Alcohol and Migraines: Can Drinking Trigger A Headache? NHI

Alcoholic beverage ingredients linked to migraine — and hangovers — include histamine, tyramine and congeners. There have been several proposed explanations for how alcohol causes headaches. Read on for answers to common questions about alcohol and migraine.

Drinking water helps replenish your fluids and flush the alcohol out of your system. If you tend to get migraines within three hours or less of drinking, this might work best for you. While this is not necessarily true for everyone, it’s true for so many people that a trend toward abstinence developed among migraine-sufferers. In fact, one Dutch study found that 25% of people who suffered from migraines had stopped drinking because it was either an actual or potential trigger. Over the years, research has shown that moderate alcohol consumption may provide health benefits over total abstinence. In spite of this, there are some people for whom combining alcohol with a tendency toward migraines.

But many patients, if they have an attack, it turns into some sort of blame. They’re basically blaming themselves for something that they have done to bring the attack on,” he says. Alcohol-induced migraine attacks are typically more severe and can occur shortly after consumption or even the next day. But, other factors can also cause these painful episodes and very often it is more than one trigger factor coming together to trigger a given attack. This tendency attenuated through the years, and during the last year they have a similar tendency as compared with nonmigraine sufferers.

• The use of an in vitro model, in which reagents are simply added together in a test tube, certainly presents a limitation to extrapolating these data to humans.
• Like food triggers, the likelihood of a particular type of alcohol triggering a headache is probably different from person to person.
• If you aren’t sure whether your medication is compatible with alcohol, it’s best — always — to avoid drinking until you have more information.

This means ethanol increases your urine production and may lead to dehydration. So, consuming alcohol, especially in excessive amounts, can exacerbate this risk. Alcohol may trigger migraine attacks, and it’s very unlikely to ease them. Alcohol-induced migraine is different than a hangover, which is caused by overconsuming alcohol.

Dr. Michael Yang is a board-certified neurologist and headache specialist at the Gundersen Health System in Wisconsin. He is an active member of the American Headache Society and the American Academy of Neurology. Dr. Yang is currently actively involved in several research projects on migraine. We recommend taking a look at our patient guides, which include useful information like how to talk to your doctor about migraine. Whether you have lived with migraine for a few months or a few decades, you know migraine can be a challenging experience.

Ready to Meet Life Head On?

• However, moderate consumption of certain alcoholic beverages, like red wine, may have some protective effects due to antioxidant content.
• However, if you’re a lover of lager and don’t want to miss out on your favorite drink for fear of causing an alcohol-induced headache or migraine attack, keep reading.
• This really depends on your genetic ability to detox alcohol, handle oxidative stress and more.
• Even people who are not prone to headaches will get a headache after a night of heavy alcohol consumption.
• Lower alcohol content might reduce the risk, but individual sensitivities to specific compounds in the beverage still play a significant role.

Aside from contributing to the flavor of the alcohol, congeners increase the severity and frequency of hangover symptoms, including headaches. Congeners tend to aggravate brain tissue and blood vessels, which contributes to headaches. Clear liquors, like white rum, vodka, and gin, have significantly fewer congeners and may cause fewer headache symptoms. Although, as we’ll discuss below, there are migraine after drinking other factors that can lead to headaches no matter what form of alcohol you consume.

Quit your wine-ing?

Given the findings of their in vitro tests, they then estimated that this amount of Q3G would impair ALDH2 activity by ~37%. With 30 years of paying close attention to consumption and the boundaries, I have evolved to limiting high alcohol, highly tannic, and heavily processed wines. With the huge focus on organic foods and what we all eat, there should be as much attention put on what we drink.

Does drinking alcohol trigger migraines?

This all sounds terrible, but low or moderate alcohol consumption that doesn’t overwhelm your antioxidant system and detox capacity is usually acceptable. In turn, especially if we are not eating, this can lead to hypoglycemia, low blood sugar, which can also trigger migraine, which is the third mechanism. Multivariate analysis by linear regression tested independent predictors for hangover symptoms (total HSS at last year and its sub-scales). For each test, P values less than 0.05 were considered as statistically significant unless stated otherwise. The demographic data, measure of alcoholic consumption, and smoking status of the participants were considered as the potential confounders.

If you wake up after a night of drinking with an attack, it doesn’t necessarily mean the beer is to blame. So, if you’re going to drink beer or other alcoholic drinks, try not to drink too much and avoid your other triggers where possible. The presence and strength of hangover symptoms were accessed using the Hangover Symptom Scale (HSS). The scale was developed and validated by Slutske et al.9 and was translated and validated to Hebrew by the researchers. Subjects were classified as suffering from migraine with or without aura and nonsufferers according the International Classification of Headache Disorders 2nd Edition (ICHD-II). The 13 hangover symptoms were divided by the researches into migraine-like and other nonmigraine-like symptoms.

Find more top doctors on

Of course, like all medications, they have their own side effects. Also, follow your doctor’s recommendations regarding alcohol consumption. Dehydration triggers some migraine cases; therefore, drinking plenty of water can help, even after the fact.

What Factors Affect the Risk of an Alcohol-Induced Headache?

There are several mechanisms as to how alcohol can trigger a migraine attack. People who get migraine from drinking often feel symptoms soon thereafter, but sometimes the migraine can hit with some hours delay. The UK Chief Medical Officers’ low risk drinking guidelines are designed to help all adults keep the health risks from drinking alcohol to a low level.

It is always good to know which life-style changes might raise your alcohol threshold.Knowing this can help you handle social events better. Migraine sufferers, particularly those with aura, already have a slightly elevated risk of cardiovascular disease. This could be due to hormonal influences, differences in alcohol metabolism and tolerance, or a combination of factors. However, more research is needed to establish a definitive confidence interval for this difference.

Types of Headaches From Drinking

Reviewed for accuracy by the American Migraine Foundation’s subject matter experts, headache specialists and medical advisers with deep knowledge and training in headache medicine. Learn more about the short-term and long-term effects of alcohol. However, the research suggests that alcohol may not be the only trigger and may also depend on other factors.