Migraine world summit outlines new treatments for headache

World experts have revealed the groundbreaking new treatments for migraine that are either available or coming on the market soon. See what they are.

Nurse Fiona Mooney suffered a crippling headache almost every day of her life and coped by “trying to pretend it wasn’t there”.

Her chronic migraines made her vomit, gave her dizzy spells, diarrhoea, visual disturbances, and later in life confusion and loss of words.

Panadol did nothing and some of the medications she tried either made her put on weight or lose drastic amounts of it. Some medication even gave her hallucinations, and one caused a miscarriage.

The 54-year-old nurse from Melbourne is one of five million Australians crippled by migraine who are being urged to go back to their doctor because for the first time in decades there are new treatments.

The latest research shows the old medications – when overused – can actually make the condition worse and lead to chronic migraine where a person has a headache more than 15 days per month.

Fiona Mooney, 54, is one of five million Australians crippled by migraine.

The Migraine World Summit, which interviewed 32 international medical experts, has outlined the latest breakthroughs in headache research.

A whole new class of medications has been developed after researchers discovered people with migraine have more calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) in their blood, which triggers migraines.

New injections which block this protein help prevent migraines and, unlike other medications such as codeine and triptans, do not worsen the condition by causing medication overuse headaches.

People with migraine should keep a headache diary and “think about how many days completely symptom-free they have”, Migraine World Summit founder Carl Cincinnato said.

“And if you can count that on single digits in a month, then you absolutely should be trying different preventive treatments and getting access to these new treatments available,” Mr Cincinnato said.

A whole new class of medications has been developed to treat headaches. Picture: Supplied

Three of these new medications have been recently subsidised by our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) but you must have Chronic Migraine (15 headache days, eight of which are migraine days) for at least three months and have failed three older medications such as propanolol, topiramate and amitryptiline to access the subsidy.

The new treatments include:

*Emgality, which without a subsidy and using a private prescription costs $263 per month. On the PBS it costs is $30 a month, for concession card holders it’s $7.30.

*Anjovy, which under an access program called Momentum can be purchased for $284 per month instead of the normal $850 per month. On the PBS it costs is $30 a month, for concession card holders it’s $7.30.

* Vyepti (an infusion which takes 30 minutes) costs between $1,700 and $1,800 per quarter. It is soon to be subsidised by the PBS where it will costs $30 a month, for concession card holders it’s $7.30.

*Aimovig is not subsidised on the PBS but can be accessed via a private prescription for $695 per month.

Carl Cincinnato, founder of the Migraine World Summit.

President of the International Headache Society Messoud Ashina told the summit 60 per cent of people with migraines respond to the new medications.

Ms Mooney said she used to keep diaries to log her migraines and would have just four or dive days a month migraine-free.

Although she described the pain as “excruciating “ and “worse than childbirth” she said “I just used to pretend it wasn’t happening”.

“I didn’t want to acknowledge it or feel sorry for myself. If I had actually done what I wanted to do which was go home in a dark room. I probably wouldn’t be working. I didn’t want my kids to hear me say, I’ve got a migraine,” she said.

It was only after she started having Botox injections to treat her migraines, that they fell to just one week per month.

“I was quite used to being in pain. It was sort of the norm,” she said.

Originally published as Migraine world summit outlines new treatments for headache