Nose spray that eases a migraine in minutes - A pipe-like puffer device that blows powdered medicine up the nose could banish the pain of migraine in less than two hours.
The powder works quicker than conventional oral drugs, as you don’t have to wait for your body to digest it.
Migraines affect one in four women and one in 12 men in the UK.
One of the downsides of conventional oral treatments is that they can take up to half an hour for the first signs of relief. Trials of the new puffer show the drug reached the bloodstream in a few minutes — and nearly six out of ten patients who tested it were completely pain-free after two hours.
The drug used is a powdered form of triptan, a medicine widely used in pill form to treat migraine.
This is loaded into one end of the V-shaped puffer device which is inserted into one nostril — the other end of the device is put in the mouth.
Common: Migraines affect one in four women and one in 12 men in the UK
When the patient exhales through the mouth, the powder is blown up the nostril. Here, it is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream via tiny blood vessels just below the surface on the inside of the nose.
From there it is quickly carried to the trigeminal nerve, one of the main nerves from the nose to the brain. The drug provides relief by blocking pain signals.
Triptan also appears to cause the blood vessels around the brain to contract — which is important as migraines are caused by the sudden dilation of these vessels, sometimes in response to triggers such as alcohol or stress.
The puffer device is specially designed so it deposits the powder on the rear surface of the nasal passage — the optimum site for treating migraines.
In a trial of the new device (which was developed by OptiNose), 54 per cent of men and women taking a 10mg dose and 57 per cent of those given a 20mg dose did not have pain after just two hours.
Commenting on this, Dr Andrew Dowson, chairman of Migraine Action’s medical advisory board, said: ‘This is very clever technology which is a new way of delivering an established migraine drug. It works more effectively and more quickly, and has fewer side effects.
‘Oral drugs can take half an hour to start working, but with nasal delivery it can be in the blood in five minutes.’ Another potential new treatment for migraine is inhaling carbon dioxide.
New research from the
U.S. suggests it might provide rapid relief from migraine pain, with no serious side effects.
In one previous study at Harvard University involving 160 migraine sufferers, 30 per cent of those who’d been given carbon dioxide were free from pain after just two hours, compared with nine per cent of those given a placebo.
It’s not yet understood exactly how the carbon dioxide treatment works, but scientists believe the gas interferes with the transmission of pain signals along the trigeminal nerve.
Now in a new clinical trial around 450 men and women with moderate to severe migraine conditions will be given the treatment to test its efficacy.
In the trial, being conducted at eight American centres, patients will be given a pen-like device loaded with the gas or a placebo.
If they feel a migraine coming on, they squirt a puff of the gas into one nostril, then hold their breath for a minute; this means the gas is not inhaled into the lungs, where it is not needed, but goes in one nostril from where it can pass into the trigeminal nerve before passing out of the other nostril.
The patients will have the device, which has been developed by U.S.-based Capnia Corporation, for two months and keep a diary of the number of headaches and the severity of symptoms before and after treatments.
n MIGRAINES in children and young people are being tackled with a powdered supplement.
The supplement contains a cocktail of compounds, including coenzyme Q10, blueberries, blackcurrant and magnesium, and is being used in a trial with children and adolescents at the University of Essen in Germany.
The researchers say that migraine in young people can be associated with low levels of coenzyme q10, a compound produced naturally in the body that boosts energy, enhances the immune system and acts like an antioxidant — fighting free radicals which can cause cell damage in the body.
They believe that the supplement, known as Migra3, may lower the risk of migraine’s crushing pain. ‘We believe that daily supplementation of coenzyme Q10, together with different antioxidative chemicals from berries and specific minerals and vitamins, are able to reduce the number of days children have migraines,’ they say. ( dailymail.co.uk )
The powder works quicker than conventional oral drugs, as you don’t have to wait for your body to digest it.
Migraines affect one in four women and one in 12 men in the UK.
One of the downsides of conventional oral treatments is that they can take up to half an hour for the first signs of relief. Trials of the new puffer show the drug reached the bloodstream in a few minutes — and nearly six out of ten patients who tested it were completely pain-free after two hours.
The drug used is a powdered form of triptan, a medicine widely used in pill form to treat migraine.
This is loaded into one end of the V-shaped puffer device which is inserted into one nostril — the other end of the device is put in the mouth.
Common: Migraines affect one in four women and one in 12 men in the UK
From there it is quickly carried to the trigeminal nerve, one of the main nerves from the nose to the brain. The drug provides relief by blocking pain signals.
Triptan also appears to cause the blood vessels around the brain to contract — which is important as migraines are caused by the sudden dilation of these vessels, sometimes in response to triggers such as alcohol or stress.
The puffer device is specially designed so it deposits the powder on the rear surface of the nasal passage — the optimum site for treating migraines.
In a trial of the new device (which was developed by OptiNose), 54 per cent of men and women taking a 10mg dose and 57 per cent of those given a 20mg dose did not have pain after just two hours.
Commenting on this, Dr Andrew Dowson, chairman of Migraine Action’s medical advisory board, said: ‘This is very clever technology which is a new way of delivering an established migraine drug. It works more effectively and more quickly, and has fewer side effects.
‘Oral drugs can take half an hour to start working, but with nasal delivery it can be in the blood in five minutes.’ Another potential new treatment for migraine is inhaling carbon dioxide.
New research from the
U.S. suggests it might provide rapid relief from migraine pain, with no serious side effects.
In one previous study at Harvard University involving 160 migraine sufferers, 30 per cent of those who’d been given carbon dioxide were free from pain after just two hours, compared with nine per cent of those given a placebo.
It’s not yet understood exactly how the carbon dioxide treatment works, but scientists believe the gas interferes with the transmission of pain signals along the trigeminal nerve.
Now in a new clinical trial around 450 men and women with moderate to severe migraine conditions will be given the treatment to test its efficacy.
In the trial, being conducted at eight American centres, patients will be given a pen-like device loaded with the gas or a placebo.
If they feel a migraine coming on, they squirt a puff of the gas into one nostril, then hold their breath for a minute; this means the gas is not inhaled into the lungs, where it is not needed, but goes in one nostril from where it can pass into the trigeminal nerve before passing out of the other nostril.
The patients will have the device, which has been developed by U.S.-based Capnia Corporation, for two months and keep a diary of the number of headaches and the severity of symptoms before and after treatments.
n MIGRAINES in children and young people are being tackled with a powdered supplement.
The supplement contains a cocktail of compounds, including coenzyme Q10, blueberries, blackcurrant and magnesium, and is being used in a trial with children and adolescents at the University of Essen in Germany.
The researchers say that migraine in young people can be associated with low levels of coenzyme q10, a compound produced naturally in the body that boosts energy, enhances the immune system and acts like an antioxidant — fighting free radicals which can cause cell damage in the body.
They believe that the supplement, known as Migra3, may lower the risk of migraine’s crushing pain. ‘We believe that daily supplementation of coenzyme Q10, together with different antioxidative chemicals from berries and specific minerals and vitamins, are able to reduce the number of days children have migraines,’ they say. ( dailymail.co.uk )
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