More about white spots on brain MRIs

The benign nature of white matter lesions (WML) on MRI scans of patients with migraine was noted in a post last year. While they appear to be benign, they are disconcerting nevertheless. It is possible that we haven’t yet discovered the negative effects they may have.

A study by Chinese researchers published in the Journal of Neurology reported on MRI scans in 141 people, including 45 healthy controls without migraines, 38 chronic migraine sufferers who were not overusing acute migraine medications and 58 patients with chronic migraines who were overusing these medications. They found that women, but not men, who were not overusing acute medications had more WML compared with controls and those who were overusing medications. As reported by other researchers, the number of WML increased with age. Interestingly, most patients who overused medications were taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as aspirin, ibuprofen and naproxen. The authors concluded that taking NSAIDs may have a preventive effect on the development of WMLs, possibly because of their anti-inflammatory properties. Previous studies have shown that aspirin does not even cause medication overuse headaches, unlike drugs with caffeine (Excedrin, Fiorinal, Fioricet), opioid analgesics (Vicodin, Percocet, codeine, etc), and to a lesser extent NSAIDs.