What Migraine Care Can Actually Look Like: The Integrative Approach at Stockheart
By Dr. Brenna Erickson, DC
READ TIME: 10 MINUTES Part 3 of 3 — [Part 1: What's Actually Happening in Your Brain] | [Part 2: What's Driving Your Migraines]
If you've made it to Part 3, you've done some real reading. You understand that migraine is a threshold disorder. You have a sense of what might be filling your container. And you're probably wondering: what does addressing this look like? What would it mean to come to Stockheart? What happens, concretely, and is it something that could work for my life?
Those are the right questions. This post answers them.
One thing before we get into it, for the person who has been to other practitioners, maybe several, and hasn't gotten the lasting results they hoped for. That history makes it harder to trust a new approach. I'm not going to tell you this is different without showing you why. So let me show you.
Stone steps in a forest with soft light filters through green leaves, illustrating the path to wellness.
How I Think About This Work
At Stockheart, I don't think about migraine as a deficiency to be corrected or a genetic sentence to be managed. By the time most people find me, they've been carrying this for years, the missed plans, the careful logistics, the quiet grief of a life lived around a condition nobody around them fully sees. What I think about is what it would take for that to change.
The goal is to change the ratio between what your nervous system is carrying and what it has the resources to absorb. Most people arrive with the load very high and the resources very depleted. The work is both: lower the load, build the capacity. Neither alone is as effective as both together.
That means the tools I bring are chosen because they address the drivers we've identified for your specific picture. Comprehensiveness for its own sake isn't the goal. The right tools in the right order is.
What the Work Actually Looks Like
The investigation comes first. Not a 15-minute appointment ending with a prescription — a thorough intake that looks at your health history, symptom patterns, diet, sleep, stress, environment, cycle, and labs.
The lab work is often where this approach diverges most clearly from what you've experienced before. Most migraine patients have had bloodwork done. Very few have had the right bloodwork done, or had a real conversation about what that means for their body.
Two examples that come up constantly:
Thyroid function is one of the most consistently underestimated migraine contributors, and standard screening almost always misses it. The TSH test tells you whether your thyroid is in crisis. It doesn't tell you whether it's functioning well, and for migraine patients, functioning well matters. A thyroid that's technically within normal range but not where it needs to be can lower migraine threshold, worsen cellular energy, disrupt sleep, and amplify the anxiety and fatigue that migraine patients already carry. When I run thyroid panels, I look at the full picture: TSH, free T3, free T4, reverse T3, and thyroid antibodies, because the story is often in the details a single number doesn't capture. If you've been told your thyroid is normal and something still feels off, that instinct is worth acting on.
Iron is the other one. Iron deficiency, even without full anemia, directly affects brain oxygenation and dopamine, both relevant to migraine threshold. The key marker is ferritin, your iron storage level, not hemoglobin, which can look normal while ferritin is depleted. Optimal ferritin for neurological function is a different target than "not anemic." I routinely check ferritin as part of every migraine workup, and the number of patients who've been told their iron is fine while their ferritin sits at 12 is striking.
Beyond thyroid and ferritin, the investigation covers inflammatory markers, nutrient levels, hormonal panels, and gut-related markers. From there we build a prioritized, individualized plan. The order matters, some work lowers your load directly, other work builds your capacity, and we work the most impactful pieces first.
A young asian woman with long wavy hair sits on a couch reading a thick book, illustrating a thorough intake and research before treatment planning
The Modalities: What Each One Does and Why
Gentle Chiropractic care — the work I do directly — addresses more than the physical tension that accumulates in a stress-loaded body, though it addresses that too. For migraine patients, the contribution from the neck is often significant and underappreciated. Tension in the muscles at the base of the skull, dysfunction in the upper cervical joints, and the referred pain patterns from that region all feed directly into the trigeminal nerve system driving the migraine cascade. Normalizing that tissue environment removes one meaningful source of ongoing load.
But the deeper story is neurological. Chiropractic adjusting directly stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, shifting the body out of the stress response with measurable effects on heart rate variability and cortisol. Over time, consistent care supports neuroplasticity, the nervous system's capacity to build new patterns of regulation, to gradually shift toward ease rather than reactivity. The adjustments aren't just structural. They are inputs to a nervous system that is learning, slowly, to respond differently.
The technique I use is DNFT, Directional Non-Force Technique, a low-force, neurologically precise approach that works through light, specific contacts rather than high-velocity manipulation. For people with sensitized nervous systems, which describes most of my migraine patients, this distinction matters. Their bodies don't need more force. They need more precision.
I also do cranial adjusting. The cranial bones are not fused — they move in subtle rhythmic motion, and restrictions in that motion affect both cerebrospinal fluid flow and brain blood flow. Supporting healthy CSF circulation is directly relevant to the neurological environment we're trying to change. Many patients who haven't responded to other approaches find that cranial work becomes an important piece of their picture.
Dr Brenna touches a client’s back in her cheerful teal and lavender office. Her wavy brown hair is pulled into a half ponytail and she is looking down with a soft contemplative look on her face.
Jaw tension is a piece of the migraine puzzle that almost never gets looked at, and for a significant number of migraine patients, it turns out to be one of the most important contributors.
The jaw joint sits directly adjacent to the trigeminal nerve, the primary pain pathway of the migraine cascade. The muscles that control chewing — the masseter along the jaw, the temporalis along the side of the head — carry enormous amounts of tension in people with chronic migraine and feed directly into the same nerve system that drives the attack. When the jaw is out of alignment, or when someone is clenching or grinding their teeth during sleep without knowing it, the result is constant low-grade irritation of the trigeminal system. For a nervous system that's already hyperreactive, this is load. It keeps the threshold lower and makes everything else harder to treat.
The picture I often see: headaches along the temple, facial tightness on waking, neck tension that doesn't fully resolve with cervical work, and a history of dental procedures or jaw injury. Most of these patients have never connected their jaw to their head pain — because no one has thought to ask.
a young man wearing a black hoodie and rectangular black glasses touches his jaw joint in pain.
Acupuncture has one of the strongest evidence bases of any non-pharmaceutical migraine intervention. Multiple systematic reviews support its effectiveness for reducing migraine frequency to a degree comparable to preventive medications, with a significantly better side effect profile. A landmark Cochrane review found meaningful evidence for its use in migraine prevention.
The mechanisms are real. Acupuncture reduces the release of CGRP, the protein that causes blood vessel inflammation during a migraine attack, the same target as some of the newest migraine medications. It regulates the hypothalamus, the same structure at the origin of the cascade. It shifts the nervous system toward a calmer, more regulated state and influences the brain's own pain-dampening systems.
In practice, what patients notice first is rarely a dramatic reduction in frequency right away. It's a change in quality. Attacks feel shorter, less severe, easier to recover from. The time between attacks starts to feel like baseline rather than waiting. Sleep improves. Over time the nervous system accumulates a different kind of history, one with more regulation in it.
Acupuncture is particularly valuable for patients with a strong hormonal component, because it has well-documented effects on hormonal balance and cycle-related symptom patterns. For patients whose migraines have worsened through perimenopause, this is often one of the most meaningful interventions available.
At Stockheart, acupuncture is provided by Dr. Stephen Thompson and Dr. Michele Renée, who bring deep expertise in both classical and evidence-based applications. For many patients in our practice, it becomes a cornerstone of their care.
an acupuncturist with aged hands places a thin acupuncture needle in the arm of a client laying on a massage table, wrapped in white sheets. Their shirt is a blue floral patterned short sleeve shirt.
Nutritional and botanical support is threaded through everything. The evidence-backed foundation for migraine includes magnesium glycinate for nervous system regulation and sleep, riboflavin for cellular energy production, CoQ10 for energy and antioxidant protection, and omega-3 fatty acids for the anti-inflammatory substrate. Botanically, butterbur has among the strongest evidence of any non-pharmaceutical migraine intervention — though sourcing matters, and this is one to discuss with a knowledgeable practitioner. Herbal support for stress regulation and cycle balance can make a meaningful difference for patients with a significant hormonal component.
These are chosen for your specific picture, not handed out as a generic stack. Used in the right combinations for where you are, they contribute meaningfully to raising your threshold. We personalize each supplement based on your labwork, not simply based on your symptoms.
a wooden shop table is covered in containers of whole herbals plants with handwritten korean labels in a sunny shop.
Massage therapy is not a luxury for migraine patients. For a nervous system running in chronic stress activation, skilled therapeutic massage is a direct clinical intervention with measurable effects.
The research supports this. Studies have shown that regular massage therapy reduces migraine frequency, decreases pain intensity, improves sleep quality, and lowers cortisol. The mechanisms go beyond general relaxation: direct release of tension in the muscles most involved in migraine, activation of the parasympathetic nervous system through therapeutic touch, reduction of the inflammatory signals that feed into migraine threshold, and improvements in serotonin and dopamine — both of which are dysregulated in the chronic migraine brain.
For migraine patients specifically, the muscles that matter most are at the base of the skull, along the upper neck and shoulders, along the side of the head, and in the jaw. Releasing this tissue is not cosmetic. It is removing a meaningful source of ongoing load from an already reactive nervous system.
One of the most underappreciated things massage does is teach the body that settling is possible. Many migraine patients have spent years bracing — their bodies perpetually preparing for the next attack. The experience of safe, sustained therapeutic touch is itself a signal to the nervous system. For some patients, it's the piece that allows everything else to work better.
A massage therapist releases tension in her client’s neck, demonstrating the importance of myofascial techniques.
What I Want You to Hear
You don't have to white-knuckle your way through this.
You don't have to accept that a life organized around migraine management is the best available version of your life. You don't have to keep doing the trigger journal and the elimination diet in isolation, hoping this time something sticks. You don't have to keep being told your migraines are genetic — as if that ends the conversation instead of starting a different one.
The migraine nervous system is not a broken nervous system. It is a highly sensitive one — one that registers threat at lower levels, responds to accumulated load more readily, and is asking consistently for conditions that most of modern life doesn't naturally provide. The genetics set the sensitivity. The sensitivity is not the problem. The mismatch between what your nervous system needs and what it's currently getting is the problem.
That mismatch is addressable. Not overnight, not without effort, and not with a single intervention. But I have watched people arrive in my practice having stopped believing it was possible to feel different, and leave, over time, with a relationship to their nervous system that they didn't think they were allowed to have.
The genetics are real. The sensitivity is real. The suffering is real.
And the possibility of a fundamentally different experience is also real.
What Happens When You Come In
The biggest barrier for some people isn't belief in the approach. It's uncertainty about what the first step looks like. So here it is, specifically.
A consultation at Stockheart is a conversation. We talk through your history, your pattern, what you've already tried, and what's been missing from the picture. You leave with a much clearer sense of what's driving your migraines and what addressing it would look like for your specific life, your schedule, your capacity, what's realistic right now.
There's no commitment beyond the conversation. No pressure to start a program. No prescription pad. Just a thorough look at your picture with someone who has time to look at it properly.
If it turns out Stockheart is a good fit, we'll talk about what care looks like and what to expect. If it turns out something else would serve you better, I'll tell you that too. I'm more interested in you getting the right care than in filling a schedule.
Brenna Erickson DC
A Note From Me
I became the practitioner I am because migraine kept showing up in my practice as the condition the conventional system was most consistently failing. The system tried. The tools available within it just weren't built for what migraine is. A whole-body, whole-nervous-system, whole-life condition that requires a whole-person approach.
The people I work with have usually already tried a lot. They've done the elimination diets, the medication trials, the trigger journals. They've been told their migraines are stress-related, or hormonal, or just genetic bad luck. What they haven't had is someone sit with them and map the whole picture, all of the contributors, the interactions between them, the specific levers that matter most for their particular body, and build a plan from there.
What I get to witness, when someone finally has that, is a shift that goes beyond migraine days. They stop bracing. They start trusting their body again. Not all at once. But enough to make plans, to show up, to stop living so far inside the contingency.
That's what I'm here for. And I find it endlessly worthwhile.
— Dr. Brenna Erickson, DC Stockheart Whole Health, Minneapolis
Dr. Brenna Erickson practices at Stockheart Whole Health in Minneapolis, offering chiropractic care, DNFT, cranial adjusting, and functional medicine for people with chronic and complex migraine. Stockheart's integrative team also includes acupuncture and massage therapy. To explore care, request a consultation here.