Tag Archives: Migraine

Acupuncture for Migraine Pain Relief

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PainRelief.com Interview with:

Prof. Wei Wang
Department of Neurology,
Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College,
Huazhong University of Science and Technology,
Wuhan, Hubei, P.R. China

acupuncture

PainRelief.com:  What is the background for this study?

Response: The burden of migraine is substantial, resulting in considerable economic and social losses. The latest Global Burden of Disease Study showed that 1.25 billion people had migraine in 2017. A significant number of patients are still not responding well to drug therapy, or cannot tolerate the adverse effects of drugs, or have contraindications, which can lead to low medication compliance, headache chronification and acute medication overuse. Prophylactic drugs should be recommended for migraineurs who have at least four headache days per month, but only 13% of patients reported current use of preventive drugs. Besides, ineffectiveness of and/or contraindications to migraine medication affect 10-15% of people with migraine. Hence, a need exists to investigate non-drug interventions.

Previous studies suggest that acupuncture works particularly well on a range of pain disorders. However, clinical evidence for the benefit of manual acupuncture for migraine prophylaxis remains scarce. Appropriate placebo control settings and successful blinding are two critical elements in addressing this challenge. Sham acupuncture involving penetrating needles should be avoided in clinical trials. Previous acupuncture research has often used penetrating sham acupuncture, involving needling non-acupuncture points, needling irrelevant acupuncture points, or superficial needling. However, whether the needle is inserted into an acupuncture point or a non-acupuncture point, it could produce a physiological effect. Comparisons between true acupuncture and sham acupuncture might also be biased by unsuccessful blinding. To ensure an inert placebo control and successful blinding, we recruited acupuncture-naive patients, using non-penetrating sham acupuncture at heterosegmental non-acupuncture points as the control, and designed the same procedures to perform the same rituals as much as possible in the manual and sham acupuncture groups.

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Migraine: Aspirin Evaluated for Pain Relief and Prevention

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PainRelief.com Interview with:

Charles Hennekens, MD, DrPH

Prof. Hennekens

Sir Richard Doll Professor
Senior Academic Advisor to the Dean
Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine
Florida Atlantic University

PainRelief.com:  What is the background for this study?

Response: Migraine headaches are among the most common and potentially debilitating disorders encountered by primary healthcare providers. In the treatment of acute migraine as well as prevention of recurrent attacks there are prescription drugs of proven benefit. For those without health insurance or high co-pays, however, they may be neither available nor affordable and, for all patients, they may be either poorly tolerated or contraindicated. 

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Migraine: Pain Relief from BotoxA May Last At Least 6 Months After Injections Stopped

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Jason Ching MD
Department of Neurology
George Washington University School of Medicine
Washington, DC

headache migraine

PainRelief.com:  What is the background for this study?  What are the main findings?

Response: The clinical course of chronic migraine patients who respond positively to serial botulinum toxin A (BotoxA) injection therapy and eventually discontinue treatment has not been well-studied. Optimizing the duration of treatment would be beneficial from both a cost and safety perspective.

In our study, we found that over 80% of our chronic migraine patients who achieved our stipulated stopping rule experienced no clinical worsening or associated need to resume prophylactic therapy for at least 6 months following discontinuation of BotoxA.

A greater number of BotoxA treatments required to achieve the stopping rule and the presence of baseline chronic daily headaches for over 6 months duration were factors correlated with clinical deterioration.

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Migraine Linked to Poor Sleep and Sleep Apnea

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PainRelief.com Interview with:

Dawn C. Buse PhD Clinical Professor of Neurology Albert Einstein College of Medicine New York City

Dawn C. Buse PhD
Clinical Professor of Neurology
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
New York City

PainRelief.com:  What is the background for this study?

Response: Sleep is essential in the regulation of a wide range of homeostatic functions.  Dysregulation of sleep process may be triggers for migraine attacks and increase the risk of migraine disease chronification.  Migraine is comorbid with a range of medical, neurologic, and psychiatric comorbidities that may exacerbate the disease, complicate treatment, and reduce health-related quality of life.  These comorbidities include sleep disorders such as sleep apnea, insomnia, circadian rhythm (i.e., sleep-wake) disorders, and sleep movement disorders.

The Chronic Migraine Epidemiology and Outcomes (CaMEO) Study is a longitudinal study that used a series of web-based surveys over 15 months to assess migraine symptoms, burden and patterns of healthcare utilization among people in the US population.  Validated questionnaires were used to assess many comorbidities.  Migraine can be classified based on the number of headache days per month into episodic migraine (<15 headache days/month) and chronic migraine (≥15 headache days/month).

In this cross-sectional analysis of data from the Chronic Migraine Epidemiology and Outcomes (CaMEO) Study, we assessed sleep apnea and poor sleep quality in a US population based sample of 12,810 people with migraine.  Respondents were stratified by episodic (11,699) and chronic (1,111) migraine and by body mass index (BMI).

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Headache an Immense Public Health Problem, for Rich and Poor Countries

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PainRelief.com Interview with:

Lars Jacob Stovner MD PhD Professor of Neurology Department of Neuromedicine and Movement Science NTNU, Norwegian University of Science and Technology Head of the Norwegian Advisory Unit on Headaches, St. Olavs Hospital Trondheim, Norway

Prof. Stovner

Lars Jacob Stovner MD PhD
Professor of Neurology
Department of Neuromedicine and Movement Science
NTNU, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Head of the Norwegian Advisory Unit on Headaches,
St. Olavs Hospital Trondheim, Norway

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? 

Response: The study focuses on prevalence and burden of migraine and tension-type headache in the Global Burden of Disease project from 2016.

Previous analyses has shown that migraine is the second most disabling disorder in terms of years lived with disability. This particular analysis shows that more than 1 billion people suffered from migraine in 2016 and 1.9 billion from tension-type headache, and it gives estimates each country and different world regions.

Headache is particularly burdensome in young and middle-aged women, but the impact is also quite marked also in men, children and elderly.

There is considerable variation between countries, but the burden is relatively stable over time (from 1990), and there is no obvious relation to the socioeconomic level of the country.  Continue reading →

FDA Approved Emgality Offers New Hope For Migraine Prevention

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Gudarz Davar, M.D., Vice President
Neuroscience Platform Leader
Eli Lilly and Company

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this announcement?  How big a problem is migraine in the US?  Who is primarily affected? 

Response: Migraine is a disabling, neurologic disease that affects more than 30 million American adults. According to the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey, the total unadjusted cost associated with migraine in the U.S. is estimated to be as high as $56 billion annually. People with migraine can miss out on significant moments in their lives—birthdays and anniversaries—and there remains an unmet need for treatment options that can help patients achieve significant reductions in the overall frequency of migraine attacks.

Emgality (galcanezumab-gnlm) was approved by the FDA on Thursday, September 27, for the preventive treatment of migraine in adults. Emgality is a humanized monoclonal antibody indicated for the preventive treatment of migraine in adults that binds to CGRP ligand and blocks its binding to the receptor, which is believed to play a role in migraine. It is offered as a self-administered, once-monthly subcutaneous injection. Emgality offers new hope to people living with migraine as one of the first medicines developed specifically for the prevention of migraine.

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Study Reviews Imitrex Nasal Spray (sumatriptan) for Migraine Pain Relief

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This study is systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the tolerability and efficacy of intranasal sumatriptan for the treatment of acute migraine attacks.  Taste disturbance was a leading side effect.
Neurol Sci. 2017 Sep 23. doi: 10.1007/s10072-017-3119-y. [Epub ahead of print]

Intranasal sumatriptan for acute migraine attacks: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Menshawy A1,2,3, Ahmed H2,4,5, Ismail A1,2,6, Abushouk AI7,8,9, Ghanem E1,2, Pallanti R1,10, Negida A2,4,5.
Note: Content is Not intended as medical advice. Please consult your health care provider regarding your specific medical condition and questions.