Rebound Headaches

Clinical research suggests that many people who started out with migraine years earlier are now having daily headache due to the overuse of pain medication. This condition is known as drug rebound headache. Prescription and over-the-counter painkillers, sedative/tranquilizer drugs, and ergotamine tartrate encourage rebound headaches.

Features of drug rebound headaches:

• Daily or almost-daily headache
• Daily or almost-daily use of relief medication
• Frequent depression and sleep disturbances
• Occasional occurrence of more severe migraine-type attacks
• Frequent family history of headache

The first step in treated drug rebound headache is to stop the daily (or almost-daily) use of painkillers and/or ergotamine tartrate. Injections of specific anti-migraine medications, nerve blocks, and/or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs can help ease someone off milder over-the-counter painkillers. A brief hospital stay is generally required to abruptly withdrawal from painkillers containing barbiturates or medicines containing codeine, other narcotics, or ergotamine tartrate. Specific antimigraine medications can be delivered through an IV to suppress rebound headaches, allowing the body's own pain-fighting mechanisms to recover. Sedative-tranquilizers may have to be withdrawn gradually to protect the patient's health. Once these medications are withdrawn, daily preventative drugs should be much more effective, even if they were ineffective in the past.