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Migraine in Women and Children and Chronic Migraine Focus of Upcoming Research

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The Migraine Research Foundation is now open to new migraine research proposals.  If you’re researching an aspect of migraine, particularly related to migraine in children or women and chronic migraine, submit your proposal now, and you might qualify for a grant.

Here’s what the MRF announced – the application deadline is the 17th of October 2011.

The Migraine Research Foundation is committed to furthering the understanding of the causes and mechanisms of migraine, helping to develop improvements in treatment, and finding the cure. As a result, MRF is actively seeking to provide seed money grants for projects that are important, achievable, and innovative that will ultimately lead to better treatment and quality of life for migraine sufferers.

While MRF welcomes all proposals relevant to basic or clinical migraine research, this year we are particularly interested in projects related to three areas: (1) childhood migraine, (2) migraine in women, and (3) chronic migraine.

For more information, and to submit your application, visit this page at the Migraine Research Foundation: 2011 Request for Proposals Now Open

Cluster Headache and Sleep: is sodium oxybate the answer?

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A new study in Neurology suggests that sodium oxybate may be one of the future drugs for cluster headache sufferers.

Sleep and cluster medication?

We’ve long known about the connection between sleep disorders and cluster.  But typical medication for sleep has not been the miracle solution for cluster.  But sodium oxybate may be the exception to the rule.

Sodium oxybate is a type of drug known as a central nervous system depressant.  It’s used to help prevent daytime sleepiness in patients with narcolepsy (a sleep disorder – read about narcolepsy here).  Though we don’t know exactly how it works, it does help with sleep patterns.

The four patients in this long term study responded very well to the drug – their cluster attacks during the night drastically decreased and were less intense when they came.  Obviously, patients also slept better!

The results are very positive, and there’s great hope that this will help many other cluster patients.  Though the study was small, it must be remembered that this is a rare condition and, again, the results were very promising in all four patients.

Be sure to talk to your doctor about this option, and only get the drug from recognized sources, where it is pure and properly labelled.

via: New drug for cluster headaches

Want to fight Migraine? Just Show Up.

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A surprising new study in the journal Pain turns up an unexpected and simple way to predict which patients will respond to treatment.

Visit your doctor...

It’s always a mystery why some patients respond well to a certain treatment, while others do not.  The bottom line at the moment is that migraine is a complex disease, and every patient is very different (yes, we’re complex too!).

This study evaluated patients who were somewhat or very disabled due to a headache disorder.  The researchers studied a variety of factors to find out why some patients improved a lot and others not-so-much.

Was it social support?  Type of headache?  Race?

Nope.  The one thing that made the difference – that predicted whether or not someone would improve – was simply whether or not they actually attended the three follow-up appointments.

That’s right.  Patients who didn’t go to their follow-up appointments didn’t tend to improve as much.  That’s it.

So please, don’t go to a "bare minimum" of appointments.  Follow things through.  Listen to your doctor.  You may be surprised what a difference it makes.

via Showing up is half the battle – predictor of improvement of headache disability

Telcagepant Finally Shelved

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Telcagepant was a promising drug for migraine patients, with possibilities as both an abortive and a preventative.  But in July, drug company Merck finally ended the clinical trials with no plans to recontinue them.  Merck announced:

Merck is discontinuing the clinical development program for telcagepant, the company’s investigational calcitonin gene-related peptide receptor antagonist for the treatment of acute migraine. The decision is based on an assessment of data across the clinical program, including findings from a recently completed six-month Phase III study.

The drug (formerly known as MK-0974) was once a much talked-about drug with a promising future, as the leader of a new kind of migraine drug.  Then researchers became concerned when some patients developed high levels of liver enzymes (transaminases).

The trials forged ahead in hopes that telcagepant would work better as an abortive.  But Merck finally gave up trials.  It had already shelved MK-3207, its other (CGRP) receptor antagonist for migraine.

This may be the end of telcagepant – but it’s by no means the end of this class of migraine medications.  Researchers are pushing ahead with this and other types of medication that may fight migraine in the future.

But this is another reminder about the time and expense that’s put into developing new drugs.  Though we have almost endless options today, we do pay for those options, and there’s a reason why.

Do you have an experience to share about how migraine is managed in schools?

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The Migraine Trust in London, England, wants to hear your experience with migraine in schools.  

Migraine management in schools

I’m assuming they’re especially wanting to hear from people in the United Kingdom, but I’m sure anyone could contribute (just tell them where you’re from).

This is what they said:

The Migraine Trust is interested to hear from young people, or parents of children or young people, about their experiences of managing their migraine in schools.

The Migraine Trust would like to learn about examples of good and/or bad experiences of migraine managment within schools.

We are interested in hearing your experiences to inform our work in schools and at policy level to raise awareness of the issues young migraine sufferers can face and educate schools and education providers about good practice.

You can contact the Migraine Trust by phone (in the UK) or email.

For more details, see Migraine in schools at the Migraine Trust.

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