Why do I get headaches before my period?

Because the days right before your period are when oestrogen falls fastest, and that drop is one of the best documented headache and migraine triggers there is. It is not usually how low oestrogen gets that matters; it is the fall itself, from a higher level down to a lower one, in the same day or two.

• The timing is specific. What clinicians call a menstrual migraine falls in the window from two days before bleeding starts to the first three days of it. Migraine that only ever happens in that window is called pure menstrual migraine; migraine that happens then and at other points in the cycle too is called menstrually related migraine.
• It tends to hit harder than migraine elsewhere in the cycle. The NHS notes that migraine around a period is often longer and more severe than migraine at other times, and a clinical review in the journal Headache reports that migraine attacks in this window are also more likely to come back within a day or two of treatment.
• The mechanism is the hormone drop, not a headache-specific cause. Oestrogen and progesterone fall together in the days before bleeding starts, in much the same shift that drives the exhaustion many women feel in the same window; a headache is simply one more thing that fall can trigger, alongside the breakouts many women notice in the same window, the mood swings many women notice in the same window, and the breast tenderness many notice in the same window.
• It is common, not a sign that something is wrong. More than half of women who get migraines report a link to their period, and for a smaller group it is the only time migraine happens at all.

Speak to a doctor about the pattern rather than guessing at it. The most useful thing you can hand a clinician is a record of whether your headaches actually cluster around your period or turn up all month; three cycles of tracking is usually enough to tell. A tracker built with a Muslim woman's actual cycle in mind, one that logs symptoms against the day you are on rather than just a date, makes that record easy to produce, and the best period tracker for privacy is worth checking before you hand it that record.

Once a pattern is confirmed, treatment usually falls into one of two approaches: a combined hormonal contraceptive to stabilise oestrogen across the cycle, or a non-hormonal medicine, such as a triptan or the painkiller mefenamic acid, taken for a few days around the time the headache is expected. Which one fits depends on the rest of your health history, which is a conversation for your doctor, not a search.

Get medical attention rather than waiting it out if a headache comes on suddenly and peaks within minutes, follows a blow to the head, arrives with a high fever, stiff neck, a rash, weakness down one side, slurred speech or loss of vision, or if your headaches are becoming more frequent, more severe, or stop responding to the painkillers that used to work. None of that is something a cycle tracker should be asked to explain.