Regular intravenous infusions of magnesium prevented migraines in five children, according to a report presented at the annual meeting of the American Headache Society by A.J. Freed and S. Sahai-Srivastava. The children were between the ages of 11 and 16. Four of them had the diagnosis of chronic migraines and one, episodic. Two of them continued to have daily headaches but they were mild with the infusions. The other three also had a significant drop in the number of headache days.

Over the past 30 years, we’ve given monthly infusions to thousands of patients, including children as young as 6. Genetic factors play a role in some patients with magnesium deficiency. We’ve had three generations of a family coming for monthly infusions. Besides genetics, other reasons for magnesium deficiency include stress, alcohol, gastrointestinal disorders, poor diet, and others.

About half of migraine sufferers are deficient. They are likely to respond to oral magnesium supplementation. Many, however, do not absorb magnesium taken by mouth. If we know that a patient is deficient because they have other symptoms of magnesium deficiency (cold extremities, muscle cramping, PMS, palpitations, brain fog, and others) or because their blood level (RBC magnesium) is low or is at the bottom of the normal range, we give magnesium intravenously.

If you cannot find a doctor who gives infusions of magnesium, you may want to search for an infusion center or an urgent care facility that would do it. In many large cities, magnesium and vitamin infusions are done at some spas. There are also companies that offer home visits by a nurse.

Nerivio device is approved by the FDA for the acute treatment of migraine attacks in adults. A study just published in the journal Headache indicates that it may be effective in the treatment of migraine in adolescents, aged 12 to 17.

This study was open-label, which means that it was not as rigorous as the one done to get FDA approval in adults. There was no placebo arm and it was not blinded.

Forty-five participants, out of 60 who were enrolled, performed at least one treatment. There was one device-related adverse event in which a temporary feeling of pain in the arm was felt. Pain relief and pain-free status were achieved by 71% (28/39) and 35% (14/39) of participants, respectively. At 2 hours, 69% (23/33) of participants had improvement in functional ability.

Nerivio is a remote electrical neuromodulation, or REN device. It is applied to the upper arm and the current is turned up to produce a strong sensation below the pain level. It works by stimulating endogenous pain-relieving mechanisms. A recent review of various neurostimulation methods found REN to be the only one clearly proven to be effective.

Nerivio requires a prescription from a health care provider. If you don’t have one, you can consult one at a telemedicine startup, Cove (I am a consultant for Cove). It is a disposable device that costs $99 for 12 treatments. Some insurance companies pay for it.

Deficiency of coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is the second most common deficiency in migraine sufferers after magnesium. Fully one third of migraine sufferers are deficient in CoQ10, according to a study by Dr. Andrew Hershey and his colleagues published in the journal Headache. They tested 1,550 children and adolescents and a study in such a large population tends to be very reliable. Supplementing these children with 1 to 3 mg/kg of CoQ10 produced significant improvement not only in CoQ10 levels but also in the frequency of attacks (from 19 a month to 12) and the disability (the disability score dropped from 47 to 23).

This deficiency is present in adults as well, as was shown in another study by a Swiss neurologist, Dr. Peter Sandor and his colleagues. They gave 100 mg of CoQ10 three times a day or placebo to 42 adult migraine sufferers and discovered that a 50% drop in migraine attack frequency occurred in 48% of patients on CoQ10 and only 14% of patients on placebo.

The Hershey study was done in a more logical way – determine who is deficient and give them CoQ10. If you give CoQ10 to those who need it and those who don’t, the results of the study and in practice will not be as impressive. Although CoQ10 is not expensive ($7 a month for 200 mg a day) and is very safe, why supplement to someone who does not need it? Although the blood test for CoQ10 is fairly expensive ($158 at Labcorp), it is usually covered by most insurance plans. It is important to ask your doctor what the actual blood level was because the laboratories will report as normal values between 0.37 and 2.2 (Labcorp) or 0.44 and 1.64 (Quest Diagnostics), studies have shown that the level should be at least 0.7.

As far as side effects, a few of my patients developed insomnia, possibly because CoQ10 is involved in energy generation, so I always advise taking it in the morning. While Sandor gave his patients 100 mg three times a day, in Hershey’s study the benefit appeared at lower doses. I usually recommend 100 to 200 mg (depending on body weight and how low the level is), to be taken once, in the morning.