Migraine Headache Blog

Why do some menopausal women get migraines for the first time? Everyone knows the “typical” migraine patient: Female and onset of migraines between age 25 - 35, right?

Migraines can start as young as 7-8 years old and run all the way into the 70’s.  The number of children getting migraines is increasing.  The oldest women I see getting migraines for the first time are in their 50’s, and not much older.

The question is why? Theoretically, women with migraines are supposed to get better once they enter menopause, but I really haven’t seen that, either.  For many women, if they already had migraines for years, their migraines got even worse after menopause.

So what is going on? It’s all in the hormones - and possibly, more importantly, - it’s in the relative balance of hormones between the estrogens and progesterone. For good measure, I will throw in another hormone - thyroid - that acts as a wild card.

For one thing, we are seeing an epidemic of women with severe menopausal symptoms. In past centuries, this didn’t happen.  Of course, in past centuries, we didn’t see this epidemic of migraines, either.  So there must be some sort of external stimulus for migraines, regardless of the age and for severity of menopausal symptoms?

I have been saying for years that birth control pills have wrecked several generations of women. Throw in traditional, synthetic hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and you have most of the answer.  For those who managed to escape taking both birth control pills and HRT, there are xeno-estrogens.

All of these external stimuli shut down and poison the ovaries.  The ovaries manufacture sex hormones like estrogen and progesterone (and testosterone).  Once the ovaries are poisoned, the game is over. Then we wait for bad things to happen from migraines to ovarian cysts and endometriosis to breast cancer.

Menopausal women by definition have had their estrogen levels fall off a cliff. It stands to reason that if the ovaries are not making estrogen  in sufficient quantities, then maybe they are making the other sex hormones, too? When that happens, you get migraines.

The good news is that migraines and menopause are both hormonal conditions caused by a lack of natural hormones. The solution is rather simple - just add back the deficient hormones (mixed with some other ingredients) and presto - symptoms are resolved.

The same is true for menopause, albeit a little easier. A great reference website for menopause is

www.1-menopause.com

Andrew Jones, M.D.

Medical Director, Women’s Health Institute of Texas

www.Migraine-Headaches-Information.com

www.PMScure.com

www.Depression.com

www.AndrewJonesMD.com

Since this website was launched in early 2006, we have had the privilege of reaching out to thousands of women worldwide.  The original migraine headache book, “The Natural Cure to Your Migraine Headache” is now in its 4th edition as of last week. You can order from this website now.

The book has gone through a number of changes - mostly add-ons - as we continue to address the latest additions in treating and eliminating migraines. What started out as a two major item recommendation that we used from our clinic experience has blossomed into finding ways of dealing with the non-responders effectively (the 20% people).

From that perspective, I think we have done a good job at finding out why the non-responders did not respond. We already know from our clinic experience that women with co-existing problems like hypothyroidism, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and yeast problems (like Irritable Bowel Syndrome) required additional recommendations.

So a special section was created just for those women with the above problems. We already knew that women with migraines tended to have problems like PMS, depression, ovarian cysts, endometriosis, infertility, irregular or painful periods. So they were already well covered by the original recommendations.

In the latest edition - now our 4th edition - we have added some really exciting recommendations regarding current studies showing worldwide deficiencies in Vitamin D, essential fatty acids and an essential element that is critical to metabolism.

We have also managed to consolidate the recommendations into just a couple of areas for people to go to, rather than run around like a pinball. The ease and simplicity of the program is showing in the 4th edition.

This is the best one yet and we are quite excited. As we enter our fourth year of online book sales, we couldn’t be more pleased.  Women from 40 countries have been placed into our program and we continue to receive testimonials daily.

Our women are getting their migraines eliminated, easily, safely and for very resonable cost without having to see a doctor or get a prescription. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Andrew Jones, M.D.

Medical Director, Women’s Health Institute of Texas

www.AndrewJonesMD.com

www.PMScure.com

www.1-Menopause.com

www.1-VitaminD.com

One of the hottest topics amongst Health and Wellness doctors is Vitamin D.  New discoveries over the last two years have really opened up the science on this very important vitamin.

Actually, Vitamin D functions more like a true hormone.  It affects multiple organ systems all over the body.

We are now finding that Vitamin D affects far more than just your bones.  Higher levels of Vitamin D improve your body’s stance against inflammation, pain, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, cancers and even migraines.

One of the main actions of Vitamin D is to suppress a transcription factor called “NF-kappaB”.  This NF-kappaB is a promoter of the body’s inflammation cascade in response to stress, radiation, free radicals, cytokines and bacterial and viral infections.

However, in cases were someone is deficient in Vitamin D, NF-kappaB is allowed to promote inflammation unchecked and bad things happen in the long run.

The other bad thing is that almost the entire population of the planet is deficient in Vitamin D.  Exposure to sunlight doesn’t help much, either.  Just ask the folks in Saudi Arabia whose latest study showed an 83% deficiency of Vitamin D amongst a group over there.

The New England Journal of Medicine stated some years ago that “Vitamin D Deficiency is Pandemic”, meaning that it is bigger than an epidemic.  The Mayo Clinic determined that nearly everyone in Minnesota is Vitamin D deficient.

So where does that leave us?  We recommend that the entire planet start taking Vitamin D supplements whether you have migraines or not.  That means men, women and children.  New guidelines state that we should take 5000 IU’s per day.  This is up from the old 400 IU’s per day of a couple years ago.

Where do you get Vitamin D in this form?  We recommend Vitamin D5000 at www.VitaminD5000.com .

Another good reference is found at:  www.1-VitaminD.com

Andrew Jones, M.D.

Medical Director, Women’s Health Institute of Texas

www.AndrewJonesMD.com

www.Migraine-Headaches-Information.com

www.PMScure.com

www.DepressionGoneForever.com

One thing that big drug companies have been telling women suffering from migraine headaches for decades is that the passage of time helps.  The makers of Imitrex state that migraine headaches become less intense after menopause.

That is small consolation if you are 25 years old and are experiencing migraines 2 times a week. Just tough it out for the next 25 years and you will feel better.

There are several things wrong with that concept:

1. Why should a woman have to wait 25 years to feel better?

2. Why do many women get their first migraine AFTER menopause?

3. Many, many women never improve (if left untreated) even after menopause.

Let me address the above items.

First, we have the ability to make migraines go away NOW.   There is no reason to wait 25 years.  If you like at my website, I mention that the primary cause of migraines is a hormone deficiency.  Well, that hormone deficiency can be corrected immediately and there is no reason to wait 25 years.

Second, the reason why some menopausal women develop migraines for the first time is the relative deficiency of hormones versus other hormones. Another way to state this is an unbalance in the proper ratio of hormones. Menopause typically means an estrogen deficiency.  Estrogen production declines more rapidly than other hormones and this is the straw that broke the camel’s back, if you like metaphoric descriptions.

Third, women with hormone deficiencies for decades are just as likely to keep that relative deficiency balance right through menopause, albeit with slight improvement sometimes.

The point of this is not to lose heart and face the fear of having migraines forever. Rather, migraines in most women are relatively simple to address.  You should see the stack of testimonial letters I receive from women on a daily basis who prove the point.

Andrew Jones, M.D.

Medical Director, Women’s Health Institute of Texas’

www.AndrewJonesMD.com

www.Migraine-Headaches-Information.com

www.PMScure.com

www.DepressionGoneForever.com 

One thing that big drug companies have been telling women suffering from migraine headaches for decades is that the passage of time helps.  The makers of Imitrex state that migraine headaches become less intense after menopause.

That is small consolation if you are 25 years old and are experiencing migraines 2 times a week. Just tough it out for the next 25 years and you will feel better.

There are several things wrong with that concept:

1. Why should a woman have to wait 25 years to feel better?

2. Why do many women get their first migraine AFTER menopause?

3. Many, many women never improve (if left untreated) even after menopause.

Let me address the above items.

First, we have the ability to make migraines go away NOW.   There is no reason to wait 25 years.  If you like at my website, I mention that the primary cause of migraines is a hormone deficiency.  Well, that hormone deficiency can be corrected immediately and there is no reason to wait 25 years.

Second, the reason why some menopausal women develop migraines for the first time is the relative deficiency of hormones versus other hormones. Another way to state this is an unbalance in the proper ratio of hormones. Menopause typically means an estrogen deficiency.  Estrogen production declines more rapidly than other hormones and this is the straw that broke the camel’s back, if you like metaphoric descriptions.

Third, women with hormone deficiencies for decades are just as likely to keep that relative deficiency balance right through menopause, albeit with slight improvement sometimes.

The point of this is not to lose heart and face the fear of having migraines forever. Rather, migraines in most women are relatively simple to address.  You should see the stack of testimonial letters I receive from women on a daily basis who prove the point.

Andrew Jones, M.D.

Medical Director, Women’s Health Institute of Texas’

www.AndrewJonesMD.com

www.Migraine-Headaches-Information.com

www.PMScure.com

www.DepressionGoneForever.com 

A recent article in in the July 7, 2008, issue of Time Magazine talked about “The Fragile X Factor”. Fragile X is a sex-linked genetic disorder that affects both sexes, but especially boys.

Without going into too much genetic science, males have chromosomes that are XY and females are XX. A genetic defect in the X chromosome is generally not a problem in females as they have another X chromosome as a counterbalance. Whereas a male child will likely have significant problems because he has only one X chromosome, and if that chromosome is defective there is no counterbalancing X chromosome, only a Y chromosome.

Remember the Russian royal family with the young Tsar-to-be with the bleeding disorder? Rasputin? This may have changed history for the next century. This was a sex linked genetic disorder traced back to Queen Victoria of England.

But Fragile X is a different problem. It is not a bleeding problem. Rather the full scale manifestation is autism, ADD or ADHD and/or mental retardation in boys. In fact, it is the most well documented form of autism and accounts for 5% of all autistic cases according to the article.

But what does this have to with women and migraines? Because women who are carriers of Fragile X do manifest some problems consistent with ovarian failure, infertility or early menopause in their early thirties.

These women also have a tendency to develop migraine headaches.

About 20% of female carriers of Fragile X will develop premature ovarian failure. Of course, this is missed almost 100% of the time and passed off as “early menopause”. Technically it is true that this is early menopause and there is no known cure.

However, just like with menopause, we can and should use bio-identical hormones to supplement the lack of female sex hormones. We can actually normalize a woman’s life, get rid of her hot flashes (at age 32) and make her migraines go away - all at the same time.

Mainstream medicine hasn’t caught up to this yet, so it is my job to inform you first.

By the way, a good website for menopause is www.1-Menopause.com

One more thing about Fragile X is that males who don’t manifest autism, mental retardation or ADD/ADHD at a young age and seem to have skipped the problems may ultimately develop serious neurologic problems in their 50’s. These can be very serious like a full blown Parkinson’s Syndrome and/or Alzheimer’s.

So I recommend that any male child with ADD/ADHD, autism or mental retardation be tested for Fragile X. If positive, then test mom, too. Then test her father and male relatives.

Andrew Jones, M.D.

Medical Director, Women’s Health Institute of Texas

www.Migraine-Headaches-Information.com

www.PMScure.com

www.DepressionGoneForever.com

www.AndrewJonesMD.com

One of my favorite people in the world and someone who has influenced my career enormously (and my chief mentor) is a physician named Steven Hotze, M.D. He was one of the first doctors that started the wellness movement and has a big wellness clinic in Houston. If you don’t mind paying about $4000 to get in the door, it is first class all the way.

I am also on his mailing list for his newsletter. His latest article is a gem. He talks about bio-identical hormones and breast cancer.

To summarize, Dr. Hotze says that breast cancer is commonly caused by hormonal imbalance. More specifically either insufficient progesterone or excessive estrogen (the famous estrogen dominance theory advocated by Dr. John Lee).

A study done in 1981 at Johns Hopkins “found that infertile women with progesterone deficiency had a pre-menopausal breast cancer risk that was 540% higher than that of women whose infertility was not related to their hormone status. Not only that, but these women had a 1000% greater risk of death from all types of cancer”.

I would add that these same women also have the highest incidence of migraine headaches - for the same reasons. And I would throw in that these women also have the worst PMS, depression, uterine fibroids, ovarian cysts and even cardiovascular disease.

Our experience is more than just sex hormones involvment, however. Hormones are interrelated to other hormones. If one hormone is low, there tends to be other low hormones as well. The preponderance of women with migraines with thyroid problems is overwhelming. Many women with migraines have Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which are likely hormone mediated problems, as well.

As Dr. Hotze explains, mainstream medicine will not tell you about the relationship of hormone balance and breast cancer (and migraines). The reason, of course, is not some major conspiracy theory. No, mainstream medicine is just totally clueless and at least 20 years behind the rest of us.

Andrew Jones, M.D.

Medical Director, Women’s Health Institute of Texas

www.Migraine-Headaches-Information.com

www.PMScure.com

www.DepressionGoneForever.com

www.AndrewJonesMD.com

www.1-Menopause.com

A couple of months ago, I attended a conference in Las Vegas sponsored by the International Hormone Society.  Bio-identical hormones were the main topic of discussion, obviously, and the thyroid gland came up repeatedly.

Keep in mind that proper functioning of the thyroid gland is critical when it comes to migraine headaches. In my book, The All-Natural Cure For Your Migraine Headache, I have a special chapter devoted to the 20% of migraine sufferers who don’t respond entirely to bio-identical sex hormone replenishment therapy.  A large part of this 20% has to do with the thyroid gland.

When discussing the thyroid in Las Vegas, Dr. David Brownstein described the function of the mineral, iodine.  The thyroid  requires iodine to make up the two major products of the thyroid - T3 and T4.  When a person is deficient in iodine then the thyroid cannot function properly and imbalances result.

In the past, when someone had low thyroid function, we just supplement with thyroid hormone.  There is controversy in the medical community regarding exactly what type of thyroid hormone to use but I preferred Armour Thyroid.

Now with Dr. Bernstein’s results of using iodine with his patients, he was able to hold off on adding the thyroid hormone to his low thyroid patients regimen and achieved good results with iodine alone.

In terms of migraine management, I am preparing to alter and upgrade my treatment recommendations shortly.

As soon as we are finished, I will amend the book to a new edition with the latest recommendations and guidelines.

Andrew Jones, M.D.

www.Migraine-Headaches-Information.com

www.PMScure.com

www.DepressionGoneForever.com

www.AndrewJonesMD.com

As you already know from my websites, I am a practitioner
of bio-identical hormones. Bio-identical hormone
replacement therapy (BHRT) is slowly catching on to my
mainstream colleagues.

In the meantime, you are still hungry for information to
help your situation, whether it is from migraine headaches,
PMS, depression, menopause or a host of other women’s
hormone problems.

There is a World Summit on BHRT beginning on May 14th and
continuing through June 2nd. This World Summit is a
series of interviews with the world’s best BHRT doctors
(including yours truly).

Besides me, other world-class BHRT doctors that will be
featured include:

· Erika Schwartz, MD - Bio-Identical Hormone Expert and
Patient Advocate. She has written 4 important hormone
books, lectures, TV appearances, columnist and speaks on
Capitol Hill.

· Eldred Taylor, M.D., OB/GYN: International Speaker on
Bio-Identical Hormones. He will speak about adrenal
hormones. Dr. Taylor will teach you what we need to do to
stop draining your adrenals and how to get them healthy
again.

· Susan Silberstein, PhD: Founder and Director of CACE
(Center for the Advancement of Cancer Education). Learn
what research shows needs to be “in” and what needs to be
“out” of your diet for your best chance of breast cancer
prevention.

· Jeanne Drisko, MD : Physician, Researcher, President of
ACAM. A healthy form of chemotherapy which is medically
and scientifically being proven! Dr. Drisko is proving
scientifically that Intravenous Vitamin C can and should be
used as chemotherapy.

· Ellie Campbell, DO: Family Doctor & Bio-Identical
Hormone Expert. Peri-Menopause & Menopause—What is
happening to me and can I do anything about it?

· Rebecca L. Glaser, M.D., FACS: Successful Breast Surgeon
Treats All Of Her Patients With Bio-Identical Hormones.
She is currently involved in several research studies on
balanced hormone therapy and its impact on health and
breast cancer prevention.

· Anna M. Cabeca, DO, FACOG. OB-GYN: Expert In Women’s
Health And Specializes in Bio-Identical Hormones. Female
Sexual Dysfunction - An Integrative Approach.

· Allan Magaziner, DO : Trained in Clinical Nutrition,
Allergy and the Environmental Medicine and Treats With
BHRT. Men Have Hormones Too: And Boy Do They Start Going
South Around Age 45. Wonder why dieting and exercise won’t
get rid of your belly like it used to?

· Andrew Jones, MD: Internist, Medical Director of the
Women’s Health Institute of Texas. He is the Specialist in
Depression & Migraine Headaches Treatment. Dr. Jones has
been curing depression and migraines for years.

· Richard L. Shames M.D: Pioneering Integrative Medicine,
Thyroid Expert and author of the popular book, “Thyroid
Power”. You Know It’s Your Thyroid, But Your Blood Test
and Your Doctor Say It’s Not—You’re Absolutely Right!

· David Nicoletti, RPh, CCN, DNM, FIACP, FACA: President
of the International Association of Compounding
Pharmacists. Learn who they are, why you need them and why
the government would like to take away your hormones. The
FDA and big drug companies have started to take your
compounded hormones away. Why and what can you do?

· Kent Holtorf MD: Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
and Chronic Infections-The Bio-Identical Hormone Imbalance
Problem. He is the founding medical director and developed
the protocols for Fibromyalgia and Fatigue Centers and
other centers across the country.

Every night from May 14 until June 2nd will feature one of
the above doctors where you can listen to the discussion
and interview by Dr. Joel Yaffe, himself a renowned BHRT
doctor from Israel.

Click here to sign up and get started with your audio
series:

BHRT - World Summit

Don’t miss this information -packed event.

Andrew Jones, M.D.
Medical Director
Women’s Health Institute of Texas
4610 Sweetwater Blvd., Suite 120
Sugar Land, TX 77479
281-962-4264
www.migraine-headaches-information.com
www.AndrewJonesMD.com

The February 7th edition of a Newsweek “Web Exclusive”  ran a story about the FDA “cracking down” on natural menopausal therapies.  The article basically was a mouthpiece for FDA and Big Pharma to continue to shut down and intimidate doctors, compounding pharmacies and their patients from getting bio-identical hormones to treat women’s conditions, including migraine headaches.

The FDA recently sent out a letter to seven pharmacies preventing them from making claims about the superiority and safety of bio-identical hormones (hormones that are exactly the way your body makes them) versus the synthetic, chemically altered versions found in most prescription forms of HRT and birth control pills.

To add even more damage, the FDA decided that since estriol, one of the three main bio-identical estrogens that are currently circulating in your body, has never been approved by them in the past, then it was banned from the US!

In treating your migraines, we use bio-identical hormones, although we don’t use estriol. But the next step by the Nazis at the FDA and their cartel friends in Big Pharma is to attack all of the other bio-identical hormones that you so desperately need.

The Government is to be feared. Millions of people are at risk from FDA attack all in the name of “regulation”.  Of course, the real reason is money.  Money for the continued monopoly of the big drug companies so that they can continue to manufacture and sell “FDA approved” drugs that are toxic to you all in the name of the public interest.

Andrew Jones, M.D.

Medical Director, The Women’s Health Institute of Texas

www.Migraine-Headaches-Information.com

www.PMScure.com

www.DepressionGoneForever.com

www.AndrewJonesMD.com

www.1-Menopause.com

Since bio-identical hormones compounded by pharmacists never went  through the Big Pharma club of spending several hundred million dollars (on a product that can’t be patented) then the FDA and mainstream medicine jumps to the conclusion that they are not safe and “unregulated”.