#48 Migraines for 35 Years — Gone for Now 7 Months. What Finally Gave Amy Relief?

What if the migraines you've managed your entire life weren't just about triggers — but about what your body was never making in the first place?

In this episode, Dr. Kylie Burton and Jessica Briecke sit down with Amy Cassles, a health-conscious, fitness-minded woman who spent 35 years doing everything right — and still couldn't outrun her migraines. From blood pressure meds and anti-seizure drugs in her teens and 20s, to a candida cleanse, sinus surgery, breast implant removal, and even a partial hysterectomy — Amy tried it all. And still, one stressful moment could send her to bed, vomiting, unable to open her eyes.

Then she discovered something she'd been skeptical of for years.

In this episode you'll hear:

• How migraines stole Amy's childhood, teenage years, and countless milestones as an adult
• Why her neurologist told her, "You don't have triggers — you are the trigger"
• The MTHFR genetic mutation and what poor methylation has to do with chronic inflammation
• Why her first experience with semaglutide failed 
• How microdosing a GLP-1/GIP peptide at a third of the lowest recommended dose changed everything
• What 7 migraine-free months feels like after a lifetime of walking on eggshells

Bonus: we had to share Amy's mom's arthritis turnaround too. 

If you know of someone who suffers with migraines and/or arthritis, please forward this episode to them.  

If you or someone you love suffers from chronic migraines — or has written off GLP peptides because of the horror stories — this episode is for you.

Find Amy: Instagram: @creationliving | @acastles Facebook: Amy M Cassles

Want to connect more with the hosts? We'd love it! Connect with Jess at B2BwithJess.com/peptides or on Instagram @jessb.talkshealth. Grab your Blood Work & Peptides Mini Guide for free at drkylieburton.com. 

Ready to explore peptide therapy for yourself? Visit the company we recommend for pharmaceutical peptides and receive all the one-on-one support that comes included at drkylieburton.com

Want to offer peptide therapy in your business? Whether you're adding it to your existing practice or building something new, learn how to get started—and how we'll mentor you along the way—at drkylieburton.com

Legal Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult with a qualified healthcare provider before starting any new health protocol. Dr. Kylie Burton and Jessica Briecke are affiliates and may receive compensation for referrals. Individual results may vary.

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Transcript

Welcome To Pep Talk

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Peptides are powerful and often misunderstood. And we're here to change that one conversation at a time. I'm Dr. Kylie Burton. And I'm Jessica Brickie.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

This is Pep Talk, Peptides Impact. Signs made simple, results made real. Migraines. If you've ever had them, you know how debilitating they can be. And when you've had them so consistently for 35 years, you're wondering if there's ever gonna be a day when you don't have them. Well, that's our story of our podcast episode today, and we want to welcome Amy Castles to the recording mic. And what's not fun about this podcast is that we are actually in person. So we're looking at each other from across the table, which is the first time that's ever happened to me in all of my podcasting experience. And another fun fact is Jess and I have been recording this podcast together for six months now. We've known each other for years. Uh we met each other in person for the first time two days ago. We know each other live. It's the weirdest thing because we never met in person.

SPEAKER_03 1:07

Right. It's the wildest thing. You feel like you know somebody, you probably Amy. Well, welcome, Amy. Thank you for having me. We're we're recording from the convention that we've all been attending for our telemedicine company, and you've probably had that same experience. You're meeting people for the first time today or this this weekend that you've feel like you know, but you haven't met them live and in person. They're four-dimensional.

unknown 1:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Like, oh, you're that hot tall. I didn't know that until just now.

Migraines Start At Age Ten

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Okay, migraines. You said they started for you at 10 years old. Yes. Take us back to 10-year-old you.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

I remember vividly sitting in my classroom at 10 years old and starting to get a headache while I was sitting in class and always feeling lost and behind because of the headache. It inhibited my ability to learn, and I fell behind in school, and that affected my confidence growing up. And so much had to do with the headaches. I would come home from school and have just a headache and be sleeping the rest of the evening. Other kids playing outside, I'd have to be laying in bed with an ice pack on my head. And that progressed as I started to hit puberty. Then we had the hormonal shifts. And the hormonal shifts took hold of me, and you could bet that every single month I would have even more debilitating migraines than I did before.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

And just think at that age, when you're succumbed to your body already, and you can't go do the fun things like that takes away your childhood. Absolutely. And then your teenage years, and then you're female, so you've got the cycle and everything else going on. Um what was the attempts for treatment at that point?

SPEAKER_00 3:02

In high school, I had obviously a lot of migraines. My mom would just give me some of her migraine medicine. So there was some hereditary issues with the migraines. My grandmother had them, and my mom would give me some of her migraine medicine, and that's just being reactive. Yeah, at that time they still had no idea. They they really still don't have a full cure for migraines. But my mom would give me her medicine and it would help. And then the next day I'd be on my way and back to normal. But we never thought to look at what was the cause of this. What was triggering it? What was at the root? Exactly. So by the time I was, I think, 19 or 20 years old, we decided

Neurologist Trials And Medication Fallout

SPEAKER_00 3:45

to go to, or I decided to go to a neurologist. And the neurologist, I was basically her experiment. I would come in every single week and she'd or not every week, excuse me, every month, and she would say, okay, well, let's try this. Let's try this. We tried uh blood pressure lowering medications, we've tried antidepressants, we tried anti-seizure medicines. Uh, once I got on the anti-seizure medicine, I was extremely emotional. I lost a relationship that I was in because I became so erratic and emotional. I went through MRI scans, and it wasn't until I was 22 years old that I went through a very deep candida cleanse. And the candida cleanse helped pull out the inflammatory foods from my diet. That was really the first starting point of okay, let's pull away from the medicine from the pharmaceutical industry, and let's go into what is triggering these. So as I moved into this candida cleanse that I did very extensively, I got to understand what packaged processed foods, artificial flavors, color, sweeteners, dyes, preservatives, how they affect the body. And overall, they cause inflammation. And if you are in a state of inflammation, then you can have a migraine at any other trigger that you weren't necessarily prepared for. So I saw my wrist bones for the first time at the age of 22. Were you carrying extra weight in general at that time? Or it was just puffy? It's just puffy. I mean, I was fit, but I would just was puffy. I mean, I've pretty much been, you know, within the same weight zone unless I was pregnant. Right. And for years, this has been my life. This has been my life of we have to prepare, yeah. I had to prepare what am I gonna eat. I gotta make sure that I have food on hand at all times because I couldn't allow my blood sugar to drop. Had to make sure that um I'm getting, you know, no

Candida Cleanse And Food Inflammation

SPEAKER_00 5:55

artificial anything in my diet. And it didn't, it wasn't hard. It was inconvenient at times. But it was harder to have a migraine. And it would affect the way that I traveled. We'd have to, we went to Europe. Well, we went with a huge group. I had to go two days earlier just so that my body could adjust to the um the shift in the flights and the pressure, air pressure. So I'd have to go two days earlier just to give me time to be completely out. I mean, you when you have a migraine, this severe migraine, it's affecting every part of your body. People think it's just pain in your head. No, your your whole body freaks out. It's diarrhea, it's vomiting.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

I was gonna say it messes your GI tract tremendously.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yes, yes. My I would have blotches on my face, I would have part wherever the migraine was, it was you could see it on the face. It was very, very red and inflamed. So I would have to give time for me to adjust, and then you know, the rest of the group would come and and I'd be like, okay, I'm better. And you know, nobody would know anything. And progressing further into my life, we have lived our life. I mean, my mattress has to be a certain type of mattress. Can't have a temperature because then the the foam it messes me up. Have to have a certain pillow, have to not have uh fragrances in our home, certain water, hydration, minerals, electrolytes, all of these things that you're just walking on eggshells. But even still, even having my breast implants taken out, just to remove any sort of inflammation, having the sinus surgery to make sure that, you know, oh, that trigeminal nerve in the brain is not getting activated by uh some sort of congestion. Um hysterectomy, partial hysterectomy, just to remove some of the hormonal shifts that would take place on a monthly basis. Hold on, time out.

SPEAKER_03 7:52

You had a partial hysterectomy, and the reason was from your migraines? Yes. And it did help.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

That is the first time I've ever heard that. It did help because it it lightened the shift of the because you I still have my ovaries. You're still cycling. Yeah. But that hormonal shift was not as steep. How old were you when you had that? Uh 42.

SPEAKER_03 8:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

And I had been on bioidentical hormones since I was 22 years old because the doctor that I saw at the time, that was his specialty. Yeah. Wow. So all these very extensive treatments. I am very expensive. Let me tell you. I'm I'm very expensive and I'm high maintenance. Yeah. Let me tell you. We've got the the we're water snobs, I mean, out of glass, I mean, everything. It's it's pretty extensive, all in prevention of migraines. And yet still they would come on. And what it boiled down to after peeling off the layers of the onion, a lot of it is stress. So much. And it can be a perceived stress. So even though you relieve the at as much inflammation as possible, the world that we live in, there's still stressors.

SPEAKER_03 9:02

And I don't think that people understand the body's reaction to stress, whether you are getting screamed at by somebody, getting chased by a bear, or you have an underlying infection, or your environmental exposure, or even something that's in the background, like the TV being on behind you, and you're hearing, you know, we were a bad dream. Or a bad dream. Like all these things, the body doesn't differentiate any of that. It's still gonna put you into a stress response regardless.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Yes. So fast forward all these years, all this preventative measures, no medicine after, you know, after I quit seeing that neurologist and we did the Candida cleanse, I didn't turn to medicine anymore. And the migraine medicines that I would take back in my early 20s, if I tried to take them in this present time, then I would for sure have a rebound migraine, what's called a rebound migraine. That's where you get a migraine the next day, even though it took it away the first time, you would have it the next day, but now it's tenfold.

SPEAKER_03 10:03

And you didn't actually clear the problem, I'm guessing, right? So you just did something that masked the pain, but yes. And you functionable.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Yes. So fast forward before you dive into like

Living On Guard Against Triggers

SPEAKER_01 10:15

this is what has helped. I feel like we briefly went over the surgeries when there's more to it than what we just briefly. So dive into the surgeries a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

In 2019, I decided that I would consider removing my breast implants.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

I was not having problems. I just had to consider the fact that okay, I needed an umbilical hernia fixed. So I might as well either I need to either redo the the breasts or I need to take them out. I've got two choices.

SPEAKER_03 10:45

How long had you had them in at that point? Ten years. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

But I knew if I replaced them, then how old would I have to be to replace them again? Am I gonna want to go under anesthesia at 65 years old?

unknown 10:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Am I gonna want to go under again at 85? Right. Probably not. So which committee do I wanted to be on? I decided the itty bitty. So I had I had the breast implants taken out uh just to try to remove some of the inflammation. And it it helped a little with the neck. It was there was some neck, there was some neck pain going on, and it did help with that. But it didn't help with the inflammation overall.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Right. Okay. And when you say inflammation, the way you felt the inflammation was migraines. Were migraines.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

So anybody who has some sort of issue that pops up just randomly, there's gonna be an underlying inflammation that's that's just there, that's really hard to get rid of in the world that we live in. And and just in this day of age. It's just no matter how many measures you take, and it's certain genetics. I learned in 2015 I'm compound heterozygous for MTHFRG mutation. I don't methylate properly. Had some DNA testing done. I methylate at 60%. So if somebody's listening, you're trying to understand what that is, basically it's how well my body detoxes. So you give me a sip of alcohol, it sits in my body. I don't detox it very well. So my body's response to this environment that we live in is to get inflamed.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

And that is a the environment we live in, the water we drink, the air we breathe, full of toxins. Right. So you're just automatic, just by living, yes, living in 2026, we're taking a hit.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yes.

unknown 12:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

So, you know, that's a whole other podcast on how we fix that. We we we do have to do our due diligence. And I it doesn't mean that I just now that I haven't had a migraine in seven months, that I just go out and just live any lifestyle. No, I still drink the raw milk, I eat the grass-fed meat, I go to the um to the bay and go pick up for raw fish and fresh fish. I make my own and mill my own flour. I do it's one thing at a time that I've added. I go to the farmer's mill your own flour? Heck yeah, man. It's so good. Once you do that.

SPEAKER_03 13:13

Everybody I know that does it, once they start milling, that's it. I just had a friend make me a loaf of sourdough where they milled their own flour. It was literally the best thing I've ever had. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Oh. It's kind of like learning how to juice. If you learn how to juice, like you, let's say you went to a farm and you bought all this fruits and vegetables, and you go home and you use a good masticating juicer and you juice your fruits and vegetables, you just you see it. Oh my gosh, I am getting wonderful, wonderful nutrients. And then somebody says, Don't you want some V8? You'd go, No. No, I wouldn't even touch it with a 10-foot pole because you know better.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

Also, how I feel about traveling to Italy and Spain and all that. Well, that's a whole nother story too. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

I haven't been there yet, but I have heard the European is better at everything.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

That's what got me eating bread again was going to Scotland in 2023. And I started, uh, I came back and I was irritated. I was like, why am I able to because I I'd been, I'd gone on the Candida Cleanse, so I pretty much held a lot for many years. And uh I go to Europe and I come home and I'm like, we ate bread three times a day. Three times a day. And you were fine. Felt amazing. Yes. Felt amazing.

SPEAKER_03 14:26

Yeah, that again, like the like the toxins, that's a whole nother podcast, too. Yes. Stay tuned for the next episode.

Hitting A Wall And Seeking Help

SPEAKER_01 14:34

All right. So you briefly dropped that you haven't had migraines for seven months now. Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

What changed? Well, let me let me back into that just a little bit and progress further down on the timeline. So present um April of 2025, um, I am at my wit's end. Um, I decide to seek out the help of a very well-renowned uh neurologist in Dallas, Texas. We were recommended to him. He has a very long waiting list. Luckily, we got in with that week. Whoa. Um, because of somebody who knows somebody. That's always a good thing. Yeah. And I go into his office puking, and I hadn't seen a neurologist since my 20s. Okay, so keep in mind I was this was very humbling for me to go step back into the medical field. And he goes through, you know, he st spends a couple hours with us and just going through talking about the lifestyle, and he goes, Wow, I gotta say, a lot of people have a lot of triggers. He goes, You don't have triggers, you're the trigger.

SPEAKER_03 15:38

I was like, Whoa.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Nobody's ever said that to me before. He's he basically saying, You're the problem. It's not all these other things. He said, You can't live life that way. And I said, I know, I it's very challenging. And he so we went through, you know, different parts of my life and during times of my life where I did feel like I had some relief, and that was the most relief I'd ever had was during my last pregnancy. And after having three miscarriages because of the MTHFR g mutation, I figured out, okay, I'm not methylating properly. We're probably having some blood issues. So I decided to take baby aspirin the whole time I was pregnant. Boom, got pregnant, had the biggest, fattest baby with a huge placenta and absolutely zero pre-clampsia, which I had had with my first two

Baby Aspirin Relief And Major Stress

SPEAKER_00 16:25

pregnancies. And here I am, 36 years old, having a baby that's the biggest baby, hence the umbolcohernia that, or the hence the hernia that I had. But um, he was a pretty big baby. And but that was the only time that I had felt uh relief from migraines. I took baby aspirin every day. And so he said, Well, do you still take the aspirin? And I said, No. He goes, Well, there you go. Why don't you try that? And I was like, Well, gosh damn it, doctor, you are smart. You must be a doctor, you must have a PhD. So I started taking the aspirin, and um, I had some relief. Just a baby aspirin every day. I had some relief. And then we went through something that no parent should ever have to go through. We live in a day and age where the power of your words are um very impactful, and there were words that were spoken about my teenage son that were not true, and um he goes to a private school and played football, basketball, track, straight A student, loved all of his teachers, but because of the words of another person that accused him of something, we had to he had to leave. And um there was a police investigation that lasted um a good four months. And during that time where I was hardly eating, I mean I was I was I know how to nourish myself. I was eating what I needed to eat to maintain to survive. Yes. So um I still got migraines though. I was on the aspirin and I was still getting the migraines from the stress, the stress of it. Just the worry and the fear and the doubt. Um, my son having his high school career ripped away from him. It was absolutely the hardest thing we've ever gone through. And then things worked out as God works things out um very well, and everything was good. And then um there was uh another thing that had happened that was his own stupid self being a teenager boy.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

And um It's how we learn sometimes. Sometimes we have to make mistakes, you just hope that they're not ones that we can't turn around.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That one was silly, and um, so it was time to move on um away from that school, that private school. And even though he had gotten himself back in, um, but the trauma hit me hard again, and that trauma knocked me down. Um, it was my little one's birthday at the house, and I had the other moms downstairs um running the party for me while I was upstairs puking and sitting on the toilet with diarrhoea and couldn't even open my eyes because the pain was so bad. And I had all these other moms that were running this party for me and my son, and it was beautiful that I would heard him downstairs, and um, but I'm just laying there and I'm like, something's gotta give because you can't live this way. The aspirin, it it worked for a period of time, and that's how it's been with many things. You know, it would work for like a month, and I'm like, oh, I'm cured. No, nope, because one emotional issue would bring something back up. Yeah, so that was um October. At the beginning of December, um, I started to listen to some of the testimonies of my peers online. You know, we live in a day and age. You know, the only reason why I have my son, my little one, is because of a Facebook group. Because of other moms who had said, wow, you have so many miscarriages, you should have this testing done. This is what we have to do. We have to go seek the answers. And so on the topic of migraines, I'm hearing other people with in in these Facebook groups and through social media that are having wonderful results with their methylation issues by

Hearing GLP Microdosing Testimonies

SPEAKER_00 20:30

microdosing.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

A GLP. Yes. When you say that, you mean GLP too because because when we say microdosing, some people think maybe we're talking about mushrooms. A psychedelic. I was about to say a psychedelic mushroom. No. But to be clear, that's how we got here on the pep talk podcast microdosing a GLP or GLP one and GIP combo with a trzeptide.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Correct. And I I was uh not for it because I have been watching from the sidelines. I've seen lots of people uh go through periods where they lost a lot of body fat, they changed their body composition, um, but they would, you know, they'd hit their goal, so they would just get off of it.

SPEAKER_03 21:11

There's their goal on the scale.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

Yes, their scale, their goal on their scale. And then they would just get off of it and then they would gain their weight back. Well, look, here's the deal. If you're going through McDonald's and you're getting two Big Macs and French fries, but then you get on a GLP and it helps you to get a instead a happy meal, but you're still going to McDonald's and you're only getting a happy meal because you're just not that hungry. Well, when you get to your goal and then you get off the GLP, you still are going to do the same habits and you're gonna go back to McDonald's, and then now you're hungrier, so you're gonna get your two Big Macs.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

Foundationals are non-negotiable. Yes. Like changing your life. This is an these are a tool to help you change your life, yeah, for sure. I was I was that same, I was in the house of absolutely. Not these things are horrible. Um, you don't know my story, but as a massage therapist, I had one client that came in that I I saw her every three weeks or so, and she had been on. This was going back three or four years, and titrating up really quickly, as was done then. And she was on the table. We'd skipped one, so maybe we went six weeks since I saw her. And she came in and I couldn't find a bicep. I couldn't find a hamstring. I literally was like putting my hand in a bowl of jello. Now, I have seen people on my table that are extremely obese. We're talking 400 plus pounds, and I can still find those big muscles. I couldn't, I couldn't pick one up. And that moment I thought, this is the worst possible thing anybody could ever put in their body. But I went on to get an education about them to be able to support somebody like her to figure it out, and then I'm like, wait a minute, ooh, sorry, Kylie. Holy cow, these things are amazing if they're done right. But she was also not changing her diet. She was working out every single day. So she was challenging the muscle, but she wasn't nourishing the body.

Why High Doses Go Wrong

SPEAKER_00 23:11

In 2023 or 2024, I decided that I would try the semiglutide. And I was very nauseous and I just kept scaling the dose up. I kept scaling the dose up. I I didn't know any better. I just was given the the prescription and the pharmacist assistant handed it to me and told me what to do. So I just followed the instructions. So I scaled it up all the way to the highest dose. And I I barely had an appetite. I had no energy and I couldn't work out. I mean, I have been consistent. I I mean I've taught fitness classes for 20 plus years. I've been in the gym and then I had no energy to work out, and I had only lost about four or five pounds. And I was like, you know, this is just like what's the point of this? I it's better if I actually go do a real workout and I know how to eat properly. So I just forget this. I'm just gonna stop. And then also I was having some dreams because I was at such a high dose. I was having nightmares. I went and even got therapy. Like I was like, there were things that were coming up that I was like, I thought I dealt with this. And so anyway, I ended up getting off of that and I thought, okay, which you know what, there's a lot of people who do not have those results. Everybody is different. So, and that may absolutely work for them. But I all keep in mind, I also am very sensitive to things and I got to the highest dose. Well, so when I went to go try, you know, this year in December, after hearing all these amazing testimonies and hearing a whole different spin on it. Like, hey everybody, just wait a minute. This is what the message was. Wait a minute. You don't have to titrate up on your dose. You can speak with your telecare provider or telehealth provider and ask them questions and say, hey, I want to start really slow. I want to go really low on my dose and slowly titrate up as needed and find my happy place. What's your sweet spot? What is your sweet spot where you still have energy? You can still eat at minimum the amount of calories, protein, carbohydrates, and fiber to help nourish your body and your muscle mass, maintain all your biochemical processes, keep your hair, keep your muscle, keep your bones, strengthen your bones. What is that dose? But also removes the inflammation to prevent whatever issue that you're wanting to prevent. And for me, I found that dose is

Finding The Sweet Spot Dose

SPEAKER_00 25:36

very small. It's still even lower than the lowest recommended dose. In fact, it's a third of the lowest recommended dose for me. And it works fantastic. And I haven't had a migraine in seven months. That right there.

SPEAKER_03 25:50

Mic drop, mic drop.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Well, I don't really want to drop that mic because it might bounce under the butt. Not kidding.

SPEAKER_03 25:57

But that's remarkable. So first time we're listening to all of the things, the genetics, like you are now what third generation of having suffered from these migraines. We know that there are people that genetically just don't make the GLPs, the GIPs. We know this now. So women, even that suffer from PMOS, which was formerly PCOS, we know that they're not making these. So genetically speaking, there's something in your genes probably. We know that you have the MTHFR mutation. There's probably something there that's not, you're not making those naturally on your own, nor did your mother or your grandmother, which is wild.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

You know, that is interesting, and I actually never thought of that. Um, do you know how much freedom has come from me not having to constantly think about food? And let me just say why. When you have migraines, you can't have your blood sugar drop significantly, but you also can't have it spike significantly. So for years and years, and and I'm still good about it. I these are habits. Yeah, this is what you've done for decades. I cannot have even a smidget of bread. I don't care if it's from Italy or Spain or or Scotland, doesn't matter if I fresh mill it, sourdough, whatever. I cannot have a grain like that too close to bed. It spikes my blood sugar. Now that's pre-GLP. Now I still maintain that, and then that, but that's just from a hip uh, you know, fitness perspective. I wanna, I don't need the extra sugars at night. But anyway, um that migraine, when I did get migraines from that, would feel a certain way. I have it memorized. So, you know, left side was hormones, um, front side was stress, um, sugar was stress right in the front, extra carbohydrates in the front, neck, it was up the back. I mean, dehydration right on top of the head. I mean, I can pinpoint, oh, this is the trigger, here's how it feels. So I would know exactly what it was. Oh, they slipped soy sauce when I said no soy sauce, or they put MSG in the crawfish boil. I know exactly what it feels like. Those were the absolute worst migraines. Anyway, I would have to constantly think about when I'm going to get my next meal and what it would be. So, you know, imagine just saying, okay, I I know I I need to constantly eat. I'll find something. That is hard enough as it is. It was it was make sure you know what you're gonna have, but also have it on hand. So that made it just constantly thinking about food. And then there's anxiety with that. There's anxiety with how am I going to eat? What am I going to eat? Going out of town. You you have to constant, you know what that means? That means you have to be in control all the time. Can we really live our life constantly in control? Well, that's just adding to your stress level. It would add to my stress.

SPEAKER_03 28:56

You know, coming back around full circle for you and your stress response, your inflammatory response, and all of the things. But at the end of the day, you probably have never made these particular peptides. And I go back to what your mom and your grandmother did.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

And you know, my mom's benefited from the GLP very well too. I mean, she has a a type of arthritis that um can debilitate her. And I mean, she's uh 70 years old and she walks 15,000 steps a day now, and she just she doesn't have the same.

SPEAKER_03 29:26

I I'm I'm trying to get my 78-year-old mother to I think that she would do very well with this too. And she's she's not there yet. Um, she's post-stroke, so she thinks she can't handle, but we'll we'll get her squared away soon. We all know that we're gonna have the answer to that. Um that is that's a remarkable story because there's so many people that I'm just thinking about the people in my circle that suffer from migraines, and they think that they have the trigger figured out for the most part, maybe sort of. But there's one person in particular that comes in, she's a registered dietitian. She says she is allergic to literally everything under the sun. Like, I I don't know if it's a true allergy or it's just a trigger for her. She gets the Botox injections, she's doing all the things, but same, like if she travels, if she does anything in her life and there's any tweak in her sleep pattern in her day-to-day, the migraine's gonna come on, and she just knows it. And it's just such an awful way to live.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

But I'm just thinking And she's carrying extra weight and inflammation and there's a histamine response with food, and everybody has a different response to the histamines within different foods. Sure. So my histamine response is different. The things that would trigger a histamine response, and I would feel it too. I mean, the second I would eat it, if there's um a strong amount of histamines in that particular food, I would feel the congestion start in the my in the nose, in the nasal passages. And you know, thankfully with the sinus surgery, it did help with the deviated septum because it would have been way worse. It would have been minutes. So now it, yes, it would inflame, but then you know, the the headache and the migraine would start to come on really slow after the sinus

Food Fear Fades And Freedom Returns

SPEAKER_00 31:15

surgery. It was way worse before the sinus surgery, but now I'm not even getting the histamine response at all. So I can do the, you know, every now and then have a little bit of conversation.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

So they'll say, describe to us what life is like now that you don't have you don't I I feel like you're not constantly worrying, like if I eat this, what's gonna happen? Where you've had seven months of freedom because of the GLP G I V.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

It's a different when it's different when something is a choice versus whether it's just what you have to do and you have to be controlled with it. And I feel so good about the way that I still eat the same way. I still, I still, I mean, I raise my chickens, I have chickens, and I've got, you know, the mil I mean, who am I? Dr. Quinn Medicine woman. But I I actually feel good about it, and it's it is easy to make the choice because you're gonna not have some of that food noise with a GLP, it does make it easier to make the the because I would still want those other things. So before I had to do it, but I still want it. I mean, I would love some other chips, willpower that you wanted. I would love some hot chips. I mean what's a hot chip? Like Fritos with some spicy something on it or something, like spice talkes or something like that, Doritos. I that is what I would want. That's the appeal. You were appealed to those things. Those would that I wanted them. I wanted like I still had the desire to have those. Sugar wasn't ever really an issue, but something like that. But now there's no desire for it. So that is nice. I would say not necessarily the choice of the food is has changed too much. Um it's more of the not the the confidence in myself that hey, I can actually just be hungry. I am experiencing now at the dose that I'm at, it doesn't necessarily affect my hunger. I still eat like a horse. I mean, I work out a lot too. So I eat a lot. But if there's a time where I can't, because I'm out running errands, it's it's the craziest thing to say, I'm okay. I can actually just be hungry. Like I I never understood people who would go, yeah, I'm really hungry, but it's okay. I can wait, I can wait, you know, another hour. And now I do that. And that's crazy. It that's it's I'm still getting used to that um level of I guess just empowerment and freedom. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 33:51

Wow. You are having control of your decisions day to day versus your body deciding for you what you have to do. It's not fear-driven.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

One of the biggest questions people always ask is, are you ever gonna get off of these?

SPEAKER_00 34:08

According to my doctor that's always done my bioidentical hormones, who's totally supportive um in what I'm taking, um, he says, I don't ever have to.

How Long To Stay On

SPEAKER_00 34:20

He says, you can take it as long as you want to. It's not causing any negative side effects, it's not hurting you at all. Your your dose is great. It doesn't hinder you from nourishing your body, exercising, your sleep, nothing.

SPEAKER_03 34:36

We know that as we age, we stop making them naturally. When our hormones shift, we stop making them naturally. When we're under stress, we stop making them naturally. And we also know that some people don't ever make them ever in their life. And you probably could check the boxes by a handful of those. So our body knows what to do with these signals. Why would you get rid of them if it's if it's helping you in this way? And I just wish that at the end of the day, whether it's a migraine, whether it's controlling your blood sugar, your inflammatory response, which is the way why I started them, um, kidney, cardiovascular, brain, whatever. There's so many reasons why. Why would you ever stop?

SPEAKER_01 35:18

I have no reason to stop. I won't ever stop. I love what Dr. Jason said this weekend when he was like, Do you want to work out to feel good? Do you want to take testosterone to improve your libido? Why would you just want to stop feeling good? If you feel good, stay on them. Like everything else you do. Yeah. This, yeah, and I feel like it's a it's something that we need to give your per give yourself permission to do. Because when people ask me, like, well, I want to start this, but how long am I gonna be on it? Well, how long do you want to feel better? It's a great question. You want to feel better for a year, you might feel better for five years, you want to feel better for the rest of your life. Like that's really what it comes down to is if you want to stop taking them and stop feeling better, then go for it. But if you want to continue to feel better, just stay on them and let them work their magic.

SPEAKER_03 36:07

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Absolutely. There is so much uh freedom from the anxiety of um traveling too. I used to, you know, I'd go to retreat. I I always volunteer and I always say yes to things that are scary. Today, when we met and I shared a little bit of my testimony, it was scary, but I there's a voice in me that's like, you better get up right now and do it. So I did it.

SPEAKER_03 36:36

Well, you shared it with a room full of 600 people today, and our podcast gets thousands of downloads and hopefully more every every single episode. This is your your reach with your story is gonna go far beyond that 600 that you got brave and shared. You got brave and shared with us today, and I can't thank you enough for doing that.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

That could have triggered a migraine before. Distress. Yeah, just just the adrenaline rush of it. Yeah, it could have because you yeah, you you're gonna have adrenaline rush, and that could have that could have triggered a migraine before. But it's little things like that.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

And here you are a few hours later, feeling good, running around, helping us figure out how to set up our podcast.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

Yeah, it worked. Before we get you off, Amy, I want to go and just give me a little brief synopsis of your mom and her arthritis story.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

Um she one day woke up um and she just couldn't walk. And she she was in bed, and it was it's a certain type, I don't even know the name, but it's something in her hips. And she was completely inflamed and couldn't. We're talking about what, 70 years old at this time? Um about five, sixty. She was about sixty-two at the time. And she's always been active. I mean, I grew up, my mom worked for the airlines um for British Airways, and she would come home, put on her rollerblades, and rollerblade through the neighborhood every day. And um, my dad uh is uh taekwondo and hot keto, so he's always kicking around, doing exercise. So my parents very active, and then she uh switched after she had a bad accident of rollerblading and decided um I'm gonna take up walking. So she started walking. Yeah, yeah. Um it's like you're almost 50 years old. I think you should take off the rollerblades. But anyway, she started walking, and then all of a sudden, one day, she just couldn't get out of bed, and her hips were so inflamed that she just could not walk. So they actually had her on prednisone for a year. Oh my gosh. And when you're on steroids like that and you have your immune system lowered, well, think about these past uh five years, the things that we've dealt with in our world and the fear that goes along with that. And what they tell you if you're immune compromised. Well, you know, she's on this medication for being immune compromised, and so which that you know kept her um inside for as much as she was for a while, uh not going out too much. And then she decided

Mom’s Arthritis Turnaround And Safety Talk

SPEAKER_00 39:05

a couple years ago to start a very small dose of a GLP. But at that time her provider pre previous to you doing it. Oh yeah, previous to me, yeah. My and her provider gave her a meal, a meal education, like educate nutrition education. And that was heard of right. That was the first time that I had ever heard of anybody getting a nutrition education. And she said, Yeah, the doctor told me I need to, if I'm gonna be on this, I just really need to make sure that I'm uh prioritizing protein at every meal. I'm eating my fiber. Absolutely, it was Austin, Texas. So um Austin, Texas, like a little mini West Coast. So she said, Um, make sure you're getting your fiber and your hydration. And um, if you're not gonna get all of your calories that you need in a day from a variety of quality sources, then you make sure that you supplement with a multivitamin and minerals if you um but that you know this goes for any diet. You know, people have been through the years doing HCG diets, they were doing like where they were low calories. There's so many starvation diets that are out there, and you should never be on a starvation diet. I'm sorry, but if your GLP is causing you to not eat what your body needs in a day, then your dose is too high. Way too high. And is your doctor telling you that? So if you are not eating the the amount of uh protein that you should be eating, then which is 0.8 to one per pound. Per ideal weight.

SPEAKER_03 40:33

We that was said to repeatedly this weekend, and they kept saying per pound that you weigh, and I'm like, no, no, no, it's per ideal weight. So if you are 400 pounds, you are not trying to eat 400 grams of protein.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

You're nourishing what should be there, correct? And then the rest just let it filter out. And she did it very slow because you don't want to do it fast either. It is not a race, it is not a race. I realize that you have a cruise coming up, but I promise you you are still gonna feel better if you have lost, you know, two to three pounds a week max. Your liver and your your gallbladder, they can only handle so much weight loss in a week. So slow and steady, because we're going long term here, okay? And so my mom's diet, it was great. Um, like I said, protein, fiber, hydration, good quality um vegetables and protein, or excuse me, vegetables and fruits. And she lost uh a good 15 to 20 pounds, which was wild because you know she walks so much and her arthritis has not come back. And it's been two years. She has less inflammation, she feels better, and she has a lot of energy. Is she just doing that one still? Is she at that? Yes, just that one. She's also a baby boomer and extremely stubborn.

unknown 41:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

I'm like, mom, there's also the other one. There are more. Yes. Would you like to try them? I would love for her to do a sermermelon to help um keep her muscle mass. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 42:03

Postmenopause, especially. Yes. Okay. All right. If someone's sitting on the fence about these things or they've heard ugly stuff, what's your advice?

SPEAKER_00 42:14

What is the worst that could happen? What is the worst that could happen? If you start slow and you go with a really low dose, and you can, you know, talk to the provider about that. What is you're not gonna, you're not going to have just this horrible reaction.

SPEAKER_03 42:31

Let's be clear. You're not gonna have gastroparesis, you're not gonna go blind, and you're not gonna get cancer. Those people are on high, high, high doses. Also, when it comes to the cancer and all that, we just don't produce the same things that were done in the animal studies.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

So there's well, remember during COVID how they I don't know how compliant y'all talk on your podcast, but remember during COVID there were medications that they were recommending to people to say, hey, this will work. But then there were the um there was the opposition who was saying, oh no, the studies say X, Y, Z. But then come to find out those studies were because they were doing somewhere uh around four times the dose. Right. So a lot of times when you hear the stories of the GLPs, my question is, oh, how much were they on? How much did they take?

SPEAKER_01 43:26

Right. My my question when it comes to research, I always say, Who paid for it? Who paid for that research to be done? Always question that. You know, I'm in chiropractic school at Western States and they're very, very scientific, very, very research-based. We we learn to scrutinize everything. I'm always like somebody had to pay for the research to create the outcome that they wanted to create. Right. So take it for a grain of salt. But I want to know who paid for it. And is it, you know, somebody who's anti-peptides wanting to create this research and the sphere and everything? Is it somebody who's you know, third-party testing? We can walk down all the research avenue, but we don't need to. So Amy's uh my mind just went blank. Advice, there we go. Amy's advice for if you are sitting on the fence, what do you have to lose? Now, do we want to get into the one special thing that was announced this weekend? Because even if you are taking a peptide, not all peptides are created equal.

SPEAKER_03 44:28

I think um just allude to a new episode. Let's just say tag keep listening. Let's say keep listening because there's gonna be an episode that we do solely around that, and that is gonna be the heart of that peptide, but they are not all created equal. Sourcing is everything. Sourcing is everything.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

Yes. Sourcing and dosing and working with the right telehealth provider. So okay, that's a wrap.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

Amy,

Where To Find Everyone

SPEAKER_00 44:56

where can they find you? Uh the best place to find me is on Instagram. My page is at creation living, is my fitness page. My personal page uh is also public, is at a Castles. And I'm on Facebook. I have a public Facebook page that's Amy M Castles, and that's C-A-S-S-E-L-S.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

I'll put these links in the show notes so you guys have them directly also. Um Jess, where can I find you?

SPEAKER_03 45:25

Well, as always, if you want to learn more about peptides, if you want to learn about wellness in general, you can find me on Instagram. It is Jess B as in boy, just b dot talks health. You can also grab me at my website, b2bwithess.com.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

If you haven't seen it yet, what we were alluding to, I've got the information at drkylieburton.com. See you there. This is Pep Talk. Peptides unpacked. See you next time.