4 ms·

Sucralose and aspartame are both reliable migraine triggers for me, and have been at least since my early 20s. Stevia and monkfruit are fine. The only other eve

Sucralose and aspartame are both reliable migraine triggers for me, and have been at least since my early 20s. Stevia and monkfruit are fine. The only other even semi-consistent migraine trigger for me is alcohol. I've successfully avoided migraines for years by carefully avoiding sucralose and aspartame (and drinking little to no alcohol), but even a small serving of something "sugar-free" and within a few hours I'll get a crippling migraine. In college, I spent a while testing, and the link between both sucralose and aspartame and my migraines was perfectly reliable. Alcohol in general has been harder to nail down. A single beer won't normally trigger a migraine, while sometimes a single glass of wine or small cocktail will. If I drank to excess it was hard to tell the difference between a hangover and a migraine; I wasn't that invested in social alcohol consumption, so I've mostly just been a teetotaler since college. Absinthe uniquely reliably gives me an acephalgic migraine with aura around 12 hours after drinking. Edited to add: I've just stayed away from ace-K and sugar-alcohols as a precaution. I'm past the point in my life where I have any real interest in risking crippling migraines for the sake of personal curiosity.

nottorp 3y ago
Generally speaking, the more sugary the drink the worse the hangover. You seem to be unlucky enough to get the migraine before drinking enough for a hangover, but the mechanism may be the same?
scotty79 3y ago
I think I've read somewhere that drop in blood glucose can cause headaches. Maybe sweetners trick your body into releasing a lot of insuline to deal with "sugar" but there's no new sugar in your blood so glucose level drops giving you a headache? Just a theory but you could test it by monitoring glucose after ingesting something with sweetner. According to this theory ingesting sweetner together with sugar should cause you less or no discomfort. Maybe you could try doing something like drinking normal Coke after accidentally ingesting sweetner to see if it helps? Alcohol might be a different issue. After all it's just a straight up poison that metabolizes into another poison.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
  > drop in blood glucose can cause headaches My anecdotal experience is that this is true. I can often (but not always) subvert a looming headache by eating something sweet. Yogurt in particularly is remarkably effective.

nottorp 3y ago

Generally speaking, the more sugary the drink the worse the hangover. You seem to be unlucky enough to get the migraine before drinking enough for a hangover, but the mechanism may be the same?

scotty79 3y ago

I think I've read somewhere that drop in blood glucose can cause headaches. Maybe sweetners trick your body into releasing a lot of insuline to deal with "sugar" but there's no new sugar in your blood so glucose level drops giving you a headache? Just a theory but you could test it by monitoring glucose after ingesting something with sweetner. According to this theory ingesting sweetner together with sugar should cause you less or no discomfort. Maybe you could try doing something like drinking normal Coke after accidentally ingesting sweetner to see if it helps? Alcohol might be a different issue. After all it's just a straight up poison that metabolizes into another poison.

Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
> drop in blood glucose can cause headaches My anecdotal experience is that this is true. I can often (but not always) subvert a looming headache by eating something sweet. Yogurt in particularly is remarkably effective.