Migraine Prevention: Finding the Right Therapy

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Migraine Prevention: Finding the Right Therapy

Even working with a medical provider you trust, the process of finding an effective migraine prevention treatment can be frustrating.  What you want is a treatment that will significantly reduce your headache burden, will do so within a relatively short time of beginning the treatment and will not cause a bundle of side effects worse than the migraine it’s intended to treat. 

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Migraine Myth of the Month: Migraine Diagnosis Requires a Brain Imaging Study

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Migraine Myth of the Month: Migraine Diagnosis Requires a Brain Imaging Study

Many patients presenting to a medical provider for evaluation of migraine become uneasy - even angry - when that provider fails to order a brain CT or MRI scan.  Understandably convinced that "there must be something wrong with my brain to cause this terrible pain", they worry that a brain tumor, aneurysm or some similarly serious structural abnormality will be missed unless a scan is performed.

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Migraine Treatment of the Month: Tosymra

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Migraine Treatment of the Month: Tosymra

Ever since injectable sumatriptan was released (as Imitrex) for general clinical use in 1992, investigators have searched for a needle-less alternative for delivery of a triptan or triptan-like medication which would offer the same level of effectiveness, the same rapidity of effectiveness and the advantage of avoiding the oral route of administration in migraineurs experiencing nausea and vomiting with their headaches.

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Doctor on Call

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Doctor on Call

In this edition of Doctor on Call, a Georgetown Law student writes: I started having menses when I was 13, and almost from the start I’ve had a headache that begins like clockwork one day prior to onset of flow and continues nonstop for the next 3-5 days.  I occasionally have migraines at other times of the month as well, but those are infrequent and involve more of a temporary problem with my vision…

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