Migraine

Full Question:

Exactly how much of a role do hormones play in causing migraines?

I suffered from typical menstrual migraines as a teenager and a little more frequent as a young adult. I have had four children and had no migraines during the pregnancies but after each child and as I get older they have increased to 8-10 headaches a month. I also had a hysterectomy 2 1/2 years ago. I recently read that a lack of progesterone could be a definite cause. Do you have any advice. FYI: Imitrex takes care of the headaches and I don't seem to have rebound headaches because I may have a headache for four days in a row and then not for two weeks. Thank you very much, debiss.

Answer:

Dear debiss;

First, let's clarify the difference between the cause of Migraine disease and triggers of Migraine attacks. Migraine is a neurological disease cased by genetics and overly sensitive neurons in the brain. For more information, see Migraine - What Is It?

Triggers, on the other hand, are physical things that can bring on or "trigger" a Migraine attack when a Migraineur encounters them. They don't necessarily always trigger a Migraine, and may be mild enough that they only trigger a Migraine when you encounter more than one of them. This is referred to as "cumulative" or "stackable" triggers.

Hormonal fluctuations are a very common Migraine trigger...

Continue reading Role of hormones in causing Migraines?

Teri,

That is a great explanation~ I am seeing a naturopath for the first time. He did run a complete, all day swab test of hormones. I'm looking forward to seeing what a "complete" customized approach from a compounding pharmacy does for me. I never felt comfortable taking a one-size fits all hormone supplement or using a patch.

I am a frequent migraine sufferer. I have close friend who does not get migraine headaches, but since becoming pregnant for her second child has started to experience painless optical migraines. The other day, she was reading on her computer and had a sudden loss of ability to read. She could still focus and see the words, but couldn't understand them. When she tried to alert her husband, she found she couldn't speak anything but gibberish. The episode lasted 5 minutes. I have a professor who suffers from these optical migraines as well, and he once experienced a similar attack, where he couldn't remember anyone's name. My friend went to the hospital and everyone is telling her she had some kind of minor stroke (she's 27!). Nobody at the hospital mentioned migraines at all. What are the doctor's thoughts on this?

According to the International Headache Society's internationally accepted classifications, there is no such thing as "optical migraine". Most migraines with visual disturbances are considered migraine with aura. There is, however a classification of retinal migraine. Here's a link to that info.

Retinal Migraine ~ The Basics