About Barbara
From migraine patient
to migraine therapist
I help you understand and address the underlying factors behind your migraine, so you can get the most out of your life again. My work draws on orthomolecular medicine and clinical psycho-neuro-immunology (cPNI).
From my own struggle to the Functional Migraine Clinic
An unusual starting point: I was an IT consultant with a lifelong fascination for diagnosing problems, a little like Dr. House. That may sound like a strange combination, but what both fields share is the same instinct, to analyze a problem down to its core and work out a solution.
I was barely in my twenties, yet I felt steadily worse. I had lived with migraine since my student years, but by then I had felt physically unwell for a long time. I struggled with nausea, stiff muscles, aching joints, attacks that grew more intense and more frequent, and near-constant brain fog. I was tired of being declared healthy while I was missing half of my life. I was even more tired of being prescribed medication that left me sicker rather than better. The endless, time-consuming visits to the physiotherapist had long since worn me out too.
So I started investigating it myself.
By focusing on the right nutrition to properly feed my brain, I experienced an improvement unlike anything medication had ever given me. Instead of negative side effects, I began to notice only positive ones. Within a few days, almost all of my aches and complaints melted away. And there was more: the migraine became manageable and, after further fine-tuning, eventually disappeared completely. I finally felt like a healthy, free person again.
The thing was, I did not quite know why. I did not understand in detail why my approach worked, and my curiosity became impossible to ignore. I am a rational person, and I needed the scientific explanation.
When I first encountered the world of orthomolecular therapy within psycho-neuro-immunology, I felt an immediate fascination, and my curiosity was finally satisfied. What drew me in was the focus on identifying and addressing the root cause of someone's complaints, rather than treating symptoms.
I completed my training in Orthomolecular Therapy in September 2022. Driven by my passion for this approach, I went straight on to start the training in clinical Psycho-Neuro-Immunology. That program builds on orthomolecular therapy, but goes deeper into the psychological side of illness and into the physiological and pathological processes underneath it. I wanted to gather as much knowledge as I could, as quickly as I could, so I could spare others the long search for their health. And the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Everything I had experienced myself now had an explanation, and I gained a great deal more on top of it.
What I noticed, though, was that even among orthomolecular therapists and cPNI practitioners, and despite all the knowledge we build, there is still hesitation when it comes to working with people who have migraine. The reason is that migraine is always a combination of several factors, and focusing on a single pathway to illness usually falls short or fails to last. Being a former migraine sufferer myself now feels like a privilege, because it helps me understand the condition more deeply, and also to recognize how some "simple" orthomolecular and cPNI interventions can feel almost impossible for people living with migraine.
And that is how I found my purpose. The Functional Migraine Clinic was born.
The book
HEADSTRONG - Understand your brain. Break your migraine patterns.
Until six years ago, I lived with chronic migraine myself. What I missed most back then was an explanation. What happens in your brain and body that can set off a migraine like this? Why me and not someone else, even when we live with the same stress?
The idea grew to write a book about it one day. Because I see so many people longing for recognition and answers, and because I wanted to give others the same chance at improvement that I was lucky enough to experience.
That book now exists. HEADSTRONG looks at the deeper layer beneath the headache. It is about the building blocks that form the foundation of your complaints, and what you can do about them yourself. It is grounded in a long list of scientific publications, translated for the patient into one integrative story. This is not a list of symptomatic treatments. It offers insight into the how and the why behind your migraine. For anyone who wants to look beneath the surface.
With forewords by integrative physician Dr. Els Van Lathem and neurologist Dr. Beatrice Lagae.
Curious what drives your migraine?
Discover which building blocks play a role in your migraine, with or without your DNA.