Original title: Migraine Across the Menopausal Transition: Clinical Trajectories, Biological Mechanisms, and Management—a Scoping Review
This review maps research on migraine before, during, and after menopause. It finds that migraine often becomes less common after natural menopause, but some women continue to have it or get worse, especially during perimenopauseThe transition leading up to menopause, when periods and hormone levels can change. or after sudden hormone changes. The review suggests that hormone shifts interact with the body’s lasting tendency toward migraine, rather than low estrogen alone explaining symptoms. It also finds links with hot flashes, sleep problems, mood symptoms, and reduced quality of life.
Imagine a person whose sleep changes as the seasons shift. The change does not affect everyone the same way: some sleep better, while others keep struggling or get less rest. In this paper, the changing seasons stand for the menopausal transition, and the different sleep patterns stand for the varied ways migraine can change; hormone shifts are part of the picture, but not the whole explanation.
Women’s migraine can affect sleep, mood, daily function, and quality of life during the menopausal transition. Knowing that menopause does not bring the same change for everyone supports more individualized assessment and care.
The review maps existing evidence rather than establishing why migraine changes or which treatment works best. The abstract describes therapeutic evidence as limited and calls for future longitudinal research, so it does not establish how individual women’s migraine will progress over time.
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Migraine Across the Menopausal Transition: Clinical Trajectories, Biological Mechanisms, and Management—a Scoping Review — Laura Sales-de-Sousa, José Evando da Silva-Filho, Eduardo Diogo Gurgel Filho et al. — SN Comprehensive Clinical Medicine — doi:10.1007/s42399-026-02735-8
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.