![]() So, is caffeine good or bad for headaches? If it’s late in the day, going to bed early might be a better call, though you could try having a little coffee and seeing if that helps. “Caffeine withdrawal headaches can occur within 24 hours of your last dose,” says Dr. Then again, maybe you’ve had way more than you usually do-let’s say a giant cup after a long flight-a headache later in the day could be your brain may through withdrawal. “If it doesn't help treat the acute attack then don't keep doing it,” says Dr. Having your usual amount may take care of the headache. “The brain gets used to having a certain amount of caffeine,” says Dr. Maybe you’re drinking weak hotel coffee or- horrors!-accidentally sucked down some decaf. How to Tell If You Have a Migraine or a Headacheīut it is possible that you’ve had less caffeine than you normally do when the headache descends.Replacing those fluids and grabbing a quick snooze might be what you need more than more caffeine. Martin.Īs for the scenario where you’ve stayed up all night swigging coffee and maybe not enough water, it’s hard to tell if dehydration and lack of sleep-also big headache triggers- are causing your ouch. “A lot of the time you can feel better if you just eat something,” says Dr. Especially if you had only coffee and haven’t eaten in awhile, your problem may not be too little caffeine, but that the caffeine you had is preventing your brain from getting energy. The first thing is to try and figure out if your pounding cranium is, in fact, due to caffeine withdrawal. How to treat a caffeine withdrawal headache: Because certain of your nerve cells fire differently, he says, it might make you more sensitive to all stimuli and even lead to headaches.Īll that to say, if caffeine withdrawal is not your problem, caffeine (especially if it is a migraine trigger for you) may make it worse. That’s why so many of us dose when we need to be especially sharp, and cut back if we have trouble sleeping. “Caffeine activates the part of the nervous system that makes us more keen-like a mini Ritalin,” says Dr. The other thing caffeine does-and why it’s pretty much universally worshipped-is that it hyper-focuses you, by influencing the way nerve cells fire. “A lot of people just drink coffee for breakfast, which is the exact opposite of what you want to do,” says Dr. That’s why if you swig an XL Dunkin' for breakfast without eating anything, you’re liable to feel shaky and nervous and possibly headachy-your brain isn’t getting the energy it needs to function properly. Caffeine affects energy metabolism in the brain, by blocking the cells from taking up the glucose it uses for fuel. That’s because the narrowing of blood vessels isn’t the only thing caffeine does to the brain, says Dr. Martin.īut here’s where it gets tricky: Caffeine can also trigger a headache or a migraine. “A little caffeine and, say, an ant-inflammatory like ibuprofen, can help-the caffeine enhances the effect,” says Dr. In fact, some over-the-counter headache medicines even contain caffeine. So if you’re jonesing for your caffeine fix, can having a cup of coffee or tea make a headache, especially one caused by caffeine withdrawal, feel better? Yes, sometimes. A larger proportion of regular caffeine drinkers reported feeling worse after the surgery than those who were not, which researchers attributed at least in part to caffeine withdrawal. There hasn’t been a lot of research on caffeine withdrawal in recent years, but an older study looked at people who had a scheduled surgery and were asked not to eat or drink anything after midnight the previous day-in other words, they awoke from their procedure hours after they’d normally have had their morning brew. Caffeine withdrawal headaches sometimes happen on the weekend or around the holidays, when you sleep in and maybe don’t sip until a few hours after you would on a weekday. ![]() Symptoms of a caffeine withdrawal headache include persistent throbbing head pain that can hit when you either take in of lot more caffeine than you normally do, or when you are a regular drinker, but for whatever reason don’t get your cuppa promptly. But it could be that you’re having a caffeine withdrawal headache. There are many things that can trigger headaches and migraines-including lack of sleep and dehydration, both of which may also be factors if you’ve been pushing yourself. Maybe it happens first thing in the morning before you’ve staggered to the Keurig, or possibly the day after you pulled an all-nighter (aided by a couple of ventis and maybe a Coke Zero) and got your assignment done just under the wire. That distinct throbbing in your noggin that no amount of temple massaging takes away for more than a second. ![]()
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