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Children with thyroid disease are more likely to have headaches, according to a study done by Dr. David Rothner and his colleagues at the Cleveland Clinic. 36% of children with hypothyroidism and 19% with hyperthyroidism had headaches...

Women with menstrual migraines who also have chronic migraines can be successfully treated with hormonal therapy, according to a study by Drs. Calhoun and Ford published in journal Headache. Surprisingly, controlling menstrual migraines led...

Chronic migraine is very disabling and is poorly treated according to a study by Dr. Marcelo Bigal and his colleagues published in the current issue of journal Neurology. The study looked at 520 patients with chronic migraine (those who had more...

Migralex is an over-the-counter medication for the treatment of headaches, which will become available in November of 2009. Results of the first study of Migralex were presented at the annual scientific meeting of the American Headache Society...

Vitamin D deficiency has become a very popular topic in lay and professional literature, and deservedly so. Vitamin D is important not only for bone health, but for normal functioning of many organs. Its deficiency appears to be much more common...

A study conducted by one of the leading headache researchers, Dr. Richard Lipton looked at possible factors that worsen migraine headaches. The study looked at people with frequent migraines (15 or more days with headache a month) and found...

A person empathizing with someone in pain perceives his or her own pain as more severe and unpleasant. Researchers at McGill University published these findings in the current issue of journal Pain. This observation could explain, at least in part...

Patients who faced delays in the treatment of their chronic pain were found to have worsening of their condition, according to a recent review published in the journal Pain. The review of 24 trials showed that patients had a significant...

Facial expression of pain seems to make you feel worse, according to a study published in the May issue of The Journal of Pain. Healthy volunteers were asked to make a painful expression before the pain started and without anyone appearing to be...

Treating migraines in adolescents presents some unique challenges. Besides difficulties, such as getting them to bed before midnight and getting them to improve their diets, we face the problem of not having any FDA-approved drugs to treat migraine...

For many years headaches were thought to be triggered by elevated blood pressure. Evidence had suggested that only very sudden increase in blood pressure triggered a headache in some patients, but the myth of high blood pressure headaches has...

Menstrual migraines are at times very difficult to treat. Triptans, such as Maxalt, Imitrex and other are usually very effective, but in some patients do not provide sufficient relief. Corticosteroid drugs, such as prednisone and dexamethasone...

Scientists in Trieste, Italy suggested a new approach to the treatment of migraine headaches. They hypothesized that combining two different approaches would yield better outcomes than either one alone. A neurotransmitter CGRP antagonists appear to...

Treatment of migraines leaves a lot to be desired and in part not because we do not have effective treatment, but because of a communication barrier. Doctors appear not to want to hear what migraine patients have to say about their headaches...

How long will I suffer from migraines? Will it ever go away? These are very common questions patients ask their doctors. Drs. Bigal and Lipton reviewed a recent large study that looked at what happens to migraine patients within one year of...

Treximet, a new migraine treatment was approved today by the FDA. Treximet is a combination of two old drugs – sumatriptan (Imitrex), 85 mg and naproxen (Aleve), 500 mg. The combination is more effective than Imitrex alone because naproxen provides...

For many years migraines have been thought to occur more often in left-handed people, but a new study from Germany disputes this theory. A recent study published in journal Cephalalgia looked at 100 people with migraines and 100 controls and also reviewed...

Migraine is most likely to occur at noon, according to an article just published in Headache by Norwegian researchers. Although only 58 patients participated in this year-long study, there was a very clear peak of occurrence at noon. This finding is...

Botulinum toxin injections relieve tension headaches, according to a study just published in the European Journal of Neurology. Most of the previous studies had been conducted in patients with migraines or chronic migraines (more than 15 days...

Migraine and cluster headaches that do not respond to the usual treatments, may improve with injections of histamine. Dr. Seymour Diamond of the Diamond Headache Clinic in Chicago has pioneered the use of histamine in cluster headaches...

Two recent studies suggest that music can relieve migraine headache in children and relieve experimentally-induced pain. In a study of 58 children with migraine headaches published in the European Journal of Pain music therapy was compared to...

A new drug may be better for the prevention of migraines than the old ones in the same category. A study just published in Headache suggests that nebivolol, a beta-blocker just approved in the US for the treatment of high blood pressure may be as...

Anti-epilepsy drugs such as Neurontin (gabapentin), Topamax (topiramate) and Depakote (divalproex) have been proven to prevent migraine headaches. Each drug works for about half of the patients who try it. The other half either does not get...

Memantine is an old medication which has been available in Europe for over 30 years, but was only recently introduced in this country for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Memantine blocks a specific receptor in the brain cells. Activation of this so...

Topamax is a popular drug for the prevention of migraine headaches. IT works for about half of the patients who try it. The main problem that makes people stop taking the drug is cognitive side effects. Patients tell us that they feel “stupid”...

Bright light can trigger migraine headaches and many migraine sufferers have increased sensitivity to light during an attack. A recent report has suggested that wearing amber colored lenses (Nike Maxsight) can relieve the light sensitivity...

Clopidogrel, which is also known as Plavix, is a drug used to prevent strokes and heart attacks. It works by preventing platelets from sticking together and causing a blood clot which can block a vessel in the heart or brain. Platelets also tend to become...

German researchers showed that acupuncture relieves back pain significantly better than combination of medications, physical therapy and exercise. They enrolled over one thousand patients with chronic back pain in a study that compared traditional...

Botox has been shown to relieve migraine headaches in another two studies published in Headache. One study compared the efficacy of Botox and an epilepsy drug, Depakote and found them to be equally effective. However, Depakote caused more...

Migraine does not cause cognitive impairment, according to a new Danish twin study. This important finding reassures millions of migraine sufferers and confirms our clinical observation. Another recent study in mice suggested that inducing brain...