What treatment option are available for migraine?

So, the treatment option for migraine can be divided into three main areas. There are the lifestyle factors that one needs to address. There are the acute treatments or the painkillers. When you get your migraine attack, you want to be able to get rid of the pain very quickly. And then the third option is prevention. If you're getting very frequent migraine what you want to do is you want to reduce the number of attacks you are having. So, let's deal with the very first factor that I've just mentioned, lifestyle factors. The main message of our patients tends to be that they need to have a regular lifestyle. The more the lifestyle is regular, the less likely it is that the patients are going to suffer from migraine. I often state to my patients that the migraine brain, the migraine patient, doesn't like an irregular lifestyle. So what that translates into is eating your meals regularly, keeping yourself well hydrated, making sure that you are getting sleep on a regular basis and it's not just about getting the right amount of sleep, but getting it at around the same time every day, exercising regularly preferably for two and a half hours per week, making sure that your intake of alcohol and caffeine is limited. Those are the kind of things that we encourage our patients to do. In terms of painkillers, there are a number of painkillers that are available: Paracetamol, Aspirin, drugs we call anti-inflammatories, Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. So a common example of that is something like Ibuprofen and then designer-made drugs such as the Triptans. A common example is sumatriptan, for example. So, there are those drugs that are available that can be used. Other drugs that are available but we don't recommend that they get used are what we call the opiates which are the codeine or codeine-based compounds, as well as what we call ergots, ergotamine. Opiates and ergots are notorious for worsening headaches in the long term. They can be very effective as painkillers but can make patients more prone to headaches in the long-term. And for that reason, we generally recommend that those are not used, and we advise patients in the main to try and use Triptans, which are the most effective drugs and combination with other anti-inflammatories or Paracetamol. Another group of drugs that are worth knowing about are what we call the antiemetics or the antisickness tablets. A lot of patients with nausea and vomiting get sickness which affects the absorption of the drugs from the stomach. And giving antiemetics can increase the absorption of the drugs, the painkillers and can make the painkillers more effective. So, we often give the painkillers in association with the antiemetics. Finally, there are the preventive treatments. Not every patient needs to be on a preventive treatment, but patients who've got frequent headaches, and by frequent, we generally mean more than five headache days in a month, we will consider starting them on a preventive treatment. There are a whole host of preventive treatments that can be used, and there are drug treatments that can be used. There are injectable treatments that can be used, and there are electrical treatments that can be used, you know. And which avenue one goes on is something that one then needs to discuss with their clinician.