Hormonal Headaches In Women
Many women experience cyclical, predictable hormonal headaches around their periods. These hormonal headaches can be headaches before your period, headaches during your period, or headaches after your period. The mechanism for each headache type is different, therefore your naturopath with use different treatment techniques to resolve them.
Testing For Hormonal Headaches
To really determine if a headache is of hormonal origin, it can be helpful to run some laboratory tests. Your naturopath will do basic blood work to make sure we are not missing any underlying triggers (such as blood sugar imbalances, iron deficiencies, thyroid concerns), and then may suggest hormone testing. This will give us a better sense of if you are having difficulty clearing your estrogens, or if you have a relative progesterone deficiency. There may also be other factors in your life that are impacting your overall women’s hormonal health which need to be assessed and addressed.
It is very common to have headaches around your period, but the trick to preventing them is to determine which type of headache it actually is.
TYPE 1 | The Hormone Drop
At the end of the luteal phase, when the ovarian follicle (corpus luteum) receives no pregnancy signal from a developing embryo in the uterus, the corpus luteum shuts down, and consequently estrogen and progesterone levels plummet, causing the sloughing off of the endometrium, the menstrual bleed, and the recommencement of the cycle.
Some women are very sensitive to this abrupt shift in hormones, and one of the symptoms they can experience is a premenstrual headache. One way that we can buffer this rapid decline in estrogen in particular is to use phytoestrogens.
A study using 50mg of soy isoflavones for 8 weeks demonstrated a significant decrease in late luteal phase migraines. This would be like drinking 1 cup of organic soy milk and one serving (100g) of tofu per day, each of which contain 25mg isoflavones.
TYPE 2 | The Inflammatory
Inflammation is required to get the period going. It’s not a process we want to stop entirely, but we can reign it in a bit to reduce unpleasant symptoms including a “period headache”.
Herbs that can be helpful include turmeric and ginger. In fact taking 500mg of ginger capsules 3x per day, starting 1 week prior to your period (ideally, but some research shows just taking it during your period to be effective also) reduces menstrual pain. By the same mechanism it can be helpful for reducing period headaches.
TYPE 3 | The Depletion
Needless to say, depending on how heavy and (literally) draining your period is, towards the end of the period the body can be low on blood volume as well as down on some nutrients (iron among them of course).
The best way to avoid this type of headache is to make sure your iron levels are really good all month long (aiming for a ferritin between 50-80 ug/L), and ensuring that your fluids and electrolytes stay high during the bleeding phase. It is of course also important to reduce the heaviness of the flow generally, as it’s easier to avoid excessive blood loss than repeatedly having to replenish afterwards.
Be sure to consume plenty of salty bone broths, electrolyte drinks, and fluids generally.
Your Doctor: Meet Dr. Sarah
Dr. Sarah Goulding is a licensed naturopathic doctor (naturopath) in Ottawa and has a BSc in neuroscience and biology from Dalhousie University (2004), and did her 4-year naturopathic training at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine (2010). She’s since accumulated over a decade of clinical experience, and refined her practice to focus on women’s health and digestion. She is licensed and registered as a Naturopathic Doctor in Ontario by The College of Naturopaths of Ontario (CONO) and is a member of the Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors (CAND) and the Ontario Association of Naturopathic Doctors (OAND).
Dr. Sarah Goulding blends science and compassion, and acts as a personal health researcher to help you navigate your health. Tools that she uses include nutrition, supplements and botanicals, bioidentical hormones, and lifestyle modifications. The closer you get to the root cause, the gentler the therapies needed to resolve the issue.
