Headache after a small amount of alcohol: Causes

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It’s important to work with your obstetrician and your headache doctor when you have migraine to establish a safe treatment plan. If you’re not already working with a headache doctor, use our Find a Doctor tool to find someone in your area. Plan to discuss the FDA’s safety guide for medication use during pregnancy. It may be worth considering some integrative treatments to help you manage your symptoms.

  • This is worth mentioning because not all headaches result from alcoholic beverages.
  • If it does, you’ll need to drink less or stay away from all alcohol.

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. Generally speaking, a cocktail headache is usually a pulsating or throbbing pain and a hangover headache is more related to fatigue and a general feeling of being run down. As the National Institute on Alcohol and why does alcohol cause headaches Alcoholism points out, hangovers usually have several symptoms. If you have other hangover symptoms, like nausea or dizziness, in addition to your headache, then the likely cause of your headache is alcohol. However, it’s possible to have a migraine headache without having had a beer or a glass of wine. This information is helpful to know if you have chronic headaches.

MIGRAINE ADVOCACY HUB

While anyone can experience DAIH, people with migraine are more susceptible. Even a modest amount of alcohol can cause people with migraine to develop a delayed headache or trigger an attack. The short answer is that while it’s possible for alcohol to cause a migraine attack, it’s often a bit more complicated.

Another thing that remains unclear is whether the type of alcohol you drink determines whether or not you will get a migraine headache. Some studies found that red wine is a main trigger in migraine with aura and cluster type migraine, but they also note that all alcohol could have the same effect. Always drink responsibly—which includes minimizing the chances that alcohol will affect your migraine. Current medical opinions on alcohol consumption are evolving with research, so it’s important to educate yourself on the effects of alcohol on your health. If you are struggling with alcohol abuse or other dependency issues, there are many resources that are ready to help. Studies show that many people with migraine choose not to drink alcohol for fear that it may trigger a migraine attack.

Wine Headache – Why Do I Have One and How to Get Rid of It?

Studies suggest that electrolyte changes play only a minor role in the genesis of the alcohol hangover and are caused by dehydration effects. With every glass of red wine you drink, you should drink a glass of water so your body can more quickly flush the histamines, sulfites, tannins, sugar and alcohol. It is easy to forget about consuming glasses of water when drinking wine, but this can go a long way toward minimizing those nasty side effects. In most patients with delayed headache and also sometimes with immediate headache, the headache fulfilled IHS diagnostic criteria for migraine [43, 44].

When serotonin levels drop, pain signals are dysregulated, and people are more likely to experience painful conditions like headaches. 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).

How Much Alcohol Can Cause a Headache?

These headaches make your head feel like someone is pounding on it like a drum. Hangovers occur when the alcohol levels in your blood drop significantly—frequently the morning after you drink. Hangovers can affect pretty much anyone who has had too much to drink. There is a myth that drinking more alcohol can help with hangover symptoms, commonly known as the “hair of the dog.” While symptoms may temporarily lessen, they will likely return with even more intensity than before.

While there is no definitive answer to whether eating before drinking wine can prevent headaches, there is some evidence to suggest that it may help. Part of a clinical treatment for alcohol detox and initial alcoholism recovery is checking your health for any underlying conditions. If the headache is the main symptom of your PAWS, the headaches will get worse for 3 days, get better for 3 days, and so on – with the space between the changes going for every 4 days, to every 5 days, etc. These timelines are not set in stone, but you get the idea of how the ebb and flow “gets better” the more time you stay sober.

How Long do Alcohol Withdrawal Symptoms Last?

You’ll still need to rehydrate, but at least you’ll feel the effects of the alcohol at a more manageable pace. A person having a migraine can also have trouble speaking, experience a loss of balance, feel some head congestion and be sensitive to noise or light. While headaches are a symptom of having a migraine, as the UC Davis website points out, migraines are a syndrome with other symptoms besides headaches. There are some other factors you can look at, too, when you’re trying to figure out if you’re dealing with a hangover headache as opposed to a headache that’s caused by something else. Incidentally, this is also why you might feel dizzy or have extreme thirst after hours of heavy drinking.

Monument is an online alcohol treatment platform that can help provide support every step of the way. You can get peer support, and explore treatment options like therapy and medication to stop drinking. While some people try to prevent headaches by taking over-the-counter pain medications before drinking, this can be dangerous. When you take a drug such as Tylenol while drinking, there is a potential for severe side effects, including liver damage.

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