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. However, you might not need to stop drinking entirely if you have heart disease.
- If you have any questions or concerns, please talk to your doctor.
- Feel like the initial joy of sipping red wine always ends in a migraine attack?
- Regional differences were reported, perhaps depending in part on alcohol habits.
- An aura can include visual disturbances, such as flashes of light or blind spots, or other disturbances, such as tingling on one side of the face or in an arm or leg and difficulty speaking.
- If alcohol is a headache trigger for you, think before you drink.
- Migraine episodes can be a periodic inconvenience, or they can be debilitating.
How to cure red wine headaches the next day
If you find yourself struggling to stop drinking or recognize that you have symptoms of alcohol use disorder, it’s important to reach out for help. Moreover, there were significant trends of decreasing prevalence of migraine and non-migraine headache with the increasing number of alcohol units consumed [28, 31]. People can talk with their doctors about alcohol causes migraines possible methods to prevent or ease alcohol-induced headaches. Individuals with lower body weights cannot process as much alcohol as individuals at higher weights. This chemical is a vasodilator, which increases the size of blood vessels in the body. Meanwhile, 2020 research showed that 95% of participants experienced alcohol-induced headaches.
Recovering From an Alcohol-Related Heart Attack
Eradicate the words «I’m fine» from your vocabulary and be honest with your healthcare professional, your employer, your loved ones, about how you’re feeling as well as the kind of support that you need. Make yourself a top priority when you’re having a migraine attack and reduce the likelihood of attacks through lifestyle adjustments. Have a consistent schedule, get adequate sleep, and learn strategies to cope with the stresses of life using mindfulness and meditation. Empower yourself to manage migraine with lifestyle changes and migraine specific treatment options. If you’d like to learn more about migraine, watch or other related videos or visit mayoclinic.org. Some studies report that alcohol provokes headache within 30 min to 3 h; principally the red wine [9–11].
What alcohol to drink to avoid migraine attacks
If you develop a cocktail headache, take care to rest and nourish your body with water, electrolytes, and a healthy fruit or vegetable snack if possible. The mechanism through which alcohol can trigger these distinct headache disorders is not well understood. While the acute widening of blood vessels in the brain (called vasodilation) may explain the cocktail headache, this is likely not the mechanism for hangover headaches (when alcohol levels in the blood have declined to zero). Red wine often gets the most blame, but beer can also have a significant impact.
- They typically built up over several minutes and they can last for up to an hour.
- If you consistently experience severe headaches after drinking, consulting a healthcare professional for personalised advice and guidance is a good idea.
- People who experienced migraine with alcohol were more likely to have migraine with aura and to experience more migraine days and more frequent attacks.
Studies have shown that alcoholic drinks act as a trigger for migraines in up to one-third of patients. Alcohol is a diuretic that increases urine production and can lead to dehydration. Migraine attacks can be disabling, but there are ways to manage the disease and to empower yourself to get the care and the support that you need.
If you think red wine is causing your headaches, try keeping a food journal to help you pinpoint your unique triggers. If you have a pounding headache the next morning, it’s likely a hangover and not a migraine caused by red wine. But while there is some older research from 2009 that shows a link between drinking alcohol with more tannins and gnarlier hangovers, there isn’t really any evidence that they can cause migraine after just a couple of glasses.
Why Does Alcohol Consumption Cause Headaches?
If alcohol is a headache trigger for you, think before you drink. In other words, the best treatment for a cocktail headache is actually preventing one in the first place. Before consuming a cocktail, ask yourself if it is worth developing a headache over and ruining your celebration or holiday. If you develop a cocktail headache, stop drinking alcohol and go someplace where you can rest comfortably. Drink lots of water to rehydrate your body and help flush the alcohol from your system.
What can I do to prevent a headache when I drink?
Many studies in different countries show that alcohol is a headache trigger in high percentage of migraine subjects, both in the general population [15–17] and headache clinic population [18–22]. About one-third of the patients (mean 34%) report alcohol as a trigger (Fig. 1). However these are retrospective studies, and until recently only a prospective study based exclusively on the subjective patients information exists [23]. Recent studies show that alcohol acts as a trigger at least occasionally in a percentage similar to that of the previous studies (37%), but as a frequent/consistent trigger in only 10% of the patients [22,24]. Curiously, in some countries, the percentages of alcohol or wine as migraine triggers were negligible, 6.1 [25] and 1.4% [26], perhaps depending on the degree of alcohol habits. Alcohol-induced migraine attacks can come on quickly after alcohol consumption, within minutes to hours.