Sometimes I stay up until 1–3 a.m. because I'm working on a problem that's so interesting I can't stop until I make progress.
If I know I'm only going to get a few hours of sleep, I'll take 5–10 g of creatine, drink plenty of water, and go to bed. The next morning, I usually don't wake up with a headache.
If I skip the creatine under the same conditions, I'm much more likely to wake up with a headache after a short night's sleep.
Now it's become a habit, I automatically take creatine whenever I know my sleep duration is going to be much shorter than usual.
I do the same thing with pickle juice. Works for me.
> If I know I'm only going to get a few hours of sleep, I'll ... drink plenty of water
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21517-dehydra...
Do you still drink water when you skip creatine? Being dehydrated causes headaches, so it may be the extra water intake that's helping and not the creatine.