Eli5 how does caffeine help relieve migraine/headaches?
In: Biology
The pain involved in migraines is caused by blood vessels that run through your skull behind your eye dilating. There isn’t much space inside of the actual skull bone, so when these vessels dilate they increase the amount of pressure inside of the bone itself. That increase in pressure is painful.
Normal headaches are caused by a similar process – blood vessels throughout your skull dilate a bit which increases pressure within the bone, which causes pain.
Caffeine causes blood vessels to constrict. This causes the blood vessels inside of your skull bone to return to their normal size, lowering the pressure inside of the bone, and stopping the pain.
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