Grant Dennis: Episode 492

Transcript

[0:00:26] MR: Did you know, one out of every four women suffer from chronic headaches and migraines? Even if you’re not someone who has to deal with the anguish migraines can bring, you probably know someone who does, and they likely haven’t been able to find anything that works. That’s because most traditional methods seek to cover up the symptoms, instead of actually healing the root cause. In his new book, A Life Without Migraines, Dr. Grant Dennis shares the revolutionary remedy of upper cervical care and how it can actually stop migraines from occurring entirely. The best part? It doesn’t require any surgery or drugs. In this episode, we discuss how migraines work, how environmental triggers are actually a myth, and why this little-known method for living a headache-free life isn’t more well-known. Enjoy. Hey everyone, my name is Miles Rote and I’m excited to be here today with Dr. Grant Dennis, author of A Life Without Migraines: A Holistic and Little-known Method for Living a Headache-free Life. Dr. Dennis, I’m excited you’re here, welcome to the Author Hour Podcast.

[0:01:36] Grant Dennis: Hey, it’s good to be here Miles, been really looking forward, to this and excited to have some fun with you this morning.

[0:01:43] MR: Yeah man, let’s do it. You’ve had a lot of experience in this field and done a lot of research into migraines. First, share with us a little bit of your background and, really, why you’re passionate about this subject?

[0:01:58] Grant Dennis: Yeah, early on, as a teen and really even a young adult, one of the things that was super important and apparent to me early on was, I knew I wanted to help people. Healthcare was something that drew me as really as an early professional, really early on, just because I knew that we gravitated towards my why in life being to help people. As my life evolved over time, I found myself in healthcare and chiropractic field, and I just really was looking for a niche that I would find a high success or high level of success in helping people with. As the evolution through my educational process came about, I just really found myself drawn to migraines in particularly. As time evolved and my education and my training in the chiropractic space, as it relates to the upper neck, sort of evolved. A lot of the research I was finding really pointed to the upper neck being an entry point into helping people who are chronic migraine sufferers. That’s what really kind of drew me to learn more about it and draw those patients into my office at a – I guess you would say, from a marketing standpoint, that was really what I was looking to attract. I’m a big believer of law of attraction and so I really was looking to attract people in my life who are chronic migraine sufferers. Migraine’s a disease, it’s an invisible disease, it’s something that plagues one out of every four women particular. Also plagues a lot in men so it was really something that as I started to evolve my career early on it was something I really looked to attract, and inherently it was something also was seeing a very high success rate with. Flash forward five to six years from now, you know, I’ve just helped so many people with migraines, and it’s truly in sync with my why in life and it’s really provided me a lot of purpose, it’s provided me a lot of fulfillment. That’s kind of where we are today.

[0:03:51] MR: Yeah, I can imagine that something as debilitating as migraines – I have never suffered from them myself, but I feel like it’s one of those things where if you’re not suffering from them, someone you’re close to does suffer from them. They seem to be so mysterious and there’s no cure and they don’t know what to do. Being able to help people, after they feel as though they’ve looked everywhere and haven’t found a cure, must be extremely fulfilling. Is that part of what inspired you to write this book?

[0:04:21] Grant Dennis: Yeah, most definitely. You know, I think just working with so many migraine sufferers over the years, it just, you know – you really hit it on the head that until you really have ever had a migraine, it’s truly impossible to understand what it’s like to live with migraines. You know, it’s something that a lot of the people I work with always say is, “I just really feel let down. I really feel almost this sense of worthlessness because nobody really truly understands. They think I’m faking this illness and this disease that I have.” A lot of the people I come across really a lot of the early barrier we have to cross is that it’s not all in your head, it’s actually in your upper neck. It’s something that we’ve seen great things with, and I think part of it is just giving somebody hope. A lot of migraine sufferers really have a sense of hopelessness. Really, what drew me to want to write this book and what really led me and inspired me to do this was, I had so many migraine patients over the years who, after they would get well and see what truly a life without migraines looks like, the number one thing that I would constantly hear from people is, “How come I didn’t hear about this type of care sooner? Why didn’t my general practitioner, why didn’t my neurologist, why didn’t my other friends – why wasn’t this common knowledge? And why wasn’t I truly ever brought here first?” Because it’s holistic, we’re not adding or taking away anything form the body, we’re not medicating. We’re truly just working with the greatest doctor on planet earth in my opinion which is the human healing mechanism that’s inherent in all human beings. We’re designed to heal and so it’s truly what we’re working with is we’re working with the intelligence of the body to say, “Hey, we know the body’s designed to work and pain is just a symptom or it’s just a sign or a warning sign that something’s going wrong in the body. We just got to address what that underlying cause is.” I just kept hearing that over and over again from people saying, “This message needs to get out,” and people who are – what I say to a lot of folks is, you know, “What if you didn’t hear about this place? What if the message never got to you? You would still be suffering,” you know? It leads them to also leave their story and sometimes that could be difficult to do. I just encourage and believe their story because it might help somebody else. What it really inspired me to do is write a book and get the message out, that the results were saying with migraines in certain candidates that we find to be candidates for this type of specialty chiropractic care, is really what inspired me to write the book. I just thought, you know, this book can reach somebody and hit somebody who literally is on the brink of losing their life and potentially regain their life back. Like so many I’ve worked with in the past have been able to do. That’s really what kind of pushed me and to write this book and inspired me to write this book. That person that I was trying to reach, which hopefully somebody listening to this podcast, was really what pushed me through those days where it was difficult to write, or it was difficult to get the book out. Truly, that person that I hope this podcast and this book reaches was really who inspired me to write this book. Of course, the others who came before them who we’ve seen great deals of success with. Who I highlight in my book, you know. I talk a lot about the stories that I’ve seen, I talk a lot about why there’s a misconception surrounding chiropractic. Why it’s not common messaging, why it’s not something you’ve seen on the news, why it’s not something that’s readily available, or known to most people. These are a lot of the things that I cover in the book, just to try to help the reader better understand, A, that I understand you, B, this is probably why we haven’t met yet, and C, this is what I’d like to do to allow you to see a life without migraines come to fruition.

[0:07:49] MR: Yeah, I’d love to talk a lot about that and, specifically, what you do to really help people heal from migraines, but before we jump into that, what is a migraine exactly? What’s going on in the brain or in the body that causes this in general?

[0:08:08] Grant Dennis: That’s a great question. There’s so many layers to it. I don’t want to get too complex but, in the book, one of the things that I simplistically lay out is there’s really three big things that occur inside the body that cause a migraine. To answer your question, a migraine is a debilitating headache that more or less just takes over your entire body. In fact, you know, the pain in the head is so severe at times, some are often suicidal to the point to where – it’s just, you cannot live with this type of pain. I mean, when we talk about pain scales, you know, 1 to 10, oftentimes they say 1 being no symptoms at all, 10 being the worst pain you’ve ever experienced in your life. Oftentimes, people with migraines will say it’s a 15. It’s literally a debilitating – someone suffering from a migraine versus a headache, and that’s a big distinction, I always like to make, there’s a big difference between headaches and migraines. Headaches is pain in the head that you can take something typically over the counter for and it will either alleviate or alleviate to the point to where you can continue on with your normal life. A migraine is literally head pain to the point to where you’re dysfunctional. It leaves you in a dark room, no medications typically work. Movement, sounds, light are all just literally terrible and it’s because, one of the main things that we look for as upper cervical providers, is a misalignment of the upper bone in the neck, the upper most bone, the C1 vertebrate, which is called the atlas, which holds the head up and it actually houses the brain stem. Unbeknownst to a lot of migraine sufferers, they had a trauma to the head or neck in the past, which misaligned the upper bone in the neck. There’s a cascade of things that can happen unbeknownst to them when this happens, if not properly checked and corrected. One of the big delineations I like to make here is to always say that, just because you have a migraine does not mean that you’re a candidate for upper cervical care automatically, and just because you have migraines doesn’t necessarily automatically mean it’s something we can help you with. What it does mean though is there is a criteria that we look for in establishing you as a candidate, and if we find that you're a candidate and this is indeed what’s going on, that what we find oftentimes is what’s causing and leading to migraine headaches. It’s also why a lot of the interventions they’ve tried up to that point typically don’t lend very well as far as success goes, whether it’s medications, Botox injections, the Zog, the Zomig, the daith piercing, there’s so many things out there that aim to treat migraines and, yeah, a lot of them work for the short-term, but when you talk about gaining long-term success or long-term results and literally regaining your life back, what we find is that in a lot of candidates, this is what’s present. There’s three big things though that really go on in the body if this upper cervical misalignment in the upper neck is present. The first is neurological. It causes a neurological compromise to the brain stem which causes irritation of nerves, it causes the whole entire central nervous system to start to undergo dysfunction because the brain stem, we know, is the sort of circuit breaker for the entire nerve system. Can’t really live a life very well without a well-functioning brain stem. It just doesn’t work well, that’s oftentimes why migraine sufferers also have digestive concerns like nausea, they also sometimes report high blood pressure or vascular type issues. There’s usually a lot of other things that accompany migraines other than just head pain, it’s usually nausea, sometimes to the point of vomiting, light sensitivities, changes in smell, changes in hearing, even sometimes hallucinations or weird visual disturbances. There’s a neurological component. The second component is really vascular. You know, 80% of the blood flow are more that’s traveling up to the brain, actually travels right through the upper bone in the neck. If that bone is misaligned, it’s going to inhibit, or cramp, or obstruct a large majority of the blood flow traveling to the brain. Well, the brain’s going to get blood so one of the things that it does is it starts to undergo what’s called vasospasm, or it starts to spasm these vessels to the brain to get adequate blood supply to the brain. The nerves that are attached to those vessels cause irritation and that’s oftentimes why migraine patients will describe a throbbing or pulsing sensation in their head. It’s literally because their brain is beating in tandem with their heart and, you know, more or less, in a way to get blood and oxygen adequately to the brain. The third thing is cerebral spinal fluids so it’s more of a fluid disruption, you’ve got an immense amount of fluid that’s surrounding the brain, that drains down into the spinal cord. Well, that main drainage system occurs at the level of the upper neck, so if there is a misalignment that occurs there, it causes a pressure back up into the head, so now we’ve got cerebral spinal fluid involved, we’ve got vascular or blood flow issues involved, and we’ve also got neurological components involved. You can see quickly where, when we’ve got those three players, that are all three being affected, that’s where you start to see someone who is having a massive life impact change. Especially as it relates to their head, and they just can’t figure out what’s causing that. There’s all sorts of medications out there that aim to treat one or more of these issues and, oftentimes, I will say, drugs work, medications work. The issue is, at some point, you have to continue to take a higher and higher dose, it becomes less and less effective and it oftentimes only accounts for one of these issues. What’s great about what we do as upper cervical providers is by locating this and correcting this upper bone misalignment in the upper neck and the neurological issue, when we remove that, it literally clears up all three of these aspects and so it can restore the cerebral spinal fluid flow, it can restore the blood flow and it can restore the neurological system. So you're literally crushing what I call in the book, the choke point at the upper neck out of the park and when that’s removed, what we find is that people’s bodies heal adequately, the body restores back to normal, and inherently allows migraine sufferers to regain their life back.

[0:13:47] MR: That’s amazing. So much of how you’re explaining migraines is internal. I hear so many people talk about triggers in the environment that cause their migraine, but it sounds like a lot of this is, as you're saying, is internal. In your book, you talked a little bit about triggers and dispel kind of some of those myths. Can you share with us whether or not there are things in the environment that can cause migraines?

[0:14:14] Grant Dennis: Yeah, that’s a fantastic question actually, Miles. I’m glad you brought that up because that’s actually a chapter in my book I talk about. The chapter I believe is called ‘Triggers are 100% Myth’, because I’ve come to find that I really am 100% of the belief that they are. I think it’s – one of the things I find with migraines sufferers is, when you suffer with something like this for as long as a lot of these people have, oftentimes you just want an answer. You just want – I need something to blame this on, I need something to attribute this to, I need something – literally, I’ve been given no answers for this for so long that inherently, one of those that becomes really popular is a trigger. Well, I just get triggered by wine or I get triggered by chocolate. I get triggered by sunlight, or I get triggered by stress, or I get triggered by all of the above, right? So what happens is they begin to say that “Okay, I get these triggers.” What I have come to find out is triggers or not what caused migraines because, if they were, the same trigger would cause migraine in everybody. You know, everyone who gets migraines would be triggered by stress. Everyone who gets migraines would be triggered by eating or drinking chocolate or wine, or their menstrual cycle, or whatever the case may be. What I found is in taking care of migraine patients I noticed that each one of them had a different trigger in their head, right? So some people would say the trigger is sunlight, someone would say it’s stress, and so I thought if triggers were the issue then they would all be the same. I think what it is, is it is sort of I don’t want to say an excuse but it is an answer in their head to them that this is what it is causing my problems. By eliminating just this one thing, I am now going to eliminate my migraines, right? What happens is they find well that is not the case because now I eliminated – I literally never go out in the sun but I still got a migraine. So maybe it is not the sun and so what I found is that underlying cause that I just described to you previously, about the upper bone in the neck having a misalignment, which is causing those cascade of three events, underlying, is actually the fire starter. That’s what more or less has started the fire and it has started this little bit of a flame that is burning in your body and then what happens is these triggers are just pouring gas on top of that fire. It is this sort of sprinkling gasoline on top of this already burning fire, right? There is so many different ways that you can try to eliminate those triggers but, truly – you know one of the ones that’s really common for example is weather. A lot of people say I get triggered by weather so I know when there is going to be bad weather. I know when bad weather is coming because I get a migraine. Well, if that’s the case, explain to me how we’re going to remove the trigger of weather, right? How are we going to remove that from your life? And if that truly was what was going to provide you life to that migraines, I don’t know if that is plausible, because unless we put you in a space orbit and put you in space to avoid weather, I am not actually sure how we’re ever going to allow you to achieve a life without migraines, because you now are experiencing a life without weather trigger. Well, what I found was by locating the particular misalignment in the upper neck and correcting that then the weather now trigger becomes removed, because we found the underlying cause that is starting to fire all along. In other words, we just put the fire out completely. So when the weather came around to pour the gasoline on the fire, there was no fire, which meant there was no trigger, and there was no migraine event, and it’s because we got to the underlying root cause of the problem. Things like weather, stress, wine – in my book I talk a lot about a patient I had, and I have several also in the same scenario, that said, “I just want to be able to drink wine. Wine is something I enjoy doing. I want to be able to drink wine and not get a migraine.” Their whole entire – for them that’s an important thing. That is something that is important to them in their life. The first recollection to them that they had that they really recognized, “Hey my life is actually different,” is the ability to drink wine and not get a migraine. Or a bad weather system come through, and I didn’t get a migraine, which to them instills that I’ve gotten to the root cause of my issue now and so there is no trigger anymore. That is where I came to the conclusion that triggers are a 100% myth, and they are is something that I think is just oftentimes and excuse that migraine suffers have to have for themselves, but I’ve just come to find out that they are a 100% myth oftentimes. But I do think they’re important to really understand also what they are, because if we can get to the root cause of the issue and correct it, but also work with you in eliminating some of these triggers, that’s where I find migraine sufferers who go months if not years without migraines.

[0:18:34] MR: Right, yeah and it is nothing that they are trying to do on their end, of trying to make an excuse. It is such an automatic thing that the brain does, isn’t it? Where it just tries to create a story and meaning out of everything. So, we’ll just grasp to anything that it can to give a story. Also you talk about stressors and the difference between stressors and triggers a little bit, and how there are stressors in our environment that can lead to headaches, such as blue light on the computer too late at night. What are some stressors that can cause headaches?

[0:19:07] Grant Dennis: Yeah, so one of the interesting things about stressors is oftentimes, especially in my world, by the time that migraine sufferers have gotten to me, most migraine sufferers are also researchers. They have literally looked everywhere to try to identify what could possibly be causing this, right? And so oftentimes, Dr. Google does a great job of telling the most common stressors, and most of the time these folks have eliminated those. Some of the more common ones are diet. You know, diet can be a stressor. Like you mentioned before, blue light screens right before bed at night. Abnormal sleep cycles, you know, if someone to find – you know, I have noticed in migraine folks those who stay up late at night and then sleep in or go to bed early and wake up early or go to bed early and wake up – if their sleep cycles are off that can tend to be a stressor. There is a lot of environmental stressors. A lot of things out in the air, whether it is pollen, it can be a stressor, but there is a lot of different things that are but by the time most migraine sufferers make it to me, by process of elimination we’ve eliminated all triggers. We have eliminated all stressors, but I try to help them understand that there is a difference between the two, it being a trigger and a stressor, and you have already removed most of the stressors. You know most migraine patients I know are the best eaters I know. They’re the healthiest people I know as far as how often they exercise, how often they do self-care, they get massages once a week, they do everything because they are trying to remove the stress trigger, they are trying to remove the dietary stressor. Whatever the case may be, but yeah, there is a big delineation. Like I said, most of the time it’s just that they – you know they just haven’t reached the underlying root cause which in any healthcare condition I try to tell the patients, the number one thing we’re looking for is the root cause in everything, right? What is the root cause? If we can find the root cause, if we find the hole in the pipe, yes, we can put duct tape over the pie and it will eventually hold the water, but I need to start using stronger and stronger and stronger piece of duct tape, or we could just remove the pipe and place a new pipe, and that is the underlying cause, right? But oftentimes in healthcare what I found is that we find ourselves traveling down that, putting duct tapes over leaky pipes analogy. You know a stressor oftentimes is just what’s manifesting the issue right? So the water flow increased, which expressed the issue even more right? And so by eliminating the root cause what I’ve found is stressors and triggers oftentimes just become non-existent, which is an interesting thing.

[0:21:33] MR: So why have traditional routes failed? You’ve eluded a little bit to this, but why is it if there is something like upper cervical care that can get actually to the root and not just try to mask the symptoms, why isn’t this utilized more often in other healthcare? It seems like all of these different modalities seemed to miss this entirely?

[0:21:58] Grant Dennis: Yeah, you know that is a question I’ve been really looking into and trying to understand myself, and I actually touch on this a little bit on the book on some theories and some plausibility’s behind this. Truly I think one of the main things is, in healthcare, one of the things that is very apparent is there really is no money in the pharmaceutical industry and getting a person well. If we can keep you on this and get you a little bit of a result but inherently you have to keep taking this, it is a great money maker from a business model, right? I mean there really is no money in healthcare and getting someone well, and getting to the root cause of their problem, and sending them out in the environment to never need an ongoing pharmaceutical, or an ongoing intervention, or an ongoing drug, or an ongoing doctor visit, right? And so it lends to a great business model, not so great from a long-term standpoint result for a patient. That is I think number one. Number two is I think that there just wasn’t enough evidence and enough research and enough, I guess you would say evidence, based from a patient standpoint, to show that upper cervical care lends very great results with migraines. Harvard and several other prominent research institutes, which I highlight in the book a little bit, talk about how what they are finding is that more and more and more results and more and more evidences pointing towards the upper cervical spine in particular as being a major contributor to not only headaches but also migraines. There is multiple things done in the medical field, such as vagal stimulators, which go in and stimulate the vagus nerve in the upper neck, which has been shown to decrease a lot of symptoms, not even just migraines but fibromyalgia, systemic issues they’re finding by stimulating the upper neck. We are seeing great results with that. Well, we as upper cervical doctors have been knowing that for a long time. It is just we’re not in a place of pre-eminent positioning yet, to where we’re taken seriously on healthcare issues, right? I just think – there is another big reason for me wanting to write this book is it allows me from a place of authority and a position to say, “Hey, these are the things that we are seeing. I would love for you to explore this first before going to a more invasive type of intervention,” right? I mean it just makes sense in the world of healthcare. You always want to move from the least invasive to a most invasive type of intervention. So what I tell patients all the time is, “What if I told you it is just simple as making a slight correction to the upper neck and allowing all of the systems in your body to restore back to normal, the way your body was designed to heal all along, prior to your car wreck in 2014,” right? So let’s try this first, if this doesn’t lend to be helpful or if we see this that it is helpful, just not getting us to the point where we are completely migraine free then that is where we can also bring in other ancillary things. Like a massage or acupuncture or some other professional that works with another system that could be involved. Oftentimes what I find is we’re working backwards. It’s like, they go most invasive and then we finish off, the last place we try, is the most least invasive, which I would have argued was the first place we should have started, right? And I think it is also one of the main reasons I wanted to write the book is also just to give to other providers. To provide them a comfort level, to know that this is what we are doing, this is what we are checking for, and it is not present in all individuals. Oftentimes, co-management can also be warranted. It is not the end all be all, but for those that we found that have been everywhere, tried everything nothing has worked especially as it relates to traditional methods. When they make their way in our office and we found this, by process of elimination we know that this is where the problem is, and when we find it and we correct it, again it is lended – it’s lent incredible results with people suffering from migraines.

[0:25:33] MR: It must just be so life changing, and thank you for dedicating your life to this and bringing awareness to this, helping people heal from such a debilitating, mysterious thing. I know it has helped so many people. Writing a book is no joke either, but the fact that you have completed that to help spread awareness and help people is amazing. If readers could take away just one or two things from your book, what would it be?

[0:25:59] Grant Dennis: Yeah, I think a couple of things, first being don’t give up. If you are reading my book or come across my book or this podcast, and it resonates with you, it is probably because you’re at a point in your life where you’ve really kind of given up, and decided and come to the realization that this is just something I am going to have to learn to live with. This is just something – I am broken, my migraines are unique, no one can understand what this is like, and I am here to tell you, I completely – I am not going to say I understand, because I don’t, but I hear what I you are saying, in the fact that I know where you’re at, and so the first step is not losing hope. I think that is the first step is that – kudos to you for not giving up, and if you’re hearing this podcast and you know somebody or this is you that it resonates with – now, sometimes it just takes finding a doctor who understands what you are going through, is going to walk with you every step of the way, has seen patients just like you, and has worked with patients just like you in the past – yet a little bit different than you. The underlying thing that we’re looking for is the same in all of these patients. What’s cool about it is they get to relish in their own stories of success with each other in my office, which is for me the most glorifying thing is when someone comes in and says, “You truly saved my life because I don’t know what my life would have looked like and I couldn’t have lived a life like this any longer.” The second big thing is when people ask me, “Well, I have been to chiropractors before and it didn’t really lend very much success.” What I would tell you is – this is one of the main reasons I want you to pick up the book and read it is because it is kind of sort of delineate the difference between traditional chiropractic, and upper cervical chiropractic, and how to find – I provide a list of questions in the book that sort of provide the reader with the ability to call chiropractors and ask certain questions that will allow them to find the perfect provider for them. One that looks at things in the way that an upper cervical provider should. That is really hard for patients to know, right? What I did was I just provided them with a checklist of questions. They can call providers, reach out to me so I can find them a provider, but finding an upper cervical provider especially in the arena of migraines, it of utmost importance. And the third thing is I think just understanding that, if you have been suffering for migraines for over 20 years, you need someone who understands that there is going to be a process. I think by this point in your life you could probably agree there isn’t a one-size-fits-all pill that is just going to knock migraines out for life. There is a process, which is why finding upper cervical provider who gets that and understands that, and can walk you through that process to gaining a life without migraines, is the most important thing that the book can provide you in value is understanding what that looks like, the questions to ask, and the person to find in order to gain hope for a life without migraines.

[0:28:27] MR: Dr. Dennis, this has been such a pleasure. Everyone, the book is called, A Life Without Migraines: A Holistic and Little-known Method for Living a Headache-free Life. You can find it on Amazon. So besides checking out the book, where can people find you? I know you mentioned even reaching out to you if they have questions?

[0:28:42] Grant Dennis: Yeah, so I can just be found on my website, drgrantdennis.com. That is my personal website. That is where you could also pick up a copy of the book. Reach out to me personally for just where to find a doc near them, or really just to ask questions and get questions answered on, particularly, where they are in their life, and any questions about the book they might have or to further clarify, or just anything about life in general. That is just typically the best place, is on that website.

[0:29:13] MR: Amazing, thank you again Dr. Dennis. Everyone, if you or someone you care about suffers from migraines, I encourage you to check this book out. Thank you all for joining us. We’ll see you next time.

[0:29:23] Grant Dennis: Thanks Miles.

[0:29:25] MR: Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Author Hour Podcast. You can get Dr. Dennis’s book, A Life Without Migraines: A Holistic and Little-known Method for Living a Headache-free Life on Amazon. You can also find a transcript of this episode and all of our other previous episodes on our website at authorhour.co. For more Author Hour, subscribe to this podcast on your favorite subscription service and thank you again for joining us. We’ll see you next time, same place, different author.