How to Treat Migraines

Video Transcript

"Hi! This is Dr. Christina Peterson, founder of the Oregon Headache Clinic in Portland. Today, we're talking about migraine treatment. One of the mainstays of treatment of migraine is trigger reduction. If you can identify and control your headache triggers, that will go a long way towards eliminating many of your migraine headaches. For most people, however, this is not going to be sufficient and you will require some form of treatment of your headaches. Most people will be able to treat each headache as an occurrence with an abortive agent. There are many migraine-specific medications available. Most migraine headaches are too severe to be treated with over-the-counter medications. If you are fortunate and have mild migraines, you may be able to abort your headaches with an over-the-counter medication such as an anti-inflammatory medication or even Excedrin migraine. However, for most people, this is not the case and you may require prescription migraine-specific medication. For some people, their headaches are too frequent for this to be effective. If you'll experience four or more headaches a month which are disabling, I would strongly recommend you see your doctor to consider preventative medication. There are many prevention medications available which can be taken to reduce the number of headaches that you'll experience. There are also some non-medication strategies which can be pursued to reduce the number of headaches that you'll experience. Yoga can be studied, this can reduce headache frequency. Physical therapy can also be useful, biofeedback can be used to reduce the stress of migraine and acupuncture has also been studied, and has been found to be effective for reducing migraine pain. I'm certain that if you seek care through your physician, an effective treatment strategy can be found to reduce your migraine frequency and severity."