If you’ve been living with chronic migraines for years, you already know how exhausting it is to keep trying things that only help a little—or don’t help at all.

Maybe you’ve tried medications, chiropractic, physical therapy, massage, changing your diet, tracking triggers/sleep, buying special pillows, adjusting your desk setup, drinking more water… and yet the migraines still return.

That’s often the most frustrating part: doing everything you’re told, and still wondering why nothing is truly changing.

For many women, migraines begin to feel like something you simply have to manage forever. You plan around them. You worry about triggers before vacations, family events, work deadlines, or even a simple dinner out. You start asking yourself, Is this just how life is now?

This is especially true for women who have been told their migraines are hormonal, hereditary, stress-related—or simply something they will always have to manage.

But what if the reason those other things haven’t fully helped is that they were treating what your migraines feel like—without uncovering what is actually driving them in the first place?

That’s exactly why I use the ROOT Process—a signature approach designed to:

• Identify where the nervous system is under stress

• Uncover what your body is compensating for

• And help reduce migraine frequency, duration, and intensity 

by addressing the source rather than the symptom.

Because migraines are neurological, understanding what your nervous system is doing matters.

And when you understand what your body is trying to tell you, treatment becomes much more specific.

The ROOT Process:  Identifying The Nerve Root Behind Migraine Pain

The ROOT process begins during your initial evaluation.

This is where we stop guessing and start looking at what your body is actually doing.

Many people are surprised that migraine work doesn’t focus only on the head and neck, because the body rarely shows the true problem exactly where you feel the pain.

Often, what hurts is the compensation—not the source.

That's why migraine work has to look beyond where the pain shows up.  

This process looks at your whole body and how your nervous system is functioning from head to toe.

ROOT stands for a very intentional sequence:

• Reveal posture imbalances

• Origin identification

• Optimize through targeted MYK treatment

• Transform and reset the nervous system

Each step matters because each one tells us something new about why your migraines may be happening.

Step 1:  Reveal Posture Imbalances

The first step is a full standing posture evaluation.

We assess your head, neck, shoulders, trunk, hips, and legs while your body is upright (because your body always wants to stay upright—even when it is compensating).

And compensation tells a story.

When one part of the nervous system is under stress, your body starts adjusting around it so you can still function. Those adjustments may look small, but they create patterns that often lead to pain.

Have you ever looked in the mirror and noticed one shoulder is higher?  Or maybe you always find yourself looking and tilting your head in one direction.  Sometimes, when standing and looking at your feet, one foot is slightly in front of the other! 

These patterns are not random. They are clues.

This is one of the foundations of myokinesthetic work: your posture shows us what your body is compensating for.

The same can happen with migraines.

The pain is in your head, but the nervous system stress may be coming from somewhere else entirely.

That’s why posture matters so much.

It helps us see beyond symptoms.

Step 2:  Origin Identification — Finding The Nerve Root Cause

Once posture reveals where the body is compensating, the next step is identifying which part of the nervous system is driving that pattern.

This is where we determine how your migraines are being influenced. Either by:

• peripheral nerve roots in the upper body

• peripheral nerve roots in the lower body

• autonomic nervous system involvement

That distinction matters because treatment has to match the source.

Sometimes the primary stress comes from an upper body nerve root such as the cervical region.

Sometimes, lower body nerve roots create a chain that reaches upward.

💪 For example:  Lisa came in with shoulder pain that had been going off and on for years… she’d tried massage, stretching, Chiro, and exercises. On the surface, the shoulder seemed like the issue—but during evaluation, we discovered her lower body was the root cause.  Her hip imbalance created a chain reaction upward-> leading to shoulder pain.  

When we treated the actual source (and did NOT touch the shoulder), her shoulder pain went away because we worked on the root cause.  

Sometimes the autonomic system—the part connected with organ function and internal regulation—is heavily involved.

🫀Another example is a client who started getting migraines when she started her cycle as a teen.  That’s what all the doctors told her the cause was.  When looking into the nerve root cause, the posture was telling us it was the autonomic nervous system (and a nerve that works with the dura mater, which is significantly related to concussions).  When asked if she’d had any concussions, she said, yes, 2!  When we were able to treat the right nerve involved, she noticed an improvement in her migraines. 

This is why two people can both have migraines but need completely different treatments.

We are looking for the primary nerve root creating the imbalance.

Not just where you hurt.

Not just where things feel tight.

We are looking for where the nervous system began asking the body to compensate.

That precision is one reason many women finally understand why other approaches felt temporary.

Those approaches often treated what was loudest.

The ROOT process looks for what started it.

And many times, when we find that, other symptoms improve too—because those symptoms were compensation patterns as well.

Step 3:  Optimize The Nervous System With Targeted MYK Treatment

Once we identify the nerve pathway involved, treatment begins.

This is where myokinesthetic sessions become very specific. We use gentle stimulation, light/moderate touch, passive and active movement, along with stretching the exact muscles controlled by that nerve pathway.

This is not general massage work.

We are working directly along the bilateral nerve line, muscle by muscle, giving the nervous system repeated corrective feedback.

Think of it like an AED for your nervous system.

When someone's heart is out of rhythm, the AED delivers a shock that resets the rhythm so the heart can start beating correctly again. MYK works similarly on the nervous system. We send targeted feedback through the muscles that the nerve root has to respond to. And we keep sending that corrective input over and over and over until the new pattern starts to hold. A pain-free pattern.

Why does that matter?

Because nerves tell muscles what to do—but muscles also send messages back to the nervous system.

If you sit forward at a desk every day, those muscles begin reinforcing that pattern.

They keep telling the nervous system, this is normal.

Over time, your body starts holding stress there automatically.

That stress becomes neck tension, shoulder restriction, and eventually migraine triggers.

But when we repeatedly stimulate the correct pathway (through MYK treatments), the nervous system starts learning a better pattern.

🖥️ Here’s a great example: A client who worked from home once told me she constantly corrected her posture all day long. She kept a mirror nearby so she could remind herself not to slump. But no matter how often she corrected it, her body always returned to the same position.

After several MYK sessions, she noticed something important:

👉️ She was sitting better naturally.

👉️ She wasn’t forcing posture anymore.

That is what we want.

Because true change happens when your body starts choosing better alignment without constant effort.

That tells us the nervous system is responding.

And that response often leads to fewer migraine triggers.

Step 4:  Transform And Reset The Nervous System Over Time

Treatment is not a one-time event.

We usually begin with 6 sessions in 2 weeks because repetition matters (I call this the Attack Phase).

The nervous system learns through repeated input.  One session can create change.  Repeated sessions help the change stay.

🌊 I often explain it like waves hitting the shore.  One wave touches the sand. But repeated waves reshape it.

That’s what we’re doing—giving your body enough repeated signals that it begins holding the correction.

This is also why myokinesthetic work often lasts longer than treatments focused only on one tight area.

Instead of working one spot, we work every muscle, bilaterally, along the nerve. That creates a stronger message for the nervous system.

For some people, six sessions create major improvement quickly. For others—especially chronic migraine clients who have lived this way for 10 to 20 years—the body needs longer before those changes consistently hold.

And that’s normal.

Because your body has been practicing the old pattern for years.

We are teaching it something new.

Teens Cycle -> Adult Chronic Migraines -> STOPPED the Cycle

Heidi began having headaches when her cycle started.

Because her mom, aunt, and grandmother also had migraines, she assumed it was simply something she would have to live with.

For years she pushed through them. But eventually they began affecting the things she loved—running, working out, family life, and even her ability to focus while working from home.

She tracked triggers, tried chiropractic care, physical therapy, and other treatments she hoped would finally help… but nothing created lasting change. Eventually, she was told she had cervical dystonia and might simply need to manage it.

Heidi refused to accept this and decided to break the change of chronic migraines in her family. She did NOT want her daughter to have them.

When she came in, we started with a posture evaluation and identified the nerve roots creating the compensation patterns in her body. From there, we began targeted MYK treatment.

As treatment progressed, her posture improved naturally. Her neck stopped tightening the same way during work, and the pattern that often led to migraines began calming down.

Today, she is back to running, exercising, and living with far less fear about when the next migraine will hit. She also knows that if life throws her off—travel, stress, long weekends, poor sleep—she has a way to help her body reset before things spiral.

That confidence alone changes a lot—because when you stop wondering when the next migraine will hit, everyday life starts feeling possible again.

"Do I Have To Keep Coming Forever?"

This is one of the most common questions—and it’s valid.

Especially if insurance does not cover treatment and you’ve already invested in many things that did not help.

The honest answer is: every nervous system responds differently.

⭐️ The goal is not endless appointments.  The goal is a nervous system that holds correction longer and longer. ⭐️

We know that is happening by rechecking posture.

If posture stays improved, that means your body is holding.

Someone who holds a posture for 3 days needs treatment sooner than someone holding for 20 days.

Over time, sessions spread out.

For many migraine clients, major changes begin within the first 2 weeks.  They see shorter and less intense migraines or fewer triggers and shorter recovery time.

Then we keep building.

For women who have had migraines for 10–20 years, it often takes time because the body has been stuck in compensation for a long time.

Children often respond very quickly VS adults usually need more patience.

That does not mean it is not working. It means your nervous system is learning.

Some clients reach weekly spacing quickly VS some move to every two weeks OR some reach monthly maintenance.

And yes—sometimes monthly support is what keeps life feeling normal again.

For many women, one session a month is far better than losing multiple days every month to migraines.