Transcript

Hello, hello and welcome back to the Hormone Hub, I’m your host, Kylie Pinwill, and this week we are talking migraines. Why [00:01:00] migraines all of a sudden in perimenopause can become debilitating for some women. And for some women it might be a whole brand new symptom that they’ve never suffered before.

So we’re gonna have a look at, what is causing those migraines, why it happens to be worse during perimenopause. And we’ll also have a look at what we can do to alleviate it, both from nutrition, diet, natural therapies, and also with, bioidentical hormones as well. So, Put the Panadol away just for a second.

Not that there’s anything wrong with Panadol by any means to treat migraines, but let’s have a look at what’s going on and what’s causing it and what we can do instead. Okay, so during perimenopause and menopause, as you know, Our hormones are on a fluctuating rollercoaster, up, down, up, down until they naturally lower, once we are through menopause.

So the good news [00:02:00] is if you are suffering from migraines , in the majority of women we do see, Pretty much the end of hormonal migraines once they get through menopause. So, there is light at the end of the tunnel, but what is happening is estrogen actually plays a really vital role in regulating the chemicals in our brain that affect pain sensitivity.

So as our estrogen levels surge and as they drop, it can trigger, a lot of physiological responses. So this can include, dilation of our blood vessels in our brain. It can, change the serotonin levels, in our brain, which are often associated with migraines.

So if we think of serotonin as our happy, calming, hormone, when, we get changes in that, it’s obviously going to affect the way we feel. Now certainly menstrual migraines are more severe than, migraines during other times of our cycle. And this is [00:03:00] possibly, and again, they don’t know for sure, but they think it’s possibly, due to that estrogen withdrawal.

So what happens is we ovulate our levels of progesterone and estrogen increase thinking. You know, are we pregnant? No, we are not. Estrogen drops, progesterone drops, and you know, we have a period, so it’s that, that drop in estrogen that is the problem, as well as that drop in progesterone. And this is why it seems to be more severe then. 

Menstrual migraines tend to be, or perimenopause, migraines tend to be more common when we have, high levels of fluctuating estrogen and relatively low progesterone. So this is common during perimenopause. So, our early stages of perimenopause, progesterone definitely drops lower faster than estrogen.

So we get that imbalance in that ratio of estrogen to progesterone, and this is why, we do tend to see an [00:04:00] increase in the number of women, who suffer from menstrual migraines between the ages of 40 to say 55. Okay? We’ve talked about, you know, that imbalance in the ratio and also that estrogen withdrawal.

So there’s a few things that we can do, , to help, I guess prevent or reduce the impact of menstrual migraines. One of the, the side effects of having that high estrogen is it stimulates our immune cells to produce more what we call prostaglandins and histamines.

So, it definitely, disrupts our serotonin, like we said, and also the way we deal with glutamate as well. So glutamate, you might remember back to the, the old eighties Chinese food day and, we had M S G, which was monosodium glutamate, and a lot of people used to get what they called, Chinese food, headaches.

It’s that same kind of like glutamate process. We do become more susceptible [00:05:00] to it through, perimenopause for sure. So certainly we wanna have a look at, how we can, change that. Definitely by reducing glutamate. Reducing histamines, calming the brain, and progesterone is a really good buffer for this.

So we’ll get to that in a sec. So first up, like if I was looking at, natural treatment of migraines, I’d be looking at a hundred percent you gonna guess it, magnesium. So magnesium can definitely reduce the frequency and the severity of migraines. So magnesium does a few different things.

It stabilizes our serotonin receptors, so our happy hormone receptors. Magnesium also helps reduce inflammation. We take magnesium because we get muscle cramps, we take magnesium, because of stress. It helps relax our muscles, it helps relax our nervous system, so it makes sense that it would relax the vessel, the blood vessels in our brain as well.

Now, magnesium also prevents the [00:06:00] release of like our pain promoting neurotransmitters as well. It’s got a couple of mechanisms there, which is why it is, Really important for anyone suffering from migraines. Now, if we combine magnesium with one of my other favorite nutrients, which is taurine.

So taurine is a very calming amino acid that can help prevent migraines. It also helps keep us in a lovely, happy, calm mood. So, That magnesium taurine combination is certainly one that I take every single day, and I notice it if I don’t take it now. Another sort of nutrient that they have been shown to help prevent migraines is riboflavin or vitamin B.

So this works by sort of normalizing our production of serotonin and it, helps improve the function of some of our, different enzymes which have also been associated with migraines. So, vitamin B or [00:07:00] riboflavin, that’s the, the one that makes your pee go yellow. Okay. So when you have fluoro yellow pee, that’s the riboflavin.

Okay, next up we would be looking at.

How is your sleep going? Because Melatonin which helps our whole is part of our circadian rhythm and helps us sleep. Certainly also helps reduce that inflammation. Which can be really helpful for migraine prevention. And of course if we’re sleeping better, we’re gonna feel better. Right? Now there’s been studies to show that gluten-free diets, has been.

Very helpful in eliminating migraines. They did a study and it worked on 89% of participants, which was, pretty big. And that gluten sensitivity, can cause that high glutamate levels. So what we wanna do is have a look at, what foods can be triggering.

What foods contain glutamate that can be triggering that migraine. If we look at anything [00:08:00] fermented, aged, cured, preserved, so things like, cheeses, so especially aged cheeses, Parmesan cheeses, things like that. Any preserved processed meats. So your salamis and all of those

delicious things. Ham. If we look at fermented foods, so all the things that we would otherwise consider to be good for our gut. Our Sauerkrauts kimchi’s, those actual fermentation process increases the amount of glutamate. This is where, we can’t ever have a one size fits all sort of healthy diet.

Because what might, be helpful for, for one woman’s gut is gonna trigger migraines in someone else. So we wanna avoid things like bone broths, slow cooked meats. Fresh tomatoes contain a high number of glutamate. Alcohol obviously is another one, walnuts. Interestingly, I didn’t know that was on the list until I did a bit of research.

And then we wanna have a look at anything potentially containing M S G or similar [00:09:00] to M S G. So, just because something has no ms, no added M s g doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have naturally occurring glutamate. So all of your sort of Asian sources, so anything, containing soy, soy-based fish sauces, oyster sauces, black bean sauces, anything along those lines.

Just check the ingredients and processed soy tends to be high in glutamate as well. So avoiding those foods then, if we’re looking at, natural therapies or alternate therapies, these are definitely, and in my experience with the women I work with, work for some people, but may not work for everyone.

Okay. So it’s like I said to a client yesterday, if only our body was an equation, we did this, we did that, and we got this result. But it doesn’t work like that. Certainly some women find things like acupuncture to be helpful for migraines. And it just Needles into specific points on the body, balance that energy flow, promote healing.

Herbal remedies can certainly be helpful. Yoga, [00:11:00] meditation, this can help reduce stress, promote relaxation, also reduce that anxiety around, the migraine is coming, so there’s certain natural amount of anxiety and stress around, anticipating a migraine as well.

C B T or cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a form of talk therapy that can help some women to sort of shift that, that fear, that anxiety, those sort of thought patterns and behaviors around the migraine coming, it can definitely be beneficial in managing the stress and, giving you some coping techniques.

Some people find relief using essential oils. So things like lavender, peppermint, eucalyptus, inhalation or, Even like a topical application. So if it’s in, a carrier oil, like coconut oil, for the love of all things, please never ingest, essential oils despite what you’re, no, what was that

essential oil company [00:12:00] that was big a few years ago, and they had all these unqualified people telling other people to, just drink it or put it in your water bottle. Don’t do that. Okay. Chiropractic care, can certainly, or osteopathic care, sometimes these can be really beneficial, addressing any misalignments, that might contribute to migraines.

And certainly, releasing any tension that’s held in your neck and your shoulders. Massage. Mind body techniques, like guided, muscle relaxation can be, can be helpful as well. Botox actually is an interesting one. I have had a client have, regular Botox

injections for chronic migraines. So what the mechanism is thought to be here is it blocks the, the pain signals as well. So again, it’s just important to remember that while they might provide relief for some, it’s definitely not a substitute or is gonna work for [00:13:00] everyone. So, certainly you need to, work out, speak to your healthcare providers, work out a personalized migraine management plan for you.

Now, the other thing I wanted to talk about, which is quite important is, When we go sort of loop back to what’s triggering that migraine is, it’s that imbalance in the ratio between estrogen and progesterone. And so certainly a very, valid way of supporting your body’s production of, progesterone is to use a bioidentical h r t of progesterone.

Okay? So this sort of works well or works best in the two weeks leading up to your period when that progesterone is likely to drop the most. So, certainly we a hundred percent want the bioidentical or body identical progesterone. So in Australia, this is known as Prometrium.

In New Zealand it’s known as [00:14:00] utrogestan capsules. These are oral, micronised, progesterone. Okay. Now this is not the same as a mirena, an implant on the birth control pill, a depot injection. All of those are synthetic progesterones and they’re progestins, so they don’t have the same migraine reducing effect as a bioidentical progesterone.

So I hope that helps, give you somewhere to, to start. So absolutely magnesium, terrain, B two, a hundred percent. Then we wanna have a look at bioidentical or body identical progesterone. And then there’s reducing your glutamate containing foods. And then we’ve got things like acupuncture, meditation, osteopathic or chiropractic care, essential oils, and, pain management sort of

techniques . So I hope that helps. If [00:15:00] you have suffered from, migraines and you have, found things that work, I would love to hear from you. Please share in the group because what, particularly if I haven’t mentioned it here. I don’t know everything. I fortunately don’t suffer from migraines, so, I can’t speak to this personally, but, certainly work with a lot of clients, who do, and I do know that here,

one thing I know for sure is not everything works for everyone. And also too, if you know someone who does suffer from migraines, please feel free to share this episode with them. Okay? So that’s it for this week, and I will see you in the next episode of the Hormone Hub. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.