If there is misleading data in questionnaires or during medical interviews, their overall subsequent analysis is also distorted. The relatively low number of cluster-headache studies also does not allow an assessment of any correlation with alcohol drinking. Moreover, some of the studies included in our review do not present results in an accurate way or do so without assigning patients to specific headaches. Therefore, it was not possible for our meta-analysis to contain all those studies where drinking was described with primary headache. The ways describing alcohol consumption habits were variously presented in almost each study, therefore could develop the observed heterogeneity among migraine analysis. Also, the majority of the studies had high or moderate risk of bias.
Alcohol consumption
- After a night on the town, it’s easy to blame a headache on too much alcohol.
- Of these, 651 met the criterion for EM retrospectively, and 493 reported drinking alcohol.
- Caffeine is a very common ingredient in prescription and over-the-counter headache medicines because it helps the body absorb headache drugs more quickly, bringing faster relief.
- Find out why, and what you can do to avoid alcohol-related migraines.
- Certain foods like chocolate, dairy, and cured meats are also common triggers.
- Studies show that many people with migraine choose not to drink alcohol for fear that it may trigger a migraine attack.
If you have frequent migraines, you may also have a sensitive nervous system that triggers attacks provoked by specific smells or lighting situations. You may get a migraine or other headache not because of something you are allergic to, but because that allergen places stress on your body, which can then cause a headache. If this happens, it is more helpful to treat the condition as a migraine, rather than as a sinus headache or sinus infection. For some people, migraine symptoms appear within about 30 minutes of drinking. People with migraine are also more likely to report headaches as a hangover symptom than people without migraine. Because everyone’s migraine triggers are unique to them, there’s no easy answer to this question.
- It is also important to have open discussions about your alcohol consumption with your health care team.
- Students who reported marijuana smoking more than once were considered as marijuana smokers.
- Prior to starting any new form of medication, as you are going through long-term alcohol withdrawal, you need to speak to your doctor.
Stress and Headaches
- Without a consistent cause-and-effect situation, though, a number of factors — not just alcohol — could be triggering your migraine headache.
- Table 4 summarizes the assessment of the cross-sectional risk of bias.
- It’s essential to build a support network of understanding people who can not only check in on you during an attack but also empathize with your experience.
- Wine does not need to be ingested in excessive quantities to produce headache.
No differences between migraine and tension headache were reported 24, 26 (Table 1). A total of 7877 people with migraine registered to use the headache app from October 2014 to March 2018. Among these, 787 were ≥18 years old who tracked ≥90 days with ≥75% adherence. Of these, 651 met the criterion for EM retrospectively, and 493 reported drinking alcohol. Another 6 individuals were excluded because they never tracked alcohol consumption. The final sample size was 487 individuals, who collectively contributed data on 43,830 diary days, of which 9578 were migraine days and 5913 were the first days of a migraine attack.
How Can You Mitigate Headaches and Migraines Caused by Alcohol?
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 can alcohol cause migraines 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.
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The body converts the ethanol in alcohol that we drink to a chemical that can trigger headaches. Many people may also develop headaches due to the dehydrating effects of alcohol. 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.
