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Pharmacy Links

DRUGS MAY CAUSE MORE HEADACHES THAN THEY CURE

23rd March 2009

One reason is that so many chronic headache sufferers tend to take two or more medications on a daily basis. In 1984, at the New England Center for Headache in Greenwich, Connecticut (it has since moved to Stamford), a study was made on patients who took several different painkillers each day for their chronic headache pain. The drugs were gradually withdrawn altogether. After being drug-free for one month, 66 percent of the patients reported significantly fewer headaches and, after a second month, the number had grown to 81 percent.

At least half their headaches had been caused by the very drugs they were taking to try and relieve their headache pain.

Another reason why clinics immediately phase out painkilling drugs is that, even at recommended dosages, addiction to both OTC and prescription drugs can easily occur.

According to a report in the National Headache Foundation’s newsletter, fall. 1988, Arthur H. Elkind, M.D., director of the Elkind Headache Clinic in Mount Vernon, New York, stated at a national headache conference that many people with chronic headaches use excessive amounts of prescription and OTC medications for relief.

Drug dependency is common. Among medications that Dr. Elkind found most frequently abused were not only potent prescription drugs like ergoumine, barbiturates and codeine, but OTC analgesics containing aspirin or acetaminophen, often in combination with caffeine.

We’re not trying to exaggerate the risks of common OTC headache medications. People generally know that two aspirin will relieve most acute tension headaches within half an hour without causing adverse side effects. Yet a rule of thumb in most headache clinics is that if two aspirin don’t relieve a headache within thirty minutes, taking more aspirin isn’t likely to help.