Menopause A good share of women stop having migraines once they get through menopause. Providing migraine sufferers with hormone replacement therapy before they reach menopause can help to reduce fluctuations in estrogen levels, but it is not a perfect solution. The estrogens used in conjugated hormone replacement therapies do not precisely match the natural estrogens in women's bodies. So conjugated estrogens provide the wrong hormones at times, and this can actually worsen women's migraines. Daily doses of estrogens are needed because cycling sets the stage for migraines.
New research indicates that daily estrogens are as safe as cyclical estrogens for most women.
Some women benefit from using purified or specific estrogen replacement formulas, which better match naturally occurring estrogens than do broad-based estrogen formulas. Other women do better with estrogen patches, which provide continuous estrogen replacement. AOA Members, please e-mail the Member Service Center .