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Headache medications

Protriptyline (Vivactil) is one of the tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs). It is rarely used, compared to amitriptyline and nortriptyline. This is probably because protriptyline has never been subjected to a controlled trial in migraines. However, even amitriptyline, which is the most popular and most studied TCA, is rated only as probably effective by the American Academy of Neurology and the American Headache Society guidelines. In the bad old days, very few drugs were tested in large double-blind trials and sometimes got approved without any testing.

The reason to use protriptyline is that it tends to have fewer side effects when compared to other TCAs. If someone has good relief of migraines on amitriptyline but drowsiness is a problem, protriptyline is worth trying.

Also, protriptyline is easier to titrate than other TCAs – the starting dose is 10 mg nightly and after a couple of weeks, it is increased to 20 mg and then, if needed and if tolerated, to 30 mg nightly.

The most common side effects of all TCAs besides sedation are constipation, dry mouth, dizziness, sexual dysfunction. Some patients refuse to consider TCAs because of their potential for weight gain, although it tends to happen at higher doses and in a minority of patients.

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Pregabalin (Lyrica) is an epilepsy drug that is also approved by the FDA for the treatment of neuropathic (nerve) pain associated with diabetes, spinal cord injury, shingles (herpes zoster), and fibromyalgia. It is a controlled drug with a low risk of addiction and abuse, although it is often combined with other illicit drugs. Common side effects include dizziness, drowsiness, difficulty thinking clearly, weight gain, sexual dysfunction, and dry mouth. It also has many other less common side effects.

There are no large controlled trials of pregabalin for migraines only case series and anecdotal reports. However, because it does relieve pain and because two other epilepsy drugs, topiramate (Topamax, Trokendi, Qudexi) and divalproex sodium (Depakote) relieve migraines, at least theoretically it should be also effective for migraines. However, despite the few anecdotal reports, it does not appear to be very effective and often does cause side effects. I rarely prescribe it and have very few patients who benefit from it without side effects.

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Propranolol (Inderal) belongs to the beta-blocker family of medications and it was approved by the FDA in 1967 for the treatment of high blood pressure. About a decade later it became the first drug to be approved by the FDA for the preventive treatment of migraine headaches. Propranolol is also used for essential tremor, performance anxiety, fast heart beating (tachycardia), angina, and other conditions. In 1988, a British scientist Sir James Black was awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of propranolol.

Propranolol is a very effective drug, but because it can lower blood pressure, side effects such as fatigue, lightheadedness, and fainting can occur. Because it slows down the heart rate it can also make it difficult to exercise, which is one of the best ways to prevent migraines. Propranolol can sometimes worsen pre-existing asthma but newer beta-blockers do not have this problem.

If someone along with migraines has a rapid heartbeat, anxiety, or difficulty making public presentations, this drug can provide dual benefits.

A typical starting dose of propranolol is 60 mg of the long-acting formulation. The dose is then increased to 80, 120, and 160 mg, if needed and if tolerated.

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Propofol (Diprivan) was originally developed for general anesthesia during surgery. Smaller amounts were found to work well for “conscious sedation” to induce a semiconscious state for minor procedures such as colonoscopies.

In small doses, propofol appears to be effective for the treatment of migraines. A 2019 review of nine studies and case reports showed that “Propofol may be an effective rescue therapy for patients presenting to the ED for acute migraine, but its place in therapy based on the limited available evidence is unknown.”

Propofol was also tested for the emergency room treatment of 66 children with migraines. It was found to be as effective as the standard therapy but those give propofol had a lower rate of headache recurrence within 24 hours.

Propofol is a drug of abuse that was in part responsible for the death of Michael Jackson (it was one of several drugs found in his body). Because it is given only intravenously and is not easy to get, most of the cases of addiction reported occurred in healthcare professionals.

Propofol is administered only intravenously and at anesthetic doses it can have serious side effects such as a drop in blood pressure. However, it appears very safe for conscious sedation and is probably even safer at small doses used for migraines.

It should be considered when a patient does not respond to other intravenous therapies such as ketorolac, metoclopramide, and dihydroergotamine.

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My migraines respond very well to sumatriptan, but I do like to try new treatments that I recommend to my patients.

A few months ago two new abortive drugs to treat acute migraine attacks were approved by the FDA. Ubrelvy (ubrogepant) and Nurtec ODT (rimegepant) block CGRP, a substance released during a migraine attack. They work in a similar way to four injectable drugs used for the prevention of migraines – erenumab (Aimovig), fremanezumab (Ajovy), galcanezumab (Emgality), and eptinezumab (Vyepti). I’ve tried erenumab and fremanezumab with some relief, but stopped both because sumatriptan works well and I don’t really need any preventive medications.

Because the two injectable drugs did help, I expected the two new oral medications to work as well. Alas, neither one had any effect. This suggests that CGRP is not very operational in my case. The fact that sumatriptan, a drug that works on serotonin receptors works so well indicates that the serotonin system is dominant in producing my migraines.

Migraine is a very heterogeneous disorder with a variety of clinical presentations and with dozens of identified genetic abnormalities that predispose one to migraines. This means that we are not likely to have a drug that works for all migraine patients. What we do expect, is the advent of personalized medicine – having tests that predict which drug will work for which patient.

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Phenelzine (Nardil) is an antidepressant which was approved by the FDA for the treatment of depression in 1961. It belongs to the family of monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors and it is a very effective antidepressant. However, it is rarely used because of its potential to cause side effects and serious drug and food interactions.

There have been no good trials of phenelzine for the treatment of migraines. One small study compared phenelzine with and without a beta blocker, atenolol. Atenolol is known to help migraines and lowers blood pressure, so it could prevent an increase in blood pressure from phenelzine. Phenelzine worked well with and without atenolol. Another report described 11 patients with refractory (not responding to usual drugs) migraines. Ten of the 11 patients had a greater than 50% reduction in the number of headache attacks. Two patients developed low blood pressure and one, high pressure, which was easily controlled. There was also a case report of dramatic improvement in a patient with chronic and treatment-resistant migraines.

Phenelzine can interact with other antidepressants, appetite suppressants, drugs for attention deficit disorder, some epilepsy drugs, muscle relaxants, certain blood pressure medications, some opioid (narcotic) medications, and other. Foods that can interact with phenelzine include aged cheeses, aged/dried/fermented/salted/smoked/pickled/processed meats and fish, fava beans, Italian green beans, broad beans, overripe or spoiled fruits, packaged soups, sauerkraut, red wine, and some other types of alcohol.

An adverse interaction with these drugs and foods can cause a sudden increase in blood pressure or serotonin syndrome, which can be dangerous. However, it does not mean that every drug and food listed above will always cause a serious reaction. Most people will have mild or no reaction at all and if another drug needs to be added to phenelzine, it can be started at a very low dose, and then the dose can be slowly increased.

Besides drug and food interactions, phenelzine has some unpleasant side effects of its own. These include drowsiness, dizziness, constipation, dry mouth, weight gain, sexual dysfunction, and other.

We have many other antidepressants (tricyclics and SNRIs) and other categories of drugs (CGRP drugs, Botox, epilepsy and high blood pressure medications) that are very effective for the prevention of migraines, so phenelzine is almost never used. I prescribe it only after trying many other preventive drugs but it works exceptionally well for a handful of patients for whom no other drug helps.

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Ondansetron (Zofran) is not a migraine drug per se, but it is used for the treatment of nausea that often accompanies a migraine attack. It belongs to a different class of nausea drugs than the older drugs such as prochlorperazine (Compazine), promethazine (Phenergan) or metoclopramide (Reglan). which are effective for both nausea and pain of migraine.

There are no good studies of ondansetron for the treatment of migraines, but the impression of most headache specialists is that it is helpful only for the treatment of nausea of migraine and not the pain. However, one large observational study does suggest that it may help more than just nausea, at least in children. Observational studies are much less reliable than double-blind placebo-controlled ones, however, the large size of this study provides some compensation for this deficiency. The researchers looked at the records of 32,124 children with migraine who presented to the emergency room. One fifth received ondansetron and it was as effective in preventing a return visit to the ER as metoclopramide, while prochlorperazine was a bit more effective.

The advantage of ondansetron is that it does not cause neurological symptoms of restlessness (akathisia) and drowsiness, which can occur with metoclopramide and prochlorperazine.

Ondansetron is available in a tablet, an orally disintegrating tablet, and as an injection, but not as a suppository. Rectal suppositories of prochlorperazine and promethazine work fast and are very useful for patients who are vomiting and cannot hold down a tablet.

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Metoclopramide (Reglan) is an anti-nausea drug that has been in use since 1979. Controlled studies have shown that metoclopramide stops not only nausea and vomiting that often accompany migraine attacks, but also relieves the pain.

The American Headache Society (AHS) and the European Federation of Neurological Societies (EFNS) guidelines on the management of adults with acute migraine recommend intravenous metoclopramide as an effective and recommended treatment in the management of acute migraine. While intravenous (IV) administration is preferred, intramuscular (IM), subcutaneous (SC) and oral routes are also effective.

These guidelines were based on many high-quality blinded studies such as one comparing 10 mg of IV metoclopramide with 600 mg of ibuprofen in which metoclopramide was clearly superior. A meta-analysis of 13 studies of intravenous metoclopramide involving 655 patients showed that “Metoclopramide is an effective treatment for migraine headache..” and that “Given its non-narcotic and antiemetic properties, metoclopramide should be considered a primary agent in the treatment of acute migraines in emergency departments”. Another emergency room study that was done after this meta-analysis was published, compared IV metoclopramide with IV ketorolac (an NSAID pain drug) and IV valproate, (an epilepsy drug approved in a pill form for the prevention of migraines) in 330 patients. Metoclopramide was the most effective of the three.

We give IV metoclopramide in the office and prescribe it in a tablet form. However, this drug is not free of side effects. Drowsiness is one of the common side effects, but a much more unpleasant side effect is severe restlessness or akathisia. Some patients describe it as wanting to crawl out of their skin, being very restless and very uncomfortable. This side effect can be relieved by diphenhydramine (Benadryl) given IV or as a tablet. According to one study, the incidence of this side effect is 6% if the IV infusion is given over 15 minutes and 25% if given as a “push” in under a minute. We usually give it as a “push” and find that significantly fewer than 20% of patients develop this side effect.

A much more serious side effect of metoclopramide is tardive dyskinesia or involuntary movements of the mouth, face or another part of the body. The FDA warning states in part:
“The development of this condition is directly related to the length of time a patient is taking metoclopramide and the number of doses taken. Those at greatest risk include the elderly, especially older women, and people who have been on the drug for a long time. Tardive dyskinesia is rarely reversible and there is no known treatment. However, in some patients, symptoms may lessen or resolve after metoclopramide treatment is stopped”. A recent review estimates that tardive dyskinesia happens in less than 1% of patients.

This very rare but devastating side effect is not likely to occur in our patients who receive this drug very infrequently, only for emergencies. However, the thought of tardive dyskinesia is always lurking in the back of our minds so we tend to use IV ondansetron (Zofran) to treat nausea. Ondansetron does not help with pain and we have to combine it with IV ketorolac (Toradol) or another drug, but it is safer.

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Galcanezumab (Emgality) is one of the three injectable monoclonal antibodies approved for the prevention of migraines. Pharmacological studies show that it takes up to a week for these drugs to reach their highest concentration. However, it does not mean that it takes a week for them to start helping. Many of my patients report feeling better within a day. A new study of galcanezumab indicates that such a rapid onset of action is not just due to the placebo effect.

The authors analyzed the results of two large studies of patients with episodic migraines that were submitted to the FDA to gain its approval. The first study enrolled 858 patients and the second, 915. Patients were given monthly injections of galcanezumab 120 mg (with 240 mg loading dose) or 240 mg or placebo for up to 6 months. In both studies, the onset of effect was present the day after the injection. 

I do tell my patients that they might start feeling better the day after they receive their first injection (the initial dose of two 120 mg injections), but it is more likely that they will begin to improve within a week or even later. Some patients notice only minimal relief even at the end of the first month and require 2 or 3 monthly shots before any significant improvement occurs. This is true for all three injectable CGRP monoclonal antibodies.

Vyepti, the fourth drug in this family, which was just approved and will be available in a month, is given intravenously. This may result in an even faster onset of action.

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Rimegepant (NURTEC ODT) is the second gepant approved for the acute treatment of migraine headaches. It blocks the same CGRP pathway as the injectable monoclonal antibodies that are used for the prevention of migraine attacks (erenumab/Aimovig, fremanezumab/Ajovy, galcanezumab/Emgality, and eptinezumab/Vyepti).  It follows the recent introduction of a similar drug that also blocks the CGRP receptor, ubrogepant (Ubrelvy).

Since there have been no head-to-head trials comparing these two gepants, it is had to say if one is better than the other. On average, they appear to be very similar, but this does not mean that they will be equally effective or cause the same side effects in a particular patient. We see this with triptans (drugs like sumatriptan, eletriptan, and other) – the top 5 show similar efficacy in trials, but some patients strongly prefer one over another.

One difference is that rimegepant is an orally disintegrating tablet and does not require water, while ubrogepant is taken with water. This makes rimegepant easier to take on the go and could be easier to take for patients with severe nausea. Another minor difference is that the dose of rimegepant is 75 mg that is taken once a day, while ubrogepant comes in 50 and 100 mg tablets and either dose can be repeated for up to 2 tablets a day. This can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. The instructions are simple for rimegepant – take one tablet once on the day you have a migraine (and the earlier you take any abortive drug the better). With ubrogepant the doctor has to decide whether to give 50 or 100 mg dose and the patient needs to be instructed to take a second dose on the same day (as soon as 2 hours after the first one) if the headache returns or does not completely resolve with the first dose. In clinical trials, this second dose did produce additional improvement.

The safety of rimegepant is as remarkable as that of ubrogepant and the preventive injectable monoclonal antibodies. Rimegepant caused nausea in 2% of patients compared with 0.4% of those on placebo and less than 1% developed a rash or temporary difficulty breathing.

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Nortriptyline (Pamelor) is a tricyclic antidepressant approved by the FDA only for the treatment of depression. However, with the introduction of SSRI family of antidepressants such as fluoxetine (Prozac) which have fewer side effects, the use of tricyclic antidepressants for depression has declined.

Tricyclic antidepressants are still in wide use, but mostly for the treatment of headaches and pain. Nortriptyline is very similar to amitriptyline (Elavil) and is thought to cause fewer and milder side effects, although this has not been proven. This could be due to the fact that amitriptyline is broken down into nortriptyline, which is the active metabolite. Amitriptyline tends to be more sedating, which can be useful in patients with insomnia.

There are no good blinded studies of nortriptyline for the prevention of migraines and they are not likely to be done. We assume it is as good as amitriptyline, although studies of amitriptyline also lack in size and scientific rigor.

There are many trials of amitriptyline and nortriptyline for various pain conditions, but they are also not up to our modern standards. Amitriptyline was approved in the US in 1961.

Besides sedation, nortriptyline can cause dry mouth, constipation, urinary retention in older patients, and other side effects. The dose to treat migraines and pain is usually lower than the dose used to treat depression. Pain and headaches sometimes respond to as little as 10 or 25 mg while for depression, the dose goes up to 100 mg and higher.

In short-term studies of major depression, antidepressants increased the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children, adolescents, and young adults. This is less likely to occur when treating pain, but many pain patients also experience depression.

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Eptienzumab (Vyepti) was just approved by the FDA for the preventive treatment of migraine headaches. Eptinezumab is another monoclonal antibody that blocks the effect of CGRP, a chemical released during a migraine attack. It joins erenumab (Aimovig), fremanezumab (Ajovy), and galcanezumab (Emgality), three other monoclonal antibodies approved for the preventive treatment of migraine headaches.

Eptinezumab is different from the other three drugs in that it is administered intravenously. It is given every three months by an infusion over 30 minutes. The other three drugs are self-administered subcutaneously every month, although fremaezumab can be also given every 3 months.

Eptinezumab may also have a faster onset of action because it is administered intravenously and quickly reaches its peak concentration in the blood. The other three drugs take up to a week to reach their maximum concentration. The reason for such a long delay (most drugs injected subcutaneously take less than an hour to peak) is that the monoclonal antibodies are large molecules and are distributed not by blood vessels, but the slow-moving lymphatic system. On the other hand, these are preventive therapies, so the speed of onset is less critical than for abortive drugs, such as NSAIDs, triptans, and gepants (ubrogepant, rimegepant).

Theoretically, it is possible that eptinezumab could work for patients who do not respond to the other three drugs because of a better distribution of the drug and because these drugs are not identical. About 10% of my patients report significantly better response when switched from erenumab, which was first to be approved, to either fremanezumab or galcanezumab.

We don’t know yet what the drug will cost and how well the insurance companies will pay for it. All three subcutaneous drugs cost about $650 a shot and all three manufacturers offer a one-year free trial if the insurance refuses to pay. This does not apply to patients who have Medicare or Medicaid, which do not allow free trials or discount coupons. Fortunately, more and more insurers, including the government plans, are covering these drugs, albeit with some paperwork that needs to be completed by the doctor. The cost of eptinezumab will consist of two parts – the cost of the drug and the cost of the infusion.

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