3,19 Allodynia is therefore the clinical expression of second-
and third-order neuron sensitization and a sign of migraine progression.20 Research has shown that allodynia symptoms occur with greater frequency LBH589 research buy in patients who have a long history of CM.20 Allodynia is correlated with not only the duration of migraine illness but also the frequency of migraine attacks. In a study by Mathew et al, the percentage of migraine patients who had allodynia was 33% among those who had 1 to 4 migraine attacks per month but 58% among those who had more than 8 attacks. Ashkenazi and colleagues found that 43% of 89 patients with CM had mechanical (brush) allodynia, even between headache exacerbations.21 Therefore, allodynia, which occurs more commonly than vomiting in migraine patients, is a useful diagnostic symptom.20 That allodynia may lead to triptan failure is not a view shared by all: Schoenen et al have suggested there
is a complex relationship between headache intensity, allodynia, and treatment outcome.22 Migraine headache may be treated effectively with triptans administered soon after the onset of a migraine attack, before allodynia becomes established.19 Migraine patients who do not have allodynia, however, can obtain effective pain relief by taking triptans at any point during an attack. Alterations selleck screening library in Glutamate Transmission in Migraine.— Brains of patients with migraine differ pharmacologically from those of non-migraine sufferers. Evidence suggests that some of those differences pertain to the glutamate ratios in various areas of the brain.3 The use of magnetic resonance spectroscopy to compare the interictal brain chemistry of 10 patients with migraine and 8 control subjects revealed distinct groups, distinguished by N-acetyl-aspartyl-glutamate (NAAG) to glutamine ratio in the anterior cingulate cortex and insula of 上海皓元 the migraineurs.23 Medication Overuse and Migraine Chronification.— Bigal and Lipton analyzed the results of various clinic- and population-based studies of medication use by patients with CDH to assess the association with migraine chronification.24 Among the investigators’ findings were that patients who took barbiturates on
more than 5 days per month were at greater risk for chronification from EM to CM and that risk was higher for women. Patients who took opioids on more than 8 days per month were at greater risk for headache chronification, and that risk was higher for men. Further, triptans caused migraine progression in patients who had frequent migraines (ie, headache 10 to 14 days per month). Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs were protective against chronification to CM, but only in patients who had fewer than 10 headaches per month. Opioid-induced hyperalgesia, a paradoxical increase in pain sensitivity in response to opioids, is clinically relevant in CM.25 Opioid-induced hyperalgesia may account for declining levels of analgesia or worsening of pain in patients taking opioids.