Migraine headaches: Could nerve stimulation help?

Are you one of the 20 million to 40 million people in the US suffering with migraine headaches? If so, here’s news worth noting: The FDA has just approved an over-the-counter nerve stimulation device that delivers mild electrical shocks to the forehead as a way to prevent or treat migraine headaches. This might seem like an unlikely way to treat migraines, so how did we get here? And what’s the evidence that it works? Is this a game changer? Hype? Or a treatment that falls somewhere in between? Our changing understanding of what causes migraines Blood vessels throughout the body, including those near the brain, narrow (constrict) and open up (dilate) regularly, throughout the day. That’s normal, and it varies depending on the situation. Sleep, body temperature, physical activity, and many other factors affect this activity of blood vessels. Not long ago, conventional wisdom held that migraines were due to an exaggeration of this normal constriction and dilation of blood vessels. Experts thought that a trigger — like certain foods, stress, or a host of other factors — made blood vessels supplying pain-sensitive parts of the brain suddenly constrict for a short while and then dilate, before returning to normal. We know that similar blood vessel changes occur in other conditions such as Raynaud’s disease, so this was an appealing theory to explain migraine symptoms. If migraines were due to exaggerated blood vessel constriction and dilation in some people, that could...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Headache Health Migraines Pain Management Prevention Source Type: blogs