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How Can Migraine Be Treated?
My husband is 69 years old and very healthy. He is of average weight and sees his doctor routinely. He suffers from chronic painless throbbing in his head most of the time . At times it is worse than others and he gets exhausted and feels like it is hard to work or concentrate. The only way he can get away from it is to sleep. He has been diagnosed as having chronic painless migraine, and has had a brain scan that was normal. It truly interferes with his quality of life and depresses him that he has to live with this exhaustion and throbbing all of the time. I recently heard of a condition with elevated spinal pressure. Could something like that be causing his symptoms? Is there anything that can be done?
Mon, 15 Sep 2014
Hi, welcome to our site. I am Dr Saumya Mittal, MD.
Read your query. That is a very significant question and i appreciate your problem. I will try my best to answer your query
The symptoms you have discussed are absolutely in favour of migraine.
Migraine is what doctors typically call a Primary Headache. This is a headache wherein no cause is found. I am not talking about triggers. He may have triggers like food items and lack of sleep etc. But there is no cause why the headache has developed.
While that means that the tests are normal, eg the CT Scan, it also means there is no absolute secondarily treatable cause. If for example, patient has headache due to sinusitis, we can treat sinusitis and the headache will be gone. This is not possible in migraine
There are however medicines that can be given in chronic migraine like pregabalin, some anticonvulsants in low doses, some antipsychotics in low doses. These medicines when taken over a period of time manage to reduce the frequency of headaches.
The best way is to obviously identify and avoid the trigger of migraine. triggers are like fast food, coffee, watching tv, loud music, lack of sleep, bright sunlight. Only he can identify his triggers. Once identified, we can help tell him how to avoid them.
Suggest testing FBS, TSH if not previously sent
I hope this helps you. Inform the reports mentioned above/if any other so I can be of help further.
I have given you the answer to the maximum considering the information provided. The results of the tests could further enhance my answer to you.
Please do understand that some details could be extracted from a detailed history and examination.
Please feel free to ask another query. I would be glad to help you. Looking forward to your return query with the details asked so that I can help you further.
(If the answer has helped you, please indicate this)
Best of luck.
Dr Mittal.
MBBS, MD (Internal Medicine), CC (Diabetes Mellitus), DNB (Neurology)
Consultant Physician and Diabetologist
JS Hospital
Ex Apollo Hospital, Delhi
Ex Kailash Hospital, Noida
Read your query. That is a very significant question and i appreciate your problem. I will try my best to answer your query
The symptoms you have discussed are absolutely in favour of migraine.
Migraine is what doctors typically call a Primary Headache. This is a headache wherein no cause is found. I am not talking about triggers. He may have triggers like food items and lack of sleep etc. But there is no cause why the headache has developed.
While that means that the tests are normal, eg the CT Scan, it also means there is no absolute secondarily treatable cause. If for example, patient has headache due to sinusitis, we can treat sinusitis and the headache will be gone. This is not possible in migraine
There are however medicines that can be given in chronic migraine like pregabalin, some anticonvulsants in low doses, some antipsychotics in low doses. These medicines when taken over a period of time manage to reduce the frequency of headaches.
The best way is to obviously identify and avoid the trigger of migraine. triggers are like fast food, coffee, watching tv, loud music, lack of sleep, bright sunlight. Only he can identify his triggers. Once identified, we can help tell him how to avoid them.
Suggest testing FBS, TSH if not previously sent
I hope this helps you. Inform the reports mentioned above/if any other so I can be of help further.
I have given you the answer to the maximum considering the information provided. The results of the tests could further enhance my answer to you.
Please do understand that some details could be extracted from a detailed history and examination.
Please feel free to ask another query. I would be glad to help you. Looking forward to your return query with the details asked so that I can help you further.
(If the answer has helped you, please indicate this)
Best of luck.
Dr Mittal.
MBBS, MD (Internal Medicine), CC (Diabetes Mellitus), DNB (Neurology)
Consultant Physician and Diabetologist
JS Hospital
Ex Apollo Hospital, Delhi
Ex Kailash Hospital, Noida
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