. It's amazing how many people live with that almost on a daily basis. No fun at all, right? But there are several reasons [00:01:00] for it, I want to go over that this morning.
Dr. Martin: By the way, migraines especially, but headaches of any kind, the vast majority of people that suffer from headaches are women. I can't remember the statistic, I think it's 80 to 20, 80% of people that suffer from headaches are women. Obviously, you don't have to be a rocket scientist. You start going, "Yeah, why women?" Horror-mones. [00:01:30] Hormones.
Dr. Martin: You have no idea how often I see in the office a condition that we call estrogen dominance. Estrogen. Estrogen is a wonderful thing, ladies, you need it, you're a woman, of course you're going to have lots of estrogen, you should have lots of estrogen, but it always has to be balanced with progesterone.
Dr. Martin: The fact that that is [00:02:00] never taught, you're never going to have a discussion most of the time even with a gynecologist, you won't have this. Estrogen makes you a woman, progesterone is pro-babies. From the first day you ever ovulate until the day you die, you need those two hormones, ladies, and you need to have them in balance. Otherwise, estrogen is the one that takes off, it's never progesterone. "Oh, [00:02:30] I got too much progesterone," nah, that doesn't happen.
Dr. Martin: Progesterone actually, ladies, is your master hormone, not estrogen. Because I had a 75-year-old lady tell me that she didn't have enough estrogen the other day, and I saw it in a chat when we were doing the program here. No, it's not estrogen that you're lacking, it's [00:03:00] progesterone.
Dr. Martin: You see, progesterone is the hormone, the major hormone in a woman that creates your other hormones. Progesterone is the balancing hormone. Progesterone is the one that levels out your estrogen. So when we talk about estrogen dominance, we're not necessarily saying that your estrogen went through the roof, it's only in relationship to the amount of progesterone you're producing.
Dr. Martin: I've [00:03:30] had young ladies over the years, thousands of them, and I'm not an exaggeration here, where they have from the very start, very bad periods, or they have acne, or they have endometriosis, or terrible, terrible PMS, and headaches, major headaches. It's too much [00:04:00] estrogen compared to progesterone. You can't separate the two, they need to be balanced.
Dr. Martin: When a woman has perfect periods every 28 days or whatever. You know me, if a man ever saw a blood, he had a period, he go shoot himself, right? Like men we, "Oh, my" but women, you guys are tough, but you need to be balanced. If you know any young [00:04:30] lady, whatever, that suffers from migraines, or if you suffer from migraines, it's horror-mones. Too much estrogen compared to your progesterone. That is the number one reason that you have the 80/20 rule, 80% more likely that a woman will suffer from headaches and migraines compared to a man. That is why it's horror-mones, [00:05:00] their hormones are out of balance.
Dr. Martin: There's three very traumatic hormonal events in a woman's life, the first time they ovulate, having a baby and menopause. A lot of women, and especially in this day and age, guys, my practice has changed so much in the last 20 years for example, where I see so much of this estrogen dominance. There are so much more estrogen dominance [00:05:30] today, progesterone can't keep up. That is why so many women even in their 20s will go into perimenopausal symptoms. They're not menopause, but they're perimenopause, their body is out of balance. One of the classic symptoms of that is a headache.
Dr. Martin: You can have acne, you can have endometriosis, you can have PCOS, we talked that on a podcast a little while back. [00:06:00] Polycystic ovarian disorder, that's estrogen dominance with insulin. The idea is to balance out, get that estrogen down, get it down in level with progesterone, and it's amazing how many women get relief from their headaches. This is why it's so important to be balanced, ladies, balanced.
Dr. Martin: I know women that have never had a headache until they [00:06:30] hit menopause, and then they start getting headaches. What was that? It's an imbalance. They were always balanced and now they're not balanced anymore. I used to laugh because I've had women tell me, "I'm praying for menopause." They don't want to have a period anymore, and their menses and whatever, "Doc, I wanna get over with that."
Dr. Martin: I said, "Be careful what you prayed for." Because if you're not in balance, yeah, you're not going to have periods but you can have hot flashes driving [00:07:00] you crazy, night sweats, sleep disorder, anxiety, mood swings, weight gain. All of this is hormonal imbalance. Hormones need to be balanced.
Dr. Martin: Men, we don't have nothing to balance with our testosterone. Testosterone is simple. It's not reliant on anything else really. This is why I say women is more complicated. That's the number one reason that women get headaches, [00:07:30] 80% more likely to happen to a woman than to a man.
Dr. Martin: What do you do? Dim out your... When I say dim, I mean knock the estrogen down. We dim it out at the office, we lower the estrogen to level it out with progesterone. That's one of the main factors in migraine headaches. Young ladies and get that, it is horror-mones, [00:08:00] horror-mones.
Dr. Martin: Now, number two, what is the other thing that can cause headaches? Hidden, we never figured out. One of them is intolerances, food intolerances. I give you my take on food intolerances because Dr. Martin, I look at this completely different. I always say when patients come in and they go, "I think I'm gluten intolerant," I go, "Gluten [inaudible 00:08:30]." [00:08:30] Because if you have an intolerance to dairy, eggs, gluten, lectin, that's leaky gut, it's your gut, and a lot of people that have headaches have a condition called leaky gut.
Dr. Martin: Remember what it is in a very simplistic way. When you step [00:09:00] on the scale, take three pounds off. Every time you step on a scale go minus three, that'll make you feel better out of the gate, because three of those pounds are bacteria. The problem with bacteria, okay. There's a war that goes on, I call it the invisible war between your good bacteria and your bad bacteria. When you don't have enough [00:09:30] good bacteria, that can happen in childhood, that can happen in mommy's tummy, in the womb, mommy's taken antibiotics, or mommy's on a bad diet, full of sugar, whatever.
Dr. Martin: What happens? The bad bacteria flourish, the good bacteria with an antibiotic, maybe you're taking Advil or Tylenol or whatever, those strip away your good bacteria, or you're in big time into [00:10:00] seed oils like crappy carb vegetable oils, they kill your good bacteria, antibiotics kill your good bacteria. What happens? You get what we call in medicine, dysbiosis. Dysbiosis is too many bad guys versus not enough good guys, and then you get an invasion inside the gut of candida, candida albicans, and this [00:10:30] can cause food intolerances. It's not the gluten.
Dr. Martin: Now listen if you're celiac, but even if you're celiac, even if you're celiac, if you have celiac sprue, that is an autoimmune disease, but if you reverse engineer it, go back even a little further, it is caused by leaky gut. It's this balance between good and bad bacteria. This morning we're talking about balance, [00:11:00] the balance between estrogen and progesterone, the balance between good bacteria and bad bacteria. As long as there's balance, you win.
Dr. Martin: What if there's an imbalance? Five days of an antibiotic will strip away all your good bacteria. All of them are gone, all of them in five days. I didn't tell you not to take the antibiotic, I'm not saying that, but you better replace that good bacteria because [00:11:30] yeast is going to come in with a vengeance. This is why we see so many children today with all these food intolerances.
Dr. Martin: Listen. Listen, Linda, listen. When I was in school in the 1950s, nobody had a puffer, nobody. Nobody had asthma. Today it's what, 70% of the population has an intolerance to dairy. [00:12:00] Let me separate that, I always have to do this. When I say dairy, I don't even mean cheese, I mean milk, today's milk. Seventy percent, "Oh, doc, I'm lactose intolerance." Yeah, you know why? Because you got leaky gut that's why.
Dr. Martin: "Oh doc, I'm intolerant to gluten. There's a whole industry with gluten-free food." It ain't the gluten, it's your gut. [00:12:30] The lining of your gut has been compromised by the bad bacteria taking over and now you have a yeast infection. Yeast outside of your body, guys, you make bread with it, but put yeast inside the body, and it's a parasite. It grows, it has babies, it's a living organism. It takes over the body slowly, [00:13:00] but then you develop food intolerances and this can give you headaches.
Dr. Martin: This is one of the reasons when I get a patient in, I'm always looking at the cause. Medicine tries to treat the headache, here, take some painkillers, here is a medication that's so stinking strong for migraines. Listen, if you have a migraine, I get it, you want to take care of it before it gets, you know. You say, "Doc, I got," [00:13:30] but you need to get to the root of the problem. The root of the issue isn't the migraine, that is a symptom, the root issue is either hormones or leaky gut. Number two, leaky gut.
Dr. Martin: Now, number three, number three. By the way, just on back on number two. You know me, always, always, always [00:14:00] recommending a broad spectrum probiotic. Broad spectrum means you have 10 different bacteria, at least strains. Especially with fungus, you need L. reuteri and L. rhamnosus, those are two of the strains that help to combat yeast.
Dr. Martin: More people have yeast, they come [inaudible 00:14:20]. They got so much candy, they're inside their body, but they don't know it, they don't know because nobody tells them. Nobody. Doctors, you can't [00:14:30] even get a doctor to ... Most doctors, I hate to be negative, but they don't even admit that there is such a thing as candida albicans. They won't even admit it that there.
Dr. Martin: "Oh, Dr. Martin is exaggerating." You know how many times I hear that from my physician friends? Dr. Martin, oh, they don't like me. Anyway, I don't want to get stupid. Number two, number two. One, [00:15:00] hormones, horror-mones, okay? Horror-mones. When hormones aren't balanced they are not hormones, they are horror-mones.
Dr. Martin: Number two, leaky gut, leaky gut, leaky gut. Leaky gut is a big, big medical issue today. It is at the root cause of all food intolerances, and it is the root cause of every autoimmune disease, every one including autism, which I believe is an autoimmune [00:15:30] disease. It's caused by leaky gut, and leaky gut can cause leaky brain. Yeast gets up into the brain, it travels via the vagus nerve which we talked about in a previous podcast.
Dr. Martin: Headaches. One, horror-mones, two, leaky gut. Number three, dehydration. First thing that I tell people [00:16:00] that get headaches, "Are you drinking water?" "Oh doc, I drink coffee every day. You know I make the coffee myself, 95% of it is water." Yeah, but it doesn't act like water, only water is water, nothing else is water. I'm going to say this safely, 90% of the population go around dehydrated.
Dr. Martin: "Well, doc, if I, if I drank as much water [00:16:30] as you tell me to do, I'm always going to be having to go for a pee." Go for a pee, pretend you're a dog. Water, H2O. Somebody asked the other day, "How much water should I drink?" Two liters minimum. "Doc, I'm gonna be peeing all day." Well then go for a pee, who cares? Peeing is actually good for you. I know I get a little stupid, but I'm telling you, one of the huge reasons [00:17:00] that people get headaches, they're dehydrated.
Dr. Martin: Their brain swells when they get dehydrated. Your brain is headquarters, it needs H2O. You know when you drink water, it's different than drinking coffee, it's different than drinking anything. This Gatorade stuff, that is a crappiest crap in the universe, is Gatorade. Quit drinking that garbage. "Oh yeah, but there's minerals [00:17:30] in there." Yeah, but there's minerals in spring water too. If you're not thinking you're getting enough salt, put a pinch of Himalayan salt in every little bottle of water or a glass of water you drink. Put some Himalayan salt in there.
Dr. Martin: Dehydration. You need water to flush out your kidneys. You need water to go through 60,000 miles. Your blood is a river, the life of the flesh is in the blood. [00:18:00] Your blood is a river, and a lot of you people don't have a good river flow, the river is not hardly moving. Why? You're dehydrated, your blood is too thick. Look, I've done this in the past, that makes you much more susceptible to stroke and heart attack. There's nothing better than water to thin your blood.
Dr. Martin: Go back and look at the podcasts that I've done on aspirin. You don't need to take an aspirin, drink water. By the way, the FDA [00:18:30] told aspirin, "Quit advertising that you should be taking this every day." The FDA said that to them. Water is better, drink water. It'll thin your blood out. It'll make your heart work a lot less, because that's a pump that pumps that water, that blood through 60,000 miles, one and a half times around the equator. That's how many blood vessels you have. If you put them all together, you'd go around the equator one [00:19:00] and a half times, 60,000 miles of blood vessels in your body. You need H2O.
Dr. Martin: If you have headaches, think about that, it could be a factor. Don't worry about peeing. Okay, I get it at night, "Oh doc, I'm up." Well then stop drinking water before you go to bed, but you need two liters. You know this morning, seven days a week, it's a habit. [00:19:30] I always tell people, form good habits. Here's one, before I have my vitamin C, my vitamin C, I have two vitamins every day. You know what two they are? Vitamin W, water, that's the Martin Clinic alphabet for vitamins, and vitamin C, coffee. I have half a liter of water first.
Dr. Martin: Many thousands of people over the years, people over the years that I have no more headaches, cured, [00:20:00] they started drinking water, and they fight me like I'm city hall or something. In the office they're mad at me. "Doc, I don't wanna have to drink all that water and I don't like water. I don't like the taste of water." I said, "Form a new habit that'll save your life, that'll keep you young, which will detoxify you and keep your blood thin so that you don't stroke out and have a heart attack. Drink water, and it'll, for [00:20:30] a lot of people will get rid of your headaches, you're dehydrated. And don't wait until you get a headache, drink water so that you don't get a headache. Got it? Good. You got it.
Dr. Martin: Dehydration, food intolerances, leaky gut, horror-mones. Here's another one, liver sensitivity, liver gummed up. The liver. Where is your liver? Right, on your right-hand side [00:21:00] just below the rib cage. Touch your liver. Your liver is your detox center, and your kidneys, but especially the liver because the liver gets gummed up.
Dr. Martin: One of the biggest reasons you get gummed up liver, that can give you migraine is because that's your purifier center [inaudible 00:21:25] dehydration. How does the liver get gummed up? More than anything else, [00:21:30] how does your liver get gummed up? Your liver gets gummed by the fat, fatty liver, but not fat from food, sugar from food, sugar stored as fat in your liver, fatty liver.
Dr. Martin: Kids even today, the vast majority of kids in our society today are already starting fatty liver. It's incredible. The first place [00:22:00] that you will get fat is not fat on your body, it's fat in your liver because you're eating too much crappy carbohydrates and sugar. It has a big effect on headaches because once the liver is gummed up, you're not detoxing properly. The liver is a big thing. See, I look at all these things to determine where you have liver issues. If [00:22:30] you do, fatty liver, it's easy, take a urine test, you can see your liver enzymes. If they're up, you got to start a fatty liver. You got it?
Dr. Martin: Now, another one is... This is maybe a little bit more simplistic, but a lot of people get headaches. They get tension headaches, and that is their posture, and their neck, especially upper back and neck. This is why I'm big on the gym and getting... [00:23:00] you want to keep your structure strong, your upper back strong and your neck.
Dr. Martin: It's not strengthening your neck as much as strengthening those anchors. Your shoulders and your trapezius muscles, they go into a spasm especially if you sit at a desk all day. Your posture can certainly give you headaches, and impingements in the neck and back. In chiropractic it's called subluxations. [00:23:30] They can give you headaches for sure. It might be a mechanical thing.
Dr. Martin: These are the reasons you can get a headache. Then one more, I'll just finish with this. Another reason is you're low in a salt called magnesium. What is magnesium? You want to know what magnesium does? Whenever you see magnesium, put [00:24:00] the R beside it. Relax. Magnesium takes this and relaxes it, and it takes tension and it relaxes the muscle. This is why an Epson salt bath is such a good relaxing. It's not just the hot water, it's the Epson salt, it's the magnesium salts.
Dr. Martin: Magnesium is is another supplement that I like because of [00:24:30] its relaxation. It's very important, a lot of people are very deficient in magnesium and we see so much anxiety in this, and you can get tension headaches. So one of them is mechanical, the other one is more muscle because of magnesium.
Dr. Martin: Folks, thanks for listening today. Okay guys, thank you for watching today. Love you guys and keep watching.
Announcer: [00:25:00] You've reached the end of another Doctor is In podcast with your hosts, Dr. Martin junior and senior. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening.