A headache can bring a screeching halt to an enjoyable evening, and, as we’re clearly in favor of imbibing, we feel it’s our duty to not only aid you in preventing these headaches, but also cure them once they begin.
Before we go over potential cures, however, we want to clear up one common misconception that surrounds wine headaches: sulfites do not cause headaches. While they may cause a very small portion of people to develop asthma-like symptoms, causing a headache is one thing sulfites don’t do.
Now on to the cures for wine headaches!
Cure #1 – Drink Lots Of Water
When we drink alcohol, we begin to pull water from every inch of our body in order to help our liver flush out the toxin. If we aren’t drinking water in addition to our booze consumption, our body sucks up whatever water it can find, so we tend to become dehydrated much faster, and therefore develop a splitting headache. One of the quickest solutions to this problem is not only making sure to drink a glass of water here and there as you continue to drink, but also gulping down a few glasses at the first sight of head throbbing.
Cure #2 – Try Claritin Or Allegra
If you seem to get a headache each time you drink wine, especially when drinking red wine, you may be susceptible to the histamines inside the beverage. The simple solution here is taking an allergy pill when you first feel the headache coming on. If it works, simply take a Claritin or an Allegra prior to the next time you drink wine, and you should be good to go.
Cure #3 – Avoid Sugar
You know what causes you to pull even more water from every inch of your body? That’s right, it’s sugar. Combining alcohol and sugar is like creating the perfect headache bomb, with your body working overtime to not only flush out the alcohol, but also the offending sugar. This means you need to try to avoid consuming too many sweet wines such as Moscato, Sauterne or sweet bubblies. It also means you may want to think twice before ordering that sugary dessert.
One Cure We Advise Against – Painkillers Like Aspirin, Advil Or Tylenol.
While a painkiller may be one of the quickest ways to stop or prevent a wine headache, try to avoid this solution unless all other options fail to work. The drugs in painkillers must also be processed by your liver, so adding another foreign substance to the party, in addition to the alcohol you’re consuming, forces your liver to work harder, and isn’t healthy to do too often.
If you’re someone who seems to develop more headaches from wine than other people, head on over to our wine 101 section where we go into detail about the three main causes for chronic wine headaches. If you can identify one of these three reasons as the culprit, simply eliminate it and you’re on your way to being headache free.
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