Mastodawn

I’ve tracked 197 #migraine episodes since May 2020.

2020–Oct 2025 Baseline: High-frequency, ~3 attacks/month, 7-day median gap. Severity typically 5–8 on a pain scale, peaking at 10.

Since #HRT and #estrogen: The median gap is 10 days, with much lower severity, averaging 1 on a pain scale with an occasional 4 breakthrough.

For you #perimenopause folks who find that migraines worsened in what might have been early perimenopause (before periods fluctuate), doctors may warn you that estrogen might worsen your migraines. But it might also be the thing that makes them better? It’s clearly dramatically helped me.

I’m basically back to the level I was when I first went in and was like “I seem to be having kinda frequent headaches? Can you help?” and got diagnosed with chronic migraine.

#menopause

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Jonobie Mar 14

And like, it sorta seems like that 7-10 median shift isn’t that big. But it FEELS huge. Instead of being like, “oh, yeah, that’s this week’s migraine”, or sometimes being unlucky enough to get two, I sometimes go a whole glorious week or more at a time with nothing.

The bigger drop is obviously the pain shift — feeling a 5-8 is basically “I’m fucked until the drug cocktail kicks in”. Feeling a 1 is like “oh, hey, I guess I’ve got an annoying headache”.

Anyhow, the estrogen patches haven’t been perfect - I’ve had problems with the first brand falling off and gumming up clothing with the adhesive, and I’m now switching to a brand that’s apparently better at sticking but requires changing 2x a week. But I’ll take the tradeoffs.

#menopause #perimenopause

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Knitronomicon Mar 14

@jonobie I still feel baffled at how many people have told me how much worse their moods (particularly depression) were when taking the Pill. I went on it in my 20s after getting my first serious boyfriend, and it was like coming out from under a big black cloud. I was able to realise that I'd effectively been getting at least three weeks of PMT a month! That occasional 'good day' I'd had? Was how I now felt most of the time! It wasn't till my mid-late 40s that the depression came back, and I was put on HRT (twice weekly patches), and Bam! depression gone again.

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Jonobie

@Knitronomicon Oh, interesting! I always found the pill a no-op on moods and the like, but it gave me serious nausea because I was always forgetting to take a pill (was terrible at pill compliance back then). I wonder if at some point we’ll be able sort people into which type of response they have so we can customize meds more… that would be so nice.

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Knitronomicon Mar 14

@jonobie I was told originally to take each pill at bedtime, but that made *me* nauseous. So I pointed out to my GP that, as bedtime could vary from 9.30pm to 1.30am, I couldn't take the pill at a consistent time, and asked if it would be OK to take it at breakfast time instead, as that was generally *much* more consistent. "Well...I suppose so!" So I did, and didn't have any trouble. (I was already taking other vitamin tablets at breakfast time anyway, so had no problem just adding one extra ... )