Alcohol intolerance Symptoms & causes

Among people who find alcohol can trigger a migraine, most find that any alcoholic drink can trigger one, but others may find that particular drinks are more of a problem. If migraine headaches continue to cause you grief, look beyond home remedies. At the National Headache Institute, we investigate to find the underlying causes of migraine and headaches. We have created customized plans than have helped more than 12,000 people live the pain-free lives they deserve. If they trigger migraines look for an alternative without alcohol. So it’s best to make alcohol the single, isolated factor and journal what triggers each migraine.

Alcoholic drinks (ADs) have been reported as a migraine trigger in about one-third of the migraine patients in retrospective studies. Some studies found that ADs trigger also other primary headaches. Many studies show that ADs are a trigger of migraine without aura (MO), migraine with aura (MA), cluster headache why does alcohol cause migraines (CH), and tension-type headache (TH). While data on MO and CH are well delineated, those in MA and TH are discordant. There are sparse reports that ADs are also triggers of less frequent types of primary headache such as familial hemiplegic migraine, hemicrania continua, and paroxysmal hemicrania.

Tension-type headache

Overall, physicians state that stopping drinking certain types of alcohol, like those with tannins, may lead to fewer migraine headaches. Savage-Edwards advises that if alcohol is found to be a trigger, then it’s best to avoid it. Alcohol’s exact role in triggering a migraine isn’t fully known. For instance, alcohol byproducts called congeners have been linked to headaches. Dark-colored alcohols like red wine, brandy, and whiskey may contain more of them.

It may also trigger headaches related to headache disorders, such as migraine. Having a mild intolerance to alcohol or something else in alcoholic beverages might not require a trip to a doctor. Simply avoid alcohol, limit how much you drink or avoid certain types of alcoholic beverages.

Understanding Caffeine Headache: Is Caffeine a Migraine Treatment or Trigger?

The quality of the alcohol consumed may be a factor in whether it triggers a headache. Lower-quality wines contain molecules known as phenolic flavonoid radicals, which may interfere with serotonin, a signaling molecule in the brain involved in migraine attacks. The migraines tend to start within three hours of consuming alcohol. Sometimes, migraines don’t plague patients until the next morning, just as their blood-alcohol content level is back to normal. Many people confuse this with a regular hangover until the intensity of the migraine sets in. If, after keeping track, you become convinced alcohol is the problem, then it’s now time to identify the symptoms.

Whereas other people need both an acute and a preventive treatment plan. Preventive treatment reduces the frequency and severity of migraine attacks. It might be a daily oral medication, a monthly injection, or even injections and infusions that are delivered once every three months. The right medications combined with lifestyle changes can be helpful to improve the lives of those living with migraine.

What Happens to the Brain When You Get a Headache?

Despite this common belief, there is little scientific evidence to suggest that wine is more likely to trigger a headache from drinking than another type of alcohol. If you suffer from migraines, you will learn to recognise which particular symptoms affect you. These may include experiencing an ‘aura’ as a warning symptom that a migraine is coming on – this might mean experiencing disturbed vision – such as seeing spots or zig-zag lines. Nausea (a feeling that you might vomit) or vomiting and sensitivity to bright light or sound are also widely reported migraine symptoms.

• If alcohol is a headache trigger for you, think before you drink.
• As a physician, my best advice for decreasing or avoiding alcohol-related headaches is to take steps to change your relationship with alcohol.
• After a migraine attack, you might feel drained, confused and washed out for up to a day.
• Although genetic factors influence the risk of having migraine, environmental triggers can cause episodes or increase their frequency.
• Alcohol has different effects on the body depending on when you drink it.

“People try to rehabilitate, but it is very challenging,” said Yu Shin Kim, PhD, a neuroscience researcher at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. It’s also worth noting that alcohol-induced anxiety, or ‘hangxiety’, can worsen and even cause headaches in some cases. Because alcohol is a depressant, it suppresses our nervous system.

How do I advise my patients to avoid an alcohol-induced headache?

It is a priority for CBC to create products that are accessible to all in Canada including people with visual, hearing, motor and cognitive challenges. Kranzler, a self-professed wine aficionado, also isn’t advocating for everyone to become a teetotaler. But even in his own life, he’s chosen to cut back based on his years of research into the potential long-term harms of https://ecosoberhouse.com/ alcohol use. One of his latest papers, published in 2022 in the journal Nature Communications, relied on the U.K. Biobank, which provides one of the largest available collections of high-quality MRI brain scans. Drinking was also her go-to for all kinds of situations, from combating social anxiety before a big night out, to winding down after a stressful day at work.

While headaches are generally recognized as a side effect of alcohol in many people, its reputation as a migraine headache trigger may be overestimated. Alcohol can trigger headaches, including migraines, cluster headaches, and tension-type headaches. In fact, around 30 percent of people who experience recurrent migraines report alcohol as a trigger. Of the 1,547 participants, 783 said that alcohol was a trigger, and 195 were not sure. People who experienced migraine with alcohol were more likely to have migraine with aura and to experience more migraine days and more frequent attacks.