Featuring monthly migraines, thyroid autoimmunity and tiredness, a gut healing dessert, plus a big thank you and some clinic updates. Enjoy x
Hi everyone,
First, I want to say a big THANK YOU for all your support whilst I took a quick break last week. Just suddenly felt a bit overwhelmed and MCAS symptoms have been coming up – I’d reacted to a candle, couldn’t bear to be in a noisy cafe trying to talk to a group of people, had to get rid of some Ikea furniture in the bedroom as my sinuses were burning, was starting to react to more foods again and was needing more and more sensory shutdowns to cope with daily life – always a bad sign for me.
I’ve learned over the last few years that stress is my biggest MCAS flare cause (Philip’s accident has been a huge stressor, obvs), so I took immediate action and rested. Normally, I’d just try and power through it, but this time decided not a good idea! I shut the shop – as the orders and queries come in constantly and I always feel duty-bound to deal with them immediately – never done that before – felt very odd! I didn’t look at emails, FB (except once, I admit!) and avoided all social media – personal and professional. Ooh, it was a lovely rest. So thank you for bearing with me. I did get the feeling I need to take more little breaks regularly as I rallied so quickly, thankfully – I’ll work on it!
Meantime, have a great week, and enjoy this issue… don’t forget to catch up on my more frequent little titbit Notes here.
Paid Subscribers – Free Ask Micki on Chat Shortly
I also wanted to thank those of you who have subscribed here. This newsletter is only possible because of the readers who support it – it takes a lot of time to produce, but I am determined to keep it going as I want more people to get health messages that could really help them. I have some great plans for it, if I can get enough support to cover my time.
I’ve got five paid subscribers so far, which is lovely, and makes me feel happy in my soul. There are almost 2000 of you following. If just 5% of you subscribed for the cost of a latte a week, I could spend a lot more time on research and writing for us all. Please help if you can – this is a joint community health project that I’m hoping will become my main job in future alongside writing more books, the A-Z and, if my MCAS allows, some courses and YouTube videos. The aim is to reach many people instead of the few individuals I can get bums on seats for, you know.
Anyway, bless you for helping support this initiative – and me! – if you can. As a thank you, I will be starting free Ask Micki’s for paid subscribers shortly.
Why do I get headaches and migraines before a period?
This was a question I was asked this week. It’s quite common, sadly, so I thought a bit of my answer might be useful for some of you. This bit is actually taken from the Histamine Factsheet, so that might help too.
Many women notice they get histamine migraines or other symptoms at ovulation or a few days before a period. This is because oestrogen peaks at these times. Oestrogen depresses DAO [the main enzyme you need to break down excess histamine] and increases histamine release, so you have more histamine circulating in the system.
Progesterone and testosterone also drop at ovulation and before a period – which makes you oestrogen dominant – causing that DAO decrease and histamine increase even more.
Interestingly, times of main hormone change like starting periods at puberty or menopause can generally make us more histameanie because of the change in oestrogen and DAO. Paradoxically, though, when you are pregnant, the placenta produces more DAO – presumably to protect against allergy reactions for the baby – so histameanies tend to suffer less then!
So, if you are getting pre-period headaches or migraines, or suffering mid-month around ovulation time, try these:
Lower histamine intake before those times by eating a lower histamine diet for a few days and keeping stress levels under control – stress is terrible for increasing histamine.
Bind excess histamine with something like Toxaprevent, which comes as caps or sachets.
Take some DAO enzyme around those times, plus histamine breakdown co-factors. Something like Histamine Nutrients does that.
Try boosting progesterone in case it is the drop in that causing oestrogen dominance. Agnus Castus is well-known to help progesterone levels.
Does that make sense? Check my free Histamine Intolerance factsheet out here for low histamine diet and much more on the histameanie subject. If you feel that histamine is a much bigger problem than ‘just’ those times of the month, then get the Histamine ebook, which gives you a whole protocol etc.
Hormones: complex as per, huh?!
Allergy Research re-brand
Just in case you get confused by their new look: Allergy Research Group have had a re-brand. I hope that doesn’t mean they have also changed their formulations as we rely on some of these for TGF patients. Check your labels just in case, peeps, and let me know if you spy any differences, especially to the Multi-Vi-Min – incidentally, a great multi at 1-3 per day with food.
How to enjoy parenting at home if you’re missing your work mates and job
I thought these tips from Rick Hanson might be useful for any of you stay-at-home parents who feel like your work-mind is disintegrating! Check them out.
Thyroid autoimmunity – what stage are you at?
If you feeling TATT – tired all the time – one of the key things to check out is your thyroid. You’d think that would be pretty easy, but it isn’t. In several ways. Here’s one.
I am getting quite a few people who say: ‘Oh my TPO thyroid antibody is a bit raised, but my doctor says I have no symptoms so all is fine.’ Er, nope. If I see a thyroid autoimmune antibody raised, it is a sign some autoimmune process is going on, and we’re not just going to wait until enough damage is done that symptoms appear! What a daft approach IMHO.
Autoimmunity can take many years to develop fully, and despite what you are told, you can do an awful lot to reverse it, especially in the early stages. Which stage are you?
Silent autoimmunity: Elevated TPO and/or thyroglobulin (Tg) antibodies with no symptoms or loss of tissue. It might be silent, doesn’t mean it’s not happening! It just means you’ve seen it at a very early stage – take steps to support your thyroid.
Autoimmune reactivity: Elevated TPO and/or Tg antibodies with symptoms and normal TSH levels. The damage process has begun. You’ll need to take autoimmune protocol type steps to stop it progressing.
Autoimmune disease: Elevated antibodies with symptoms, measurable tissue destruction, and elevated TSH. Oh bum. Full autoimmunity. Much harder to do anything here, but I have often seen levels of antibodies reverse. The trick to get in before too much damage to the gland is done.
Check thyroid properly – drives me batty that only TSH and T4 are usually measured. Read my Thyroid Factsheet on the A-Z here.
The Apple Gut Healing Recipe
One from the archives here for you. I give this recipe out so often, I can’t tell you. It’s especially useful for anyone with an inflammatory gut issue, leaky gut or ever-increasing food sensitivity, but everyone could actually benefit from better gut health, as we know.
A healthy dessert – yay, I’m up for that. Check the full recipe and tips/links etc here. Enjoy x
PS. If you can’t do some of the ingredients, no matter. I started with just apple and berries and, then added a sprinkle of cinnamon. Even that will help. I then got coconut yogurt in but I’m trying to make soya for extra oestrogen! Any TGF soya yogurt recommendations welcome, please.
That’s it for this issue, peeps. I hope you found something useful there. Please leave this post a ❤️ if you liked it – it helps with visibility.
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Any questions, feel free to contact me and see Support options here.
Issue 7, April 2025