Inside the Turbulent Journey of Rachel Weaver: The Untold Story Behind Dizzy
RW: I don’t know! He’d appreciate all the ridiculous situations I got myself into over the years. He’d be proud of my resilience. And he’d probably shake his head at the fact that I no longer change the oil in my own cars.
JML: The research on glucose levels and migraines, conducted over many years by Dr. Kyle Bills and several other researchers, has led to a new understanding of the causes and treatments for migraines. Can you summarize in lay terms what they have discovered?
RW: This group of researchers discovered a link between glucose dysregulation and chronic migraine. 247 chronic migraineurs were given a three-hour glucose tolerance blood test and a continuous glucose monitor to wear for ten days. When compared to the control group of non-migraineurs, the migraineurs showed greater glycemic variability. This is not the kind of data that will not show up in fasting blood work. The variability happens with eating, and it is particularly pronounced when eating sugar or carbs. The current solution, until further studies are conducted, is a three-month strict ketogenic diet to decrease the swings in blood sugar. From there, each of us in the study increased our carb intake (transitioning out of ketosis into a low carb diet) until we found the carb ceiling where our symptoms returned.
