Belgian researchers looking for new ways to treat headaches have found a nerve stimulator to be a promising treatment for migraines. The non-drug therapy is especially effective at helping prevent these headaches in those who are chronic migraine sufferers.
The scientists studied a small group of subjects -- 67 patients -- who experienced migraines every month. They were able to identify the beneficial properties of using an electrical stimulator known as Cefaly(R) just 20 minutes a day, according to Medical News Today, and published their results in the journal Neurology. The device, which sits on the patient's forehead, stimulates the supraorbital nerve.
Migraines have puzzled health care providers for decades. The events that trigger them create abnormal brain activity, says MedlinePlus. However, experts have never been able to pinpoint an exact chain of events that results in one of these headaches.
Close to 30 million Americans suffer from migraines, according to the National Headache Foundation. As many as 80 percent of them have this type of headache in their family history, and around one in five experiences an aura, one signal that a migraine is about to strike. Women are more predisposed to migraines than men are.
Researchers monitored patients in the Belgian study for one month without providing any type of treatment. For the next three months, they treated one group with 20 minutes of daily electrical stimulation and a second group with stimulation at a level known to be too low to be beneficial.
After 20 months, the scientists found that subjects experienced 4.9 days a month with migraines after electrical stimulation compared to 6.9 days with the sham treatment. Among subjects who received the same treatment, the number of days was consistent. Researchers observed no negative side effects from use of the stimulation.
Doctors treat migraine patients with a variety of medications to try to alleviate symptoms like throbbing pain, severe sensitivity to light, and nausea that accompany the severe headaches. However, just as migraine triggers vary from one patient to another, so does the success of drug therapy and the host of potential side effects that accompany the medications used.
Over a 15-year period, I experienced three migraines, each five years apart. Each headache lasted six weeks and then suddenly stopped. No medication was able to dull the horrible throbbing on one side of my head, and doctors never found any triggers for the headaches, which they called atypical migraines.
One of the difficulties with migraines that occur so infrequently is the length of time it takes between the beginning of pain and an available appointment for testing such as an MRI. The eventual availability of a device like a nerve stimulator with the potential to zap migraines before they have a chance to strike with a vengeance is something I would really value.
Vonda J. Sines has published thousands of print and online health and medical articles. She specializes in diseases and other conditions that affect the quality of life.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/researchers-nerve-stimulator-zap-migraines-promising-234200844.html
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