Migraine and Birth Control Pills

Hello --

I would like to share my experiences with migraines and birth control pills.  I am a 44-year-old woman who got married late at age 39.  I had never been on birth control pills before, but when I got married, I went on a low dose pill with both estrogen and progesterone.  About the same time, I started getting migraine headaches for the first time.  Migraines run in my family -- 2 sisters and a father had them -- but I never had.  I figured it was stress because I was getting married, moving and starting a new job all at once.   The headaches continued and were usually worse around my period. 

About a year ago, we moved to a new town and I started a new job.   An OBGYN in my new town suggested that instead of taking the dummy pill for a week, I should just start into the next pack of real pills and not take a break.  Her idea was that the changing levels of estrogen with the dummy pill were triggering the migraines, and if I just kept taking the hormone, there would be no escalation and the headaches wouldn't start.

I did this, and entered a new level of migraine-hood.  For a year I had a headache almost continuously, and I experienced some of the most excruciating headaches of my life.  At least once a week, I literally felt like my head was going to explode. Again, I attributed this to the stress of a new job, which was the most challenging job I'd ever had, though I really liked it.

Finally last summer, after a particularly grueling spring at the new job, I took two weeks off.  I used the time to read every headache book I could find at the library, as well as books on hormone balance.  Many of them pointed to the birth control pill as a contributor to migraines.  I had not been told about this by the OBGYN who prescribed taking the pills without a break, nor by another OBGYN I saw after that.  But after doing my own research, I started to put the pieces together.

I decided to see what would happen if I stopped taking the pill.  For about a week, I had another really bad headache.  But then it started clearing up.  For the first time in over a year, I had a week without a headache.  Since then, I have had occasional headaches, but nothing as bad as before.  I also got my period back, which I looked on as a blessing because I thought I had entered early menopause.  For the last four months, I have had regular periods, and more important, have been headache-free for two to three weeks at a time. 

When I do get headaches, they aren't as bad as before.  I used to need four Imitrex to get through a headache -- now it's usually taken care of by one.  I am no longer going through a 9-pack of Imitrex in two weeks, which is also good because my insurance only pays for one pack a month.  Plus, if I need more than the insurance will pay for, my neurologist wants to put me on Topamax or Neurontin, neither of which I want to be on.  I do still get headaches around the time of my period, but that is WAY better than the constant headache I used to have.