Medication Overuse Headaches
File this under the it’s-not-fair folder of chronic disease management challenges: Sometimes the very medications you take to relieve headache pain can actually cause more headaches if you take them too often - Anne M. Sydor
image by: Avenue G
HWN Suggests
Medication-Overuse Headache: New Thinking on How to Understand and Prevent It
This condition is sometimes referred to as rebound headache or medication adaptation headache, but the technical medical term for is medication-overuse headache (MOH)...
MOH is not just about using medicine — the underlying root cause is having frequent headaches severe enough to need treatment regularly. Having head pain from the moment you wake up is a clue that you could be experiencing MOH. (It indicates you could be in withdrawal from the offending medication.)
Articles of Interest
Comparing Two Ways to Manage Symptoms for Patients Who Have Chronic Migraine and Frequent Medication Use -- The MOTS Trial
In this study, the research team compared two approaches to treat adult patients with chronic migraine and medication overuse. In both, patients took a medicine to prevent migraines.
Comparison of 3 Treatment Strategies for Medication Overuse Headache
Medication overuse headache (MOH) is a disabling, globally prevalent disorder representing a well-known and debated clinical problem. Evidence for the most effective treatment strategy is needed.
Medication overuse headache
Treatment of MOH includes the use of headache preventive therapies, but essential to success is eliminating the cause, by reducing the frequency of use of acute headache medication, and perhaps withdrawing the overused medication altogether.
Medication overuse headache
Medication overuse headache is common, affecting at least 1% of the population. It is responsible for the majority of recurrent daily headache and the majority of referrals to headache specialists.
Medication-overuse headache: painkillers are not always the answer
Paradoxically, liberal use of analgesics to treat primary headache disorders, especially migraine, often results in the development of a daily headache, which itself is indistinguishable from the original headache and frustratingly refractive to analgesia.
Medication-overuse headache: risk factors, pathophysiology and management
Medication-overuse headache (MOH) — headache worsening attributed to overuse of attack-aborting medication — is common: its prevalence in the general population is 1%, and as high as 11–70% in people with chronic daily headache
Stopping the vicious cycle of rebound headaches
In other words, the same medications that initially relieve headache pain can themselves trigger subsequent headaches if they are used too often. Medication overuse headaches can be disabling, forcing people with this condition to take sick leave and to be less productive at work and home.
Resources
Practical Neurology
Successfully treating medication-overuse headache requires also treating any comorbid conditions or worsening primary headache disorder.
