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Drinking these clear spirits straight, with ice, or mixed with soda water may allow headache sensitive people to enjoy more drinks before a headache is triggered. Tension headaches are the most common type of headache, with muscle tension and stress as its most common cause. It is not fully understood why this is, but some studies point to the toxic effects of chemicals in alcoholic beverages, like congeners, as a possible culprit. I began having migraine attacks when I was a teenager, but was never properly diagnosed until I was an adult. This began 18 years where I was chronic and mostly intractable, resulting in a migrainous stroke in the summer of 2014.
Recently another alcohol and headaches group reported a high percentage of patients referring red wine as the most frequent trigger between alcoholic drinks but subsequently it did not report any of them as a trigger . Since alcohol can trigger migraine and tension headache attack, only a low percentage of headache patients should drink alcoholic beverages. Few and often only descriptive studies exist on this topic, with marked differences in the percentage of consumers perhaps depending on the country habits [19, 24, 26, 31–33] .
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If you aren’t sure that alcohol is to blame for your headaches, try keeping a diary. Each time you drink, write down the type of alcohol you have, the amount, and if and when you had a migraine. Include how you felt the prior 48 hours as well as any stress or anxiety you were under at the time. A migraine each time you have a night out should be good reason to abstain. Alternate between alcoholic and non alcoholic beverages to minimize alcohol consumption. For example, order a glass of water with your glass of wine at the dinner table. Fortunately, it’s easy to treat an alcohol-induced headache with plenty of rest, water, and TLC.
- Since alcohol has a dehydrating effect, drinking 16 ounces of water between each alcoholic beverage can help offset alcohol-related dehydration.
- TheCeCe migraine management appallows you to keep a real-time diary right on your phone.
- Long-term effects can include severe kidney and liver damage, inability to function without alcohol, blacking out, memory loss, tremors, seizures, and signs of neurological damage.
- Fortunately, it’s easy to treat an alcohol-induced headache with plenty of rest, water, and TLC.
- Learn about hemiplegic migraine, and ways to prevent and manage symptoms with treatment and lifestyle changes, from Migraine Again.
Beer and other dark beverages are also believed to be bad if you suffer from headaches, while clearer drinks are better. Vodka and other spirits may reduce your chances of developing headaches when you drink because they contain fewer substances than darker alcoholic beverages. If you’re susceptible to attacks after consuming these types of foods and drinks, you have an increased likelihood of experiencing alcohol-induced headaches.
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Other studies show that only migraineurs had episodes of tension-type headache precipitated by alcohol . It is known since antiquity that wine could be a trigger for migraine. People who have frequent migraine attacks may wish to consider migraine prevention medications such as topiramate , divalproex , or propranolol . A 2015 study suggests that the inactivity of alcohol dehydrogenase 2, an enzyme that helps break down alcohol, might contribute to hangover headaches. However, the study author also cautions that no single factor causes all hangover headaches. Since migraine is a prevalent disorder, we sampled our study population from the general population. Participants were divided into two groups, migraine sufferers and nonmigraine sufferers according to the ICHD-II.
In fact, around one-third of migraine sufferers have indicated that alcohol has triggered migraines in the past. Don’t blame yourself if you wake up with a hangover headache or migraine headache. It’s not always what you drank the night before that can trigger thatmorning migraine. Most studies show that alcohol doesn’t have a consistent effect on those with migraine or tension headaches, but individual results will vary.