What's Causing The Headache When I'm Drinking?

Points

• Ruined night due to a headache?
• Alcohol may be or may be not a migraine trigger.
• Red wine may not be the cause of a headache. 
• Do you get a headache right after you drink or a delayed hangover headache? 
• The best way to overcome a hangover headache.

Severe hangover/ headache ruined your night out? 

Have you ever suffered from migraine or light headache after you had only one sip of wine at dinner? Headache is one of the common hangover symptoms that people suffer from. It may have happened instantly or it may have happened 3 hours later when you are back at home. Some believe that red wine is the principal migraine trigger, but studies show that other drinks are the same or more frequently the cause. 

If you are a person who loves wine, but if you think the wine is triggering the headache, it is likely that you will always be reluctant to try your favorite wine or a drink. Let’s see if you can relate. Imagine you are hanging out with your close friends at her birthday party; everybody seems to be enjoying the night out. After taking several drinks, you gradually feel your heart pumping through the chest and start sweating. You pretend that everything is fine, but you feel dizzy, not tipsy- you immediately run to the bathroom and start throwing up. Well some people might optimistically call this a wild night because you enjoyed the time with your friends. You probably drank because you wanted to feel good and you wanted to have fun. But all the fun ends the moment your body starts sending you all these signals of nasty hangover symptoms, including headache. So why do we even get headaches in the first place? Does alcohol trigger migraine? Is a headache a symptom of a hangover? If so, can we avoid headaches among other hangover symptoms so we can enjoy headache-free? 

Alcohol might not be the problem to migraine!

According to the American Migraine Foundation’s article written by Alessandro Panconesi M.D, there is no clear correlation between alcohol consumption and migraine. To provoke a migraine attack, there may be a combination of factors other than just alcohol. The blood and brain alcohol level with degree of brain sensitivity along with the presence of other triggers like the kind of food you ate may give different results. So is the alcohol causing the headache or is another component of the drink responsible for the trigger? Another medical study considers the following components as the trigger of migraine: tyramine, phenylethylamine, histamine, sulfites, flavonoid phenols. However, none of these are verified since the studies do not have evidence to prove their roles.

Then what causes the headache? We still don’t know! 

Alcohol itself may be the trigger of migraine as it suggests increased artery size which leads to vasodilation that could explain the immediate headache induced by high initial blood level. But this does not explain Delayed Alcohol-Induced Headache (also known as DAIH) because as time passes, the alcohol level in your bloodstream will reach to zero. The last thing that may trigger headache is the nerve transmitters. Illicit, recreational drugs such as ecstasy that is amphetamine derivative or piperazine derivative release serotonin or 5-HT. With these types of drugs, a high percentage of consumers suffer from headaches. But again, all of these are only theories as there are no medical studies that have enough evidence to prove the exact correlation between alcohol and migraine. 

Here’s the best hangover cure.

Interestingly enough, Traditional Eastern Medicine sees the matter with a different perspective. Eastern Medicine agrees that alcohol is a toxic substance, but instead of focusing on one key component that leads to a hangover (including a headache), it focuses on how quickly and efficiently your body system can release the toxicity of alcohol out of your body. Therefore, enhancing  the overall functionality of your body system so that it can eliminate toxicity is the key for a hangover remedy. These are some of the natural herbs that can really help you: kudzu root, evodia fruit, goji berry, five-flavor berry, ginger, turmeric tuber, to name a few. To make your life a lot easier, our team came up with a supplement (made with 100% all natural herbs) called Iluna. Try Iluna for free and let us know your experience! It’s time to enjoy more and worry less.