Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom never told you from house top
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey Molly, Hey Kristen, I've got a
Speaker 1: riddle for you. Okay, what does Susan Olson, who played
Speaker 1: Sydney on The Brady Bunch, and Joan Didion have been common? Okay,
Speaker 1: so we've got um Sidian Brady Sydy Brady adorable pigtails
Speaker 1: and Joan Didion not as adorable. That's harsh. Author of
Speaker 1: the Year, Magical Thinking and essay Collections from the What
Speaker 1: do they have in common? I'm gonna go with fashion
Speaker 1: sense and love of asparagus. You're wrong, although they both
Speaker 1: were pretty fashionable. Uh. Didion and Olsen both had problems
Speaker 1: with chronic migraines. Yikes. But they're not alone. No, they're
Speaker 1: not alone. Um, they are two of many women who
Speaker 1: have problems with chronic migraines. Because the fact of the
Speaker 1: matter is women have far more migraines than men. So
Speaker 1: real quick, before we examine why that might be, um,
Speaker 1: let's talk about what a migraine is. Because I think
Speaker 1: the first time I first time I had a migraine
Speaker 1: for a long time, I thought it was some other
Speaker 1: kind of headache. I thought it was like a sinus,
Speaker 1: headache or something. But um, to have a migraine here,
Speaker 1: you gotta have some of these. Moderate to severe pain
Speaker 1: often described as pounding or throbbing, pain that affects the
Speaker 1: whole head or shifts from one side of the head,
Speaker 1: sensitivety sensitivity to light, noise or odors, yep, blurred vision,
Speaker 1: nausea or vomiting, stomach upset, a dominant pain, loss of appetite, UH,
Speaker 1: sensations of being very warm or cold, paleness, fatigue, dizziness
Speaker 1: either and UH. You might have an aura, which is
Speaker 1: bright flashing dots or lights that appear to you. And
Speaker 1: this list of symptoms courtesy of web md, which also
Speaker 1: notes that no migraine is really ever the same from
Speaker 1: person to person. I always had teeth pain painted my teeth, Lana,
Speaker 1: I had a migraine. Really Yeah. The few migraines that
Speaker 1: I've had were always preceded by auras. So you were
Speaker 1: an oora suffer. I was an aura sufferer. And I
Speaker 1: think one thing also about about migraines is that if
Speaker 1: you haven't had a migraine, you cannot understand or relate
Speaker 1: to what it is. Oh No, I remember when I
Speaker 1: had my first time. I was trying to describe it
Speaker 1: to the coworker of mine. She like gave me a
Speaker 1: hug when she realized that, like someone else understood that
Speaker 1: she was going through. Well, maybe she have your hug too,
Speaker 1: because you are a fellow woman who's had migraine problems. Um,
Speaker 1: sevent of women, according to the Mayo Clinic, have migraine
Speaker 1: pain will only six percent of men do. So it
Speaker 1: begs the question why do women have more migraines than men? Well,
Speaker 1: maybe first we should talk about um triggers. Okay, just
Speaker 1: environmental triggers that might cause migraines. We've got things like stress,
Speaker 1: bright lights, weird smells, changes in season, medication, alcohol, aged cheese,
Speaker 1: I mean pretty much anything it seems like can can
Speaker 1: bring on a migraine. Yes, it's actually kind of frustrating
Speaker 1: because some of these things you really just can't avoid.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't seem like the triggers would really be
Speaker 1: gender specific. I mean men and women both encounter aged
Speaker 1: cheese and alcohol at some point. But what you do
Speaker 1: have to remember is that people might respond to triggers
Speaker 1: in different ways. Um, Like, let's say there's a cup
Speaker 1: of coffee and you have it, has this caffeine that
Speaker 1: might trigger our migraine. Uh, it's probably gonna hit you
Speaker 1: a little harder as a woman than it's going to
Speaker 1: hit a man, just because men are bigger. And that's
Speaker 1: one thought. Maybe maybe just these triggers affect people differently.
Speaker 1: We also have to take family history into account. Um.
Speaker 1: For instance, identical twins who have my are more likely
Speaker 1: to have both of them to have migraines than fraternal twins.
Speaker 1: The closer you are to a family member who has migraines,
Speaker 1: the more likely you are to have migraines. Like my
Speaker 1: mom had terrible migraines. I remember when I was growing up,
Speaker 1: and so you know I have migraines, and I know
Speaker 1: that at least one of my sisters also suffers from
Speaker 1: migraines sometimes. So the fact that you knew that this
Speaker 1: family history was there probably led you to understanding what
Speaker 1: was going on when you've had your first migraine. You know,
Speaker 1: there's family history. We got some environmental things. The way
Speaker 1: that we process our bodies processing is different from men.
Speaker 1: And then they're the hormones, the h words hormones. Women
Speaker 1: seem to get screwed with hormones. I gotta say, I
Speaker 1: know we have. We have many articles on our site
Speaker 1: about all the things that hormones to screw up for us,
Speaker 1: and the big one is estrogen. Well, I was going
Speaker 1: to talk about how we just have more migraines, but
Speaker 1: talk about the role of estrogen and migraines. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: there there's a pattern between the levels of estrogen and
Speaker 1: a woman's body and the frequency of migraines. And we
Speaker 1: can trace all of this to the menstrual cycle. Whenever
Speaker 1: our periods come right before during our periods are estrogen
Speaker 1: levels drop. And it's also during those times that estrogen
Speaker 1: levels drop, migraine levels rise. So the more estrogen that
Speaker 1: we have surging through our blood means the fewer migraines
Speaker 1: that we have. And if you want some backup for this,
Speaker 1: up until the time that girls go through puberty, they
Speaker 1: have the same number migraines as boys. You know, if
Speaker 1: you are a childhood sufferer of migraines, it's it's all
Speaker 1: about the same until you hit puberty. Yeah, and as
Speaker 1: many as sixty as seventy of women who get migraines
Speaker 1: report that their monthly cycle is related to when they
Speaker 1: get migraines. So when that you know that estrogen level drops,
Speaker 1: then then the headaches come. So if you're on let's say,
Speaker 1: a hormonal contraceptive as your form of birth control, that
Speaker 1: might be helping it because it's getting your hormones a
Speaker 1: little bit more level, or it can even worse than it. Um.
Speaker 1: But the the positive side is that you know it
Speaker 1: can be one of the things that you work with
Speaker 1: your doctor to kind of regulate so that you can
Speaker 1: find a form of breath control that both or leaves
Speaker 1: the migraines and serves as an effective contraceptive. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: And then there's also a chance that it could be
Speaker 1: triggered by an underlying central nervous system disorder, and basically
Speaker 1: when that happens, this disorder would cause a release of
Speaker 1: neuropeptides or brain chemicals which would excite your brain too
Speaker 1: much and then cause migraines. So those could be a
Speaker 1: couple of other underlying reasons for it. But I think
Speaker 1: so the newest research to come out about migraines and
Speaker 1: why we get them has to do with something called
Speaker 1: cortical spreading depression or CSD, and CSD is um sort
Speaker 1: of a fancy term for brain excitability or a literal
Speaker 1: brain storm if you will. Yeah, it's like your brain.
Speaker 1: It's just there's just too much going on in your brain.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's why women have more migraines, they just
Speaker 1: have busier brains. No, Molly, that's not true. Cortical spreading
Speaker 1: depression happens when you've got these series of waves, waves
Speaker 1: of activity that move across your cortex or the outer
Speaker 1: layer of your brain um And when these waves occur,
Speaker 1: first you have a lot of rapid neuron firing okay,
Speaker 1: and that causes your brain to get more excited, increases
Speaker 1: the blood pressure and the blood flow to your brain
Speaker 1: because all those neurons are firing. And then after that
Speaker 1: there's a wave of what's called neuron inhibition, when basically
Speaker 1: the the neurones aren't totally dormant, but they're really not
Speaker 1: um they're not firing as much. And so once that
Speaker 1: activity sort of slows down in the cortex, that reduces
Speaker 1: the blood flow. So you have this sort of sudden
Speaker 1: change in blood pressure in your brain, and that change
Speaker 1: in pressure is where the headache pain from migraines comes from. Gotcha.
Speaker 1: So it's like a roller coaster basically with drops and
Speaker 1: then like even parts. Yes, and a study in Science
Speaker 1: Daily was telling me was that women are just more
Speaker 1: susceptible to these pressure changes. Women are have much lower
Speaker 1: thresholds for this, about two to three times lower than men. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just a lot easier for for women to experience
Speaker 1: CSD than men. So okay, so now we know why
Speaker 1: it happens. But I think really quickly should go over
Speaker 1: what you should do if it happens, because web md
Speaker 1: reports that even though more than twenty eight million American
Speaker 1: women get migraines, only three to five percent of them
Speaker 1: actually seek any help for it. Yeah, I just go
Speaker 1: to bed if I can, I have to leave work
Speaker 1: and go to bed. Well, that sort of attitude is
Speaker 1: what is contributing to migraine being one of top four
Speaker 1: disabling conditions. Yeah, that was reported by World Health Organization,
Speaker 1: and they also contributed seventeen billion dollars a year, a
Speaker 1: cord a Scientific American in lost work, disability payments, and
Speaker 1: healthcare expenses. So these headaches are certainly not having imaginary effects,
Speaker 1: even though some people don't sympathize with them. But what
Speaker 1: can we do, Molly, if we have if the aura
Speaker 1: comes on and our head starts pounding. Well, even if
Speaker 1: you just want to go straight to bed, what you
Speaker 1: should do is you should make a note of it
Speaker 1: in a journal. Try and remember all the details, what
Speaker 1: you might have eaten, how much sleep you might have gotten,
Speaker 1: so you can start to figure out your triggers, because
Speaker 1: that's really going to help the doctor kind of determine
Speaker 1: what might be the best course for you. And then
Speaker 1: once you figure them out. I mean this sounds, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of overly silly, but then you just sort of
Speaker 1: trying to avoid them. Avoid migraines, avoid your triggers, regular sleep, exercise,
Speaker 1: no aged aged cheese, if that's what does it for you,
Speaker 1: cut back on the caffeine. And then after that, once
Speaker 1: you've got your journal and you know your triggers, then
Speaker 1: you know then the doctor. Don't be one of those
Speaker 1: people who don't seek help for it. Talk to your
Speaker 1: doctor and see what kind of medications might be available.
Speaker 1: And speaking of medications, there is a new drug that
Speaker 1: they've been looking into that could be the key to
Speaker 1: migraine relief. It's a drug called ment mementine. Mementine, it's
Speaker 1: kind of hard to say, and it's being studied. Um
Speaker 1: for its uh, the ability to block cortical spreading depression,
Speaker 1: that brain excitability, so you might be able to take
Speaker 1: mementine and um and it'll calm your brain down so
Speaker 1: that you don't have all that active firing and the
Speaker 1: changes in blood pressure and at the end of the
Speaker 1: day a debilitating headache. And regardless of how that turns out,
Speaker 1: they are you know, some things work like pain relieving medications, UM,
Speaker 1: beta blockers, antidepressants, even botox injections have been studied as
Speaker 1: a way to relieve migraines. Goodness, well, I guess they'll
Speaker 1: make some women happy multit asking yep. But also on
Speaker 1: the upside, if you are suffering from migraines. Okay, you're
Speaker 1: a woman, you're suffering from migraines, and you don't you know,
Speaker 1: mementene is not yet an option for you. You can
Speaker 1: wrestle easier at night because you have a thirty percent
Speaker 1: lower chance of getting breast cancer. Says that it's a
Speaker 1: new study that just came out. Um that was reported
Speaker 1: in a bunch of different sources actually, but the one
Speaker 1: that I found was in CBS News, and um, it
Speaker 1: all has to do with those estrogen levels. They're basically
Speaker 1: saying that women who have a lot of migraines have
Speaker 1: low estrogen levels, and if you have low estrogen levels,
Speaker 1: and you're less likely to develop breast cancer because women
Speaker 1: with higher estrogen levels are more likely to develop it. Christen,
Speaker 1: you're always looking on the bright side of things. Lower.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a pretty big number, Molly though, that is.
Speaker 1: But I'm more concerned about the number of women who
Speaker 1: already suffer migraines, and I think that if you are
Speaker 1: one of those women, you should maybe try some of
Speaker 1: the tips we tried, and also find out more information
Speaker 1: about uh beans in the brain on how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
Speaker 1: visit how stuff works dot com.