Migraine is a common persistent neurological condition that's unpleasant, painful, and sometimes relentlessly hard to treat, even with various types of medication.
Yet people who have tried and failed with typical migraine treatments might finally find relief with a drug called erenumab, which several researchers tested on people suffering from migraine.
New Migraine Treatment Proven To Be More Effective Than Other Drugs
This new treatment cut in half migraine episodes in some patients who have tried many medications without much success at managing their symptoms. Overall, 30 percent of the participant pool given the new drug saw their total number of migraines halved. There were 246 patients in total — some of them were given erenumab, while others were given placebo treatments. All had previously received medication, but they failed to give them relief.
Most of them found that erenumab did. It is a monoclonal antibody able to block pain signals by targeting a receptor for calcitonin gene-related peptide, or CGRP, which transmits pain signals.
"Our study found that erenumab reduced the average number of monthly migraine headaches by more than 50 percent for nearly a third of study participants," said Uwe Reuter, the study's author. "That reduction in migraine headache frequency can greatly improve a person's quality of life."
What You Need To Know About Migraine
Migraine is a debilitating condition that is often extremely difficult to treat properly. It's the most common neurological disorder, according to the American Academy of Neurology, and includes moderate to severe levels of pain on one or both sides of the head. It may also induce light sensitivity and episode of nausea.
Sometimes, severe migraine interferes with a person's daily activities. Episodes may last for hours to days. Sufferers may have as much as 14 episodes each month.
According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, migraine is three times more common in women than in men and affects more than 10 percent of the global population. Effective medication is hard to come by considering that an absolute cure for migraine isn't available "since its pathophysiology has yet to be fully understood."
"There are two ways to approach the treatment of migraine headache with drugs: prevent the attacks, or relieve the symptoms during the attacks."
The research will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology later this April.
Further research is required to better understand the effects of erenumab on migraine, and future studies will need to facilitate longer-term studies as the research in question only spanned three months, which might not be enough to determine if the drug's benefits continue for a long time.
