Migraine Treatment
If headaches become severe with what is referred to as a blinding
effect (“a blinding headache”) and more frequent it is a good idea to
consult your family doctor. Also if you are not relieved with usual
treatment within two hours and you are unable to resume normal activity.
You must also consult a doctor if you have an adverse reaction to
medication taken.
Finally if you have been forced to use drugs to calm a crisis of
headaches over five to six times in a month. This last point is very
important because the frequent and excessive self medication can be very
dangerous, even if it is aspirin.
In a first step you will need to see the family doctor who may possibly
send you to a neurologist to better define the appropriate treatment in
conjunction with your general practitioner.
The attacks come from a migraine related arterial dilation. So a first
option for the migraine attacks may be to give the patient medication
called a "vaso-constrictor." The problem is that these drugs are not
specific and act on all the arteries, thus leading to a series of side
effects. These drugs have been gradually replaced by the so-called
triptans, because they constituted a genuine breakthrough in the
treatment of migraine attacks. Their advantage is to act specifically on
the arteries affected during the migraine attack.
The second way to deal with the problem is to treat vasodilation this
will act on the pain with various types of drugs such as analgesics
(aspirin, paracetamol), which are widely used in self-medication and
anti-inflammatory drugs on prescription.
Finally, there are treatments known as "substantive" whose aim through
various drug classes is to reduce the frequency and severity of migraine
attacks.
There is a hereditary aspect to migraine that is important. When you
know that 15% of the population is affected it is sure that there are
hereditary problems in families. But if you inherit migraine you may not
necessarily inherit the same severity of the disease that is already in
the family, because the triggers vary widely from one individual to
another.
The migraine can often be removed by the use of relaxation both physical
and mental and therefore some relaxation methods can be beneficial.
Migraine is an organic disease which can be triggered by psychological
causes, as in other physical problems. Nevertheless, it has been shown
that a certain category of anti-depressant causes an improvement in
migraine.
These are not used for their anti-depressant, but their effects as
painkillers. A drug can have several different effects, according to
different mechanisms in action.
A highly controversial “cure” is the use of marijuana, it has been found
by many to vastly improve migraine problems with many claiming to have
no attacks for long periods. There is some back up for the claims, when
a person suffers a migraine their brain activity goes into overdrive
with electrical impulses firing wildly. It has been shown that taking
marijuana at this time stop these electrical short circuits and the
migraine does seem to cease, but in most countries the drug is illegal
even for medical purposes.
You can not cure migraine, because we do not know the cause. There are
periods of spontaneous improvement, often a marked improvement in
patients who no longer feel migraine, but they are not healed completely
it could return after a long absence. |
