New York Headache blog

Two large trials of Botox provide unequivocal proof of its efficacy in the treatment of chronic migraine headaches. The results of these two double-blind, placebo-controlled studies (I participated in one of the two trials) of onabotulinumtoxinA (Botox)...

Migraine headaches are more frequent in people who suffer from allergic rhinitis and who have more than 10 positive skin allergy tests. This finding by Dr. Martin and his colleagues presented at the International Headache Congress last week is not...

Vitamin B12 (cyanocobalamine) deficiency is known to cause a wide variety of neurological symptoms. It also seems to produce facial neuralgia, according to a report presented at the International Headache Congress in Philadelphia a week ago...

Migraine headaches are three times more common in patients with multiple sclerosis than in people of similar age and gender without MS. Ilya Kister and his colleagues at NYU who established this fact make a very important point – multiple sclerosis...

Migrainous vertigo seems to respond to intravenous infusion of a high dose of corticosteroids, according to a report in the latest issue of Headache by a group of Indian doctors. Two of their patients had intermittent episodes of severe vertigo...

A blood pressure medication telmisartan (Micardis) was shown to be effective in the prevention of migraine headaches by a group of German researchers led by H-C Diener. Several blood pressure medications have been proven to prevent migraine...

Vertigo can induce a migraine attack in migraine sufferers, according to a study published in Neurology. In this study researchers induced vertigo in patients who had a history of migraines and in a control group. Almost half of those who had...

Good news for adolescents with chronic daily headaches (CDH) was reported by Taiwanese researchers followed 122 kids, aged 12 to 14 who were diagnosed with this condition. A year later 40% still had CDH, and after 2 years, 25% had symptoms...

In my post 2 years ago I wrote about surgery for migraines and the many reasons why Botox injections is a better option than surgery to permanently cut nerves and muscles. I also wrote that there were no controlled studies to show that surgery...

High homocysteine levels increase the risk of cardiovascular disease (strokes and heart attacks) and can be reduced by folic acid and vitamin B12 (cyanocobalamine). A study by Spanish doctors published in Headache found elevated homocysteine...

Medications used for the preventive treatment of migraine headaches can cause weight loss, but more often cause weight gain. An interesting study by Dr. Bigal and his colleagues, just published in Cephalalgia looked at this effect of drugs in...

Trigeminal neuralgia is an extremely painful condition which causes severe electric shock-like pain in one or more branches of the trigeminal nerve. The 3 branches are mandibular, in the lower jaw, maxillary, in the upper jaw, and ophthalmic...

In addition to an injection, tablet and a nasal spray, sumatriptan is being tested in two other formulations. No, it is not an inhaled form, which I just posted in my previous blog (dihydroergotamine inhaler), but through a skin patch and by...

Trials of an inhaled version of an old migraine drug show surprisingly good results. The drug is dihydroergotamine and in injectable from is considered to be one of the strongest migraine medications. It is often used intravenously to treat severe...

Lower facial pain during a migraine attack occurs in 9% of migraine patients, according to a recent report published in Cephalalgia by German researchers. One of the 517 migraine patients they looked at had lower facial pain as the leading...

Imitrex and Topamax are two migraine medications that recently lost their patent protection and became available in a generic form, under the names of sumatriptan and topiramate. Many patients are concerned about the quality of generic products...

Occipital nerve stimulation appears to be a promising new treatment for migraine and cluster headaches. Phase II trials performed by Medtronics, the manufacturer of one type of stimulator, have been positive. This stimulator requires implantation of...

Headache diary plays an important role in the management of headache patients. Drs.McKenzie and Cutrer from the Mayo Clinic compare patient recall of migraine headache frequency and severity over 4 weeks prior to a return visit as reported...

A pharmacogenetic study by Italian researchers discovered that absence of a certain gene can predict therapeutic response in migraine patients who are treated with riboflavin (vitamin B2). Pharmacogenomics has been a very promising field of...

Vertigo is a common symptom in patients with migraine headaches. It appears that obverse is also true – migraine is very common in patients with vertigo. A study just published in Cephalalgia looked at 208 patients with benign recurrent vertigo...

Botulinum toxin, which most people know as Botox is produced by a bacteria – Clostridium botulinum. This bacteria actually produces 7 different type of this toxin: A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Botox is botulinum toxin, type A, while another...

Dr. Rami Burstein of Harvard University and his colleagues discovered the way to predict who is going to respond to Botox injections. Patients who have pain that is constricting, crushing, or “imploding” with pressure going from outside in and...

Unfair teachers can cause headaches in adolescents, according to an Italian study published in the journal Headache. About 40% of 4,386 adolescents suffered from headaches at least once a week. Girls were more likely to have headaches and kids who...

The large amount of data and the statistical analyses in this paper look impressive and unfortunately may fool many readers into believing the conclusions made by the authors. The authors do acknowledge that the discharge diagnostic codes miss...

Smoking marijuana and taking its legal medicinal derivative, dronabinol helped one patient with cluster headaches, according to a report from the Montefiore Headache Clinic. Dronabinol is approved for the treatment of nausea and loss of appetite...

Migraine headaches in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder tend to be more frequent and disabling, according to a study in soldiers led by Dr. Jay Erickson. Soldiers with PTSD had almost twice as many headaches as soldiers without PTSD...

Both overweight and underweight people are more likely to have migraine headaches, according to a recent study published in journal Cephalalgia. Being overweight has been shown to increase the risk of chronic migraines in a previous large study, but...

Cluster headaches, which arguably cause the worst pain of any headache, are not likely to be cured by trigger point injections, according to a group of Spanish doctors. They treated 12 patients with trigger point injections and some of the patients...

Physical inactivity was strongly associated with headache disorders, according to a large study by Swedish researchers published in Headache. They looked at 43,770 people with recurrent headaches and migraines and found that economic hardship...

Red wine to relieve migraine? Red wine is a well-known trigger of migraine headaches (although French tend to disagree). A recent study published in journal Pain found that resveratrol, the active ingredient in red wine which is responsible for...