Worsening Migraines – Another Confirmed Side-effect of Menopause

Rather unfortunate news for those approaching and going through menopause, new studies have just confirmed what patients have been telling their physicians for years now…that migraines tend to worsen in the during the menopausal and pre-menopausal stages. Migraines headaches, which can be brought on by a variety of different triggers, can range in severity, duration, and frequency and can have a significant impact on an individual’s ability to function normally, impacting their quality of life.

Noticing a common trend in complaints from menopausal women regarding their migraine headaches, researchers decided to take a closer look into their claims that migraine headaches get worse with menopause. After conducting a fairly large study in which researchers had a little over 3,600 women between the ages of 35 and 65 complete questionnaires regarding their menopausal status, whether or not they had migraines and how frequent they occurred, researchers discovered that:

--8% of the premenopausal group had frequent headaches (10 or more headache days a month)

--12.2% of the perimenopausal group had frequent headaches

--12% of the menopausal women had frequent headaches

While further research still needs to be conducted to explore the cause and effect relationship, experts suspect that the decreasing estrogen levels could be causing the worsening migraines.

Fortunately there are treatments available! In addition to possible hormone therapy treatments (which should be discussed with your healthcare provider), Mountainside Medical Equipment offers a variety of different migraine and headache medications to provide the relief you need to get through the day (and menopause) with less discomfort and distress. Mountainside Medical Equipment has also dedicated a section of their website to products that are tailored towards helping you get through menopause as ‘gracefully’ as possible and with as little impedance as possible on your quality of life.

Source:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_146962.html