Can migraines cause nausea?
Yes. Nausea — and sometimes vomiting — is one of the most common features of a migraine attack, and it's part of what distinguishes migraine from an ordinary tension-type headache. For many people the queasiness is as disabling as the head pain itself.
Why migraine brings nausea
Nausea is built into the recognised criteria for migraine, not an incidental extra. It's thought to arise because a migraine attack involves widespread changes in the brain and nervous system — including pathways that influence the gut — rather than being confined to the head. Related effects can include a slowing of the stomach (gastric stasis), which is one reason oral medication sometimes feels less effective during an attack. Nausea can appear at any point, sometimes even in the warning phase before the pain.
What nausea tells you
Because nausea is a core migraine feature, its regular presence alongside a headache is a useful clue that you're dealing with migraine rather than a simple headache. Tracking how often it appears, how severe it gets, and whether it tips into vomiting also helps convey the true burden of your attacks — something easily underplayed when you only describe the pain. That fuller picture matters when a clinician is weighing how to help.
How tracking helps
Logging nausea and vomiting alongside your other symptoms builds an accurate record of what your attacks actually involve, which supports both diagnosis and management discussions. If vomiting is frequent or you struggle to keep fluids or medication down, that's worth raising with a clinician. Temple records these features per attack; it documents your pattern and isn't medical advice. Temple is a tracking tool, not medical advice — for anything specific to you, consult a healthcare professional.
Temple records nausea and vomiting alongside your other symptoms, so the true burden of each attack is documented rather than reduced to just the head pain.
Common questions
- Is nausea a normal part of a migraine?
- Yes. Nausea is one of the most common migraine features and is part of the diagnostic criteria, which is why its regular presence helps distinguish migraine from an ordinary headache. Some people also experience vomiting during attacks.
- Why do I feel sick before the headache starts?
- Nausea can appear in the premonitory (prodrome) phase, before the pain, because a migraine involves brain and nervous-system changes that begin ahead of the headache. Tracking when nausea starts helps map your own attack pattern.