Clinical Topics & News

Experts Weigh in on Medication Overuse Headache


 

Finally, I am unhappy that ICHD-3 has defined MOH only by number of days of medication use, not at all considering whether or not the patient develops a new type of headache, a worse type or more frequent headache (the way it was in previous versions). We have all seen patients taking 3 triptans per day on their own or with our suggestion, and many actually do better with no headache, for a period of time. This is medication overuse by definition, but not MOH, as they have little headache. But we do not recognize this entity.

The good news is, with education and anti-CGRP therapies, we will probably see less MOH in the future, or at least know better how to treat it.

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References

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