New drug might help avoid episodic headaches

Migraine is a neurological condition triggering repeating headaches — generally on one side of the head — with an extreme throbbing or pulsing experience.

Other signs of migraine consist of:

If an individual experiences approximately 14 migraine headaches in a month, they have what’s called episodic migraine. If they have 15 or more headaches every month, that is called persistent migraine.

Migraine headaches can be triggered by a range of triggers, consisting of:

Dr. Vernon Williams, a sports neurologist, discomfort management expert, and establishing director of the Center for Sports Neurology and Pain Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles, informed Medical News Today is it not unusual to see individuals with episodic migraine who have actually had no success with preventative drugs.

“Some patients respond well to a number of different preventive medications. Others will have side effects or difficulty with just poor efficacy from preventive medications,” he explained.

Williams said it is necessary to have preventative medications for episodic migraine headaches as they can substantially impact an individual’s capability to operate and decrease their lifestyle.

“If the migraines are negatively impacting someone’s function, quality of life, their ability to do the things they’d like to do, want to do, and need to do, it’s very helpful to have an agent like this that can prevent them and reduce the frequency of the headaches,” he said. “So, maybe instead of getting four or five headaches a month, eight or 10 headaches a month, they are getting one headache a month or one headache every other month.”

“You can see how that would have an effect on people’s performance at work, their abilities to do the things they need to do at school, care for their family, (and) interact with loved ones,” Williams included. “It’s all about improving people’s ability to do the things they’d like to do, need to do, want to do without the difficulties associated with these episodic migraine attacks that can prevent them from being able to be fully present in their lives.”

According to Dr. Medhat Mikhael, a discomfort management expert and medical director of the non-operative program at the Spine Health Center at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in California, medical professionals presently treat migraine headaches with a range of medications, consisting of beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers, and anti-seizure medications.

However, he said, they were not constantly reliable.

Mikhael informed Medical News Today that with the class of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) inhibitors — consisting of atogepant — now available for migraine treatment and avoidance, they are seeing much better outcomes.

“We saw… not only less migraine days, (but also) a lot less severe (migraine headaches that) can be treated with some over-the-counter (medications),” he continued. “And in some patients, they have gone without any migraine or monthly migraine headache days at all.”

Mikhael explained what makes CGRP inhibitors reliable at both avoiding and stopping migraine headaches is that by binding the receptor of the CGRP, you avoid a waterfall of responses that trigger the trigeminal nerve in the head to end up being swollen and dilated.

“What is good about (CGRP inhibitors) is it does not cause any vasoconstriction of the trigeminal artery like the class of the triptans that we use a lot to avoid migraine,” he included. “So, with CGRP inhibitors, you don’t see any patients have chest tightness, chest pain, neck tightness, (or) flushing in the face. (The) side effect profile (is) very low and very well tolerated by most of the patients as far as that class of drugs.”

In the brand-new research study, scientists examined the effectiveness, safety, and tolerability of atogepant — a kind of CGRP inhibitor — for the avoidance of episodic migraine in individuals who had actually formerly stopped working 2 to 4 kinds of oral preventative medications.

The 309 individuals in the research study either received atogepant or a placebo for 12 weeks.

Upon analysis, the research study group reported that individuals who took atogepant had approximately 4 less days of migraine each month from the start of the research study to its conclusion, compared to just 2 less days in those who took the placebo.

Additionally, researchers discovered those who took the drug revealed enhancement in how frequently they required to take medications to stop a migraine attack, compared to those who took the placebo.

Researchers reported the most typical adverse effects were irregularity and queasiness.

“People who thought they may not find a way to prevent and treat their migraines may have hope of finding relief with a tolerable oral easy-to-use drug,” said Dr. Patricia Pozo-Rosich, a research study author and director of the Headache and Neurological Pain Research Group at Vall d’Hebron University Hospital. “This treatment was safe, well-tolerated, and effective for people with difficult-to-treat migraine.”