THERAPY OF MIGRAINE

The therapy of migraine falls into two categories; treatment of the individual attack of headache and prevention of, or reduction in, the frequency and severity of recurrences. Migraine is a syndrome with certain easily identifiable features and a variety of associated phenomena. Characteristically, it is a periodic headache which is unilateral in onset, but which may become generalized. It may be preceded by visual disturbances, paresthesias in the extremities or speech disorders. With the headache there may be irritability, photophobia, nausea and vomiting. The attack may be followed by a feeling of especial well-being, and the patient is usually free of disagreeable head sensations between episodes. The headache itself is the end manifestation of a chain of bodily changes set off by pernicious emotional states. This head pain is associated with dilatation of certain pain-sensitive arteries inside and outside the head. The prodromal phenomena, scotomas, paresthesias and the like, arise