Migraine Prevention via Nasal Drops

Migraine sufferers, also called migraineurs, are constantly looking for migraine headache treatment and migraine prevention. The excruciating headaches drive migraineurs from one medication to another.

Migraine prevention or treatment with nasal drops may be the answer. Recent studies suggest that lidocaine, via nose drops, may give quick Migraine Relief - or even migraine prevention.

Lidocaine for Migraine Headaches

Lidocaine is a topical anesthetic, and is usually injected to produce numbness in a small area of skin.

Lidocaine for migraine headaches, however, is a 4 percent aqueous solution that can be administered by way of nose drops. It is available only by prescription, and shows great promise in actual migraine prevention and treatment.

How Lidocaine Works for Migraine Headaches

It is thought that lidocaine works in migraine prevention and treatment by numbing part of the trigeminal nerve. Pain relief begins almost immediately, within minutes of spraying or dropping the medication into the nose. Pain can even be avoided in many migraineurs.

Research on Lidocaine for Migraine Headaches

Lidocaine may give Migraine Relief faster than other medications currently available. It also seems to effect migraine prevention if given during the aura phase. So say California researchers who presented their study at the American Society for the Study of Headache in San Francisco.

Those researchers were Dr. Morris Maizels, of Kaiser Permanente in Woodland Hills, California, and Dr. Ann Geiger, of Kaiser Permanente in Pasadena, California. These doctors randomly assigned 131 patients either intranasal lidocaine or saline nose drops to treat their own migraines. The study lasted for one month. Results? Those who used lidocaine for migraine headaches got relief within 5 minutes during 31 percent of treatment attempts. That same rate was found in only 6.7% of those who used the saline nose drops.

Among Dr. Maizels’ interesting findings was the case of a 15-year old boy who had suffered migraine since age 2 and desperately wanted migraine prevention.

This boy experienced migraine prevention in all but 2 of 75 migraine headaches by using lidocaine intranasally. The boy took lidocaine during the aura phase of his migraine headaches. He had experienced the visual disturbances of aural phases since he was a toddler. With lidocaine, however, his usual 10-minute aura had no following headache. Lidocaine worked as migraine prevention for him.

“It’s clearly a local effect on a nerve that has connections to the brain,” said Dr. Maizels. He noted, however, that much more study is needed to determine if lidocaine really can be used as migraine prevention.

A “Journal of the American Medical Association report suggests that lidocaine does have migraine prevention benefits for some migraine sufferers.