Before We Talk About Migraine, You Should Know Who I Am

I believe in medicine. I believe in meditation. I believe in herbal remedies. I believe in it all.

I grew up in a small town. So much so that when I moved to North Carolina I didn't realize a town could actually have more than one school. Our middle-high school was across the street from the elementary school. The Village Store was on the corner of that same street and the local community church was across the street from there. By the time I moved in 2008 I believe we had 3 stop lights, one of which was a flashing light at the intersection because during peak hours the "traffic" was heavy around the store.

Opportunities in my home state were also not well rounded, at least not in the 90s. It seemed like a far away dream to travel or be in a big city. That meant, for the most part, you had two choices. You either worked at the school or you worked at the hospital. The hospital I might add, where I was born, my mother was born and where my middle son was eventually born. It was small just like the town.

I grew up believing in medicine because my uncle was a prominent doctor and my father valued his opinion looking to him many times for advice over the years. I still believe in medicine, but today I view it through a slightly different lens. A lens that supports us during acute crises or the management of chronic illness when natural remedies just won't cut it. Trust me, as you will learn, I have had my fair share of it all.

I have a few chronic conditions, which I really don't think of in those terms, but at the core that's what they are. Two run in the background of my life. Diagnosed with Celiac Disease at 34, I have been gluten free for over 16 years now. Well, there might have been some years I cheated, but I've paid the price.

I also have an extremely rare condition called Castleman disease. I won't go deep into the details today, but suffice to say I refer to it as a cousin to lymphoma because it can be treated as a lymphoma cancer if it reaches a certain point. I got to that point. But thankfully I was able to avoid chemotherapy and I am now only monitored every six months by my oncologist. I'll share more on that later.

But the condition we are all here to learn more about, and that I have dedicated so much of myself to through higher education and personal research, is migraine. I personally suffer from another rare condition which is a subset of migraine called hemiplegic migraine, where you develop stroke-like symptoms during the episode or attack.

But how did it develop? Why did this happen? Especially the late onset of the hemiplegic presentation. The literature calls that rare. But I'm not so sure. There is almost no research on hemiplegic migraine outside of the hereditary forms. And in my own practice I am already seeing adult onset, stroke-like episodes appear in bodies living in complete nervous system overload. I don't think it's as rare as we've been told. I think it's unread. That is a thread I will be pulling here, article by article.

I struggle with the why in simple terms too, like when I am trying to write an article and can't start until 4pm because my vision is so distorted and my brain is so scrambled I have to wait it out. Yes, that's how this article actually started.

One thing that also makes my migraines rare is that I don't honestly get a lot of 'headache' pain with them. A traditional migraine for me is unusual. It's not that I don't get headaches, because those are common for me, but as we all know headaches and migraines are not the same thing.

Let's just say I fight my brain on many fronts on a daily basis. I get so frustrated because I don't function like a "normal" person. But once I started down this rabbit hole of truly learning the why, the how and the what behind all of it, the picture became clear and healing was within reach.

The pieces posted here will be deeply personal, while also researched in unique ways. I am working toward connecting the dots that other doctors and practitioners have not recognized because they likely haven't experienced it in the same way I personally have.

I will talk about trauma and how our bodies hold on and don't let go until they just simply start to fall apart. How lifestyle and eating patterns that we believe are healthy can actually be harming us. Not because kale is the answer to every diet. Frankly I love pizza and I'll be the first to tell you I'm not giving that up! Instead it's because bioindividuality is real and it needs to be at the forefront of every conversation a practitioner or clinician is having.

And I want to talk most about how everything is connected. I want to shine a light on medical histories filled with antibiotics, the onset of severe headaches or debilitating stomach pains in adolescence, and all the alcohol consumed in those college years and beyond. It all matters.

What I want to share will have clinical significance. Am I saying everyone with migraine has trauma or vice versa? Absolutely not. But if you have experienced trauma at some point in your life and suffer from migraine, I would venture to guess that in some way it is the body's way of expressing that underlying pain and dysregulation. I believe it is connected, and this publication is where I make that case.

You might be wondering why it even matters. Why would you care how these miserable attacks came to be? Well, because from my personal experience, once I figured out the why and started understanding my body, my mind and my spirit, I have been able to regain control of my life just a little bit more. I am not cured, I never will be, but I am healing more and more every day. As I learn to soften and ease a little more of my soul, I find my body responds with gratitude and stillness.

And the why looks different to everyone. That is the whole point.

There are physical triggers for migraine as well, I have those too. But even then, when the whole picture is in view, the body can respond when it is truly understood. No matter the circumstances, symptoms or triggers. The story behind the symptom matters more than the symptom itself. That is what gets missed most consistently and it is what everything here is built around.

Finally, you will not find me telling you what your migraine feels like. That space is already overflowing with clinical phase breakdowns and well-meaning explanations of what migraine sufferers experience as though every migraine looks the same. It does not. Your migraine is yours. What you may not know yet is why it is happening and what your specific body has been trying to tell you.

I don't want to define your experience, because I don't live it. I will share mine as a reference point and help guide you toward understanding your own body. At the same time I will support the practitioners and specialists you see helping them ask different questions and explore treatment options beyond CGRP blockers and triptans. I want to help understand the why behind it all.

I don't want anyone to ever receive a treatment plan that was designed for the masses. I am working to ensure that migraine sufferers like me get the support they need in ways that unlock the codes their particular bodies are trying to tell them.

The codes are there. They always have been. Nobody taught us how to read them. That is exactly what I am here to change.

Amanda Richardson, BCDFN, CFNC is a Board Certified Doctor of Functional Nutrition, researcher, and publisher of Migraine Unread. She lives with hemiplegic migraine and has made it her mission to connect the dots that conventional medicine never thought to connect. Her upcoming book Sick of Being Sick is set to be released early 2027. Work with Amanda at AmandaRichardson.co.