Why do migraines cause nausea/vomiting?And why does the headache usually go away after throwing up?
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Serotonin has a role in both the headaches and the nausea. Serotonin is a hormone that is produced in both the brain and the gut, although most of it is found in the gut. In the gut, serotonin helps the food move along, and a drop in serotonin can cause the food processing to slow down or stop completely. At the same time, a drop in serotonin level causes a migraine attack. On the contrary, a sudden increase in serotonin production in the gut causes nausea and vomiting.
If your migraine ends after vomiting, it can be that the new, although sudden, production of serotonin, restores the serotonin shortage and the migraine is over.
To expand.. another clue is the medicine to treat migraine (with nausea); tryptophan. The body needs tryptophan to produce serotonin.
Another product made from tryptophan is kynurenine, which regulates the sensation of pain in the nerves in the head (trigeminal system). So there is more to it than serotonin alone, but it’s processing plays a central role in migraines.
Taken together, in a migraine attack there is a disturbance in the level of serotonin, usually begins with a drop in serotonin and ends with an increase of serotonin.
If you take the medicine tryptophan at the beginning of a migraine attack, this will help normalize the serotonin levels and this can stop the migraine attack.
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