Cluster Headache and Sleep: is sodium oxybate the answer?
A new study in Neurology suggests that sodium oxybate may be one of the future drugs for cluster headache sufferers.
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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.
15 September 2011 @ 11:09 pm
I figure the likelihood of this drug getting approved for cluster headache treatment is about as high as the likelihood of it getting approved for the treatment of Fibromyalgia (the FDA has already declined to approve it). Sad that it seems to be so helpful for many things, but because of it’s negative associations and potential misuse, has been so severely limited.