Anyone who has had a migraine knows that nothing can get rid of it fast enough. And, for some people, nothing can get rid of it at all. There are many migraine medications on the market now but since we’re all such individuals, not every medication can help everyone.
Dihydroergotamine, or DHE, is a medication that is given by injection and it works for many people. MAP Pharmaceuticals has developed an inhaled version of DHE, called Levadex. This past may, a Phase III study showed that Levadex was effective in many patients.
The study involved 798 patients. Two hours after taking either …read more

Some plastic surgery researchers believe that surgical treatment for migraines is safe and effective, even while eliminating some signs of aging at the same time.

I’m skeptical. However, I still wanted to report on this unique study, published in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
Researchers tested the idea that migraines are caused when a person’s trigeminal nerve branches are irritated. Thus, the treatment would involve removing these muscles, an easy and permanent fix.
The study was double-blind and placebo-controlled. The researchers, a plastic surgeon and two neurologists, found three common trigger sites and randomly assigned 75 patients to real or fake surgeries that …read more

If you’re a smoker and you get migraines, a study that appeared in the most recent issue of  the Journal of Headache and Pain may be of interest to you. Researchers from the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology found that smokers had more migraine attacks than non-smoking migraineurs and that as few as five cigarettes per day triggered migraines.
Interestingly, not much has been studied about cigarettes and migraines. Some researchers believed that smoking could work to ease migraine pain if smokers found smoking to be relaxing. But this study used medical students as their subjects, who knew what migraines …read more

Granted, most of us aren’t hurtling ourselves into outer space, but this is an interesting finding. Astronauts are subject to space headaches caused by their out-of-world exerpience.
According to findings of a study recently published in the journal Cephalalgia,

12 of the 17 astronauts (71 per cent) reported 21 headache episodes during the space missions – nine during launch, nine during the stay at the space station, one during activities outside the space station and two during landing. None of the astronauts had a history of recurrent headache on earth.
Five astronauts reported headaches during one of the time frames, six during …read more

One quarter of all pregnant women experience migraines. Now, a new study suggests that migraines can be an indicator of stroke, heart disease, or vascular problems as well.
According to the Ithica Journal, pregnant women who have migraines “are 15 times more likely than other women to suffer a stroke, twice as likely to have heart disease and three times more likely to have blood clots and other vascular problems during pregnancy.”
The study also found that women over 35 were more likely to experience migraines. The condition was also present in white more often than in other ethnic or …read more

Today kicks off National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week. It runs September 10th through the 16th. What is an invisible chronic illness? If you have an illness and it can’t be seen from the outside, you have it. That would include diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, autism, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, migraines, chronic back pain, eating disorders, multiple sclerosis and mental illness, just to name a few.Actually over 95% of chronic illness is invisible. Laura from CFS Squared sent me a link to a great website that is officially hosting an area to come together and “feel that there is …read more

Patent foramen ovale (PFO), an opening between the heart’s two upper (atrial) chambers, has been linked to strokes, decompression sickness, and migraines with auras. Devices that seal this hole in the heart may help severe migraine sufferers; some patients who receive the implant have a 37% reduction in migraine burden – number and length of episodes.
The procedure to implant the device in the heart takes about 45 minutes and uses a catheter to thread the implant via a vein in the groin up to the heart.
Scientists don’t know why the PFO hole plays a role in triggering migraines, but …read more