People often ask me why I chose nutrition. The truth is, I didn’t find nutrition; nutrition found me.
My story begins when I was around seven years old. I suffered from frequent migraines that seemed to come out of nowhere. They weren’t just headaches. They were debilitating episodes that would leave me lying in a dark room, unable to tolerate light, sound, or movement. I would become nauseous, often vomiting, while my head pounded relentlessly.
My parents took me everywhere looking for answers. I saw countless doctors. I underwent scans, tests, and investigations. We traveled, sought second opinions, and explored every avenue we could think of. At one point, I carried glucose bags with me regularly and missed so many days of school that some teachers didn’t even believe I was genuinely ill.
The migraines affected every part of my life. They affected my grades, my energy, and my ability to simply enjoy being a child. As I got older, the migraines continued. By the time I was in high school, they had taken a significant toll on my health. The constant nausea and vomiting led to substantial weight loss, and there were days when I felt incredibly weak.
I still remember one particular period when I struggled to walk from my biology classroom to the nurse’s office because another migraine attack had started. I felt so weak that I wasn’t even sure I could make it to the nurse’s office. All I wanted was to get home, lie in a dark room, and wait for it to pass. Yet despite everything, I remained fascinated by science and deeply passionate about helping people.
For as long as I could remember, I wanted to become a doctor. Part of that desire stemmed from a desire to help others. The other part came from wanting answers for myself. I wanted to understand why I could wake up feeling perfectly fine one day and be incapacitated by a migraine the next. Why did some days trigger symptoms while others didn’t? What was I missing?
Dr. Lemia Shaban
Unfortunately, frequent migraines took a toll on my academic performance during high school, and my grades were not high enough for medical school. At the time, it felt devastating. Instead, I enrolled in a biochemistry degree with the intention of eventually transferring into medicine. Eventually, I was accepted into the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and on paper, my childhood dream was within reach. But around that same time, something unexpected happened. As part of my biochemistry degree, I took a nutrition course. For the first time, health made sense to me in a completely different way. Rather than focusing solely on disease, I became fascinated by the possibility of understanding what influences health in the first place.
Around that same period, I traveled to Washington, DC, to see a migraine specialist. After a thorough assessment, I was told that structurally everything appeared normal. The recommendation was simple: try a low-tyramine diet. I followed the diet. And for the first time in as long as I could remember, I went two entire months without a migraine. Two months. It may not sound extraordinary to someone who has never experienced chronic migraines, but to me, it felt life-changing.
The low-tyramine diet did more than reduce my migraines. It transformed my health. For the first time, I experienced what it felt like to have energy, consistency, and a sense of normalcy that I had been missing for years. More importantly, it showed me that food could have a profound impact on how we feel. That realization changed everything. It didn’t just improve my health. It completely changed the direction of my life.
I began looking at nutrition differently. I became fascinated by the relationship between food, lifestyle, and human health. I found myself asking different questions. Instead of asking how we treat disease, I became interested in understanding how we might prevent it, manage it, or improve quality of life through everyday choices.
Making the decision to step away from medicine was not easy. Medicine had been my dream since childhood. I worried constantly that I would regret changing direction. Today, looking back, I can honestly say it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. That decision eventually led me to clinical nutrition, research, teaching, functional medicine, and the privilege of working with thousands of individuals on their own health journeys. Most importantly, it taught me a lesson that continues to guide my work today:
Never stop asking questions. Sometimes the answer you’re searching for isn’t where you expected to find it. And sometimes the challenge that feels like it’s holding you back is quietly leading you toward the path you’re meant to follow.
In many ways, my migraines gave me more than they took away.
They gave me purpose.
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