How can hormone replacement therapy (HRT) affect my headaches?

Using hormone therapy during menopause may change your headaches. In general, studies show that hormone therapy has about the same chance of making your headaches better or worse. Unfortunately, the benefit can be difficult to predict.

Because hormonal headaches are caused by hormone cycling, you can reduce the effects hormone replacement during menopause will have on your headaches by keeping the changes from highest to lowest estrogen levels as small as possible. You can do this by:

• Talking to your healthcare provider about using a hormone patch
         instead of a pill. Using a continuous, transdermal estradiol
         patch gives you a steadier level of estrogen in your system
         than taking a pill.
• Using the lowest possible hormone dose to control your menopause
         symptoms.

You may also need to add headache prevention therapy if headaches become a problem when you're using perimenopausal hormones and you need to continue hormones for health reasons. You will probably be able to discontinue prevention medications when you stop taking hormone therapy.