It is approximated that about 11% of working adults suffer from migraines. Migraine is a neurological disorder associated with head pains that come in episodes and sensitivity to light and sound as well. The symptoms however vary from person to person and causes reduced productivity. Most people suffering from this condition opt for medications to manage the condition. However, prescription drugs are very expensive and too have some undesirable side effects to the user. Some people may use caffeine combined with an analgesic. This has been seen to have efficacy. The caffeinated agents have been used for long worldwide by patients with migraine. The paper focuses on the negative effects of caffeine use on patients with migraines.
Effects
Caffeine treatment has been known to result into disruption of brain functions which are very vital including sleep, learning and memory. Other effects include dysfunctions and brain diseases such as depression and migraines. Also caffeine has been established to have effect on the circadian rhythm and sleep disrupting effects as a result of delayed circadian timekeeping that may be the cause of the severe headaches and migraines (Martins, 2017).
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Caffeine has been known to result into addiction when consumed in large quantities over long duration. Its withdrawal symptoms include headaches and migraines. Regular caffeine users have reported to experience headache after at least a single episode of withdrawal. Some users have experienced continuous migraines and headaches after continuous abstinence from caffeine. The cause for this difference has not been established. About 50% percent of the users complain of withdrawal headaches when they try to quit as per conducted surveys. Doses amounting to about 260mg can cause effects such as severe headache, diffuse throbbing headache and feeling of sickness. (Uddin, Sufian, Rahman, & Rafe, 2017).
Majority of people with migraine related conditions are treated with the over the counter analgesics. The caffeine content in these drugs are however limited to not more than 65mg per tablet. The caffeinated analgesics have been discovered to cause mild some side effects that among them dizziness and nervousness. When used in excess can result to migraines in the event there is an abrupt discontinuation. Continuous use of these substances can result into a risk of migraine progression from being episode like to becoming chronic like according to other studies (Lipton, Diena, Garas & Patel, 2017; Wham, Rowe & Rutherford, 2017).
Caffeine consumption has been established to be a cause a type of headache known as migraine that can be as a result of the withdrawal of the user which has been associated with what is known as the “weekend migraine attacks”. The science behind this is the fact that caffeine causes changes in the blood flow velocity. This has been known to be caused by the alteration of the caffeine intake alterations. Research where 20 volunteers took part in who did not have any headache history participated. Regular caffeine intake, withdrawal and re-caffenation conditions were measured. After 24 hours of caffeine abstinence, ten of the suffered from mild to severe headaches and they recovered completely after intake of caffeine within an hour. Blood flow velocity was observed to reduce after an hour from time of caffeine intake. The result from this study shows that there is a relationship between the withdrawal from caffeine intake with development of migraines and cerebral blood flow velocities (Couturier, Laman, & Van Duijin, 2016)
In conclusion, caffeine has negative effects on migraine due to its effect on the blood flow in the brain. The withdrawal of the drug leads to migraine as it reduces the blood flow velocity.
References
Couturier, E. G. M., Laman, D. M., Van Duijn, M. A. J., & Van Duijn, H. (2016). Influence of caffeine and caffeine withdrawal on headache and cerebral blood flow velocities. Cephalalgia , 17 (3), 188-190.
Lipton, R. B., Diener, H. C., Robbins, M. S., Garas, S. Y., & Patel, K. (2017). Caffeine in the management of patients with headache. The journal of headache and pain , 18 (1), 107.
Martins, I. J. (2017). Nutrition therapy regulates caffeine metabolism with relevance to NAFLD and induction of type 3 diabetes. J Diabetes Metab Disord , 4 , 019.
Uddin, M. S., Sufian, M. A., Hossain, M. F., Kabir, M. T., Islam, M. T., Rahman, M. M., & Rafe, M. R. (2017). Neuropsychological effects of caffeine: Is caffeine addictive. J Psycho l Psychother , 7 , 1-12.
Wham, C., Rowe, K., Ali, A., & Rutherford-Markwick, K. (2017). Influences of Caffeine Consumption among Adult New Zealanders: A Qualitative Study. Journal of Caffeine Research , 7 (4), 142-150.
