What are the Reasons for Your Pain?
Understanding the reasons for your menopause headache will help you to find relief from the pain and suffering.
In this article you will find:
- Explanation about your headaches
- Hormone headaches
- Other reason for your headaches or migraines
What to do about your menopause headache and migraine?
At the end of this article we will give you the link to the treatment page with information about some not so common herbal and natural remedies.
The reasons that women suffer from headaches and migraines during menopause are multi-faceted. Many women had hormone related headaches or migraines starting at puberty and reoccurring at specific times of their menstrual cycle.
Other women experience their first migraine in peri menopause because their body is becoming more sensitive to hormone fluctuations.
Yet another group can’t associate their migraines or headaches with hormones at all but have other factors that creep up in menopause and cause their pain.
You have probably already figured out that treatment for your menopause headache is difficult. Some women get relief from hormone therapy but others get severe migraines with nausea when they use hormones, especially synthetic estrogen and progesterone.
Another group is wondering why the headache medication they have always relied on is no longer providing any relief.
All this is just another indication that menopause headaches are a complex issue with more than one underlying cause. This complexity also explains why some drugs that work for your friends will not work for you.
Menopause Migraines
There are some distinct differences between migraines and menopause headaches. Contrary to headaches, migraines follow a distinct pattern with three or four phases.
Chronic migraine suffers know that when certain symptoms appear, a migraine headache will soon follow. This is the prodrome phase and the signs are aversion to certain smells or foods, sensitivity to light or sounds, and changes in thinking and emotions etc.
The prodrome phase is in some people followed by a auras. Auras are light sensations or flashes and signal the onset of severe pounding headaches.
Often the pain occurs together with extreme sensitivity to sounds or lights, and sometimes with nausea and vomiting. Migraine headaches are mostly concentrated on one side of the head, but this is not always the case.
The postdrome phase signals the end of a migraine and usually people feel tired or worn out after the pain has gone.
| – Migraines have their own medications but numerous people get relief from regular over-the-counter pain pills.- Be careful if you use any medication with caffeine. Although caffeine supports the pain medication, some people get jittery or nauseous.- Caffeine can also cause withdrawal headaches which would compound the problem. |
Although the mechanisms of migraines are still unknown, researchers now focus on the expansion and contraction of blood vessels together with extreme excitability and sensitivity of certain brain areas.
It is clear that serotonin, one of the key neurotransmitters of the nervous system, is playing a role. The interaction of hormone and neurotransmitters is a reason for many of the menopause symptoms.
If you are in perimenopause and suffer from migraines with auras, your symptoms are probably caused by high estrogen levels. On the other hand, if you do not experience auras, the menopause migraine is likely due to estrogen withdrawal.
Hormone Headaches
Although migraines and headaches differ, both can have hormonal causes.
Menopause is a time with drastic hormone changes. This means for some women headaches and migraines become even worse or start for the first time.
There are three reasons for hormone headaches or migraines:
- Imbalance of estrogen to progesterone leading to estrogen dominance
- Low estrogen and progesterone levels
- Low progesterone levels
| Any time you experience asudden severe headache,especially if it is centered on the temple region, seek medical help because it can be a sign of a severe illness such as temporal arteritis. |
Temporal arteritis is an inflammation of the arteries and can lead to permanent blindness. It is 4 times more common in women than in men and usually strikes people in their 50s – just at the time of menopause.
Most women experience headaches when hormone levels are rapidly changing. During the reproductive years, this can happen during ovulation when estrogen spikes or during the monthly period when estrogen and progesterone are at their lowest.
Both estrogen and progesterone have an effect on the brain as well as on the blood vessels (estrogen dilates and progesterone constricts blood vessels). Women whose brain is sensitive to fluctuating levels of brain chemicals develop headaches or migraines.
Perimenopause, a time when the body is going through frequent hormone imbalances is a prime time for any kind of hormone-related menopause headache. To pinpoint which of the 3 hormone reasons trigger your headache is difficult.
Even hormone tests (blood or saliva) are tricky because by definition peri-menopause means rapid and irregular hormone changes. And the normal ranges of hormone levels are very wide and do not necessary provide an answer.
For most women the ratio of estrogen to progesterone is more important for their symptoms than the actual level of each hormone. (Some doctors test if a woman is going through peri menopause by testing for follicle stimulation hormone (FSH) levels. High FSH levels are a sign for menopause.)
During peri-menopause low progesterone levels become a more frequent reason for a menopause headache than the drop in progesterone during your reproductive years.
Other Reasons for Menopause Headaches
Stress is the most common reason for headaches and migraines. Stress acts as a trigger and can also make the pain worse.
Every time your body is under stress, the brain releases chemicals to prepare a “fight or flight” response. The adrenalin triggers changes in the blood vessels which in turn causes the menopause headache.
Tension headaches are caused by a tightening of neck and head muscles. Stress or tension headaches are the “vise that squeezes your head” kind of pain. They can be chronic or acute depending on the frequency.
Tension headaches are often caused by bad posture, eye strain, and lack of stretching, neck or spine injuries or even dental problems.
Both stress and tension headaches are treated successfully with over-the-counter medication and stress relieving techniques.
Emotional stress headaches on the other hand need to be dealt with by addressing the underlying cause of the stress and by pain relief treatments.
Withdrawal headaches are triggered when the intake of certain substances are either changed or stopped. The abuse (either long-term use or excess use) of any kind of chemical can lead to withdrawal symptoms but most common is caffeine withdrawal.
Caffeine withdrawal headaches last for a day to a week depending on the amount of caffeine the body was used to. Keep in mind that caffeine is an ingredient in many painkillers, and is in chocolate, soft drinks and tea. The only way to stop caffeine withdrawal headaches is to gradually wean the body of caffeine.Decrease the caffeine amount gradually over several weeks to avoid the worst of the withdrawal symptoms.
Overuse of over-the-counter pain killers or other medications can lead to rebound headaches. Because the brain becomes used to the chemical in the medication, people take more and more of it. This results not in relief but in worse headaches and an overall feeling of being ill.
The only way to relieve the pain is to wean the body off the chemical. This should be done with the help of a health care provider.
Conclusion about Your Menopause Headache and Migraine
Do not expect that every pain medication or herb for menopause headache relief will work for you. As you can see, headaches are a complex subject that has baffled the medical community for centuries. Add to this the hormone fluctuation during menopause and you have the perfect storm.
Some women have great and immediate results with some of the herbs we discuss in the treatment section; others found relief through hormone therapy.
Whatever method works for you should be supported by nutrition and a lifestyle that is as healthy as you can make it.
Headaches and migraines are very complex ailments that baffle the medical community to this day. Head over to the section about menopause headache treatments to find out what you can do about your pain.