Why throwing up relieves a migraine headache

I'm new to THIS forum but have been on HW for over a week now for my Crohn's

I've had migraines since I was about 9 years old. They started after a major frontal concussion and grew more frequent after I reached puberty. I've gone years with only a few bothering me now and then but ten years ago I started to get them almost everyday. Presently they have subsided a bit because I started taking Gabapentin and vit B2 prescribed by my neurologist. She said I have Classic, Common and Retinal (I've always heard those called Ocular)

My migraines usually start behind my right eye and stay there but also go to my ear, face, jaw, teeth, and mastoid and then down my neck. I wake up with them sometimes and they grow, but can subside if I can drink enough tea (caffeine) and my b/f can massage my neck and shoulders and it will die down before it is full on. Other times a massage makes me sick to my stomach if it is rocking me back and forth. If I get them during the day and have an aura before the real pain hits I have the chance to take a fiorinal. Other times I take it when the pain has already hit and then I will have to take it again usually to be able to relax and get rid of it. I have also lately experienced several ocular migraines that did not produce pain at the time but produced a major migraine the next day with projectile vomiting. I can't take imitrex or any of those type due to other medical conditions and family history of heart attacks and strokes..

oh and most important... throwing up with a migraine has NEVER made me feel even a bit better.. I wish it did!!
NY Veggie

There are migraines that start in your stomach ... strange i know. I have had migraines it feels like since the revolutionary war.lol.. but sometimes i will just get the stomach nausea and an aura but no headache. i went to a seminar and i learned there that that is a type of migraine. I also get the kind that you want to slam your head through a brick wall. The ones i got that were more severe the unilateral above one eye, nausea, puking, no relief, that kind were very much hormonal related for me. the ones that i noticed starting in my tummy tended to be brought on more by deep seeded stress that i had tucked away. i never looked up the physiological reasons why they acted differently. Have a metabolic panel ran to make sure you have plenty of B12 once my b12 was at a higher level my nausea was better. and make sure you stick to a routine as much as possible. esp waking up and going to bed.

God bless you and yours, all of you... Migraines can literally make you feel that you are nearing nearing insanity.

diana fern

Im not a migraine sufferer. THANK goodness after reading. But my girlfriend is..she actually had a really BAD migraine last night and after she vomited for a bit, she ALSO found relief after vomiting.

I never knew anything about migraines till i started dating her, well Im surprised no one here has recommended MAGNESIUM citrate. I researched and found this helps for migraines, and got her some and she now has LESS migraines.  It doesnt cure but it sure lessens her attacks. She takes it everyday.

Now im surprised that NO ONE has any info on why vomiting helps except saying it just does, is there really no studies on this and no medical insight??

Also curious if anyone has any other natural remedies. thanks

I have suffered from migraines for 18 years - usually 2-3 a year, but since having children it has increased to 8-12 a year. I think back/shoulder strain from lifting the kids + lack of sleep may be extra triggers resulting in increase. I have also realised recently why I get them if I have a rare lie in - my blood sugar levels/hydration are too low after not eating for so long.

Vomiting usually helps me get over a migraine. However my last one was so severe I could not stop vomiting and resulted in vomiting up blood and being carted off to A&E for morphine shot. The difference with this migraine was it was right side of my head, when usually it is my left.

I am now trying the natural remedies to try prevent migraines: magnesium, butterbur and feverfew. I also make sure to eat something just before I go to bed and make sure to get up and eat/drink again by 7am. It has been 35 days since my last attack, so fingers crossed its working...

I know this is an old post, but if someone is still wondering I found this link to be helpful. http://naturalremedies.helpandwhoto.com/why-does-my-headache-go-away-after-i-throw-up/

I feel I need to tell my story,

I was in middle school, possibly 7th grade when i had my first migraine. I had just finished PE class and ran a lot, bout 20 min after during lunch my vision began to sparkle and do funny things. The my vision kida went blind save for tunnel vision. My brain soon was pounding and i was sweating. Soon after my father arrived at school to pick up his very sick daughter. On my way out the door i threw up on my principals shoes, and all out to the car. It was embarrassing. On the car ride home i felt a little better but my head still hurt. I took a bath and then fell in bed still damp and did not wake for four hours. when i woke i felt much better.

Weeks if not months later same thing happened after PE and the same situation of the sparkly vision and tunnel vision then headache that made me want to die. After a while perhaps 45 minuets or up to 2 hours later i would finally throw up and start to feel a little better. I tended toward sleeping off the rest of the day after such episodes. I had at least 6 migraines a year eventually i went to the dr to look into my migraine issues. I was put on a magical medication that worked but i ran out of them eventually after a few years.

I was a Junior in High school and i was again in PE. i was doing the "Pacer", In the state of washington its some sort of phitness test. I nearly collapsed and i thought i was blind for a time. I vision was so fuzzy. I demanded to go to the nurse. The pe teacher felt i was trying to get out of PE.

I was a fit your lady in high school i weighed my junior year about 125lbs. Not a bad weight and i was nice and curvy. So i was not lazy or unfit. I could not explain the issues i was having. All migraines were triggered by Running. I went into the nurse and explained the issues with PE i had been having and i also told her i believed another migraine was already coming on. She hurriedly gave me leave to drive home cause i told her i had about 20 min before it started to be a real problem, she said she would call my mom and have a little chat with her. I left and barely made it home on account of the migraine coming on faster that i had anticipated. I got over my migraine and went down for a late dinner that night and my mom talked to me about what the school nurse had to say. She had asked my parents if i had heart issues. My parents had told her no, not to their knowledge....i had been a happy and seemingly healthy little girl all my life. Active and hyper.

The nurse insisted my parents go to the dr to see what might be wrong with me. My dad and mom were talking for some time that its just what teenagers do, "try to get out of classes". I insisted that was not the case. So my dad said fine and he called up our neighbor bob who is a ER dr. Dr. bob listened to my heart, and seemed to not hear anyting out of the ordinary...Then he listened again.... after a few min he told my dad my heart was strong...but there was a sound to it that he has unable to explain. He said i defiantly needed an x-ray, or perhaps an ekg.

This is where my life took an interesting turn... I found my self a few days later at kaiser in salmon creek washington and my primary was listening to my heart. His attitude was apparent. He did not think a healthy person like me should be wasting his time in his office. He told my dad my heart sounded fine, perfect even.
My dad just frowned and said he would not leave till he say an x-ray. The Dr. just sighed and said fine. I was then sent down to get my X-ray, once finished and waiting for the results the Dr. called us into the hallway where the light screen where you place the X-rays on. He pointed to my heart and asked. "You see anything wrong with this?" he asked me. I thought he was being cheeky and rude, tying to make some-sort of moral statement about taking up Dr. time. I replied "Nothing i suppose."
He looked at my dad, and me then pointed to the screen again "This heart is three times the size it should be." he stated, seeming shocked himself.

He brought us into the patience room again and he said having such an enlarged heart was not good but beyond what he could treat. He then refereed me to Doernbeckers childrens hospital in portland oregon. I was referred to dr. Robin Shaunessy. She tired to clam my freaked out parents telling them "it could be all fine. Not to worry that she has seen many teenagers with similar symptoms and they wound up fine. she told them an ECOcardiogram and an EKG would give her all the information she would need."

After all tests were done Dr shaunessy brought us all into the room and she held out a few pictures of a heart. First she looked to my parents. "You remember me telling you i have seen other teenagers with same symptoms as Mallory here, and they wound up being fine?" she asked. "And then there is mallory." she said lightly. She seemed to be trying to make light.
"see here mallory? this is a heart how it is supposed to be all four chambers and see how the blood flow's?" she asked me. She was talking with me mostly after all i was 17 years old. Nearly an adult. I nodded my understanding. "See this picture? How a wall seems to be missing?" she asked.
I laugh not thinking back but i had know a bit about the heart on acount of health class the week before focusing on the heart the week before. I said "The Atrial wall is missing?"
She nodded. "And its much to large to have it fixed in the Cath Lab. Your hole is an inch wide. Its as though you have lived your entire 17 years living and surviving with a 3 chambered heart and a blood oxygen level of the same mountain climbers face when reaching high peaks."
I was scheduled for open heart surgery Feb 3 2005, too weeks after the surger i have unbelievable complications that forced me to go back to ICU. After my dad rushed me to the hospital i wated 2 hours for an X-ray and after the dr. wide eyes lead me to IC I actually walked in on my own power and climbeD on the bed.
tHE x-RAY showed the fluid on my heart and they could hear my Arrhythmia, or atrial flutter. I had a Paracardal infusion 776cc of fluid was drained from my paracardial sac and i had to have my heart stopped with a crash cart cause of Atrial flutter. I near died in that last hospitalization.. even the drs seemed overwhelmed. I was only 17 years old.

after a few months of recovery i was back to myself again. A bit heavier. I am scared of exersize. Its almost a primal fear now. I am 50 lbs over weigh now and i had my first Migraine today after my surgery. I am going in to see if my heart is acting up again.....

To all who suffer from Migraines. Check out your heart. Ecocardiogram and Ekg. Please. I was told if i had not been treated i would have not lived out the year.

seam by seam and all other migrane suffers. I too suffer from migranes and have done so from an early age. The effects are the same and the end results of throwing up or having a needle were a common to you all. However over a period of time I began to recognize when an attack was starting and what was most likely to set them off, The relief of a stress will start a migrane, strobe lighting or patterns (Checkered floor) passing tree shadows while in a car etc and over rich foods combine with any of the triggers mentioned. How to recognize an onset. Well I get a vision impairement ie like lookinf through a water fall, zigzag light patterns across the eyes, tunnel vision etc. IT is at this point that I have to take a simple remedy of asprin ( 4 extra strength tablets dissolved in a half glass of water (around 2000 miligrams) close my eyes, dont move  and deep breath for around 20 minutes. If I don't it is all over red rover and I suffer terribly. I use only asprin because it thins the blood allowing a better blood flow through the brain( used to reduce the effects of strokes) and it as a treatment in people with possible heart problems (Aspartin) I have suffered 2 mild strokes and have had heart surgery to close a hole in the heart that was allowing blood clots into the brain. It is from this experience that I use asprin only and it certainly helps me with migrane headaches.  TO cap this If you become conscious of the very start of an attack, recognize those surrounds that trigger an attack, and act immediately to alleviate the start of the pain it is possible to reduce the severity of the attack and the frequence of the attacks. Ending with any one who suffers bleeding should get advice from a doctor before using high doses of asprin

I have the same issue with migraines.  For whatever reason,if I am nauseous I will make myself vomit.  I am not waiting for hours for it to happen by itself.  More often than not, within 30 minutes my migraine is gone.  I don't know why, but man, am I grateful.

I agree devo. That's the same way my migraines are. Today throwing up didnt help as much as I would have hoped tho. Im praying for a round 2 to get rid of the rest of it.

I used to get more severe migraines. They sequence would be predictable though: Aura, headache, nausea and finally vomiting. Always the same. Luckily, the nausea has subsided over the years, and along with it, the need to throw up.

But I find that if I have a particularly stubborn migraine that is just really pounding my head, and yet I'm not nauseous, I'll actually drink a tall glass of water, wait maybe 10 minutes, then stick the finger to the back of the throat to induce vomiting. It almost always works in shutting down the severeness of the episode.

As mentioned, it's almost as if the body wants to go through that cycle before it can return to normal.

Your migraines are caused by tight neck muscles.The muscles go to the top of your head where they connect to muscles going around your head.When the neck muscles get tight they pull the head muscles into pain and that's your migraine.When you throw up it's causing a release to those muscles that's hard to get most other ways.The dull sensation is what is left in the tight neck muscles.You can get rid of that by freeing up your neck muscles.To try to keep the migraines from being a problem in the future do the release several times for those muscles will still be tight and freeing them up now will make it harder for them to go back to the pain stage.Here's how to free them up for your relief:
Neck Release:
Place your hands behind your head touching your fingers.Press into the back of your neck with them and hold the pressure on them.After 45 seconds slowly lower your head until your neck is fully extended.Release the pressure but hold your head there for another 30 seconds.
For best results relax your body first by taking a deep breath and exhaling then remain this relaxed.

Well, of all pain, you could try self acupressure.
Using your fingers to press around your ears, when you find a sore spot, keep pressing it. Initially it hurts, but a few minutes later, you will find the pain reduces. Keep pressing it until the pain disappears. You could do it when needed. Sometimes, by pulling the ears also help to alleviate the pain. I have done it myself for arthritis, headache, and neck pain. It also works on stiffness. Give it a try, and you will get amazing results!

I get migraines that do the same thing you all are talking about. After about 2-4 hours of intense pain I am happy to throw up so that the nausea and pain go away. I honestly believe diet has a lot to do with it. For me eating more vegetables, fruits, nuts seem to keep them from happening. If I eat a lot of processed foods in a day then the odds of a migraine increase 50%. I can eat processed foods as long as I have had a few servings of fruits, veggies, nuts. I know that one thing doesn't work for everybody. Look at what you eat. If it comes from a can or box for most meals try to have at least a few fresh things everyday. If your migraines decrease then add more of the good foods to your diet. Just trying to help=)