Migralex Blog

Over-the-counter pain killers may prevent cancer in women

A new study revealed that post-menopausal women who regularly take aspirin, other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), or even acetaminophen have reduced levels of several forms of estrogen. (continue reading…)

Antidepressants for the prevention of headaches

When lifestyle changes and non-pharmacological treatments are not sufficient and headaches are frequent, daily medications may be necessary. One of the types of daily preventive medications is antidepressants. It is important to understand that antidepressants can help prevent headaches and relieve pain even in the absence of depression.
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How much water to drink with medicine?

This blog usually reports on new discoveries in the field of headaches and pain, but there are some old studies, like many old books, that are worth rereading. A study published in 1961 by Dr. Gerhard Levy of University of Buffalo in the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences is one of such studies.
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Miracles of aspirin don’t seem to end

A long-term study published today in the Journal of Clinical Oncology indicates that of 4,164 women with breast cancer, those who used aspirin on two or more days each week had a 50% lower chance of dying than women who took it on one day a week or not at all.
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Medication overuse or “rebound” headaches

People who take medications with caffeine or narcotic drugs, such as Excedrin, Fioricet, Esgic, codeine, Vicodin, or Percocet, for their headaches on more than one or two days a week are at risk of making their headaches worse.

Dietary caffeine alone can cause rebound or medication overuse headaches. They are called rebound headaches because pain at first gets better, but then rebounds and gets worse. Many patients who come to see me feel that these drugs help and no other medicine works as well. My question to them is, if this medicine helps than why are you coming to see me. Well, they answer, the medicine works less and less and I have to take more and more of it.

When these medications or caffeine are consumed frequently, the brain gradually gets used to their effects and ever increasing amounts are needed to produce the same effect. With escalation of the dose not only headaches get worse, but other side effects also appear. Stopping these medications causes temporary worsening of headaches. To cope with this worsening and other withdrawal symptoms, headache specialist will usually prescribe a combination of treatments. These may include anti-inflammatory pain killers, magnesium infusion, steroid medication, Botox injections, preventive drugs, and relaxation training.

Ideally, of course, people should avoid taking these medications in the first place, or at least limit their use to 4-5 days a month.

Researchers in Thailand seem to have discovered a brain receptor which may be responsible for medication overuse headaches. They exposed rats to acetaminophen (Tylenol) and found that their brains were more irritable and more likely to develop what is called cortical spreading depression – a phenomenon thought to underlie headaches in humans as well. These rats were also found to have an increased number of 5HT2A serotonin receptors which are involved in pain mechanisms in the brain.

What makes headaches get worse?

A study conducted by one of the leading headache researchers, Dr. Richard Lipton o the Albert Einstein College of Medicine looked at possible factors that can worsen headaches. The study looked at people with frequent headaches (15 or more days with headache a month) and found that these patients were more likely to be female, overweight, depressed, have a lower education level and overused medications.
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