![]() ![]() "Although there is little published evidence on risk of stroke among women with migraine with aura who use combined hormonal contraceptives," says Naomi Tepper, a physician scientist in the CDC's Division of Reproductive Health and a co-author of the systematic review, "there is concern that use of estrogen among these women would further elevate their already increased risk of stroke." Tepper points to a paper published in 2015 by researchers in China, who analyzed published evidence and concluded that even 20μg formulations might raise stroke risk.īut the authors did not include any information about the studies they analyzed to come to this conclusion. Yet the CDC still says that women who get migraines with aura should avoid all oral contraceptives, just in case. (That said, women over 35 who smoke, or women who have other risk factors including heart or vascular disease, should still not take any combined oral contraceptive.) ![]() Calhoun concedes, too, that pills containing 30 to 40μg of estrogen, which still exist but are also infrequently prescribed, roughly double stroke risk among migraine-with-aura sufferers and should not be used.īut she points out that "many articles confirm that there is no increased risk of stroke with 20μg pills," which include Yaz and Aviane, Calhoun says-and there's no reason to think 10μg pills like Lo Loestrin Fe are unsafe. Of those that did, most only found a higher stroke risk among women who took formulations of pills that contained 50μg or more of the synthetic estrogen ethinyl estradiol-the pills that are rarely prescribed anymore. ![]() This finding was based on the results of seven studies, some of which linked the pill to higher stroke risk among migraine sufferers and some of which didn't. As an example, Calhoun points to a 2016 systematic review published by CDC researchers that concludes that combined oral contraceptive use is associated with two to four times the risk of stroke among women with migraines. Scientists who evaluate birth control pill risks, Calhoun says, aren't always careful to exclude the pills that are no longer available or infrequently prescribed, so their analyses are seriously skewed. ![]() This is the argument that Anne Calhoun, a headache specialist at the Carolina Headache Institute in Durham, NC, makes in her recent paper, which was published online in October. Yet while the birth control pill has drastically changed, research on its safety-particularly for the one out of every five American women who gets migraines-hasn't caught up. (It is the estrogen in the pills, rather than the progestin, that's tied to higher stroke and heart attack risk.) In fact, some women are prescribed pills that don't contain any estrogen at all. Today, 99 percent of the birth control pills taken by American women contain less than 50μg of the synthetic estrogen ethinyl estradiol many contain 20μg or less. Since migraine sufferers were known to already be at a higher-than-average risk of stroke, these women were told to avoid combined oral contraceptives.īut most of today's birth control pills are different, because pharmaceutical companies have steadily lowered the hormone doses to make them safer. It soon became clear that these mega-doses weren't safe, increasing the risk for pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis, heart attacks, and strokes. The first contraceptive pill, Enovid-10, which was first approved by the US Food and Drug administration in 1960, contained 10,000 micrograms (μg) of the progestin norethynodrel and the equivalent of 88μg of the synthetic estrogen ethinyl estradiol-which means that women back then got dosed with more progestin in a single day's pill than they do now in an entire 28-day pack, and more synthetic estrogen than women now get in four days' worth of pills. There's no question that birth control pills of yore were dangerous for many women. According to this paper, the CDC's sweeping recommendations against the use of any combined oral contraceptive are based on a flawed, out-of-date interpretation of the science. Each time they hit, I was unable to remember what month or year it was, how old my kids were, what time I needed to meet my son's school bus-even how to use the remote control for the TV.Īlarmed, I dug into the research on migraines and discovered something surprising: According to a recent analysis published in the journal Headache, many of today's birth control pills are not only safe for women who get any kind of migraine, but they can also help prevent the most debilitating types-which would help explain why mine got worse when I went off the pill. In addition to my typical aura migraines, which swarm my vision with pulsating zig-zag lines, I started getting migraines once a month that robbed me of my memory. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |