Migraines during menopause can vary widely. The good news is over 70% of women will see an improvement in their migraines after menopause. The other 30% usually stay about the same or get a little bit worse. When you stop menstruating, your body produces much less estrogen and hormone levels even out. Nearly 18 million women are afflicted with migraine. Hormonal migraines usually seem to be triggered by changes in estrogen and progesterone levels. There seems to be a link between estrogen and serotonin, a chemical which is believed to be closely related to migraines. At the time in your cycle when the estrogen drops, so does the serotonin. And so, migraine seems to most often occur when estrogen levels, which have just been high, drop. Often a woman will get her first migraine during adolescence for this reason. Before the teen years, males and females both get migraines equally. But after menstruation begins, females get 3x the migraines.
In female migraineurs triptans balance chemicals in the brain.
Added regulation of sleep is very helpful especially with the use of antidepressants. Use of the triptans is a tremendous added advantage in managing headache associated with the menopause and with the ability to choose medication matching the duration of action, speed of action, side effect profile, and consistency of the various triptans to the patient, frequently leads to better control of the headache.