Red wine and beer are more of a trigger than white wine, and dry wine is less of a trigger than sweet.
I wasn’t a big drinker to begin with, but so desperate to make every attempt to get rid of the migraines that I tried every strategy and recommendation I came across in my research.
At the time, I gave up drinking alcohol to see whether I would suffer fewer or less severe migraines (that strategy worked!). It never occurred to me to try alcohol-free wines, and I don’t remember if alcohol-free beer was available decades ago when I was a migraine sufferer.
I’m not sure what it is about various types of alcohol that causes them to trigger migraines, but if I refer to the acupuncture and shiatsu opinions that migraines are connected to the gallbladder meridian, then I’m going to hazard a guess that by eating or drinking less concentrated foods and beverages, you are on the right track.
Could I drink any kind of alcohol today without provoking a migraine? I most certainly can and I will try something new if offered in a social situation. I choose not to drink more regularly or most of the time because I’m not fond of the effect – feeling less “present” and feeling later on that I lost a few hours, and feeling dehydrated. I prefer the sharpened senses I’ve developed and the natural emotional highs I can conjure up at any moment without ingesting, injecting or inhaling any outside depressant or stimulant.
So to those suffering from migraines who find it particularly difficult to give up drinking, I would begin by trying the non-alcoholic versions of your favorites and see whether it has a positive effect on migraines – either frequency or severity or – bliss! – if sobriety can actually eliminate them. Check with your doctor’s opinion on the effects of drinking alcohol and what needs to be done to counteract or prevent any negative effects. Doctors recommend not taking prescriptions with alcohol, so if a migraine were headed my way, then my prescription was automatically going to be less effective in helping to kill the pain – and that was an effect I needed to avoid.
The two-book series of Fit_for_Life by authors Harvey and Marilyn Diamond were the most impactful in guiding me to rid myself of migraines. The emphasis on eating and drinking fresher, plant-based, preferably raw and less concentrated foods and liquids made – and continues to make to this day – a real, positive difference in keeping migraines at bay for nearly four decades, but also improving the rest of my body’s systems. While adapting was not always easy, you could not pay me enough to go back to my old dietary practices. I simply feel too good, and compared to my contemporaries with their various manifestations of chronic deterioration, I feel like a billion bucks!
I suffered two hangovers in my life and the second involved drinking a healthiest drink and not an alcoholic beverage! The first hangover occurred when I attended a huge campsite BBQ. Not having time to drop by the liquor store after work to pick up a bottle of wine or something stronger, I took a half bottle of sparkling wine out of my home bar. Everyone at the campsite was a beer drinker, so in order not to “waste” the sparkling wine, I drank 6 small glasses over a 9-hour period where we were served dish after dish of steak, sausages, chops, fish, potatoes, salads, roasted vegetables of all kinds and calorie-rich desserts. We were stuffed.
One would think that drinking 6 small glasses over 9 hours during such a gargantuan feast would keep me safe. Not so – I woke up in my tent in a lovely pine forest in Southeastern Ontario, to (what to me was) the nauseating smell of frying pans full of rashers of bacon, sausages, eggs and potatoes, with a head that was pounding and a heaving stomach, feeling deathly ill. I woke up with the first hangover of my life, to the great amusement of most of the previous night’s BBQ guests, who had had more experience with hangovers and were amused at my puzzlement as to why I felt so lousy. Lesson learned about my limits.
A few years later, still on my journey to get rid of migraines, I picked up a juicer, a recipe book for smoothies and a big selection of mixed fresh fruit. With the determination and fervor of the new convert, supper that evening would consist of a series of samples of fruit juice combinations. I must have taken in a litre and a half of healthy, natural, good-for-you liquids. If a little is good for you, then more must be better – yes? When was the last time you fell for that nonsense!?
The next morning, I woke up in my inner city apartment, convinced I was in a sleeping bag in a tent pitched in a pine forest in Southeastern Ontario. I was hungover again – on fresh fruit juice!?! While taking its time to be digested, that excessive amount of fresh fruit juice had time to ferment into alcohol in my stomach and one of alcohol’s properties is that it is absorbed directly into the bloodstream, and has its effect on the brain!
A liter and a half of fresh juice – remember what I said about migraines not liking extremes and excesses? If anything – getting rid of migraines teaches you moderation…
