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Dr Manjit Matharu
Queen Square Private Healthcare
Can headaches get worse when taking regular pain medication?
Dr Manjit Matharu, a Consultant Neurologist at Queen Square, says there is a well observed medical concept called medication overuse headache which results from patients using headache painkillers frequently. He recommends optimising painkillers to only using the most effective and using them a maximum of 10 days per month.
Transcript
People who have got migraine, if they start taking painkillers on a frequent basis, are more prone to having more frequent headaches. This begs the question, how much is too much? And for the majority of the painkillers, if you take painkillers on more than 10 days per month, you are more likely to get more headaches in the long term. This is the concept that is called medication overuse headache. It's a bit paradoxical when you say to patients that your painkillers are giving you more headaches, but it's a very valid proven concept. And for those patients, our advice is to optimise your painkillers, in other words, use things that are the most effective treatments that you can use, but limit the use to a maximum of 10 days per month.
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