Menstrual Headaches & Migraines

In store, we spend a lot of time educating people around the difference between what’s ‘normal’ and what’s ‘common’

A recent client of mine Jodie was no different.

Jodie used to lose 2 weeks of every month due to menstrual irregularities. It wasn’t fair for Jodie, but she had come to accept it as ‘normal’ for her.

From around 2 weeks after her period, she would start to get extreme headaches and migraines. She would take pain relief, but it would only take the edge off. Her Doctor tried her with different contraceptives, but they actually made things worse. After trying an anti-depressant for the ‘2 weeks of hell’ with no success, her friend suggested she visit us.

I’ll never forget when Jodie came in, when she was describing her symptoms, the tears began to well. Jodie clearly felt at her wit’s end. At first, she wasn’t complaining about her pain, she was describing how it was affecting her life. She was explaining how it affected her relationships, her work and most of all, quality of life.

Jodie was always told It was ‘normal’ to get headaches and migraines close a period, but I disagree. It’s ‘common’, but not ‘normal’. The two are very different. Menstrual headaches and migraines are common, but not normal.

Unfortunately, in today’s age what women are willing to accept as part of normal astounds me.

I repeat.

It is NOT normal for a menstruating woman to experience headaches and migraines as part of her hormonal fluctuations – it’s common.

In Jodie’s case, we discovered that Jodie was having trouble detoxing oestrogen. The normal hormonal fluctuations of oestrogen were problematic as Jodie was unable to detoxify the hormone efficiently. In the first half of her cycle this wasn’t a problem as the overall hormone load was lower, but as oestrogen peaks around ovulation and doesn’t fully drop until just before a period, we knew this was a likely and ‘common’ culprit.

To help give Jodie her two weeks back, we focussed on reducing foods which weren’t helping her hormone balance and introduced herbs and nutrients which helped reduce inflammation and facilitate better detoxification.

Fast forward 2 months and Jodie was excited to report that she ‘hasn’t used a single Nurofen’ this month.

We quite often cop flack from ‘nay-sayers’ around natural medicine, but here is another clear win for ‘us’.

I don’t view natural medicine as ‘alternative’, – it’s just medicine. We’re all in the business of helping people.

So, if you’re interested in how we may help you, then please visit us in store.

We are inspired and motivated by the many people we have the pleasure of treating and getting results for.

What can we help you with?

PS. If you didn’t want to just pop in and pick our brain, you can make a booking for a consultation where we’ll turn you upside down and inside out (not literally) to find an answer and way forward.