Most individuals underestimate the complexity of headaches. Different types can have their own set of symptoms, occur for different reasons, and require different treatments. Once you know what type of headache you have, you and your doctor can find the best therapy for it and even try to prevent it.
It is fairly uncommon for persons who have suffered a concussion to endure moderate to severe headaches in the weeks following the accident. According to a new study, a combination of two pharmaceuticals, both standard anti-nausea treatments, administered intravenously in the emergency room may cure headaches better than a placebo.
It is fairly uncommon for persons who have suffered a concussion to endure moderate to severe headaches in the weeks following the accident. According to a new study, a combination of two pharmaceuticals, both standard anti-nausea treatments, administered intravenously in the emergency room may cure headaches better than a placebo. The findings will be published online on March 24, 2021 in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Metoclopramide is an anti-nausea medication that is occasionally used to treat migraines. Diphenhydramine is a popular antihistamine that can be used to cure motion sickness when injected. Because higher intravenous dosages of metoclopramide might produce restlessness, this study paired diphenhydramine with metoclopramide to counteract those effects.
The headaches you get after a trauma like a fall, an assault, or a vehicle accident can linger for months or even years and lead to a lower quality of life. The study included 160 participants who had a head trauma and then went to the ER for a headache within 10 days.
Benjamin W. Friedman
“The headaches you get after a trauma like a fall, an assault, or a vehicle accident can linger for months or even years and lead to a lower quality of life,” said study author Benjamin W. Friedman, M.D., of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York.
The study included 160 participants who had a head trauma and then went to the ER for a headache within 10 days. They were divided into two groups at random: Intravenously, 81 participants were administered 20 mg of metoclopramide and 25 mg of diphenhydramine. The remaining 79 participants were given a saline solution injection as a placebo.
Doctors don’t fully understand what causes most headaches. They do know that the brain tissue and the skull are never responsible since they don’t have nerves that register pain. But the blood vessels in the head and neck can signal pain, as can the tissues that surround the brain and some major nerves that originate in the brain. The scalp, sinuses, teeth, and muscles and joints of the neck can also cause head pain.
The pain you feel during a headache is caused by a combination of impulses sent by your brain, blood vessels, and adjacent nerves. Pain signals are sent to your brain by certain nerves in your blood vessels and head muscles. However, it is unclear how these signals are activated in the first place.
One hour after the drug was provided, the researchers asked patients to rate the degree of their pain on a scale of zero to ten. On this scale, zero represents no discomfort and ten represents the worst pain possible.
The medicine combination reduced the average person’s pain level by more than five points one hour later, according to the study. People in the group receiving the combination of metoclopramide and diphenhydramine reported an average pain reduction of 5.2 points. On average, people in the placebo group reported that their pain had decreased by 3.8 points on a pain scale.
43 percent of those given the medicine combination suffered adverse symptoms such as tiredness, restlessness, or diarrhea. 28 percent of respondents in the placebo group reported these kind of adverse symptoms.
“More research is needed to discover the most effective amount of metoclopramide, as well as how long to deliver it, to see if people can obtain longer-term relief after leaving the emergency hospital,” Friedman said. “Future research may also be able to assess whether early treatment with this medication can address other disruptive symptoms you may have following a brain injury, such as depression, sleep difficulties, and anxiety.”
One disadvantage of the study is that the individuals were from low-income sections of the country, where they may have had less access to care. Because successful headache therapy may be linked to access to care, these findings may not be generalizable to the general population.
