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Migraines: hot weather is a trigger

March 10th, 2009    Subscribe To Our Feed

If you’ve suspected that the weather influences your migraines, you’re right. It turns out that a day of hot weather can trigger a migraine attack a day later.

BBC NEWS | Health | Hot weather a migraine ‘trigger’:

“Dr Brendan Davies, consultant neurologist and spokesman for the Migraine Trust, said: ‘This adds scientific validity to what we have suspected for some time. Up to 50% of patients believe weather may trigger their migraine.
‘It looks like it is the change in the air temperature, and to a lesser extent the change in air pressure that is important.”

If you’re on prescription medicine for your headaches, carry it with you during hot weather.

Headache pain relief medication - brand name or generic?

August 9th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

These days, you’ve got a choice when it comes to headache pain relief - more generic brands are available now, and are often cheaper.

Brand name medications, even simple ones, such as aspirin, acetaminophen or ibuprofen - takes many years and billions of invested dollars. Complicating the situation is the often incompetent and illogical way the FDA approves research and marketing, before the drugs can even be brought to the consumer.

But after all the expense and complexity, drugs do often find their way onto the shelves. Because of patent and trademarks laws, those pharmaceutical companies that developed the drug have the right to exclusive sale of the product they worked to produce. But only for a certain length of time.

The period varies, but eventually the active ingredients in brand name drugs become legally available for other companies to manufacture and sell. In the case of aspirin, for example, Bayer - the German company - lost exclusivity, of both the compound and the name, as a result of Germany’s loss of WWI. Acetylsalicylic, in the form they developed, then became available for others to make and sell.

Once that happens, so-called generic drugs come onto the market. In the vast majority of cases, these drugs are as good (or nearly so) as their competitors. Since those companies didn’t bear the time and expense to develop and build a market for them, they can sell them much more cheaply. Those are the major reasons generics are much less expensive.

But even within that framework, it’s not always the case that generic and brand name drugs are identical. Even though the patent may have expired, the law requires that generic drug manufacturers make some changes to the product beyond the name. They are not allowed to sell the identical material under an alternate name.

Most accommodate this requirement by modifying the inactive ingredients. In most cases, that’s a perfectly safe course of action. But, individuals differ in their sensitivity and what’s a completely inactive ingredient for some may have some effect on others. It may be something as minor as the odor or taste. In other cases, the effect may be more profound.

Altering the level of calcium in a Bufferin-like medication (composed of aspirin and buffered with calcium carbonate) can make a difference for some people. Patients taking the anti-depressant Zoloft, for example, have reported some differences in effect between it and a generic substitute. Anti-depressants are also sometimes used to treat some forms of headache.

Though quality standards and active ingredients are required by law to be the same for any manufacturer, large pharmaceutical companies are more than just efficient marketing organizations. They also have enormous resources to devote to creating and monitoring their manufacturing processes.

In some cases, this can make a difference between their product and that of a generic. This is especially true since some have components now being made in China and elsewhere, where proper practices may not be as stringently followed.

As with anything, there are risks and trade-offs. Each individual will have to explore his or her options independently and arrive at a decision.

Headaches: Using Aspirin For Pain Relief

July 29th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

Aspirin is a common pain reliever for headaches, and for common everyday headaches, it works well. It’s a very old form of headache treatment.

Aspirin, in some form, has been used as a treatment for over 2,500 years. The famed Greek physician, Hippocrates in the 5th century B.C. used an extract from the bark of the willow tree to treat fever. The chemical involved, salacin, is a natural product that is converted into salicylic acid in the body.

At the end of the 19th century the German company, Bayer, began marketing a modified manufactured form, acetylsalicylic acid (otherwise known as aspirin), devised by chemist Felix Hoffman. The product turned out to be one of the most successful drugs in the history of the world.

For such a simple molecule it has some of the most amazing properties in the biochemical world.

Aspirin has few side effects at the proper dosage and is used to treat dozens of conditions, such as inflammation, heart disease, fever and - of course - headaches. How it does this is in one way well understood, in another way quite a mystery. It is known that when injury occurs to tissue, prostaglandins are released that generate signals down nerve cells to the brain. What happens then is less clear.

Prostaglandins not only contribute to the pain signal, but to the swelling that follows. But how exactly those conditions translate into something we perceive as pain is still a matter of leading edge research. What is ‘injured’ in the case of a headache is not known.

For decades it was believed that tension headaches, for example, were the result of muscle tension typically in the neck, back or face, hence the name. But contemporary research sees that as less likely. What’s more likely, according to the evidence, is that muscle tension is involved but the interaction of serotonin (a neurotransmitter) with nerve cells is more important.

Whatever the ultimate cause, aspirin works by suppressing the cells from making prostaglandins. It interferes with a enzyme (known by the acronym COX) needed to make them, by binding with it. Eventually the combination is filtered out by the kidneys and more aspirin is needed to continue the process.

One possible side effect is that aspirin may do its job too well and remove needed prostaglandins from the stomach, making the lining too thin and leading to stomach upset or even ulcers. Aspirin also interferes with the creation of blood clots (prostaglandins play a part there, too). That can be helpful when used to prevent heart attacks, but is not helpful when you receive a cut or get a bloody nose.

While generally safe, it is possible to overdose on aspirin. The effects are not the same as overdose from other drugs, but in large doses it can interrupt proper kidney function, for example. To combat these effects, drug companies have designed alternatives, such as ibuprofen, acetaminophen and naproxen.

It will continue to be a part of headache treatment for some time to come, though. Given the 80 billion tables per year that are consumed, the body of clinical evidence showing it is safe is very large. Used properly, and provided the patient isn’t excessively sensitive to some of its effects, it can be a valid part of a treatment regimen.

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