This is an important question. I’ve pointed out before (here and here and here) that I see that many migraine clients of mine also have scoliosis. Having suffered from scoliosis since the age of 12, I can attest to the fact that I think it’s playing a very big role in migraine pathology and is a big piece of the puzzle when it comes to understanding all the variables at play in chronic migraine. Enjoy my video below, where I dive into more of the nuances behind this connection. While scoliosis doesn’t CAUSE migraine per se, I do think it exacerbates it.
Transcript:
I’m going to talk today about scoliosis and migraine. I mentioned that a lot of people with chronic migraine do have scoliosis. I mentioned this in my blog post on tinnitus and issues with ringing in the ears and aches and pains in the ears as it relates to kidney function.
Why would kidney issues affect your ears? The kidneys help to remove metabolic waste and acids in the body that otherwise, if the kidneys aren’t working well, the lymphatic system has to take up. When the lymphatic system gets backed up, that can back up in the ears here, especially since a third of all of our lymph nodes are from the neck up. Anytime any organ in our body that affects lymph health is backed up, that would be the kidneys and the liver, our lymphatic system will be backed up, especially up here.
What does this have to do with scoliosis? Well, when one kidney is not working as well as the other, this is a theory that I have that actually I got the idea from Dr. Robert Morse. He believes that when one kidney is not working as well as the other or is larger than the other, it actually affects the curvature of the spine. This would be in the C curve of scoliosis rather than the kyphotic lordotic curve of scoliosis. With a C curve, like the kind that I have, a kidney that’s larger than the other or more inflamed or dysfunctional can affect the alignment of the spine because the kidneys are just right there.
I think that’s plausible, but I want to talk a little bit more too about other potential mineral causes of scoliosis and kind of tie in how scoliosis affects migraine and the fact that… Well, I don’t want to say a fact, but the likelihood that some degree of compromise in the organs of the body caused by scoliosis can’t really be corrected.
Supporting the lymph in turn is supporting tissue regeneration because the tissues can’t regenerate when the lymph is congested. The lymph is this fluid in the interstitial spaces that helps to remove metabolic waste from cellular respiration, right? So when that lymphatic system is congested and blocked, our tissue regeneration does not work as well. What I’m saying is in theory, I never want to say it’s impossible to heal something structural like scoliosis.I certainly haven’t healed it yet. But in theory, since we’re just made up of many different types of tissue in the body and because that tissue regeneration is dependent on the lymphatic health surrounding it, in theory, every single tissue in the body, every single kind of imbalance or abnormality can be corrected.
So but why would someone with scoliosis have compromised organ function? How would that affect the organs? Well, the cranial nerves and the nerves that come out of the spinal column actually innervate – not the cranial nerves, but the nerves that come out of the spinal column innervate our major organs. And those are all bathed with craniosacral fluid. So imagine if you have a kink in your back, how that would affect the nerve function. If that craniosacral fluid is not pumping and flowing evenly, decoding those nerves, those nerves will not innervate the organs as well. And therefore, those organs will not function as well.
So I believe that to some degree, as someone who’s prone to liver congestion, that I will probably, to the extent that I still have scoliosis, will always have some degree of compromised liver function. And I believe this is because the place where the nerves that come out of my spine in the area where the spine is compressed don’t function as well, right? So I think that spinal health, creating a lot of flexibility in the spine inherently can help support the function of all the organs in the body. This is why things like massage therapy can be so beneficial. Anything that supports spinal health is going to support our major organ systems. And people with scoliosis will inevitably be more challenged in that way.
So another thing I want to bring up in terms of scoliosis is like the mineral, some things I’ve learned about mineral factors in scoliosis. So there are a lot of minerals that go into tendon and ligament health. And we know that scoliosis is caused in part by overly lax connective tissue in the ligaments and tendons. This creates instability in the spine. And there are certain minerals that affect, well, there are a lot of things that affect the strength and integrity of tendon and ligament health. There are hormonal factors. So for example, let’s say you’re a woman and you’re on your moon and your liver, because you have scoliosis, is not working well to process those hormones because the nerves are impinged. And you may have more laxity in your connective tissue during your moon. I definitely noticed at certain points when I had migraines that all of my joints would pop. And I had actually people with chronic migraine tend to have hypermobility.
So when there’s hypermobility in the connective tissue, the muscles have to try to compensate. And we see that zigzag pattern in the musculature of the spine as the spine tries to compensate for and create stability in the spine, despite the laxity of that connective tissue.
But there are minerals that actually play a role in connective tissue health. The one that I’ve found to be the most helpful is manganese. I’ve noticed widespread changes in the integrity of my spine and connective tissue health when I take manganese. And I did some research into this and they found that fish who have scoliosis are, they’re not necessarily deficient in manganese, but the enzymes, the manganese dependent enzymes don’t work efficiently.
So this is really interesting because I’ve actually even found that when I take manganese, I have this little tooth that has a very shallow root that was compromised by braces. When I take manganese, that little tooth doesn’t wiggle. It’s not loose. And when I don’t take manganese, it gets loose. That’s a testament to the benefit that manganese has for this ligament and tendon health. So it’s interesting the role that manganese plays in scoliosis, or rather the lack of sufficient manganese or lack of efficient enzymes, manganese dependent enzymes. And actually there’s some research I found that was showing that manganese affects these little hair-like structures when we’re when we’re developing embryologically, that helps our body as it’s developing to orient itself, left to right, top to bottom. You know, similar to how there are these little hairs in the ears that help our body to determine whether we’re upright and help us maintain balance. There are little hairs, I forget the name of them, but inside the dural tube of our spinal column, when our midline is forming, when our central nervous system is forming, that determine the body’s ability to figure out how to grow left to right, top to bottom.
Somehow the manganese affects the direction and the growth of those little hairs that help the spine to determine how to grow in a straight direction, which I just think is so fascinating. So these are just a few little research tidbits I’ve found about scoliosis.
The point is that people with migraine have a lot of scoliosis and midline imbalances. We can understand how this would affect not only organ function, but like with the imbalances going all throughout the system, like my nose is super crooked, the ethmoid bones and all of the bones of the skull and the face and the neck, you know, if your left hip is tight, your left neck is going to be tight. That’s going to affect the cranial nerves, how the cranial nerves go into your neck. And then of course, if you have a lot of lymphatic congestion there as well, that’s going to create inflammation and issues in your brain and in your head.
Same with like if your nose is crooked and there’s the trigeminal nerve coming right down there into your nose, that’s going to affect not only oxygenation and breathing, but it’s going to affect how inflamed that trigeminal nerve is if your nose is crooked and if the bones are out of place. So craniosacral therapy is certainly beneficial and supportive for that.
All of this is just to say that I think that these midline imbalances are one major cause of chronic migraine. And there’s really only so much that we can do about that. You can make a lot of headway in your migraines, but those with like really severe scoliosis may have more of a challenge in their organ systems as a result of that scoliosis. So I hope that it was insightful for you to understand a little bit more about some of the structural challenges with scoliosis and people with migraine. Thanks for watching.
