Sufferers of frequent migraine headaches often find them debilitating, and may even experienced nausea and extreme sensitivity to light during the attacks. Traditionally, pain relievers such as ibuprofen, acetaminophen and aspirin have been used in an attempt to mitigate the pain associated with migraines — often with poor results. But a researcher at Ohio State University Medical Center believes that magnetic pulses have the potential to “zap” the headache pain away.
Yosef Mohammed, MD, professor of neurology at Ohio State, recently presented the results of a study conducted using a small handheld device that produces pulses of magnetic energy designed to alleviate the symptoms of migraines. The device, called a transcranial magnetic stimulation device (TMS) produces pulses which interrupt the hyper activity of neurons found in the brains of migraine sufferers.
More and more, researchers believe that migraine headaches are brought on by an over “excitability” of brain neurons. The TMS device is used to calm this over-stimulation of neurons, relieving the effects of the migraine headache.
Yousef and his research team studied 201 migraine headache sufferers of various ages, gender and backgrounds. Some of the study’s participants took home a fully functioning TMS device; while others were unknowingly given a placebo device, which looked and sounded exactly like the real TMS, but produced no magnetic pulses.
The results of the study showed that participants who used the real TMS device to control migraine headache pain had far greater results than those using the “sham” device. Specifically, 39% of patients using the real machine were migraine free at least two hours after using the device — compared to only 22% of patients using the fake TMS, which produced no magnetic pulse at all. Additionally, migraine related symptoms such as sensitivity to light and nausea were decreased in the group using the real TMS device.
According to Dr. Yousef, the device works by interfering with nerve cells in the area of the brain associated with migraines. Because migraines can be caused by a hyper-excitability of nerve cells which spread from one cell to the next like a chain reaction, the goal of the TMS device is to interrupt the process, bringing brain neuron activity back down to normal levels — and in theory, reducing migraine headache symptoms.
The Ohio State study was funded by Nueralieve, a medical research company which plans to seek FDA approval to market the TMS device to the public as a non-medicinal migraine headache therapy. If the device is approved, it could represent a quantum leap forward for chronic migraine sufferers, providing a safe and drug-free remedy for an age-old problem.
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