Published on May 31, 2022 at 4:15 p.m.
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According to Inserm, the National Institute for Health and Medical Research, 15% of the world’s population is affected by migraine. A study has just revealed a treatment that could put an end to it.
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Chronic migraines represent a neurological disease that is characterized by severe headaches occurring in the form of attacks. When the pain persists for more than 15 days and for at least three months, it is then a chronic migraine. A scourge that can alter the daily lives of those who suffer from it. Another problem that patients face is the difficulty in treating these headaches. Un article du « Journal of Headache and Pain » dating from 2019, thus speaks of refractory migraines used “to describe persistent headaches that are difficult to treat or that do not respond to standard and/or aggressive treatments”. A new study has therefore looked into the subject. The goal ? Find a viable treatment to effectively combat these migraines. The researchers may have found the solution: lidocaine infusions. Decryption.
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Local anesthesia to stop chronic migraines?
According to researchers from the University of Philadelphia, people affected by chronic migraines and not responding to treatment, could be relieved thanks to infusions of lidocaine, a local anesthetic, used for example in surgery. The objective through this work is therefore to understand the impact of this treatment. Thus, for the study, the experts analyzed the data of 609 patients suffering from headaches at least eight days a month for six months. Namely, not all participants therefore responded “to the seven classes of drugs used against migraine” specify the experts in a press release. All the volunteers then received lidocaine infusions for several days. In addition to lidocaine, the volunteers were given other treatments to fight against migraine such as ketorolac, magnesium, dihydroergotamine, methylprednisolone or even neuroleptics.
Conclusion ? According to the results published in la revue « Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine » : “intravenous infusions are indicated to ‘break the cycle’ of pain”.
87.8% of participants were able to relieve their migraine with this treatment
The conclusions are clear: lidocaine greatly relieved the patients. In fact, in total, 87.8% of them saw their pain diminish quickly. Thus, if they rated their pain at 7 before their admission, the figure decreased to 1 at the end of their hospitalization. Another advantage observed: the frequency of migraines. In total, the patients suffered from headaches on average 26.8 days per month at the start of the experiment compared to 22.5 after their stay in the hospital. The researchers concluded that: “lidocaine may be a viable treatment option for patients with refractory chronic migraine who have failed other treatments.” They nevertheless end up adding that an additional test is “necessary to confirm these results”.
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