The end of migraines is close: A new drug could stop debilitating headaches before they start

[n2doc]

The 63-year-old chief executive couldn’t do his job. He had been crippled by migraine headaches throughout his adult life and was in the middle of a new string of attacks. “I have but a little moment in the morning in which I can either read, write or think,” he wrote to a friend. After that, he had to shut himself up in a dark room until night. So President Thomas Jefferson, in the early spring of 1807, during his second term in office, was incapacitated every afternoon by the most common neurological disability in the world.

The co-author of the Declaration of Independence never vanquished what he called his “periodical head-ach,” although his attacks appear to have lessened after 1808. Two centuries later 36 million American migraine sufferers grapple with the pain the president felt. Like Jefferson, who often treated himself with a concoction brewed from tree bark that contained quinine, they try different therapies, ranging from heart drugs to yoga to herbal remedies. Their quest goes on because modern medicine, repeatedly baffled in attempts to find the cause of migraine, has struggled to provide reliable relief.

Now a new chapter in the long and often curious history of migraine is being written. Neurologists believe they have identified a hypersensitive nerve system that triggers the pain and are in the final stages of testing medicines that soothe its overly active cells. These are the first ever drugs specifically designed to prevent the crippling headaches before they start, and they could be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration next year. If they deliver on the promise they have shown in studies conducted so far, which have involved around 1,300 patients, millions of headaches may never happen.

“It completely changes the paradigm of how we treat migraine,” says David Dodick, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic’s campus in Arizona and president of the International Headache Society. Whereas there are migraine-specific drugs that do a good job stopping attacks after they start, the holy grail for both patients and doctors has been prevention.

more

http://www.salon.com/2015/11/29/the_end_of_migraines_could_be_close_partner/

[tazkcmo]

1. Great news

I have a couple of siblings that suffer from migraines. Hopefully they don't price this drug out of their reach.

[freeplessinseattle]

2. This is major!

Yay and in my lifetime-and maybe just in time to deal with President Trump (j/k)

[longship]

3. I've had literally a lifetime of them.

But not for about 8 years.

The important thing is to recognize the triggers, which likely may be unique to the individual, however there are some that are common. Coffee seems to be one, however I've drank coffee daily for nearly fifty years and I never found it to correlate with my migraines.

My absolute worst trigger is bleu cheese of any sort which inevitably results in an earth shaker of a sicky migraine, usually in about an hour. No bleu for me. The other is heavy cinnamon, although cinnamon rolls seem fine. Forget cinnamon candy though. They are evil.

The secret is to write everything you've done or eaten or drank everytime you get one. The patterns emerge. And then you'll know. You can even test your hypothesis by trying the thing again on a day where a migraine won't be a big problem. That's how I found out about the bleu cheese.

And today. I am fine.

Hope this helps somebody.

[Warpy]

4. My mother noticed I'd inherited the suckers just before I turned four

Most of the people in my extended family have the bastards. My triggers are alcohol (no party, just pain), cigarette smoke, and hormones. They're bizarre in that opiates worsen them. I get fewer of them now that I'm too old for hormones, but I'm starting to get ocular migraines, my field of vision full of weird jagged lines, forget about reading anything until it's gone.

Migraines suck no matter what the triggers are or what form they take. I'm glad other people won't have to try to tough them out at work like I did. I'm thrilled other people might not have to go through a lifetime of agonizing pain from them.

[elfin]

5. Hope it doesn't cost $1000 per dose (or more)

Given the highway robbery these days by Big Pharma.

Don't think I have ever had a clinical migraine, but have had some monster three day sinus headaches in the past. Only relieved by a strange combo of Alka Seltzer Plus ( with the stuff that is now no longer OTC) plus chicken broth with hot pepper sauce, ritz crackers, real Pepsi and at least 10minutes of a good nap. Then a long time in a shower or head over open dishwasher. Repeat as necessary.