Guides
Migraines, Headaches and Low Body Temperature: What Dr. Wilson Has Written
October 7, 2026 · Wilson's T3 Editorial
If you get migraines or frequent headaches and your thyroid tests come back normal, Dr. Wilson’s writing says the next thing to check is your body temperature. He has published one explanation for why the two might be linked, two case accounts from his practice, and a strongly worded opinion about what correcting the temperature does. This guide collects all of it in his words, adds what the site’s other writers have published since, and says plainly what kind of evidence each claim rests on.
How Dr. Wilson explains migraines
The symptom chapter of his book opens with the mechanism he proposes. It is presented as his idea, and he says so:
Wilson’s Temperature Syndrome can contribute to allergy, stress, and migraine headaches. The most debilitating of these are migraine headaches. I feel that the migraine headaches associated with Wilson’s Temperature Syndrome are related to fluid retention. This fluid retention is probably secondary to the vessels in the body becoming leaky because of decreased vascular tone, and changes that occur in the vessel walls when the body temperature patterns are abnormal. As these vessels become more leaky, fluid escapes from the vessels causing fluid retention in various parts of the body, even the brain.
— Headaches Including Migraines, the book
The same idea comes back, more carefully worded, in an article he wrote in 2010:
The thyroid system is supposed to maintain normal body temperatures. Low body temperatures can result in recurrent migraines, though it’s not clear how. It may be that the low temperatures lead to relaxation and dilation of the blood vessels which results in more fluid leaking into the tissues. The swelling brain tissues inside the closed space of the cranium would explain the characteristic throbbing pain experienced by migraine sufferers.
Notice the “though it’s not clear how”. The book is confident; the article, written later, says the mechanism is not known. Both are his, and this guide quotes both.
Why the aura, the throbbing and the numbness, in his account
The book then describes a migraine the way most sufferers would recognise it:
When a drop in body temperature patterns results in the vessels of the brain becoming more leaky, migraine and other forms of headaches may result. Characteristically migraine headaches sometimes come on after a warning know as an aura. … After the aura, the headache pain may begin, frequently having a throbbing nature in the beginning and sometimes progressing to a more constant type of pain. In some cases of severe migraine, the headache may progress to cause nausea and vomiting, difficulty with bright lights bothering the eyes, and even temporary numbness or paralysis of various parts of the body.
— Headaches Including Migraines, the book
The rest of the chapter reasons through how fluid pressure would account for each stage, from the aura to the throbbing to the numbness. It is a clinician reasoning from a hypothesis, not reporting a measurement.
What migraine patients usually arrive on
The treatment chapter of the book lists the medicines migraine patients are usually taking when they arrive, which is also the list his two cases below had already been through:
Patients are frequently treated with long lists of different headache medicines for the troublesome and debilitating headaches, and even severe migraines that can be associated with Wilson’s Temperature Syndrome. These medicines include aspirin, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and an assortment of migraine headache medicines (beta-blockers, calcium channel-blockers, ergotamines, and narcotic pain medicines).
— How the Symptoms Are Typically Treated, the book
Two cases from his book
What follows are a physician’s recollections of two patients. They are vivid, and they are the reason many readers find this site. They are not a study, and the book does not present them as one.
I remember one migraine patient that I treated who described herself as a “migraine headache experiment.” She had suffered from migraines for over thirty years, and over that period of time, every new migraine treatment was given to her as it became available. Her migraine headaches were reduced by some of the therapies, but they were never satisfactorily controlled and they caused her a great deal of disability (having severe headaches almost on a daily basis). As is characteristic with the migraines associated with Wilson’s Syndrome, they worsened during stressful periods in her life. Within only a few short weeks of the WT3 protocol, her migraine headaches had improved dramatically. In fact, they were all but eliminated. She has been able to go months without any migraines, rather than just days. Of course, she was astonished and I, myself, continue to be amazed.
— Headaches Including Migraines, the book
The second case is in the treatment chapter:
One dramatic case that I remember involved a woman who was diagnosed as having severe basilar artery migraine headaches that would cause severe headache pain, nausea and vomiting, and even neurological changes that would cause numbness and/or weakness of her face, mouth, and hands. Her migraines were so severe at times they would leave her almost unresponsive. During such episodes she would often be taken to the hospital and given oxygen therapy which would sometimes help. … her migraine headaches responded quickly and dramatically to proper thyroid hormone treatment and body temperature pattern normalization. She has not had a severe headache since the time she was started on thyroid hormone therapy, when she was to the point of having these headaches every several days if not every day.
— How the Symptoms Are Typically Treated, the book
What he concludes, and how far he goes
This is the strongest passage on the subject anywhere on the site, and it is worth reading slowly:
It is difficult for me to remember a case where the patient’s migraines did not improve tremendously, if not completely, with the WT3 protocol and normalization of body temperature patterns. Apparently, normalization of body temperature patterns restores proper muscular tone in the blood vessels of the body, and can thereby eliminate the migraine headache condition. Although thyroid hormone therapy can’t correct all body temperature abnormalities, or all migraines, I certainly am of the opinion that proper thyroid hormone treatment is the most widely effective treatment for migraine headaches currently available. I am even beginning to wonder if abnormal body temperature patterns (especially low) are not the cause of migraine headaches.
— Headaches Including Migraines, the book
Three things to hold onto. “It is difficult for me to remember a case” is memory, not a count. “I certainly am of the opinion” is labelled as opinion by its author. And the last sentence is a question he raises, not a finding he reports.
Stress, temperature and the pattern he describes
The same article sets out the sequence the whole site is built on, and ties migraines to it:
Under stress, the body temperature tends to drop as a coping mechanism. Unfortunately, the temperature can tend to stay down even after the stress has passed, even though thyroid blood tests are normal.
One thing that is clear is that migraines often correlate quite closely with body temperatures and that migraines often resolve when low body temperatures are normalized.
“Clear” here means clear to him from his patients. The book’s own case above says the same thing about stress: her migraines “worsened during stressful periods in her life.”
What the site’s other writers add
Jen Palmer, who wrote for the site for several years, approaches the blood-vessel idea from the research side rather than from the clinic:
New research shows that even a slightly underactive thyroid gland, or low metabolic rate, causes endothelial dysfunction. That is, it interferes with the function of cells lining blood vessels. These cells respond to hormonal cues that help blood vessels relax and contract; therefore, they are important for healthy blood pressure and normal blood flow. Abnormal blood flow in the head is a major factor in migraine headaches.
— Migraines? PMS? Anxiety? You can fix them.
That article’s title is itself a promise. The passage quoted is the mechanism; the promise in the title is not a claim this guide makes.
A year later she summarised a long cohort study on headaches and thyroid function:
Over the course of this twenty year study, researchers found that people who suffer from headache disorders have a 41% increased risk of developing hypothyroidism in the future. That’s significantly higher than the group people without headaches, who only had a 21% increased risk of developing hypothyroidism.
— The connection between headaches and thyroid function
Migraines were more likely to lead to hypothyroidism then regular headaches, but both had a significant effect. Unfortunately, the study did not monitor whether or not thyroid hormone treatment also alleviated the headache disorder.
— The connection between headaches and thyroid function
Two cautions, both from the article itself. The study is about an association in one direction: people with headache disorders went on to develop hypothyroidism more often. It did not test treatment, and it did not measure body temperature. The same article is also the place on the site that says the ordinary thing most clearly:
Chronic headaches and migraines can occur for a variety of reasons, so it’s always good to have your doctor rule out anything serious. But in my experience, people with low body temperature find relief from chronic headaches or migraines by correcting their temperature.
— The connection between headaches and thyroid function
A letter the site has published
A reader wrote in and the site printed the letter. It is what it is: one person’s account, in their words, with no way for anyone else to check the details.
I used to have a continuous migraine headache which required the maximum dose of Imitrex, 24 hours a day, to keep under control. After three T3 cycles (which took a total of three months), the migraines stopped. (I haven’t had a migraine headache for over a year.) After two more cycles (another two or three months), my bad sinus headaches stopped.
— John, a reader’s letter printed in Thyroid and Migraines
More letters like it are collected under patient experiences.
Where each claim comes from
| Claim | Source on this site | Who wrote it | What kind of evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Migraines in these patients are caused by fluid retention from leaky vessels | Headaches Including Migraines (the book) | Dr. Wilson | A hypothesis, stated as his opinion |
| Low temperature leads to migraines, “though it’s not clear how” | Thyroid and Migraines (2010) | Dr. Wilson | Clinical observation; mechanism unknown by his own account |
| Migraines improved or stopped in the patients he treated | The book, two chapters | Dr. Wilson | Two case recollections; no series, no trial |
| Migraines “often resolve” when low temperatures are normalized | Thyroid and Migraines (2010) | Dr. Wilson | Clinical experience |
| Even mild low thyroid function affects the cells lining blood vessels | Migraines? PMS? Anxiety? (2015) | Jen Palmer, summarising a published review | Published research on a related mechanism, not on migraine treatment |
| People with headache disorders developed hypothyroidism more often over twenty years | The connection between headaches and thyroid function (2016) | Jen Palmer, summarising a 2016 cohort study | Published association; the study did not test treatment |
| “The migraines stopped” | A reader’s letter | A patient | Testimony |
What this does and does not establish
It establishes what Dr. Wilson believes and how he arrived at it: a fluid-retention model he reasons through step by step, two patients he remembers vividly, and a stated opinion that correcting the temperature is the most useful migraine treatment he knows. It establishes that at least one published study found people with headache disorders go on to develop low thyroid function more often than people without. It does not establish that low body temperature causes migraines, that correcting it stops them, or that his model of what happens inside the skull is right. Those would need a trial, and none has been done. The published record behind the protocol as a whole is small and is described on the author page. The objection hub sets out why the American Thyroid Association and others do not recognise the diagnosis, and that applies to the migraine claims as much as to any other.
If you want to act on it
The site’s advice to anyone with recurring headaches is the same advice it gives everyone, and it starts with a thermometer, not a prescription:
If you have migraines or headaches on a regular basis, you owe it to yourself to start checking your body temperatures
— The connection between headaches and thyroid function
The threshold the site’s writers use is stated in the PMS article, and it is quoted here rather than restated so that the numbers stay theirs:
If your body temperature is consistently low—below 98.5 F., or 36.94 C, but typically lower than 97.8 F, or 36.56 C.— there’s a good chance that you have low metabolism and low thyroid hormone function.
— Migraines? PMS? Anxiety? You can fix them.
How to take the reading properly is its own guide: how to take your temperature for a log, and what the numbers mean in Dr. Wilson’s words. If the log runs low, the next step is a doctor who will look at the log and your headache history together. The guide to finding such a doctor and the practitioner directory are the starting points. Dr. Wilson also writes that medicine is not always the first move:
Sometimes people can normalize their body temperatures on their own with lifestyle changes such as healthy diet, rest, exercise and eliminating stress.
What he suggests trying before any prescription is collected in before T3. Other symptoms the site treats the same way are gathered under body temperature.
Questions people ask
Can a low body temperature cause migraines?
Dr. Wilson’s position is that it can, and he says the mechanism is uncertain. The site’s writers put it this way:
The relationship isn’t clearly understood, but low body temperature can lead to migraines and it may be related to a blood vessel reaction to low temperatures.
— The connection between headaches and thyroid function
Should I stop my migraine medicine and check my temperature instead?
No. Nothing on this site tells anyone to stop a prescribed medicine, and this guide does not either. Checking your temperature costs a thermometer and a week of mornings; it takes nothing away from the treatment you already have. If the log is low, bring it to the doctor who prescribes for you.
Is there a study of T3 therapy for migraines?
Not on this site, and none is cited here. The migraine material is a physician’s model, his case recollections, a reader’s letter, and one published association study that did not test treatment.
This is a reader’s guide compiled from the writing published on this site. Every quotation is verbatim, links to its source, and is attributed to the person who wrote it. It is not medical advice, and nothing here should change a prescription without the prescribing doctor.