Menopause and Headaches
by Cathy Taylor
zone3
Find out what to natural solutions can help you cope with and
prevent headaches including migraines.
During the mid-life phenomenon known as menopause, changes in headache
type, duration and intensity are more common. Throbbing, explosive
headaches can pain the sides of your head, and your energy become totally
depleted. The slightest opening of an eye can cause a ripple of pain to
burst on one side of your fragile head, leaving you in physical ruin.
Menopause is known to heighten such uncomfortable, sometimes unbearable
symptoms.
Menopause and headache changes, specifically, migraine headaches cause
a repetitive stronger-than-normal headache that resides on one side of
your head. During menopause, a womans hormone system goes awry in part
because estrogen is not being produced at normal rates.
Most women nearing the end of a menstrual lifecycle discover that their
progesterone levels can become significantly decreased and cause symptoms
such as headaches they never had before, or worsen ones they have.
During menopause, other things like foods such as cheese, avocado,
nuts, meat tenderizers, and chocolate have been known to bring on a
migraine. Other factors a woman must look for are certain
medications including oral contraceptives, changes in weather, fatigue,
and alcoholic beverages.
During these headache changes, blood vessel walls in the brain widen
and narrow quickly, causing pain nerves to overreact and stimulate pain.
The ¨throbbing¨ feeling in the head is because of this bodily reaction.
During menopause, signals that a migraine is coming can be frequent.
Some women get a warning; their eye sight may suddenly change, or
bright spots or zig zag lines are seen. They report experiencing double
vision, and in some cases temporary, partial blindness. Sometimes these
changes may be followed by numbness and tingling of the lips, face hands,
weakness of an arm or le
You need to pay attention to symptoms such as dizziness, extreme mental
and physical fatigue, unsteadiness in walking, slight confusion of
thinking and slight slurring of speech. Any of these can indicate the
on-set of a migraine headache. The intensity of the headache can build
until you have a full-force, throbbing headache that typically impacts one
side of your head. There are also migraines that occur immediately.
These are quite common and women report that these headaches can last
from a couple of hours to days in extreme cases. In severe
cases, migraines can cause vomiting and extreme sensitivity to light and
noise.
If you want a quick fix to migraine headaches, a technique that helps
some women is breathing into a paper bag. Inhaling and exhaling out of a
paper bag can restore carbon dioxide intake and eliminate or lessen the
effects of brought on by anxiety attacks. Using an ice cold pack and
sometimes applying heat to the area can help.
Try staying in a darkened room and lying still as this can bring relief
once a migraine has hit. Lying down provides relaxation which is
critical to lessening the pain. If you know yoga, this is a good time to
practice it. Also, take slow, depth breaths into the abdomen letting your
attention watch your naval rise and fall (which calms the mind).
Some women benefit from evening primrose oil, progesterone cream and
dandelion tea to detoxify the liver. Of course there are some women with
symptoms so severe they need drugs such as imitrex. Thats where you need
to follow your doctors advice.
The information in this article is for educational purposes only, and
is not intended as medical advice.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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