Every month it happened again during Janna’s period, but according to Karin and her mother the complaints were also related to stress. “She had just gotten divorced at the time and raised me largely alone. Plus, she worked in healthcare, which was also very tough, so that added even more stress.” Janna says that she has had tests done before, but she was never prescribed pain relief and was mainly dependent on paracetamol.
“I took that, but it didn’t help at all. I haven’t had any problems with it for years now. I think it was hormonal, because I didn’t have any headaches during the pregnancies.” Karin is also happy that her mother is no longer bothered by it. “I always felt so sorry for her. But luckily things are going a lot better now. She has much less stress, a boyfriend she lives with, and the menopause is behind her. That also helps enormously.”
Like Mother like daughter
But where her mother no longer suffers from it, Karin’s complaints begin. She recently noticed that she experiences the same symptoms as her mother during her period. “My mother used to hope that I would be spared this, but for the past six months I have had a huge headache behind my eyes every time. At that moment I don’t know what to do anymore.”
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The first time she experiences these complaints, Karin still thinks it is part of her period. “I was experiencing cramps and headaches, but when does the headache get so bad that it becomes abnormal?” The second time, the headache is so intense that she puts paracetamol next to her computer while working, while she normally tries to avoid it. “But it didn’t make the headache go away. I try not to take too much because that’s not good either. That weekend I was also at a birthday party and people asked why I was so quiet and if I was tired. But I had so many headaches. It was actually too much, because the next day I was in bed, just like my mother used to be.
It’s not as bad as hers, but I’m afraid that, like her, I’ll end up like a hermit in my bedroom and vomit my whole body out. That’s my fear, that I could get that too. I would also like to know whether migraine is hereditary or not.”
Expert speaks
Previously we have at LINDA. wrote an article answering these questions. Then experts Gisela Terwindt (professor of Neurology, head of the Leiden Headache Center) and Britt van der Arend (physician-researcher) explained that you speak of migraine if you meet a number of criteria. It is a one-sided, throbbing headache, often accompanied by nausea or the inability to tolerate light and sound. Terwindt adds: “You often cannot continue with your daily activities.”
Karin mainly suffers from migraines during her period. According to Terwindt, menstruation appears to be a triggering factor. Van der Arend thinks that migraines occur during menstruation due to a drop in estrogen levels just before menstruation. According to the experts, the fact that the complaints disappear after menopause, as in Karin’s mother, can also be explained.
Van der Arend: “During menopause you have many hormone fluctuations, including decreases in estrogen. We think that the migraine may therefore worsen during this period. As soon as a woman has gone through menopause, you often see that the migraine disappears.”
Unfortunately for Karin, heredity is a fixed factor for migraines, as Van der Arend explains in the article: “If a parent has migraines, there is a good chance that the child will also get it.” So far, Karin has not yet gone to the doctor with her complaints. “I find it difficult to determine whether this is part of my period or whether it is a migraine. I think more people are struggling with these questions. But if it is this bad next time, I will definitely go to the doctor.”
Read the whole article here: Hormonal migraine: What is it and what can be done about it?
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2023-11-28 16:30:45
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