Peri-menopause/declining estrogen and worsening of jugular vein compression symptoms?

Symptoms and Treatments Complimentary Therapies
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I have been trying to piece together why all of a sudden at age 49 I started having severe symptoms. I believe I have had the morning headaches for ~3 decades when I got my first night guard for teeth grinding…which only made the headaches worse. I am wondering if anyone else feels there could be a relationship with declining estrogen levels. I know that estrogen/oral contraceptives (OCPs) are not a good idea to give patients with idiopathic intracranial hypertension from obesity but that’s a different problem in my opinion. Also, there is a paper that argues against stopping OCPs in this patient population. A Population-Based, Case-Control Evaluation of the Association between Hormonal Contraceptives and Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension - PMC

I am now 53 years old and officially in menopause since the past 6 months and my symptoms of jugular compression are much worse now. My gynecologist is willing to give me a trial of hormones but I am going to first finish up my testing and talk to the gurus in this disease. I was just curious if other women feel they got much worse as estrogen levels declined.

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We’ve had quite a number of women on our forum mention that their symptoms got worse during menstruation which is the time in the cycle that estrogen is at its lowest. This would coincide w/ symptoms worsening for a woman who’s started into menopause since estrogen levels significantly decrease at that time. Your doctor may be on to something by offering you estrogen supplementation as it could reduce your vascular symptoms. I’m sorry I don’t know the particular mechanism regarding how hormones affect ES symptoms, but it likely has to do w/ inflammation or other hormonally caused soft tissue changes.

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Lots of members have noticed an increase in symptoms with age, which we’ve presumed were due to connective tissue losing it’s elasticity, maybe hormones too? It’s interesting, hadn’t necessarily connected to two…

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