In this episode, I'll look at natural ways to treat menstrual migraines and yoga postures and practices to help.
Approximately 70% of people who experience migraines are women, and often these are connected to certain times in their menstrual cycle - more specifically around menstruation. . Women are 3 x more likely to get migraines than men and research shows that almost 12% of women experience menstrual migraines at some point in their lives.
A ‘menstrual migraine’ is one type of migraine seen a lot by women. Other types of migraines are aura, migraine without aura and chronic migraine. Although you may be ‘lucky’ enough to suffer from all of these! There are also ‘menstrually related migraines’, which is when you can get migraines at any time of the month but your menses is also a trigger for more migraines.
Why Do They Happen?
When women suffer migraines, it's often related to changes in the levels of estrogen. Levels of estrogen drop immediately before the start of your period and may continue through the first few days. This kind of migraine mostly occurs during or after the time when the female hormones, estrogen and progesterone, have dropped to their lowest level.
Menstrual migraines are triggered by the drop in estrogen levels whereas other migraines can be triggered by a whole load of reasons such as stress, forgetting to eat, too much caffeine, or something else. Things like starting new hormonal birth control or using HRT during menopause can also trigger migraines, so if you’ve just started one of these treatments it could be worthwhile speaking to your doctor.
