Migraine Associated Vertigo Treatment – Steroids?

Finding migraine associated vertigo treatment continues to be a challenge.  But we need better answers – vertiginous aura from migraine can be debilitating, and frightening.  Sometimes mild, but sometimes so severe it lands people in the hospital.  Migraine is to blame for a huge percentage of vertigo in the population.

The journal Headache recently published a report from Gujarat, India regarding four patients with severe migrainous vertigo.  Two patients had vertigo for more than a day, and were given methylprednisolone by IV.  The other two were given the same thing, but they had had almost daily attacks.

Methylprednisolone is a synthetic corticosteroid (corticosteroids are naturally occuring in the body).  It’s often used as an anti-inflammatory, though it does have a variety of uses.

The migraine associated vertigo treatment for these patients was successful, according to the report.  In commenting on this article, Dr Alexander Mauskop of the New York Headache Center said that they use corticosteroids to treat severe attacks when other medications have failed.  He does note, however, that though occasional use seems to be helpful, he has concerns about side effects from frequent use.

In migraine associated vertigo treatment and other migraine attacks that seem unstoppable, we need more options to break the cycle.  The more tools we have in the toolbox, the better options we can provide to individual patients.  Sometimes we need to break the cycle before the real treatment can begin.