Drug said to be effective against early migraine symptoms
What's more, those non-headache symptoms tend to crop up before a full-fledged migraine headache takes root.
But now, researchers say they've discovered an already approved migraine drug that can stop these other symptoms hours before a headache starts.
Ubrogepant successfully warded off early migraine symptoms in patients who took the drug one to six hours before a headache, causing a 72% increased likelihood a person wouldn't experience light sensitivity and an 85% increased likelihood they wouldn't have fatigue.
Doubled likelihood they wouldn't experience neck pain or sound sensitivity.
The drug also helped people think and concentrate better despite their oncoming migraine, researchers reported Monday in Nature Medicine.
The results suggest that ubrogepant could "free patients from a disabling part of migraine," study co-author Dr. Peter Goadsby, a neuroscientist at King's College London, told Nature.
Ubrogepant gained approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2019 after studies showed that it reduced headache pain and other migraine symptoms within two hours of taking the pill, according to Drugs.com.
The drug works by blocking a protein involved in pain and migraines called calcitonin gene-related peptide, or CGRP. Ubrogepant prevents the CGRP protein from attaching to nerve endings.
Symptoms that occur prior to a migraine are called "prodome" symptoms. Migraines occur when a brain region called the hypothalamus goes out of whack, and these prodomal symptoms precede the headache.
"Not enough attention has been given to prodrome symptoms," Goadsby said, noting that the new study was mean to "fill this gap."
For the study, researchers recruited 438 people who could reliably predict oncoming migraine attacks based on their prodomal symptoms.
People were randomly assigned to take either ubrogepant or a placebo just before a migraine attack and keep notes on their symptoms.
They then waited for their next migraine and took the opposite treatment, be it the medicine or placebo. Participants didn't know what they were taking either time.
Patients taking Ubrogepant reported:
• Better ability to concentrate within an hour
• Reduced light sensitivity within two hours
• Reduced fatigue and neck pain after three hours
• Reduced sound sensitivity after four hours
However, it is essential that people take the drug before their headache if they want to stop these other symptoms, Goadsby said.
"People who know their migraine would benefit more from this medicine," he said, arguing that doctors should train patients to detect early migraine symptoms so they can judge when to take ubrogepant.
More information
Cleveland Clinic has more on migraines.
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