Menstrual Migraine: Risk Factors?

A recent study in Spain surveyed university students to learn more about menstrual migraine. There were some surprising results.

First of all, 45.15% of the female students surveyed reported menstrual migraine. That is a ridiculously high number – in other words, we need to do better at proper prevention and treatment.

For a quick primer on menstrual migraine, see this graphic – Do You have Menstrual Migraine?

The interesting thing about the study were the “risk factors”. Actually, some of these are simply symptoms that seem to go along with menstrual migraine. Let’s take a look:

• Dysmenorrhea (pain during menstruation): Not surprising, as migraine patients do tend to be more susceptible to pain.
• Menstrual irritability: A second factor that seems to increase your chances of suffering from menstrual migraine.
• Menstrual dizziness: Although not talked about as much, dizziness is a very common symptom during menstruation (see this study).

There can be certain causes for each of these symptoms, so you would be wise to mention them to your doctor. There may be an underlying problem that is related to both the symptom due to your period and migraine itself.

There were some “risk factors” that you can do something about. The two mentioned in the study were:

• Daily consumption of cola beverages – yes, it is raising your risk. Sorry!
• Use of hormonal contraceptive methods – another risk factor you can discuss with your doctor.

These are just little bits of information from one study, but they are worth thinking about. Menstrual migraine tends to be harder to treat than many other kinds of migraine, and is less responsive to just “popping a pill” when the pain starts. So it’s important to think about your other symptoms and lifestyle in general to fight the migraine monster.

For more on the uniqueness of menstrual migraine, see 8 Reasons why Menstrual Migraine is “different”.

For the study abstract, just go to: Menstrual migraine among Spanish university students