But the exact cause of a migraine after a few glasses of red wine is likely multifaceted and may be due to a combo of the following causes. I’ve spent the last six years researching and understanding alcoholism, addiction, and how people get sober. Remember, part of the reason why alcohol gives me (and you) a headache is that it dehydrates you. If you’ve ever had just one beer and got a headache not long after, you’re seeing the principles in the list above in action. Histamines are a natural part of our immune system that our bodies use as a first line of defense against invading pathogens. As anyone with allergies can tell you, though, an influx of histamines can end up doing more harm than good by causing inflammation, muscle aches, and 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 other factors that can lead to headaches no matter what form of alcohol you consume. Without a consistent cause-and-effect situation, though, it could be a number of factors — not just alcohol — that are triggering your migraine headache. If you do notice a pattern, especially with particular types of alcohol over others, you may choose to avoid the offending drinks.

Why does red wine cause headaches and migraine?

Certainly, some headache patients cannot tolerate some alcoholic drinks, although not frequently, and perhaps only in combination in the presence of other trigger factors (stress, for example). However, a few negative experiences cannot justify the media and scientific information on alcohol as a major headache trigger and the suggestion of abstinence. In fact, to deny the beneficial effect of a low dose of alcohol in a wide number of people, who can also have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease like migraine patients [74, 75], is not medically appropriate. The means through which alcohol can activate these particular headaches is not well understood. Experts believe that nerve chemicals involved in central pain control, like serotonin, are likely responsible for an alcohol hangover headache, also called a delayed alcohol headache.

Department of Health and Human Services guidelines, the recommended daily max alcohol consumption is 1 drink per day for women and 2 drinks per day for men. Feel like the initial joy of sipping red wine always ends in a migraine attack? While you might be kicking yourself for drinking that glass of pinot noir, the exact cause of red wine-induced headache and migraine is unknown.

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Self-medicating with alcohol only creates an unhealthy cycle that can be hard to break, and leads to even more health issues in the long-term. Learning more about your specific health history and drinking habits can help you better understand your risk of alcohol-induced headaches. At Monument, you can speak with a specialized physician, like myself, to get personalized information and care. It’s also worth noting that alcohol-induced anxiety, or ‘hangxiety’, can worsen and even cause headaches in some cases.

Fortunately, beer is fairly low in congeners, especially the lighter varieties. You can find the most congeners in dark alcohols and liquors such as red wine, whiskey, scotch, and more. The second category is perhaps the one you are most familiar with. This is the headache that usually comes can alcohol cause migraines as part of a hangover, the morning after you have been drinking. It has long been known that dehydration can cause headaches, but it is also responsible for exacerbating existing medical conditions. If you regularly suffer from headaches, being dehydrated is likely to make you have one.

Hangover Headache

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a few drinks, but try to limit the amount of alcohol you consume on a regular basis. Beer and wine can certainly be enjoyed as a special treat, even if you think you’re sensitive to it. A person with a hangover should not take pain relief medications or any other drugs that contain acetaminophen. This ingredient can strain the liver — like alcohol — so it is important to avoid combining the two. So, If you’re susceptible to migraine, taking alcohol, even in small quantities, can trigger an attack.

With time, you’ll understand how to play safe and avoid migraine to a minimum. If that amount of alcohol usually gives you a migraine, consider limiting alcohol intake even more, or cut it altogether. But chances are, your migraines aren’t really stemming from sulfites. It is one possibility, but researchers have found that less than 1% of the U.S. population actually has a sulfite sensitivity.

Alcohol: A Trigger for Headaches and Migraines

Recently another study group reported a high percentage of patients referring red wine as the most frequent trigger between alcoholic drinks [24] but subsequently it did not report any of them as a trigger [30]. Since alcohol can trigger migraine and tension headache attack, only a low percentage of headache patients should drink alcoholic beverages. Few and often only descriptive studies exist on this topic, with marked differences in the percentage of consumers perhaps depending on the country habits [19, 24, 26, 31–33] (Table 2). No differences between migraine and tension headache were reported [24, 26] (Table 1). Ethanol is the main component in a pint of beer, glass of wine, and other popular alcoholic beverages.

• 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.
• No one is exactly sure how ethanol causes its various effects, but once absorbed from the stomach into the bloodstream it can freely cross out of the blood and into nerve cells of the brain.
• So, she recommends reducing alcohol intake or stopping drinking altogether if a patient does, indeed, find a connection between drinking and migraine.
• Migraine Insight has helped thousands of people reduce or eliminate migraines.

Regardless of your background or drinking habits, enough of any type of beer will leave you with a hangover headache afterward. Certain ingredients and other components can lead to headaches and worse in the following hours. Whether you’re drinking beer, white https://ecosoberhouse.com/ wine, or something a little bit stronger, like say a whiskey (neat), too much too quickly is likely to give you an alcohol-induced headache. Understanding the basics of your symptoms is the first step towards treating yourself and returning things to normal.

Cocktail Headaches

There are two main types of headaches that people experience after drinking alcohol, including immediate and delayed alcohol-induced headaches. In most patients with delayed headache and also sometimes with immediate headache, the headache fulfilled IHS diagnostic criteria for migraine [43, 44]. It is possible that alcohol itself can trigger headache, especially when ingested in large quantities such as in hangover headache, and some components of the alcoholic drinks can reinforce alcohol action or vice versa. When your body gets out of balance, a migraine attack is more likely to occur. If you’re going to drink beer or other alcoholic drinks, try not to overdo it. Stick to only one or two drinks and try to get a good night’s sleep.

• Drinking copious amounts quicker than your liver can process will almost certainly result in a hangover.
• These headaches make your head feel like someone is pounding on it like a drum.
• This type of headache can happen to anyone, but people with migraines are more likely to get one.
• Our pattern finder helps you collect the right data to find your REAL migraine triggers.
• If you’re susceptible to attacks after consuming these types of foods and drinks, you have an increased likelihood of experiencing alcohol-induced headaches.

Consequently, this can be a great treatment for hangovers by helping you rehydrate your system a lot faster than drinking water alone. By contrast, the first type of headache is seen while you are drinking alcohol. It usually starts within three hours of drinking and can get worse the more alcohol you drink. Beer is a diuretic, which dehydrates drinkers throughout a night of casual consumption. Beer’s ingredients — like tyramine, histamine or tannins — may be an equal problem for others.

Why Does Beer Give Me A Headache But Not Other Alcohol?

For some of us, nothing makes a social outing special quite like enjoying a bottle of brew. At a bar, barbecue, baseball game, or restaurant, beer is a crowd-pleaser for many year-round. Now that you’ve heard from the evidence, the expert, and the community, it’s up to you to make the best decision for your mental and physical health. Begin with a free call to an addiction & behavioral health treatment advisor. The We Level Up treatment center network delivers recovery programs that vary by each treatment facility.