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Speaker 1: I have Tom Zeller Junior, who's talking to us straight

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from Montana. You're kidding, men, that's perfect and you have

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till till nine forty. Go ahead where you at, Tom,

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Because I grew up in buildings, Montana.

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Speaker 2: Okay, I'm a little further west in sort of the

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Zula area bitter Root Valley.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god, you know you know the Bitterroot Valley

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is where that that show Yellowstone is actually filmed. And man,

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I'll tell you what when I when I had the

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chance to talk with them, I mean, I called them

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out instantly because I know that mountain scene and it

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was like, dude, you are not in Yellowstone at all.

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Speaker 2: No, No, they actually filmed it right up here. There's

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a warehouse at the end of my street here where

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they kept all the sets for Yellowstone.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, it was all up and down here. I'm

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in the town called Lolo.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if you know, absolutely I do, man,

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because we would talk about Lolo all the time on

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the radio station. Is because of your windshield factor and

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all the wind that came through there and all that

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kind of stuff.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's where I am.

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Speaker 1: Not to be a pain here today, But are you

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getting a hit talking about all these headaches with everybody

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across the country.

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Speaker 2: I'm not, no, but it's actually a lot of fun.

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Speaker 1: What has taken so long to find something like this?

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Because this is the type of book that I would

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like to see at the pharmacy or a grocery store,

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because this is what people are going to be paging through.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it was sort of remarkable to me

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when I decided to pitch this book that there really

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wasn't anything quite like it out there. I can't really

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explain why that's the case, but you know, I think

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part of the issue is that we use the word

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a headache for these disorders. So there are headaches that

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we all get. You know, you have a little too

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much to drink the night before, or you get a

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little dehydrated, you get a headache. But that's not what

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we're talking about here. That the word is also used

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to refer to disorders like the first order diseases like

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migraine or cluster headache that I have, where the pain

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is actually the sort of signature of the disease, and

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those are you know, well outside the reach of a

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couple of tile and all they uprooted whole seasons of

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your life, and you know we frankly, I don't think

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we talk about them enough.

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Speaker 1: Dude. I work with a girl who just had brain

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surgery because of her headaches. I mean they, I mean

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to see those staples in her head was it was

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so scary for me. Wow, she had migrains or it

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was constant migrains. It just wouldn't go away. And when

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and when she finally came up and told me, she says,

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I have to go have surgery because they say that

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there's something that's pushing on whatever in the brain. I

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don't know these big fifteen letter words, but they actually

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I mean, oh my god, the incision was hideous.

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Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, it sounds like she might have had a

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tumor that was actually causing her head which in case,

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if that's the case, then you know, hopefully this will

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have taken care of it. Is she better now? She is?

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Speaker 1: And the thing is, though, she says that what you

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don't realize is that when you have head surgery, your

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whole entire body hurts. It's almost like your brain is

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saying no, all of me hurts.

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Speaker 2: Mm. Yeah, I mean, you know, the whole connection between

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the brain, which by the way, I mean, we sort

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of learned this in one on one biology. But the

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brain itself doesn't feel pain. It interprets pain from the

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rest of the body, but it's it doesn't hurt itself.

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So that's part of the mystery of like, what is

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causing a migraine or a cluster headache? Is that a

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lot of scientists I talk to, they even disagree on

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where the pain is coming from.

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Speaker 1: Wow, now, how did you jump into this project? What

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were you on Google or chat GPT?

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Speaker 2: No? I actually, well, as I said, I have headaches myself,

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and I went looking for a book or for an

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explanation as to why we don't really know that much

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about these disorders, given that so many people have them,

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And I was surprised to find that, you know, they

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aren't really taken very seriously in neuroscience and neurology circles

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for reasons that I think are cultural more than anything.

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They don't receive a lot of funding from the NIH

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to address. And yet you know, you could easily estimate

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that that migraines and clusters and headache disorders like that

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drain billions of dollars off the economy every year, with

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people being absent or unable to work, and so it's

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surprising that we wouldn't spend more money trying to understand

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them and crack them. Well, it's changing of Yeah.

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Speaker 1: This book is coming out at such a perfect time

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because we are living in the most uncertain times in

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our life, and anxiety has got to be that one

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thing that is driving a lot of headaches into into

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our present life.

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Speaker 2: It's definitely something. It's one trigger, it's one it's one

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aspect of headaches. But I would be loath to say that,

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you know, stress for instance, in my case, you know,

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I would often get attacked by headaches at my most

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serene moments. There's no there's no rhyme or yes, yes,

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you know. I think, particularly with migraines, it's it's a whole.

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It's definitely a sensory disorder. So you know, sites, sounds, sense, stress, hormones,

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all of these things play a role and sort of

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generating a cascade that results in a migraine, probably a

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cluster headache two. But it's it's it's really sort of

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hard to just say, oh, stress is your in fact,

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and part of I said, the reason I emphasize that

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is because it's too often, particularly with women, we say, well,

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if you had just learned to calm down a little bit,

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your headaches would get better. And I can't tell you

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how often I've heard women complain about being told this

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by their doctors.

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Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Tom Zeller Junior

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coming up next. We're talking headaches. Oh, we are back

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with Tom Zeller Junior. My wife when she gets a headache,

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the first thing I do is I say take your

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blood pressure, and sure enough that stuff is up high.

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And I use that as because I look at at

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headaches as being not a source of bad energy, but

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rather a symptom of something that is going wrong or

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is wrong.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's true. It's definitely the case. I

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think one scientist put it to me this way. Everybody

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has the hardware to get migrain and headaches, or to

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get cluster headaches, but not everybody has the software. So

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we all sort of have the same sorts of general

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structures in us, the central nervous system that could cause

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these headaches, but only in a certain percentage of people

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with the right sort of genetic makeup. Get this, this

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sort of sensory breakdown where that results in great pain.

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Blood pressure may have some role to play in it.

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For one of the things that I learned in the

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book is that blood pressure may not actually play a

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role in it at all. They've done studies of Yeah,

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they've actually done studies in migraine patients where they're in

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the throes of a headache and the blood in the

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head it remains at a baseline level. It's just the same.

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So there's they're still getting this headache, but there's it

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has nothing to do with the blood vessels.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, maybe it's the martial artist in me. But

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I love to people watch and read body language. When

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when you speak of the headache, I see your fingers

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pointing towards your body. So therefore you're telling me that

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your entire body hurts when you get one of these

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these cluster headaches.

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Speaker 2: Well, for me, I feel it. I mean, my entire

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body reacts. I will say that. But the pain for me,

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for a cluster headache, the pain is directly behind my

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right eyeball. Oh, like like a nuclear explosion, right there

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inside the temple behind my eye. It's very very intense,

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and like migraine, it's always on one side, which should

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give us some indication that you know, this is a

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central nervous system issue. Why would a pain be felt

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strictly on one side unless it involved the central nervous

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system in some way. And yeah, and it's like an

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inferno for a hot you know, hour or two, and

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then it just evaporates as magically as it appeared.

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Speaker 1: Is that the reason why most people do not go

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to the doctor for their migraines. Oh, I'll get over it.

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I'm fine, I'll sit here, I'll wait it through.

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Speaker 2: I think it's because they feel judged. I think a

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lot of them avoid that. They feel like they either

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you know, they did something wrong, or if they just relaxed,

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or maybe if they just didn't eat that chocolate or

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drinking a glass of wine or whatever it is. And also,

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you know, the word headache, We use it to talk

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about very mundane things, right. Traffic is a headache. Doing

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your bills is a headache. Doing paperwork as headache. So

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it's sort of this cultural sort of signal to a

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headache sufferer that what you're having everybody has and it

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shouldn't it shouldn't be laying you low. It shouldn't be

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like such trouble for you. And I think that's part

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of the reason why a lot of migrainers like hesitate,

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like going and talking about it to a doctor because

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they feel embarrassed by it, which is part of the

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reason I wrote this book, is like, come on, these

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are real diseases.

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Speaker 1: But aren't you opening up our eyes to what is

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creating a headache? Because I mean, here in the South,

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I would say, oh, it's my allergies or oh my god,

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I've got another cold again. That's the reason why it

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starts behind my ear and moves to my throat. I mean,

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it seems like we want to sit there and say

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I'm in pain because of something else other than what

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you're talking about.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think that those also lead to headaches,

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but those tend to have those that tend to be

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symptoms of some other thing. And I think that that's

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the distinction between you know, a headache that comes with

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your allergies, or a headache that comes from a sinus

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infection or an abscessed tooth, versus a headache that just

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we don't actually know what's causing it and we can't

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even figure out where the pain is coming from. That's

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the distinction and I think that that's part of what

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I hope the book will do well.

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Speaker 1: In writing this book, did it relieve some of the

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pressure inside your head because you're being open and you're

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being honest and transparent with those that are going to

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pick up the book.

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Speaker 2: It's too soon to say, I have to tell you, ero.

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I mean, I was happy to get out the book

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for me. You know, the headaches have a mind of

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their own. They will come when they come, and they

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depart when they depart. Whether the book actually ended up

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being a help in that regard, I guess I would

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say it remains to be seen.

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Speaker 1: Wow, ten minutes with you is not enough. But just

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let me know though. Is that ten million dollar silver

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dollar bar still over there on that highway or is

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that on I ninety it is?

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Speaker 2: It is heading out west? Yes, yes it is, dude.

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Speaker 1: I was in that place when I was ten years old,

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so I'm sixty three now. So man, that place is

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still going.

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Speaker 2: Huh wow, it's still going. It's growing like gangbusters too. Wow. Wow.

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Speaker 1: Where can people go to find out more about you?

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Because you're just scratching the surface here today.

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Speaker 2: Well, if they want to find out about me, they

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can go to Tom Zeller dot com and they'll also

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find links to the book there.

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Speaker 1: Please come back to this show anytime in the future.

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The door is always going to be open for you. Tom.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Erro. I appreciate your interest.

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Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today?

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Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, you too,